#261 - Sebastien Boulanger
Sebastien Boulanger is a 15 year veteran of the Live Events industry, having worked as a Technical Director for the likes of the Quebec Minister of Justice and Cirque de Soleil. Then starting his own events company, IC Events, and finally founding DVOX, a new tech business that brings fan experience to another level.
This episode is brought to you by AVL Media Group and ROE Visual
0:01 Hi there, and so I just finished recording episode #261 with a gentleman named Sebastian Boulanger I believe is the correct pronunciation. I've probably now butchered it three times. Super interesting. I had no idea what I was walking into with this one. All I knew was he had this cool audio technology, or at least he thought it was cool, and that he had a very interesting and unique background in creating electronic products for some pretty cool companies including Sirkin and others. But honestly, I think this became a really interesting discussion on this Devox technology and you should listen to it if you do anything with corporate events or any kind of convention business or anything. Really cool products.
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3:59 And last but not least, I want to make sure to mention my favorite coffee. And so I know that people think that I might be making this up. I drink this coffee every single day. I drink 3 cups a day, pretty much almost every day of my life. And it's an amazing blend. I was drinking it, I was blending it myself prior to Coffee Cult creating this custom blend for us. And it's amazing. And so funny story, I got up to Canada within a few weeks, I ran out of my Geezers Grind coffee and I called Jamie and his staff at Coffee Cult and I said, guys, I know you don't ship into Canada right now, but I need a favor. And within a few days 4 bags of Geezers Grind showed up at my door and I'm back in business. So I dare you to try it out.
4:48 I think you'll like it. If you go to their website, coffeecult.com, I believe if you buy 2 bags, shipping is free. And these are the best beans I've found. They're amazing up here in Canada. Like I said, I ran out, I went to Costco, I bought some beans hated them. They were too oily and just didn't work really well in my I've got an automatic machine didn't work well. So you know, I tried a few different oh, this is the greatest organic bean you'll find. I just didn't like them, you know, and so that's when I called Jamie and had them ships them up to Canada. So check it out, please. And by the way, I forgot to mention, not only is it a great coffee and worth every dime you're paying for it, but all the proceeds go to Roby Backstage, which helps fallen comrades in our industry. So support coffee cult, support geezers Grind, and you're supporting our industry.
5:42 And thank you so much. Hello and welcome back to episode #261. I don't really have anything prepared to talk about today. It's been a crazy 24 hours since I recorded our last podcast with Lori Rubenstein.
6:32 I hope that you've checked that one out already. It was a great discussion and she does some really, really great things. She's a wonderful lady who's been in the industry a long time. And I've always said it takes a special person to serve on these boards and to be to head up any kind of a nonprofit organization. And certainly she is that special person. She loves doing the work that she does. And like she said on the podcast yesterday, her husband John McGraw, who was a Co founder of Production Arts and is retired, takes care of their entire world so that she can do the work that she does in these nonprofit organizations benefiting our industry. So please take a listen episode #260 That was Lori Rubenstein, who is the, I believe her title is executive director of Behind the Scenes. And so today we have a gentleman that I've been looking forward to because he's a technology guy. I'm a technology guy.
7:28 I'm a geek. I like as you know, AI of course. So I'm going to try and get this gentleman talking about some AI as well. But Sebastian, uh oh, I've got a French name here that I'm French. I'm supposed to know how to say this. So I'm just going to say Sebastian Bollinger, which I'm sure is Boulanger or something, is a 15 year veteran of the live events industry, having worked as a technical director for the likes of the Quebec Minister of Justice and Cirque du Soleil. Then starting his own events company, IC Events, and finally founding Divox, which is a new tech business that brings fan experience to another level.
8:10 And we're going to talk a whole bunch about that today. So please join me and welcome Mr. Sebastian Boulanger to today's podcast. Hello Sebastian, How are you today? Good. Thanks a little, Marcel. Great to see you. And yeah, we were just talking. I, I appreciate how quickly and easily you came into the podcast because sometimes some of our guests struggle a little bit with the technology. You know, there's some very specific things. It's got to be Chrome. It's got to be a Chrome browser or an Edge browser, which nobody uses Edge, I don't think. Well, I think some people do. Some people do maybe. Yeah, almost. Quite easy, so no problem. Thanks. Yeah, Yeah, no. And your sound is good and your video is good. So we're ready to have a great conversation.
8:51 So I appreciate you coming in and doing this and thanks. For inviting me. Really excited. You know, I'm, I'm a geeky technology guy. I, I would like to be more, I guess informed than I am. So I'm not an engineer, I'm not a very technical person, but I understand technology really well and I like to talk about it. So it's always nice to have someone who can talk tech. And when I'm talking about tech, it's not lighting tech or, or necessarily concert, you know, gear tech, it's something a little different that we're going to get into today. So. Kind of. I can meet you in the middle right there. If it's too technical let me know, but I think you can meet in the middle. Yeah, yeah, I think we'll be fine. I'll. I'll keep you dumbed down, don't worry. Perfect.
9:34 I'll make you talk at my level, which is like fifth grade, you know? You might be surprised too, but I get fine. So, you know, I like to really get into before we, we talk about the stuff we really want to talk about, I want to know a little bit about your background. And, you know, you have a very unique group of, of companies that you've worked for. And I said it in the intro and I'll say it again that, you know, the Minister of Justice for in Quebec and, and then shortly after you were working for Cirque du Soleil. So it's a, it's a very, a wide range of of companies that you've worked with. Absolutely, yeah.
10:14 So how did you get started? Like it was it by accident or did you actually go and train and go to school to become a technical director? Well, a little bit of both actually. So my first job as a teenager, around 16 years old, when I was in a in a little suburb town next to Montreal. It was a summer job and I was working as a stage technician for a little city, a town called Ponting, a super small town. Yeah. But anyway, I was doing like a kids festival and, you know, summer theater and stuff like that. Yeah. And I just realized that it was fun just to be part of the show, even as A tag, you know, it's like you're having a backside view back, you know, backstage view, you're operating. Yeah.
10:56 And you're like, wow, that's, that's that's pretty cool. I'm having fun when my first job is great. Yeah. And you know, I kept this job for several years and turns out to be a perfect match with my scalarity. And I was in in electronic engineering as a technician. So that's a program here called technology of electronic engineering. So basically this program is made to to to basically form technician that are going to be working with engineer. I see. Sort out if I can put it that way. So anyway, I was, I was doing my electronic engineering technically. I mean, it's not a university level. That's kind of a professional school, if you want to put it that way. Yeah, but when you were going to school, you weren't thinking, I'm going to take this technology engineering course so that I can go be in the live events business. Not at all.
11:47 I just thought that this live event was a kind of a, a, a jump for me to understand a little easier than most in the program that I was studying, right. So I just use this parallel domain just to move forward. And turns out, obviously enough that when I've got graduate, when I graduate, I and my, you know, my school already was over. I jump in as a first job directly into show business and then done. I was hooked. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, it's it's obviously something that's quite magnetic and it pulls you in. And I mean, for me, you know, I thought, OK, I'm going to stop here for a few years. And it ended up being so far maybe 35 years for me.
12:29 So yeah. Yeah. And timing wise, I was super lucky as well because if you recall, I'm going to bring you back to 2004, something like that. Yeah, first generation of Granite May lighting console, first introduction of the first network environment for show business industry. You know, it was the kind of early days of everything, which is modern and assume now, but back then there was a lot of dimmer racks and a lot of the lamps and stuff like that. So I was just out of school and I knew all these shits already, you know, I don't know if I can say that. Of course you can. OK, sorry. So I was kind of the the new nerd in town, if I can put it that way, you know, So I was training and helping a lot of people. And by doing so, I was learning myself a lot about how it was done before, just how it how it is done right now and where are we heading.
13:22 So I was a little bit ahead of the curve, but just because of my scalarity, basically, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I was kind of the right timing here. But it's an, it's an interesting point because I remember, because I'm a little older than you, I remember when we went from like very manual desks, you know, AVO desks and analog desks to hog two in the 90s. And when that happened, you saw a whole new generation of these lighting programmers who started to enter the business. And in the past, they had either been like nightclub VJ's or DJ's or light jockeys in nightclubs or whatever.
14:09 And or they were just, you know, you know, EDM musicians or whatever they were, but they were technology people more than they were lighting people in many cases. Well, and console turns out to be computers. Of course, but it created this whole new generation and this whole new group of people. And it also brought up how much they were able to be paid because now instead of, you know, a regular lighting programmer who was just programming cues on a very simple analog console, now they were actually really getting into coding on a on a hog too. And suddenly these guys were getting, you know, between 2:50 and $500 a day, which today doesn't sound like a lot of money, but back then it was like, whoa, you know, I can make that much just programming this little digital console.
14:58 And so then it took a jump even further like you said when it got into networking and stuff through the MA and other consoles. So, yeah, very, very, it's an interesting point because I think if you look at the lighting programmer and operator today compared to 30-40 years ago, very, very different looking person from a skill set and and a knowledge set. Yeah, and we've seen the day of the new effect generator for lighting fixtures and stuff like that. So before there was no need, there was not that much moving lights. Now you're looking to, I don't know, ATV show like a Got Talent OR whatever. And can you can you count how many moving lights there is? So, you know, and now you can select them all and fit an effect engine and there you go.
15:46 So this is kind of an evolution. Well, we had we had Ola Melzig on, on the on the podcast and you know, he's the technical director for the Song Contest in, in Europe and Eurovision. And I can't remember exactly how many consoles he had, but it was the largest number of MA consoles ever networked together, OK. And the number of operators and and how technical that got from just a networking standpoint is unbelievable. So you're right. I mean, it's crazy the level we're taking this stuff to now. Yeah. So I turned out to be a little lucky on the timing here when I came into the industry.
16:28 So that's that's basically where. Yeah, that's perfect. I entered the domain basically. Yeah. And so you know, as far as your resume anyways, your your first job was as a an assistant technical director in what appears to be an equipment company, not a not a show. Yeah, exactly. I was working as a bench technician, as a technical director assistant. I was also helping for tours, so whenever somebody was having a problem elsewhere on the planet on the tour, they were calling me over to try to trouble troubleshoot remotely and stuff. Like that? So there was no Teamviewer or Google Chrome remote Desktop back then, obviously. So it was like on the call on the phone trying to figure out what was broken.
17:11 Well, yeah, it was kind of a really cool moment of my life, those kind of four years, I'll say just up to 2008 most likely. I was kind of a, let me let me say like a super tech without pretending nothing at all, just because I was having this sclerity and skills to yeah, the knowledge that that's that's all I'm saying. So I was like having a lot of friends that were calling me a lot from everywhere on the planet. I do have this fixture, this problem. Can you help me out? And so I learned, really. Quickly, you were a proper engineer. You know, there's not very many people who come into our business with that kind of training. You know, usually it's either, yeah, usually it's either theatrical training, if at best, you know, like a theatrical lighting degree or something, or, or it's just, you know, they were in a band and they ended up moving into lights and figuring it out on their own.
18:06 Is is that's, that's the most common experience. So someone coming in with an engineering degree of some sort is, is a big deal. And yeah, so it sounds like it worked out really well for you. So how'd you get this gig with the Minister of Justice? And why do they and why do they need you? Well, The thing is, from 2008 to 2011, I was on a worldwide tour with a dancing company as a technician. Of course, I was with a dancing company, so I was younger and I was not having children. I was renting an apartment and stuff like that. So I said, OK, now is the right time to move and go on tour. Yeah, when I came back, it's like if I was a ghost in my own town. Basically nobody has seen me for four years or something like that, you know, So I jumped from a gig to another gig to another gig.
18:55 And I was like always, always having to prove myself to this new team. Then switch the next venue and prove yourself to the new team. Now you're head of the crew for the lighting department and you have no authority because these guys are from the union. They know better than you are. And I was like, OK, I'm tired of always proving that I can do the job first thing. Second thing. I was having a lot of proud into the result. So basically I was working hard and I was perfectionist in my way of thinking. So in the meantime, I was tired of loading out. The show was like, perfect. Everybody was pleased. OK, done.
19:36 Take it out. Put it in the like. Come on. You know, all this work to take it out. So I just had this kind of brain fart basically when I said, OK, what do I, what can I do next? What, what would be the next step? And I said, hey, hey, I'll try to do it like for permanent installation because audio visual industry for integration and audio visual industry for show business. It's cardboard boxes versus word cases. This is the same gear, but you label all the cables nicely. You plan everything perfectly. When the truck load out, this is all cardboard boxes and stuff like that. But pretty much this is the same gear, same technology.
20:18 So I said, hey, I'm going to try. I was too busy with those gigs and show business stuff. I just said I'm going to try to, you know, jump into this Quebec province employment program and see what turns out, you know, so with my road map that my scalarity and my, I had to come an exam for skills and stuff like that. They just called me back like an hour after or something, you know, really, really quickly and I'll say a week after and they just said, hey, I would like to try it said sure, why not, It will be different. So it turns out that I was designing AV automation for courthouses and courtroom.
20:58 That was really. Cool. Interesting. The end of the day, this this is microphones, television, screen racks to the the wall, speaker boxes, video conferencing system. So basically it's all the same thing but I was working with but it's for the government. It is. But I was working with the architects, electrical crew, cabling company and stuff like that, and everything was going into a room that was AC, AC conditioning, like a supercrimatized room, ventilation stuff. And I was like, wow, that's so clean. That's so neat. Yeah, take my time. I can't, you know, So I really like this part of my life. Yeah. But it was like governmental job, so you know, the salary was not super exciting and nobody.
21:43 Aspires to work for the government necessarily. Not really. But it gives me this kind of knowledge backpack that it was lacking. Yeah. I thought I knew. Yeah. But those challenges into the integration are totally different. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I get it. Yeah. Yeah, so. So, you know, let me ask you though, I. Cause I've always been curious. So on a job like that, like when you're putting out a an RFQ or whatever it is. Are they paying? Twice as much money because it's the government? Like are they charged more money automatically because it's the government sometimes? Yes, but it's obvious. But we, we in Quebec province, we have regulations where you need to have at least three quote quotes.
22:28 So one of the three is always discarded right away, either too low, either too high, either, you know, yeah, yeah. And then you choose. So I'll say yes and no here. Not. Really. But The thing is the government can specify super high end product. Because they want to have. Reliability, when you're having the judge that is seating right now, it's not the time for the DSP to, well, you're. Right. But the other thing is because I think there's private companies that have the same desire, the same want the government, you've got a bunch of bureaucrats who are spending someone else's money. You know, they're spending taxpayer money, so they don't care. Well, as an.
23:10 Example here, all those in Quebec province, all of those court session are public. You can assist if you want to, yeah. And they have to be able to offer this court to only physically attending person. They are not allowed to share it onto the Internet, the cloud or whatever it is. Yeah, they want to assist, just move and come in. But sometimes the translator or the, I don't know, maybe the the testimony is coming from a jail, another courthouse is elsewhere, another country and stuff like that. So they needed to have the Cisco codec system. Yeah.
23:51 So. This is something funny because you you're have by law to use these guys because it's encrypted both ways. Yeah, I see. Yeah, so now. They're for all the products you're using with this technology has to be matching, whereas now you can. Probably get the same thing out of like a free messenger, you know like WhatsApp or something is is encrypted both directions for example. Well, these. Days they're allowed to use teams. They were not back then, right? Yeah, yeah. But you know, this is only the. I don't know what's the name of the I'm sorry to to say it like that, but the lady in front of the judge, the. Lady in front of the judge, just the.
24:32 Kind of secretary of the court while it's it's yeah, the. The clerk? Yeah, the clerk. Clerk of the court. I think it's the clerk. Yeah, she was the. One with the Chris Truong screen. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's interesting. So. While the court session is ongoing, she was handling the AV side of it for the recording. That's crazy. For the audio. Translation, and it has to be programmed in a way where it's simple enough for, of course. Yeah, to do her job. And activate the audio room. So that's where the challenge was. Yeah, well. Making complicated things isn't that hard. Making complicated things easy is where it gets hard.
25:14 Bingo. That's the hard. It's the user interface side of it that gets very complicated. That's where it's used this sentence. Later on today as well. Oh hell yeah, you'll see. You'll trust me. I I. I deal with it every day in my own company because we're building technology every day in my own company to make the user experience better. And it's really easy for people to get out of control and to over engineer and over complicate things. And but you have to, if you're going to do that, you then have to create an interface to take it back to the user in a very, very simple, understandable way. Otherwise you're causing yourself help.
25:54 It's a version of help for sure. Now that's and you know. One-on-one, everybody can be smart. If you take your time and you want to learn, you're going to be smart. But in a crowd, in an emergency, in a situation where we're only for two hours, everybody is dumb. You know, it's like you're right. Just making sense. No and. That's our user base. I'm not saying our user base is dumb. What I'm saying is that range is our user base for, for my company gear source. You know, we have guys like you who will come on our site and they know what they're doing. They know exactly what buttons are going to do. And they they're not nervous by the technology that's in front of them. But then we might have a pastor from a church in some small town who's buying new video projector for his church. And this is a very different client, and we need to be able to serve both of those equally.
26:41 So I've always said making complicated things is easy. Making complicated things easy is really hard. And you know, it's very true. It's very, very true. So I mean so then. After really cool. Really cool experience though. I mean, it is. It is, yeah. Very. Cool experience, three years. Three years I quit and then I have I could see it getting. Boring. Yeah, I could see it getting very boring when you. Are out from the show business industry the the the business governmental job too slow, yeah. Yeah. Well. And it's just it's more of the same. It's more of the same. It's more of the same. You know, it gets boring even if, you know, your first day was really exciting because you were putting in these courtroom systems that, like you said, same gear but different challenges.
27:29 Yeah. And but after a while, it's the same courtrooms, you know. OK, this one square instead of rectangular. Oh, let's change the system, you know, But other than that, like, is it 4 speakers? Is it 3 speakers? Is it, you know, two cameras, 1 camera like funny enough? I felt like it was on tour because I was in charge of the 34 courthouses. Oh Jesus was always on the road. Wow. With my team. I mean, not myself, but the team. We were responsible for these two wild houses. So you're just out from a worldwide tour and you go back on tour locally. It's like, yeah, come on, I'm tired, but you're. You know, I hate to downplay it, but you're a glorified IT guy basically right at that point, like.
28:12 Well, with a technically technical level of course. Very technical IT, yeah, yeah. I mean, I know some really smart IT guys by the way. So you know that that like create wireless systems for race tracks for an A Formula One race or things like that. You know, I mean, this is an IT guy with a very specific set of knowledge that not a lot of people can do. Well, they will be. Engineering and they will be technically installing all this if I may be. Yes, yes, exactly. And I think around that time, like when you left there is when you started your company, right? It is, yeah. Yeah. So what what created that like just, you know, I think it's time or was there a specific I got bored. Too.
28:59 I mean, I had big projects as a technical director later on with certain Soleiman factory and stuff like that. Yeah. You know, all these companies are having unity where they are trying to get the wow effect. What's going to be next? Yeah, the client and the spectators are more and more hard to impress nowaday. Yeah. So what's next? What's the brightest idea that no one had? And so and, you know, as a technical director, I was facing the challenge to find out how to realize those new ideas, how to method realize it. Yeah. So it was not an off the shelf interactivity product.
29:40 So how do we make it happen? And in Montreal I was struggling a lot to find a company that can build electronic component and or technology and or specific effect and interesting. So you became a specialist in that field? Basically yes. So I designed electronic, custom electronic products, interactivity, the core integration, motorization, network automation, stuff like that. So like Cirque? Du Soleil, somebody there comes to you and says, Sebastian, we're looking to do this new gag and here's what we need.
30:21 Is this something you can do? And yes, you say yes. And then you go and design this product and hand it to them and you know these big. Companies such as Moment Factory or a Tate think, well, whatever. Yeah, usually they have their own internal staff that are fully capable of doing it. Yeah. But sometimes they are outsourcing toward my company. Yeah. We're not competing. We're more or less helping each other in sort of a way. Whenever you need help, I'm here. Whenever they don't, they can do it on their own, but they are encouraging this industry where creating all the things, something unique.
31:01 It's fun. And when you present something to the public that they never saw, everybody's like, wow, can you recall the first light show with drones? The first. 1. Yeah, well. Exactly. So like everybody was looking up. So wow, we never saw that. So that's the wow, you know. Yeah, Celine. Was. Celine, the first one. Because that's the first one I remember. I don't. I don't. Remember either I was just, I was just mentioning that the first drone light show was a premiere, basically, Yeah. So that was a new thing. So what is the new flavour now? Right. Well. In our industry, I think more so than most that I can think of is always breaking things. Like I know this is the traditional way of doing it, but we want to do this for the wow effect. Again, like you said, of course.
31:51 And so our industry is always coming up with things like that. And Tate, you know, you just mentioned they're a very special company because they take it to extremes with, you know, big motorized systems that move things around the building or the stadium or whatever. And it all starts with someone's crazy idea, you know, and I, I had, I had Dan Brown. I, I don't know if you know who he is, but he, he was for years, he was the production manager for Metallica and now I think his title is like creative director or something like that. But OK, so you know, the band and him, they all decide, OK, we're going to do a stadium tour, but we want to do it in the round and a stadium tour in the round has never been done.
32:34 So how do we do an in the round stadium tour? Because obviously, you know, you don't have a grid above you. There's nothing to hang lights or sound or anything from What are we going to do? And so he came up with this idea of these towers. And I don't know if you've seen any pictures or anything. I'm actually going to I'm going to Edmonton this week tomorrow to see the show. But, you know, they came up with these towers and went to Tate and said, OK, we've got this crazy idea, you know, and Tate has such an incredible team for going, Yep, we can do that. And they figure it out and they build these things and off they go, you know, and they're they're, they go in and out easy. They're safe, you know, they're they're, they do what they're supposed to do safely.
33:19 What do I like about? This show business industry, we can be as crazy as the idea is somebody. Finds a way to do it safely. Safely. Yeah. And. And you know, you're not going to kill any audience members and you're not going to kill your crew. Have to put it in and out every day. So no, I love that stuff. So yeah, first of all, I see events. What's the IC mean? Well, add several things. First of all, it sounds like I see like French it's called. So it just sounds like I see, I see events. Yeah, I get it. That's kind. Of a wink to integrated circuits with a chip, the invisible that is concrete OK.
34:03 There's a. Funny way to juggle around. Yeah. Or innovation and creativity. There's, I don't know this. I'm not really. It sounds like maybe you drink. A lot. Sometimes. Sometimes just joking. No, I mean. It's very creative. It's very. Well, even just I just see events is I I didn't get it right away, but of course, as soon as you say it, I'm like, duh, that makes so much sense. Well, I couldn't. Make up my mind on on what words to be used. So yeah, I see, I see. Just yeah, yeah, no, it's. Good so but I see events is not like it's not a rental company it's not a lighting company it's not a sound company necessarily right no, we're. I mean all of the above, if I may put it that way, because we are a company that is designing and creating custom electronic product for show business, industry museum.
34:52 So we're doing temporary, permanent, we're doing international, local and stuff like that. But usually we're doing custom stuff. It's an excellent. It's an excellent idea and obviously there's a big need. And I'm sure, you know, City Theatrical out of New York, of course. Yeah. So City Theatrical did that for God knows how long in in the theater business primarily. But you know, like when, for example, color kinetics came out with the color blast, suddenly people said, but we need barn doors, we need snoots, we need all these things. We need an egg supplies we need. Yeah, Power special. Touring power supplies and things. And so, you know, I think it's similar to Apple makes the iPhone and now you've got all these app developers who make the iPhone into something really cool.
35:42 And so somebody could make a product and you find solutions to make that product even better. And I love that idea because small companies with smart people, I think can move the world. I think you can, you can make changes that big companies can't because, you know, it's like a, it's like you're a, you're a little jet ski or a speedboat. They're a big ship and it takes them half a day to turn around. It takes you 2 seconds to turn around, right? Yeah, let's take a. Big company, okay, any of big company, let's say I don't know moment factory they are on, I don't know 100 project at the same time. Yeah, so even if you're smart and have a lot of relevant engineer people and can you take a team of three guys and say you are not doing anything else than this for the next two months? Well, not really.
36:37 So basically sometimes they are outsourcing a specific project to us. You know, it was an example here, but it's a great. Example. When we got a mandate, we have to deliver it. So we are handling this part while the big client is doing. I love it at the same time. Yeah, so I. Love it. I love it. Yeah. I think it's a great. You know, when I started my company, Gear Source, I, I had read a story by a guy named Seth Godin. And Seth Godin's like an Internet, one of The Pioneers of Internet marketing and stuff. Very smart guy, wrote a lot of books and stuff, but he told a story about a particular there's a like hippopotamus in Africa or wherever will sit with their mouth open, and there's a particular little bird that flies inside his mouth and eats all the shit off his teeth.
37:33 He cleans the hippopotamus, his teeth basically. And the moral of the story is you should be that bird because not only are you you making the hippopotamus happy and solving a problem for them, but guess who gets fed from it? You know, you get all your food from the hippopotamus. And it's kind of disgusting that I'm eating food out of the, but it's a good. Example too because it's benefits both yes so he. Says be that bird. And so when I created gear source, that's what I that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be that bird for larger companies, solving problems for these larger companies. And each company, they're paying you what to you is a great piece of money. You know, like they pay you $10,000 to create this electronic thing for them. It's nothing.
38:17 You know, the budget for this show might be two million and they're paying you 10,000 to create this little wow effect for them. And so I love what you're doing. I think it's a great business, the 11. Thing that I just learned from years now is is how we are always on the edge of the new technology because the clients are always coming with new thing new needs new demand yeah new gear new tech so we always have to learn so we have a small team here that is always on the edge of what's coming next it's so true do it and use it yeah so we're having a lot of fun basically well and our. Industry, you know, it starts with the artists because it is you know if if Beyoncé is.
38:59 If Beyoncé's out. Touring. And Taylor Swift is about to go on tour. She's going to tell her creative team. I want it to be cooler than Beyoncé. You know, Beyoncé had 75 trucks. I want 90 trucks, you know, or whatever, whatever. Like they always want to outdo and they're pop stars and they have huge budgets. So you say yes, and you find a way to do it right. And so it all starts with a seed, and the seed often comes from the artist who wants to outdo the last artist who did something. You know, if they flew drones over the stage, I want to, you know, fly live birds over the stage with lights strapped to their head or something.
39:39 You know, like, that's the next one. Yeah, whatever it. Is they want to outdo the last one. And so we're constantly pushing the envelope. And you know, my only fear is that sometimes infrastructure doesn't keep up with with this. And you know, it's like, for example, I'm from Calgary, I live in South Florida, but I'm from Calgary and I, I'm now currently in, I have a house in the mountains in the Rocky Mountains in. Do you know where Banff is? Yeah, yeah. So I'm I'm near Banff and so. You know, Calgary used to be the hot place for bands to stop when they were on tour of Canada, right? It was usually, you know, Montreal, maybe Halifax or something. Montreal, Toronto, Toronto.
40:24 Yeah, maybe Winnipeg if if it was a smaller band, Calgary and Vancouver. But sometimes it was just Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Well, now Calgary's not even in the picture anymore. You got to go to Edmonton to see most concerts because the Saddle Dome roof doesn't hold most of these grids that are coming through anymore because they're so much heavier than they used to be. And so you know the video. Wall for this well. That's the thing. And you know, I mean, even when they built the saddle Dome, the sound system was sitting on the stage or on the ground. It wasn't flown, you know. So you've got a sound system, you've got a huge lighting rig that instead of 1000 park hands, it's 1000 moving lights. Now you've got a huge LED screen hanging from the back wall where it used to be video projectors and it was just a screen hanging on the, on the from the trust.
41:20 So, you know, it like I worry that the infrastructure isn't keeping up quite as fast as as the as the technology or as the size of these shows is growing because they're growing enormous. Yeah, they have many version of the same show usually. But you're right. I mean, this is always really related to what the, you know, the ceiling or the trucks or a team can do. And with this kind of impact, they're trying to reach out. LED. Wall is kind of a big deal now. I mean mainly the power consummation before was for lighting. Now there's a kind of a lighting and video that are having the same.
42:00 Yeah, it's really funny. No, it's it's. Completely true. And so, you know, I mean, so I think some of those changes have forced infrastructure changes. So I think a lot of the arenas that are being built now are hiring engineers who understand the needs of those. Like they go and talk to Live Nation or they talk to consultants who who know that these rigs just keep getting bigger and bigger. Yeah, so, yeah. And. You're having here a point where I'm gonna be using this last example just to present a kind of a state of mind where my company stands, where both companies stands. Basically, show business industries is always using, I'm not gonna be stealing because we're not stealing anything, but we're using technologies from elsewhere such as network switches from Cisco.
42:52 Of course, Cisco didn't invented network switches for show business. We're using it. Yeah, like rigging, mortar and hoist that haven't been designed for show business, No. You know. How we carry those lamps? It's a meat rack. Yeah, well, meat rack. Where do you think Jack came? From Yeah, exactly. So basically we're using technology LEDLED lighting source were invented by Philips, not necessarily for show business, right, right. So, so this is a kind of a funny way where everything that we invent in the show business never go back to the consumer. That's funny. It's true. Like like. If all of those great ideas were were only good for two hours of show.
43:37 Nothing can. Come out of there. That's true. That's a good point. That's a kind. Of a weird behavior and that's why I decided to move it around, yeah. No, I like it. I, I, I honestly, I love, I think you're in a very good place in that business, especially now, you know, like we've said, where everybody's looking to push the envelope even further and create the next cool thing or, or whatever. And, you know, you're just finding ways to to sort of bridge gaps in in those designs and, and make things work. Yeah. So it's good and we can. Help and elsewhere than the show business industry with those technology so why not so.
44:17 You know, I'm very intrigued by your, the next thing that we're going to talk about, which is a company that you created called Devox. And I, I want to learn all about this technology because I, I know some similar technologies and we can talk about that. And also, so I think this will kind of bridge us in a whole bunch of different directions. So first, maybe if you can tell me what is D Vox, you know, in in layman's terms and sort of how it happened. Or why? It start. With this brief, exactly brief history, back in 2015, OK, I was technical director of a large show in Montreal called C2 Montreal. It's going to be a business trade show B2B, a really famous keynote speaker huge reputation keynote speaker, super exclusive conference business conference brain dating anyways big thing who who was.
45:15 The keynote speaker. I mean, over the years we had Francis Ford Coppola, I thought 20. 15 was a special one. I thought that's what you were saying. No, no, no. No, I've been part of City Montreal from the 1st edition, which was in 2012. OK. And the last one I was helping with was in 2021, I think, OK. I see. OK, so anyway this is kind. Of a roaster of keynote speaking. Yeah, it's a three day. It was a three day event and they kind of have an impressive list of keynote speakers on several topics. Politicals, engineers, university teacher, artist.
45:56 Snoop Dogg was there, Sebastian. Let me tell you a funny story quickly. I'm a I'm a crazy junkie of keynote speakers. I love keynote speakers. So one time at it was either LDI or Infocom. I was walking from the from the Westgate Hotel over to the Convention Center. And I don't know if you remember, but you passed the boardroom or the big conference, whatever they're called, banquet rooms as you're going over to to the trade show. And I looked inside and I saw people all sitting and it looked like they were getting ready to have a keynote speaker up. And I heard him being introduced. So I just walked in there with my badge out and I found out it was a garage door conference.
46:39 And the keynote speaker they had was a guy named Jack Ma, who is the MIT guy who did the, you know, the movie 21. OK. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, where they? Were counting cards and doing this whole blackjack thing that was Jack Ma and so he created a whole business around you know the science of numbers basically and so this was really swung around a business concept of why numbers are important why things that happened in the past affect things that will happen in the future and things like that. I sat and watched an entire like 90 minute keynote speech in a garage door convention because I was just so interested in it.
47:20 So it it worth. It because you're always learning something. I love Keynote. Speakers. Oh yeah. And even if you don't, you disagree with the speech, you have a different state of mind to to challenge completely true next time you're thinking about something. So it's, well, that's important. Like even again, if you're a, if you're a Democrat, go listen to a Republican speak. Maybe you'll learn something and vice versa. Maybe you'll learn. Maybe you'll throw up all over yourself and hate it, but maybe you'll learn something. Who knows, you know? So anyway, yeah, sorry for the sidebar there. No, no, no, no. Problem. SO yeah, so back in 2015, I was technical director for that event. We were having 3500 guests per day over three days of event.
48:01 We were having two main room for keynote speakers on the same site and we are French Canadian province. So it was French angling English both rooms. Plus we have a Chinese delegation so we were Mandarin as well. So two places on the venue. I was having you know, a full schedule of keynote for three days in two different room where I needed to have a translation for French, English and Mandarin. So back in 2015 it was only having FM transmission or infrared technology to carry the signal Next up to the spectator.
48:42 So you are you are a ticket owner, you pay big box by the way to be there. This is super exclusive things and you need to borrow a dedicated piece of receiver that has been charged clean, whatever in exchange of your ID card just because you're gonna be bringing back and stuff like that just to have the instant translation. So I said we're in 20, 2015. Isn't it something else better? So is that also human? Translators at the time, yeah, those are OK We can we. Can talk about translation later if you want to, but I mean, but because we were talking about that in the intro as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back then it was like those little cubicles with the human being translators inside of it.
49:24 So that's kind of the best translator, if I may. But anyway, so I was having these guys on site that were translating. So all the signal from the microphone go to these guys. These guys microphone go out to the ears of everybody else. That's how translation works for this. And back in 2015, I was like, wow, how many receivers do I have to rent? How many people will be using it? We're all bilingual in Montreal, so French, English doesn't really matter. We have to offer it, but maybe people will not be using it or else I'm wrong and everybody will like to to have. So I rented for $70,000 of infrared technology and receivers just to support this instant translation. At the end of the three days of evident, I landed 6 receiver for mandarins.
50:15 Because they. Were all speaking English in one. Six for. Chinese, Mandarin and for French and English I had like 70 overall but I rented 6000. Jesus. So you're like. Come on, that's $70,000, a waste of money in my budget, technical budget and I'm limited. I mean, this is not an open bar, right? So back in 2016, I was still a technical director and I said to C2 Montreal executive. I said, OK guys, this is kind of a stupid, we're 21st century. I guess something else is, you know, we can do something better. I'm pretty sure. So I said, OK, well, just try to find out something. Back then there was a lot of BlackBerry still, if you recall, OK, Plus Internet was not necessarily what it is right now, the speed and limitation and stuff. So cloud was a bit of a question. Apps were also out of the questions. Mobile app because it was the early days. So back then you didn't own your iPhone, it was your company iPhone.
51:22 You cannot install an app. Plus, you are here for let's say one afternoon and you have one keynote that you want to attend to. You're not going to be installing an app for two hours. Just leave me alone with your fine prints. I just want to listen to that guy. So I said OK, no app, no cloud. I said OK, no dedicated receiver. Wow, we're going to find out this kind of product. So I was looking for a technology, a product that mine his own business, analog audio in stream out local only through a web page. Nothing was existing. It was not available in the market. It was nothing on that. I've seen why through a web.
52:05 Page though. Because that's super polyvalent. Every cell phone thinks it's a web radio. It's a web page, it's browsing. You don't have to install an app. You do own the app or. Interesting. Yeah. May it be. Chrome, Safari, whatever your web browser, you have it all ready. Yeah, to install nothing. Interesting, So I was. Back then I was talking about scanning a QR code, but it was, you know, back in 2016, it was only for automation in industry. Yeah, for counting. It was really early bottles on conveyors and stuff like that. Yeah. So I was kind of an alien saying, hey, we can scan. AQR is going to be loading a web page. And it was like, hey, are you crazy? What are you talking about? I mean, the one will understand.
52:47 So I use this 2016 experience at C2 to just build an enormous bench tech only for myself with their approval by using the infrastructure, the network, the Wi-Fi, the antennas, and you know, and I decided to take a split in the audio source from the translator to carry it around through a web page. Back then, it was not even having a name for D Box. It was just like this kind of streaming solution. Yeah, it's. Sebastian's thing? Well, exactly. Just plug it into. Sebastian's thing, yeah, but it was. Like 8 seconds delay, 7 laptops, something stupid.
53:27 I thought, does it work to move forward with, you know, turns out to be really efficient. And I was like, you know, might be holding on to something here. So I called the lawyer firm and I said guys specialist and then patent. I was like, I'm I guess I'm too dumb. I cannot find anything on the market that fits what I need. You know when you're buying a self powered speaker, you want to plug it in the wall, plug a signal in the back plate, bring the volume up and down. So where is my analog audio in stream out local only through a web page. Where is it? And it was actually nowhere.
54:09 And so I decided to invent it because the, the, the lawyer, the patent specialist said, well, we can't find nothing at all interesting. So I just, you know, move forward my my idea and loop in one or two employees with me that were, you know, colder and geeks. So I said, OK, guys, here's the here's the straight line. I want to go that way. And this is a technology that mine is on business. So basically, when you are integrating Divox into a permanent or temporary installation, the only thing you have to do is put analog signal in and it's gonna be streaming out through a customizable web page. Period. You give that you are to your attendees, they have nothing to install at all, they just connect to the right.
54:56 Wi-Fi as a user interface. So I take out my iPhone, I go to the QR code or whatever, click on it. Does it just say as simple as English, French, Chinese, German? Absolutely. And I. Just push one. Of those buttons and sound starts coming out of my headphones exactly. So wow, this was the first usage. Meaning that to take your example here, you are a spectator at C2 rule First, connect to the Wi-Fi. I'm not cloud connect to the Wi-Fi. You need to be inside of the same network as I am. Connect to the Wi-Fi. Second rule, click on this link or else scan this QR code. You need to browse to a web page.
55:38 Yeah, but if you access this web page through the same Wi-Fi as I am, you're going to be granted access to all the audio stream. Excellent. Now, this is only a virtual button. We can name it Pilot, Ferrari's Pilot. We can name this, you know, Statue of Liberty, you know, description, we can name it English translation. We can name whatever we please. And we're binding this virtual button with a physical input. Interesting SO. In in AC2 situation, French, English and Mandarin, you were simply having a web page that is loading on your Chrome and Safari or whatever and like, oh, I got three buttons, French, English, Mandarin.
56:20 Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, simple, yeah, and go. And so was that a hardware and software solution? This is a complete. Solution all together meaning hardware, firmware, and software OK so we get this specific and unique design we invented from the idea the entire solution basically the acquisition device is the hardware, the firmware obviously that deals with this yeah and it talks with the software which is basically a web page a website on our end and. The hardware is like some kind of a fancy A to D converter or something kind of kind. Of I make it 2 U Rackspace yeah for to make it easy. So it's kind of a standard form yeah And we can go up to four analog input XLR input on A2U Rackspace device yeah and then there's a network cable out and you put it on the network yeah. So you're literally just.
57:17 Wiring off of each of those feeds from the four translators and or any. Auxiliary out of any sound desk, just giving you whatever analog signal you want. So if I'm. Translating it, You know, if I'm the US government and I'm translating the president's speech into 15 languages, does that mean I have to have four boxes? Exactly. As long as they are on the same network, you're good to go and they can all go. On to the same web page and so there would be 15 languages on that web page, absolutely. Geez. You figured it all out. That's pretty cool. So at. First it was just like a great idea, which I thought. And then I decided that well, hold on.
57:58 No, that's, that's, that's kind of a big thing. So I created this second company that is now independent from IC events so that the early days were under IC events. But then I said, hold on. So I created this company for default. It went from it went. From being a product to a company to a business, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I underestimate the reach of this simplicity because if you think about what I just said, we take any analog signal and stream it out. OK, the local only back in 2016, Wi-Fi was not super, you know, common and popular and well integrated. But now you're not going into a hotel that is not having Wi-Fi, you're going to an airport that is not having Wi-Fi.
58:40 It's everywhere. So we're having a lot of pull these days into the audio impairs industry because you may not have a translator, but you may need to have a personal amplifier. You might be a little deaf, you might only need a little amplifier. So audio impair, instant translation for conferences, business center, Conference Center, Convention Center. It's a plug in to the device. It's a no brainer. You just plug into the network, give me a feed from your desk and you're good to go. So instant translation, digital signage. Think about all of these assumptions that we're having since so many years. Why are you in an airport where there's 3000 TV screen and they're all on mute? Obviously enough, you cannot have speaker, speaker boxes, but you got your cell phone, you're a tourist, you're here 3 hours, there's Wi-Fi.
59:33 You don't need a SIM card, you're on the Wi-Fi. There's no data plan needed, so you don't even have to bother with your international traffic or whatever. And there you go, we can have the feed from all the television screen. Yeah. Are you familiar with an app called Tunity? Yeah, it's been working in the US for for a couple of channels. It works for a lot of channels because I, I used to use it all the time because, you know, my girlfriend doesn't like football, She's not a football fan or whatever. So sometimes on Sunday you go to a bar or whatever. And if you go to Buffalo Wild Wings, same problem. You know they have 50 TV's. And the one game you want to watch is on that TV right there, but they're not going to change the sound for you so that everyone can hear that TV.
1:00:17 They're going to play whatever is the big game that day or something, right? And so tunity, tunity, you can just basically point the camera on your phone. It'll look and it'll go, oh, that's the Green Bay Packers game or whatever. And it'll just bring up the sound and then you can dial it in to to get rid of any latency or anything. I think it's pretty frigging cool. It is. But it's still an app and it's still cloud, but it is really cool, True, it is really cool. And you know, we got a lot of competitors and or there's many apps that are we can have instant commentary for sport, business, industry. That's what we're doing. It's one of our big market too.
1:00:57 So we can have the commentators into the stand into the Bleacher for all the 25,000 spectators if you want to. And there's a couple of apps that can do as well this kind of service, but we are not infringing any broadcasting rights. We're not cloud. Interesting. Plus, we're not using. 5G data as well. So whenever the 5G is scrapped, because there's 30,000 people in the venue, we don't mind. We're Wi-Fi and we're having land traffic, internal traffic. So it's super, super low into any environment, even old generation Wi-Fi system. I mean the.
1:01:37 The the simplicity brings that versatility. So in an environment where you simply need to to give the sound to everybody in the audience, you don't have to to have a lending counter with an employee that will be cleaning up the devices. Everybody's having his own cell phone. Well. Sports is, is a great example because I mean, you can listen to whatever announcer you want to listen to, you know, if you're a Canadian and you're at a hockey game in, in the United States, for example, you could listen to the the Canadian announcers. And so I see that as a very, very good use case where a lot of other products I'm familiar with are not so good generally. And that makes a lot of sense.
1:02:25 So have you have you signed with any teams yet or, or that's just really early stage still? Well, there's a. Lot that I can't say now. Teams, league and whatever. Yeah, but we are, we are involved with the Australian Open tournament since last year. So we were going yeah. So we were having a really nice experience with these guys. We I just landed in Melbourne with my devices and within 20 minutes we're up and running and we were connected onto the Melbourne Olympic Park Wi-Fi, which was already in place, already covered the exterior section. I don't have to, it's there. So they gave me one network cable, plug it in, there you go. What's the IP address you want me to fix? OK.
1:03:09 And we're good to go then? It was it. And is there latency 0? .04 Damn. So that's. Almost real time. Actually. We had this funny problem where we were having the feed from the court, the tennis court. OK, so when you were sitting, sitting inside of the venue by looking onto the players, you were snap on it. You're not hearing the ball twice when it's the floor. Yeah, boom, boom, right on it. That's good. But on the general admission section, outside all of the ility screen were only having two tiny speaker boxes, super shy tiny boxes because it only be blasting everyone.
1:03:51 So we were saying, hey, guys, scan this QR. Yeah, I'm a tourist. I don't have a SIM card. You don't have to. It's on a Wi-Fi. Well, I don't want to be installing an app. You don't have to. No way. Within 10 seconds, they're on. Yeah. So they. Were listening to the audio from the core directly by looking to a Jumbotron and. The audio is before the video exactly that's. Where we're sitting, we needed to have the delay because, like, yeah. That's a problem at that point. Yeah, faster, but. I can see it for. So many sports like Motorsports, which happens to be one of the ones I love, but certainly any of the arena sports and stadium sports, football and all of those things sports bar you.
1:04:32 Name it. I mean, this is so versatile, so easy one. Simple. Like just really, really simple setup and stuff because most of these things require, you know, a lot of work and this one, you just go out and boom, you're ready to go and. You were touching this specific topic earlier. When you're aiming for large admission, large user interface, it has to be simple. So when you're loading a web page, even the format is simple. It's neat, it's small, it's filling your screen, there's only a couple of buttons. You don't even have to wonder where it is. It's a basic browsing and for the, let's say for the organizer, you can customize that page and we are giving just enough options for you guys to fit your logo on it, the colors on it, just to rename the feeds and stuff like that, just enough to fit your own Pantone color and stuff you don't want to have web. Designers on staff so that you can redesign the page or whatever, but you want to put.
1:05:32 Your logo exactly. You want to add a stream 10 minutes before the game? You can no problem. That's cool. And then what was that as far as loading it up? Like there's no issues with putting whether it's 100 people or 1000 or 10,000 people, doesn't slow things down up to 20. 5000 people per input. Interesting, and it doesn't slow. Us down at all because the only thing you are doing is downloading the visual of the web page yeah this is kind of loading the Google search bar yeah so it might take a little longer if there's a little people but hey it's counting in one second two. So whenever.
1:06:12 You've got the visual, you click play and it's an internal traffic, so there's no but it's audio. Only yeah, on. Purpose, but it would be. Really cool if it was video too because. No, that's where I had this difference because there's a lot of apps that are already offering video. And without an app you cannot. Because if you kill this screen, what will happen to do your video feed? Of course, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm just thinking obviously like to be able to get different feeds and stuff, you know, different camera angles. And like obviously, consumers of of sporting events, in particular concerts, are getting so much more spoiled with, you know, the interactivity that they want to. Well, you are you are right about this kind of usage for let me let me take an example with NASCAR, these guys are having a huge crowd.
1:07:09 It's like 3300 thousand dictator over the Oval and stuff like that. It's big, big sport. They I could have named any motorsport basically, but they have a lot of viewing angles and Formula E there's cameras everywhere on these cars. That's really, really cool. So you're absolutely right, having this kind of, you know, camera shoot is really cool. But hey, just pick your ticket and you were there. Just look up. It's in front of you. So if you were to integrate video, you will need an app first of all, meaning that you will need to carry a signal up to the cloud and go back. So you're infringing, right? And if you are in a conference and you're having a video, you'll be looking at your phone like this. And the speaker, the keynote speaker will only see the top of your head because you're looking at your damn phone. Yeah.
1:07:53 Yeah, true. And I've been asked. About subtitle, I've been asked about video, I've been asked about dealing with the delays integrating ADSP, and I'm like, no, that's where I stand. Simple, yeah. No, there's a, there's a huge benefit to keeping it as simple as you have. You know, I still don't understand though, how you get around the the rights like as far as you know, because you're basically taking a signal that you may or may not have. Well, I guess you do have a right to because they've connected their audio cable into your system. First of all, the. Signal feeds are coming from the production company and or the event itself. So if these guys are asking the permission to the broadcaster, they're giving me a hard line that has been approved. That's the permission, yeah.
1:08:46 It is. So this is not on my side. I'm streaming whatever you're giving me. Yeah, first, second thing, just for about D box a second and think about having a self powered speaker box in a room. If you're not in the room, you don't hear it, right. So it's not cloud in the room, you don't hear it. So we're using the Wi-Fi to carry signal around. I'm not saying the Internet, I'm saying the Wi-Fi. There's a difference in between the Wi-Fi local and the Wi-Fi it goes on. Interesting. Yeah. So it's not even a problem for the bandwidth because we're not going up and down. We're a local only. Interesting. You know, like, I've had so many conversations with people in, in the industry about the idea of, you know, a concert with no sound, you know, no speakers, you know, we are disco.
1:09:38 We are having silent Disco really right downtown in Montreal, a bunch of people. With headphones on that are just exactly having a. Great overnight after 11:00, having a great time in the street. You know what we did in France? Several languages drive in movie theater. We were having Wi-Fi antennas on tripods all over the parking lot and people were coming in. You want to have it French, like French. You want to have it original version, like original and you have it in English in your car. That's crazy. Yeah, that's wild. I mean, the scary thing is, and, and I'm sure you've got a, you've got a response to this, but technology is moving so quickly right now that you know, it's almost like there's fifty options to do similar things.
1:10:29 And you know, because of the direction that you've gone with the simplicity and staying on Wi-Fi and not having cloud based or an app or anything, it seems like there's some longevity to it. You know, it's not really. No, let me explain. First of all, we are retro compatible with all the generation of web browsers and we're HTML5, so we can update our system remotely if ever there's an update coming. So right, it's super easy. And we're following the tendency of the web browser themselves, yeah, such as Google Chrome, Safari and stuff like that. So the longevity is not necessarily an issue on our end because we are a web page, yeah. When I talk about longevity, I mean of the tech itself. So for example, you talk about hearing impaired and you know, Apple has convinced themselves that they're going to deal with hearing impaired through Airpods. You know, they're just basically going to amplify the sound in Airpods and you can control how much it's amplified directly on your iPhone cost you nothing.
1:11:35 It's in your Airpods that you already own, and it's a great solution. It's a very simple solution. Translation. Why not translation? Obviously you've already got, I believe Google has it in their phones already, where you've got instant translation to many different languages live straight through your headphones. And so I think some of these things are being handled with very simple technologies, while very complicated technologies, but very simple devices, the phone in your hand. And so that when I'm talking about longevity, I'm talking about how long is this technology going to be needed is is when I'm talking about longevity. May I ask about the speaker boxes as well? Are we going to be rid of speaker boxes? My point is all of those things that you're talking, and I will also add to your example this new technology where you can have this kind of sound beam.
1:12:34 You're in a restaurant and you can say, OK here pods. I just want to be talking with that person in front of me and it's kind of doing a sound beam right in front of me. Yeah, that's, that's, that's great. But I mean, if you're into an arena looking to an an hockey game, hockey match, OK, Airpods, follow the puck. I need out. Yeah. And you know, I mean, I'm not pretending to replace all of these solution. I know that consumer products and more apps will be tried all over the time. So this is not an issue at all. Yeah. And all of these apps that are doing basically you have to compare Devox with all the apps. You can pick one.
1:13:17 You need to compare with all the apps, just tried them all. I'm talking with the sport industry since the, you know, mainly 2 years now with the Australian Open and stuff, all the big leagues, all the big teams and all we're using this app all we are using this app, all we are using this one. They're all having a different one. How's it go? Well, a few adoption people don't like it. No. How come? Well, because this is only the man that downloaded it, woman. The kids couldn't have it. And they need to figure it out. They don't have the right generation. And we have to support the app on the App Store. And it's like, right, Be my guest. Try them all.
1:13:57 And the broadcasters refuse to give the feed because it is cloud based. Yeah. So they're giving you a delayed feed. Yeah, but let's take this example. OK, let's take this stupid example where you cancel one seat in the first row. You just decide that this seat is not for a dictator, it's a microfilm and it's beaming widely directly onto the field. OK. And you can have a button which is called first row seat. So whatever, if you're in the Nosebleed up there, you click first row seat. So we can with Divogs have this versatility to, to inject new audio mixed signal.
1:14:40 Let's take the commentators and the same feed without the voice. So it's only like sound enhancement? Interesting. So if you were. Having an app for instance, or earbuds, how will you be able to tune in all of these features? See, this is always, this is always my question though, Sebastian. Like I think if, if you want people to go to a concert and wear headphones instead of instead of having a line array sound system or whatever, I think to get there, there has to be so much interactive capabilities. So I can, I've got my own equalizers, I can tune my own mix, I can have more bass, less mid, whatever I want to do.
1:15:26 I can change languages, I can have Taylor Swift in Chinese, God forbid, you know? So I think all of those types of things need to exist before it becomes a really great user experience. Well, it depends on how many feeds. OK, one thing funny, if you are attending an hockey game and you have, I don't know, TSN feed, let's say you got one broadcaster feed. So you open up the Devox page and you have only one button, like, oh, cool, or don't need it. But if there's local team to broadcaster, visitor team to broadcaster, ice, microfilm, star player of the day microfilm, Yeah, DJ and House Speaker and blah, blah, blah.
1:16:15 And you give a lot of options. You got all these feeds already there going to the hobby van. So when you're loading the page, you feel like you need to pick and choose. Oh, wow, I got all the choices. OK, so I'm going to pick. You feel like you have to pick one. Can you imagine this versatility over your headphones? Head buds? No. All these smart things, I mean. Well, I think the challenge. You're always gonna have there as far as the the app and the cloud and all of that, latency is always going to be a problem. And with yours, latency isn't a problem apparently. So what about reliability? Like does the web page ever crash or anything like that? What happened?
1:16:58 I mean, on our end, actually, sometimes people are refreshing the page by mistake or they're loading the page from home or something, so they have to refresh it once on site. But I mean, it's basic browsing. Does your phone? Have to be? Does the screen have to be on? No, OK, no. That's why we're using audio only on purpose. Yeah, if you were to have video or subtitle or bumper in or whatever it is, you need to, you need to fake something in your phone, basically it's called an app. Yeah. So if you're doing audio only through a web page, any web browser thinks you are web radio. Interesting. I like it. Kill the screen and put. It in your pocket yeah and by carrying signal only audio it's super super light into any Wi-Fi environment so your. Business model currently as far as your sales strategy and stuff, is it rental or a sale?
1:17:51 We are positioning ourselves as manufacturer what we are. So basically we are having a network all over the world right now. So a lot of our confirm and we are dealing contracts as we speak. So I can say too much, but with several countries in the same time. So basically what we're doing right now is building this kind of huge worldwide network. We'll be positing ourselves as manufacturer. So there's but the product will sell it's. Not a rental model. Ideally it will be sale, but you know, if you're having a company that is doing large event, yeah, you could create. A rental they will be. Buying it they will be renting it yeah yeah, no, I mean if you're. Doing production for meetings and corporate events and things like that, it would make sense to have them in your stock and rent them out to clients.
1:18:43 But yeah, and. Yeah. But also you could obviously go in and sell a system to a Convention Center or to a yeah. So no, I'm, I'm curious, I'm just curious about that because like for all of the weird fringe markets, you know, like my son grew up a, a go Kart racing driver and then a car racing driver and, and even go Kart tracks. Now they have video, they have announcers they have and then they have these horn terrible speakers all over the parking lot or wherever the the go Kart track is. And most of those tracks now are they have Wi-Fi. And so of course it would make so much sense. But again, like maybe after the call, I'll ask you what the pricing looks like and stuff because maybe it's too expensive for an application like that, a smaller application like that. Really.
1:19:37 I need out, Yeah. So it's less than I would. Expect right. Yeah, yeah, we'll see, We'll see. But the The thing is just take this karting example here, OK? So you are a dad, proud dad looking at your son racing, right? Yeah. OK, just. And you have this authorization from the racetrack to use let's let's imagine your son is having a microphone in his helmet. So for a pit crew communication and stuff like that, yeah, they can't. Like any motorsport, they can't, No. But yeah, they're already doing it for the motorsport and stuff, so. So let's say you have other microphones that are picking up the sound of the engine, the squeaking tires and stuff like that. So you take all of those feet into one mix and you have a button which is called Name of your Son, and you click on it and you are inside of the cart within. Yeah.
1:20:24 You might not have. This communication feed, but you will be feeling that you are breaking. Yeah, no. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. No, but I'm just talking about even the announcer, you know who, because you're never close enough to a speaker where you can hear him. And and if you go on YouTube, because they, they generally are, are publishing these or doing live streams out via YouTube. But live streams are not live, you know, they're, they're exactly anywhere from 2:00 to 22nd, you know, delays. And I have a funny. Example for you here we were showcasing Divox to a client in monster truck event okay yeah can you hear the comment theaters at the monster truck yeah of course I.
1:21:07 Can yeah. Hey, how y'all doing? Wow. This is yeah. You need to translate. From that to English, Yeah, yeah. I mean, okay, so just earbuds, just get rid of the engine. Yeah, yeah, good luck with that. Yeah, it's bouncing all over the place. Of course you can't. Hear what they're saying. So that's my. Yeah, no. That's a good example. So Divox means digital vocals? Is that what it's? Directvox basically at first, just if we rolled back a bit, it was invented for instant translation without noticing the reach. Yeah. So it's Directvox, yeah, basically. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, what a cool technology.
1:21:48 I'm really excited for you. I think even just and when you say just it's a huge market, but just the corporate convention meeting business alone I think is massive. House of Worship House of Worship is another big one you got. You got a tray full of old cell phones that are not having a SIM card? Yeah, they are Wi-Fi capable. That's that's a receiver right there, right? Yeah. So if you take. An older generation that might be having earring problem and stuff like that. Hey, here's your personal amplifier. Done. Yeah, well, I. Mean even kids, even just translation, you know, for House of worship like I, I live in South Florida, you know, you've got a huge Hispanic population along with, you know, other people too, Russian, German, whatever.
1:22:34 And I could see it used in houses of worship, even just in Florida. So, yeah, I mean, to me, I think this is a really, really cool product. I'm pretty excited about it. So it is. So simple that you can even wait for the bus scan AQR that will be connecting you to the Wi-Fi, redirect to the right page and hearing the Billboard right in front of you before the bus is coming in. It's that quick. Don't have to download an app, yeah. Interesting there's no speaker boxes. It's in exterior places, but give me the audio feed and it's been yeah, Internet and you're good to go. This is a. World that so many different companies are trying to tackle, which is some form of connectivity to your cell phone, whether it's it's just Internet of Things is 1 area where they're trying to either triangulate you and bring you to a certain part of a shopping mall for example. Well, two things.
1:23:37 Yeah, two things. That is exactly why I do have and I do own my patent. First of all, of course. Yeah. Second thing, I cannot announce it, like publicly. I hate what I can tell you. No, but I will tell you after you want to. All right. May I or should I? We'll see. But we get we're just on the edge to to announce a huge partnership with a huge company that is doing huge Wi-Fi integration. Good for you. Let me put it that way. Congratulations. Good for you. So on the audio. Side you already have everything you need, Microphone, console, Obi fan, whatever you need you decide. But when I talk. About Wi-Fi, yeah, no, it's amazing. And I can understand well enough your technology to know why you've done it the way you've done it.
1:24:21 It makes a huge amount of sense. Again, and you're talking about live music, live sporting events, live keynote presentations, live, you know, latency is an issue and you've done away with that issue and also connectivity. And again, forcing people to download an app and forcing people to do all kinds of, they're all like, we're so spoiled now. Like I remember when downloading an app wasn't a big deal. Now it's like you're gonna make me, yes. You know. And then if you're like me, you're a clean freak on your apps. I don't like adding apps, you know, I've got them all perfectly organized in files, you know, and, and so I get it. I completely get it.
1:25:02 So let me ask you, one of my favorite topics is is AI. And yeah, so I again, I'm not smart enough to be able to talk to a really smart AI person, but I'm smart enough to talk to most people in our industry who are either scared to death of AI or in some cases they're just ignoring it. Like the it's OK, you know, I don't even want to talk about AI. It's not something I pay attention to right now. OK. So. I love AI. Yeah, I encourage people to use it carefully. I think that it is a little harder than we thought about.
1:25:43 Let's take translation for it as a good example. OK, Just aim to this example with translation. I can. English is a second language for me. OK, Sometimes I'm not having the right grammar formulation and stuff like that. So therefore it might be translating a little weird because not necessarily understand what I'm saying. That's one thing super technical speech. Sometimes it's hard sarcasm, humor, non verbal. I've been talking with a lot of translator human being, I mean physical person that translates and they are telling me that they are so much in demand since everybody's trying AI. I'm not saying it's not good enough, I'm saying it's not good enough yet. And you know what?
1:26:27 If you want to take your own laptop, OK, Right now you take your laptop. You're installing an acquisition card, for instance, and you're using an AI to translate. Good. Give me the Jack 18 out, give me the headphone Jack out to DVOX and I will be streaming it over. Yeah. So next week you're gonna be trying another one, another software. So I'm not into trying to integrate a translation solution inside of DVOX. It's working just fine as it is right now. But be my guest, use whatever you please. Yeah, you're a. Broadcast solution. You're not a translation solution, you're a broadcast solution. I'll broadcast whatever you want me to. If you want me to broadcast, you know, the hi hat from the drums because I want everybody to just hear the hi hat from the drums.
1:27:13 That's what I'm going to do, you know, and. Depending you know take about the courthouses again. OK these translator have to be someone in an insulated boot inside of the room with a visual on everyone because they have to translate the non verbal as well. They have to. Wait, by the end of the sentence before translating to pick exactly what it is? What I'm telling you, green, green, green, green. It would be translating as the color. But in fact, this guy, green, green, green, green, green. This guy was so green. Yeah. It's not the same thing at all. Yeah, yeah.
1:27:53 So that's what I'm. Saying about AI use with potion right? I'm not sure I want to fit it in, so let me argue with. You for a second on that one. Go ahead, go ahead. So. I think translators who are saying AI isn't ready and AI is not going to replace them and stuff are full of shit. You know, I think, I think translators are the first people who are going to be heavily replaced by AI because not, not for any reason. And this is by no means a slight against translators. They're very important people and historically have been very, very important people. But it's a very easy thing to replace with AI and hoping you're noted. Is it going? To get words mixed up every now and then, yes.
1:28:35 I mean, it's just like how many people right now are using AI for coding. Do you just take the code that it puts out and boom, put it straight into an electronic device and it works? No, of course not. You have to. You still have to check it, change some things. I use it when I'm writing documents or when I'm writing a story or or a press release even. I will use AI, but then I go over it and I change it. So AI is doing 80% of the work, I'm doing the other 20%. And so that I think it might be. A little just too fast adoption. That's my. That's my, that I. Agree with now I'm not arguing with you on that one. The the speed of AI is scaring the hell out of me right now. Like it's moving faster probably than maybe any technology ever has.
1:29:25 Maybe the Internet. I mean the Internet moved pretty quickly when when it first started to where it is today, but still AI is moving so much more quickly. Internet was slown down by the computer themselves, by the hardware to deal with it and the bandwidth. So now AI got no limit. Yeah, it doesn't. Have those limitations so it's moving very quickly. Well, the limitations I guess are are the hardware to carry it. You know the the computing power is is a limitation but and. You might be right about the translator that will be out of out of jobs soon. And you know, maybe you are translators and. Travel agents, I think are the two that are going to be impacted the most, most quickly. But if you take the.
1:30:08 Translator, there's still a lot of solution these days just to keep the translator off site. So even Zoom have integrated a solution where the translator can be off site and there's a lot of software that that are specialized in keeping the translator off site. So not now. You might be right, but not now, yeah. Yeah, and. As I was saying, just take any software you please, any AI you please, give me the Jack out. Sold your Jack out. I know. I love that. Yeah, I love that. I love. Again, I'm not comparing AI to what you're doing. I'm just, I think AI is going to pick on very specific things one at a time, whereas your solution is for a lot of different things and isn't specific.
1:30:57 AI is very specific. It's very good at specific things. When you try to use ChatGPT to create images, they're usually crappy images. But if you go to an image generation AI tool and create images, they're very good because that's all it does. It's very specific to that. It's learned a lot of information to be able to do that, etcetera. So I think. We'll see the merge with AI and technology a little nicely later on, because I think so too. Yeah, at 1:00. End you need a microphone, at the other end you need headphones. What's in between? So they will need to have this blend. Yeah, that's a good point. No, it's a nicely organized well. Said. At one end you have ears you. Need a microphone? Yeah.
1:31:38 Microphone and headphones, what's connecting them? Yeah, well, and, and again with latency being, I think one of the biggest no, no's, you know, you can't have latency otherwise. To me, the tool is ineffective. If it's got latency, it's like, I don't want to use it because I want to hear that. You know, what's funny is we'll have to have a conversation after the conversation as well because Sarah's listening to this and biting her tongue right now because Sarah worked for Formula One and one of her jobs there was with a company that was producing a fan vision for for people who could rent it. And then they could watch different camera views and things on this little box that they would carry around with them and connect their headphones to it and stuff. So she's going to have an opinion as well on all of this, Robin.
1:32:28 So how? How? I don't even know where to go with that. Like, I mean, to me, it's an incredible technology and it's a today technology. It's ready to go, right? It's not. It is, yeah. No, no, it's not the prototype at all. It's kind of a ready to market product. I mean, we have resellers all over the place. Yeah. And you know, this is way too simple to be ignored. And one of the main thing I'm receiving from all of the presentation I'm doing, all the demo I'm doing and all the clients I'm, you know, presenting to is always the same thing. It's like, wow. How simple. And all of the clients are saying, finally something new. Yeah, because it's not a new camera.
1:33:09 It's not a new television screen, it's not a new speaker boxes. It's a new thing. It's a new technology. The way we do it, we're the only one doing it. That's why we have this patent on it. Have you done a live? Event yet? Yes, it rolls. I should. Say, a live music event, yet concerts. Not necessarily concerts. I'm not. I'm not pretending to challenge the speaker boxes. When you go to a a concert, you want to have this vibe with the speaker boxes and stuff like that. So not necessarily a music concert, but what we did was afforded private rooms, the balcony. Well, this is what I. Was thinking like this is what I was thinking. Private rooms or in a stadium, the seats in the top ten rows or whatever, you know, just areas where the sound maybe isn't very good. Or yes, then yes.
1:33:55 We did, but we're all proofs of concept, so yeah, I cannot name them already. Yeah, but for all the private balconies, the media room, the whatever, I guarantee. You people listening are going to have some ideas on on Oh my God, I really need like the ability to put out a second mix, you know, so historically, old people always complain about bass. It's too much bass or not enough treble. Not enough treble, especially if you. Have a hairpiece, you know, hairpieces, devices that have been made for you which are self-employed because you're having issue. I mean sub frequently. Yeah, they're very flat.
1:34:36 OK, let me give you this word example. I went somewhere in the US for a specific boxing match, asked by a specific broadcast sports broadcaster in the US to do a demonstration during a certain period of time. Let me keep it as foggy as what we did was approve of concept for this broadcaster. And it was giving me access to the referee microphone and the falling from the ceiling microphone right on top of the center of the ring. There's this kind of microphone falling from the sky, right, that is grabbing everything. He also gave me the commentators for one of the broadcasters and I asked to have the red corner and blue corner microphone. OK, obviously enough.
1:35:23 When these guys, there was a heavyweight championship, these guys were fighting, all those two microphones were quiet as hell. I mean, there's nothing there on the feed, so never mind. No one was on it. But if you take the referee or the falling from the sky microphone, you feel the hit, you hear everything. It's as close to the action as you can be. So you don't want to be looking at your screen. You're looking at the ring and you can hear and feel the glove on the opponent's face. And then Bing, they go back to their corner. Everybody was switching to the microphone at the corner and. They were earring. What the coach was telling, well, let me give you. Another example, so I met a guy on a flight recently coming over from Europe and he started a company based on betting on the third down in football. This is American football where we have 4 downs, right? So you can bet basically, is it going to be a pass, a run? You know what's going to happen on the third down and you can bet just on the third down.
1:36:29 He created this this whole thing around third downs. He went to the NFL and he purchased the rights to the coaches microphone for 3rd down. What that call is straight into the quarterback's helmet from the coach. So he purchased it. But with AI, think it's a 10 second or 22nd delay so that they can't sell the play to the other team or something like that or it gets somehow, you know, grabbed. And so right away, as soon as like within 10 or 20 seconds of making that bet and then the play happens, you get that information straight from his company to that audience or whatever.
1:37:11 Imagine being able to broadcast that inside the stadium. That would be really, really cool. Be careful with. Your example because just Australian market is a big betting market, yeah. And we proved recently that we are 40 seconds faster than any betting app. Wow, that's. Incredible are. Inside of the venue you got this edge where you can bet before everybody else from home. Yeah, but can you delay it? I can if I if you know, the audio signal itself can be delayed if you want to, yeah, no, but that's. What I'm saying like if for example, you could go to a a hockey arena and whenever there's a time out, you could listen to the time out 10 seconds after it happened or 20 seconds after it happened or whatever. And everyone could listen to that in their headphones, in the audience and hear what was said during the time out, for example, and at the end of.
1:38:08 The game, when everybody's rushing out, you look up to the Jumbotron and you can see the star player to an interview, it can listen to it or what? About what about in the penalty box? If the guy, if there's if they put a microphone in the penalty box and they tell all the teams, hey, there's a microphone in the penalty box, say whatever you feel like saying and they can sit there and bitch for the whole 2 minutes about the call that just happened. This guy's an asshole. This coat or this raft thing, you know what I mean? See if you. Pay your ticket to be seated right next to that penalty box. Yeah, you'll be hearing everything, even the F word if yeah, yeah. You're gonna be hearing everything. Yeah, but if you are from home, there's no way that the broadcaster will allow this language to go out. But hey, you're in the venue. Why not? Yeah, you will be hearing it.
1:38:50 Yeah. No, that's what I'm. Saying that would be a really fun use of your technology would be the Penalty Box Cloud. We can do it if the if the microphone feed owner allow us, we're going to be streaming it, yeah. So going back to AI for a second, because, you know, I'm an AI nerd, no. Problem. Do you have any? Examples like in our industry, most people who think about AI think of it as as a, as the devil you know. It's it's AI is going to come and, and program the MA3 console and I'm going to lose my job. And my opinion is that that's not going to happen. What AI is going to do is it's going to support you. If you're the lighting director or lighting programmer, you won't have to sit and program all the, the the basic stuff. You can have AI do that for you.
1:39:42 Just like macros are built into consoles now. They didn't used to be. Yeah, we. Are using it. I can give you an example if you want to. Yeah, please. OK, so well. First of all, I'm a French Canadian guy, so whenever I'm writing emails to really first approach new important people, whatever, sometimes I ask ChatGPT or writer to just help me out with my grammar. I'm like oh crap OK this is too French. Sometimes I'm doing jokes at the restaurant and it's like no one's laughing. And a colleague of mine is like, well, that's not how you should say it in English. Oh crap, it's. Too it's Those are good examples. Yeah, so. Grammars for e-mail, that's one of the main thing.
1:40:24 I'm using it. We both write on many, many pictures to explain what Divox is about. We are doing a lot of post and LinkedIn post and documentation, paperwork, presentation, stuff like that. And we were out of pictures of people wearing headphones. Yeah. So I mean. We want to have a woman wearing headphones. We want to have a full crowd wearing headphones. We could I use it for that stuff? Too. Yeah, exactly. So what so my I need a picture of. Six moving lights and four speakers on a stage. Boom. Exactly you've. Got it. And and in these circumstances, yeah, OK, it was not super relevant for us to have a real picture if and if it looks a little AI generated.
1:41:10 Yeah, never mind. It's explaining my point. Yeah, it's just to cover up my. Yeah, to have this picture on. No, I get it. Makes perfect sense and. So there's really. Good examples of uses of it where it's not replacing you, like, you know, even from a coding standpoint like we just talked about, like I'm sure there's really boring code. Do you know Richard Kadina? No, Richard. Kadina is a very smart guy. He worked for high end systems for a number of years, but now he goes around doing training for mostly electrical for our industry, for you know, for the events industry, theater, live events, etcetera. Very, very smart guy.
1:41:52 But, you know, he said that like in a lot of the things that he creates, he needs to create, you know, some very, very simple, basic lines of code. And those basic lines of code sometimes take them five or six hours to do. And it's for a very, very simple task. And he now uses, you know, he now uses AI and it's done in 10 minutes, and he gets his time back to do other things. Yeah, my guys are. Sometimes relying on the the AI for coding in specific blocks whenever it needs to be simplified, Yeah. OK.
1:42:34 Or else you know how coding works. OK, yeah, I'm not a coder myself, but you can get lost into your screen. If you're typing in line of commands for hours and hours, you're getting blurry face just like and it's not working. You don't know why. Sometimes it's like, where's my mistake? Copy paste. Hey, why do you have this double line over there? It's you've been struggling for hours in this freaking area. I got it right. Like in 10 seconds. Yeah, for research. For research, well, no. And if you think, you know, getting outside our industry, you think of things like cancer and and Alzheimer's and, you know, things that have been, we've spent billions of dollars and many, many 10s of years on it and we still don't have solutions.
1:43:20 I think AI is gonna really speed that kind of stuff up, and I'm excited we're using. It carefully, yeah even at IC events and or at DVOX, we're using it carefully yeah. And it's never doing 100% of the job. Never no. I. Agree with you. Not even closed. Yeah, so you know, even the. Grammar. I was referring to. Sometimes it's way too neat. I'm like, I don't even understand what it is, you know? It's like, that's not what I meant. I'll assume that I'll explain a. Real world one to you that we're currently working on, but it's not a secret really but freight quoting in our business because we're a marketplace is, is a very complicated task because somebody goes on an e-commerce site they want to buy something putting in put it in a shopping cart how much is it including shipping and taxes and everything OK, boom purchase. And when you're dealing with used live event equipment, it's almost impossible to do this because it's not a known, you know, you don't know the dimensions of a device because is it shipping in a road case?
1:44:23 Is it 1 device? Is it 4 devices? Are they shipping in dual Rd. cases, quad Rd. cases? Are they on a pallet? Everything is custom pretty much. The cool thing, there's some new AI tech out there that you can basically put have an image of something and based on what is around that image, it will give you the weight and dimensions of the image. And so you know, AI would know that this is an iPod case. So it would just give me dimensions and weight of an iPod case or Airpod case, Sorry. And but if you put a picture of a guitar and you want the weight and dimensions of the guitar, it's going to look at things around that guitar and it's going to go, OK, that's a man. He's probably about 6 feet tall.
1:45:11 He probably weighs about 180 lbs. The guitar is going to be 3 1/2 feet tall and it's going to weigh X. And so, you know, that's a technology that we're working with an AI company out of Europe right now on creating a, an estimating system for freight where it can look at a bunch of moving lights in Rd. Cases and estimate freight or estimate weight and dimensions close enough to where we can get an accurate freight quote instantly without having to cause anybody any delays or waiting or it's a powerful. Tool very powerful. So things like that you can't do, you know, without it. Like it's things that AI can do that other things can't do.
1:45:53 It's too time. Consuming or correct simple task? Yeah, correct. So that's where I get excited about AI, you know? And plus, the older I get and the busier I get, the lazier I get. I don't want to be doing simple, mundane things. And AI is really good at that kind of stuff. I love. AI too. I'm just cautious. I agree with you that's it yeah, I agree with you because right now you have you try to log into your bank account and you get this two factor identification all the time You don't have your cell phone in your hand and you don't have this text to code or whatever it is. So just wait for the AI to correct this up. We're gonna have 10 layers of security, so we're just like, OK, just use it. Well, that's my. This is also. Another area that AI scares the hell out of me is is breaching security systems. You know, there's AI because already you've got hackers out there who figure out ways into things quite quickly and they hack your bank account or they, you know, steal your identity or whatever they do.
1:46:49 AI is going to be able to do that much faster and a much higher level. Oh right, that's true. You know a much higher level AI is going to. Become a very efficient thief. But you have to. Ask the right thing to the AI as well to make it. That's it. Properly, that's. The whole, so you take an example where you got this brand new Wi-Fi equipment brand new out-of-the-box and nothing is configured. You plugged everything. You don't plug it and like configure all this shit enter. No way. It's not going to happen. I mean, you need to be an engineer just to ask the right thing. So that's where I'm thinking about bridging that huge gap is, yeah.
1:47:30 But I think there's a lot of things that it does really well right now that can be helpful for people. So just to ignore it or to like, you know, it's funny because I went to a lighting designer, very good friend of mine a few weeks ago. And I said we were just having a conversation. And I said, well, why don't you use AI? He said, I haven't got time to figure that shit out. And I said, do me a favor, go to this website and do this. Just tell it, give it a prompt that says I need an image that does blah, blah, blah. And he did it and he came back to me and he goes, holy shit, my world just changed. And next thing you know, so he has little pug dogs and and he's really into guns. Typical American, right? But he's really into guns.
1:48:13 And so next thing you know, he's posting on Instagram pictures of like, his two pugs carrying machine guns on on spaceships and stuff or riding on the backs of sharks with machine guns and stuff, Right. And I was just laughing. And he goes, it's your fault. You made me waste an entire day on this shit. And I said, no, I didn't tell you to do that. But yeah, so there's, there's some fun things. I mean, music. Oh yeah. Music. Is music is great too. Yeah, now. If I'm a music, you know, if I'm an author, a publisher, all of those things, I'm very worried because it's, it's insane how good some of the music creation stuff is right now. It's like. You know.
1:48:54 Like EDM you can, you can basically create music real time with these apps. Like DJs, they've got already DJ apps for AI where you can tell it what you want your set to be doing and when you want it to change and get a little more upbeat or whatever and it just creates it and it's all original music. Well, also. These apps that are in the market are released, such as Spotify that have integrated AI, Yeah, and are suggesting songs that I do really like because I didn't know the artists at all and just discovered plenty of music. That's cool, because you're in. You're in Montreal. All you listen to is Céline Dion and Michael Bublé. Right, Michael? Bublé and Céline Dion.
1:49:36 That's it. Is there something? Else so that's a good example though, because sometimes the difference with Spotify and ACD or you know, the old generation music was I was picking and choosing what I wanted to listen to. Now with Spotify, sometimes I'm facing a blank page. OK, what I would like to listen and I don't, I don't know what I would like to listen, but I wanna listen to music, right? So sometimes I just click on smart DJ and it's suggesting me something that I didn't know. It's like, wow, I just discovered this new band from Australia recently. I was like, well that's great. I know it's amazing, but then I do the same thing. Like I've, I'm all Apple. So for me, I've had Apple Music and iTunes forever. And so Apple, I never select anything. I always just click the red button that says Marcel's favorites.
1:50:23 Boom. OK. And I'm like, how does it know? Like I like all these songs. It's so good, you know, it's, it's fantastic. Well, Sebastian, I, I, I really enjoyed this talk. I love your tech. I'm, I'm very excited for you and for Divox and where it's going. Thanks. It's really cool. I'm gonna pay. Attention and follow it because I think I'm gonna see D box system installed here. D box system installed here cuz it's you'll. See it makes. A lot of sense it's. So easily integrated into an existing environment. Yeah. As well as a new environment. Yeah, it's I'm excited for. You I'm excited for. I just wanna. I wish I had lots.
1:51:03 Of money cuz I would just invest in your company today. Yeah, you should. You should, yeah. You should. Really. You should, yeah. That's fine, I'm optimistic. Too just you can, you can have a look at divox.com. Not saying more, that's our web page. So divox.com is gonna give you plenty of other things. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thanks for your time it. Was really cool.
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