Podcasts about Ise

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The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Technology tends to improve as it matures. That's certainly the case with LED displays marketed as being transparent. The first generations looked okay from the front, but the back sides were big metal grid arrays that often looked like hell. That's improved a lot with newer generations, but the technology now has competition in the form of displays that are embedded in foil or film. I was intrigued by some online posts recently from a Dutch company called COBstr, which is the sales and marketing front end of a Chinese manufacturer focused on displays that use Chip On Board technology. That's the COB part of the name. COBstr markets super-skinny displays that use the transparent material as the surface, either adhering to window glass, or laminated the material inside the glass.  The product has a foil layer the peels off and allows the display to be stuck to glass and then if needed, pulled off, rolled up and reused. I had a good chat with Marius van Bergen, the company's founder about the roots of the product, his Chinese manufacturing partner and the distinctions and benefits of COB versus other LED technologies. TRANSCRIPT Marius, thank you for joining me. Can you tell me what COBstr is all about? Marius van Bergen: Hello, Dave. Thank you for having me. COBstr, COB stands for chip-on-board. Now, chip-on-board technology has been around for a long time in the lighting industry. But my business partner is in China and was the first one who has been doing this for LED displays. So she's the one who's filed patents, and she made some mistakes, but she's a woman that I have a lot of respect for because it's tough in China to make it as a company without help from the state and when you have to fight the big dogs. But she's very impressive regarding technology, which is not my core business. I'm just a person who studied Chinese and who knows China a little bit. But we hooked up about 10 years ago, and we've been going to the ISE and trying to get a little bit more renowned, and the thing with COBstr is not very easy to do. The big dogs are Absen, Leyard, and LEDman, they're all trying, and we do a lot of R&D for some of the big boys because they don't really master the technology. But it is the only way, that's the way I interpret it anyway, it's the only way forward for the LED industry. It doesn't matter if you look at it from a sustainability point of view or if you look at it from an economic point of view, there's just no way around it because you skip an entire step in the production process because you don't have packages, which makes it a cheaper technology theoretically, I have to add theoretically, because if you are a big company and you can buy LED packages in bulk, then, of course, you have some price advantages.  So what's basically happening is with a chip on board, you're able to apply a lot more LED light emitters to a surface without having to do the packaging, and you're skipping an entire step and also speeding up the process. Is that an accurate way of describing it? Marius van Bergen: Yes, it is, and the package manufacturers, which are also usually very big operations, don't like us very much because if we don't need a package, we don't need their product. The big advantage and that's basically what our R&D has all been about, is that you reduce the number of components and the vulnerabilities within a display. So is your company kind of the sales front end for a Chinese LED manufacturer, or is it a partnership where you're co-developing something, and it's coming out of the Netherlands?  Marius van Bergen: Manufacturing is in China, so it's a business partnership where they concentrate on the Chinese markets where I'm a little bit involved as well because that's a different story, maybe I shouldn't get into that, but I basically start with marketing and business development in Europe. That's my main responsibility.  I got interested in this because I saw something on LinkedIn talking about LED and COB-LED on foil, and I thought, okay, this is interesting. There's a company in Germany, probably a couple of hours from you that has a foil-based product that is lower resolution, super lightweight, and so I saw this and thought, oh, are you reselling that or is this something different?  Marius van Bergen: We're not reselling that. This is our own product. It's a new product. We had our first sample back in 2019. I guess that's when COVID broke out, at ISE, we showed it. It was a prototype that we lit, but we didn't display any images on it. But we took advantage of COVID to really bear down on the R&D, and we have now a finished product that's finished and ready for mass production, and so it's hot off the press really because we introduced it at the Signs and LED Display exhibition in Shenzhen last week and we saw a couple of other players who were also getting into this area. I guess there were about five companies also doing LED foil, but from our point of view, a very different level. Because their foil was SMD based, and also no flip chip because they don't have the equipment, and without going into the technical details they have about 2000 nits brightness, and we had 7000 at the exhibition, and we could do much more. But at the exhibition, actually, we are very proud of the product, there were people with a luminescence meter who were measuring the brightness, and they said, oh, 7000 knits. That's pretty nice.  When you say foil, I've looked on the website, and when I think of foil, I think of shiny metallic material, but is it that or is it more of a film? Marius van Bergen: Film would be maybe a more accurate word because it's transparent. We can make it non-transparent also. But yeah, it is transparent, and that's one of the markets that we are looking at, obviously, because you can use it as a window display for the retail industry. How would you apply it to a window, would it be adhered or is it just hanging?  Marius van Bergen: We are looking at hanging also, but the original idea was adherence. It has a protective foil, and when you take off the foil, it adheres so it sticks to the glass, and we have great viewing angles. It looks pretty damn nice, if I may say so.  But the problem that we've encountered it now because we sold some to a store in New York, but as it turns out, there are regulations that you're not allowed to stick a foil like that to the window. So I think they have a regulation that it needs to be eight inches from the window. They don't have this regulation in China, and I'm sure it's not like that everywhere, those are some of the challenges you run against when you're working the market.  Why do they have that regulation?  Marius van Bergen:  I have no idea, but I'm sure we'll find out.  So if it is adhered to window glass or partition glass or something like that. I understand is that the transparency is gonna depend on the pixel pitch and the amount of LED in there, but what kind of transparency can you realise? Marius van Bergen: I have to admit, I don't know how they measure it, but we actually have two products. We have one with LED strips that are still visible and there's the more transparent product and the product without the strips, we claim, again, I don't know how we measure it, but 89% transparency, which is not bad. Can this work out outdoors, or is it a pure indoor product?  Marius van Bergen: We sell it as a semi-outdoor or indoor product, but we can make it outdoors as well. It just takes more protective measures. So it's a little bit more expensive if we make it for outdoor applications. So by semi, you mean it would be in like a sidewalk window or something like that, it's  protected, but it's intended for outdoor viewing.  Marius van Bergen: Yes, exactly, or public spaces.  What are the other benefits to it? Are there weight benefits or when you're pitching this, what are you saying are the key reasons you wanna take a look at this? Marius van Bergen: As you said yourself, it's very light so instead of carrying these LED cabinets, which weigh a lot, you can just walk around and just hang them in front of a window or have them on a roll and let them hang down. They're very thin. We're between one and one and a half millimeters, so it's extremely thin. It has no frame, which is another big advantage.  When you have a LED mesh, you have this frame that you have to install in front of a window. So all of that we do not have to do, and another advantage, again, that's what I mentioned before, is the sustainability component because sooner or later, everybody will have to switch to COB at least, that's the way I look at it because it's just too polluting to have this packaging industry go on, and it's a race to the bottom really because it's all about mini LED and micro LED and getting as small as you can, but it's still based on packages, and the package is just not necessary. It's less complicated, but it's not necessary.  So would you see a day when you would use micro LED as the light emitters, or COB is the way forward?  Marius van Bergen: We believe very strongly that COB is the way forward, but you can theoretically again because we don't have the purchasing power, but theoretically, you can do micro with a COB technology without a package. It's something called perpendicular stacking, which maybe doesn't mean a lot to people who are not into the technology, but it boils down to you the fact that you are able to go to a very fine pitch with COB, so without a package. So it's definitely possible to get into that area.  But I don't see micro LED getting very mature within, I don't know, five years or anything. It's just too expensive right now.  What would you be paying roughly at, whether it's in EU or USD, for a square foot of this material to put in something like a window? Marius van Bergen: I don't feel comfortable talking about pricing right now. We're talking to prospects, and we're having the discussions, but we will be selling it by a square meter, and it's not a cheap technology, let me put it that way. And the reason is that each LED chip also has its own IC driver so there is a cost attached to reaching that kind of brightness that we have.  But by having each IC driver like that, each light is addressable so you can control it, fine-tune it, and do whatever you need. Marius van Bergen: Yes, exactly. Are there physical limitations or dimensions to how you do this? Are they rolls? Are they are two meters wide or something like that? So if you want something that's fitting a six-meter area, you'd need three rolls side by side? Marius van Bergen: Yes. We could make them in length that is pretty undefined. We can make rolls for 20 meters, and we can connect them and go even longer, but the width for now, and that has to do with the equipment we have, is 32 centimeters, if I'm not mistaken. So you put the roll next to each other, and then you can build up a bigger one, and you can just cut it like, like you have LED strips at the at your local DIY store. You can cut the foil actually and make it fit for purpose, which is another really nice property of this LED foil or film if you want because you can make all kinds of shapes with it, and that makes it a very suitable product for creative projects.  Are you restricted to rectangles as the shapes or squares, or could you do something round? Marius van Bergen: You can do anything. You think of it, and you can basically do it because it's so flexible.  So you could conceivably cut a big round disc and put it on window glass, except in New York, and connect it through some sort of like super thin filament wiring or whatever? Marius van Bergen: Yes. It's not as if there are no limits, obviously, because you shouldn't cut the circuits that are crucial to the system. But basically, yes, you can do a lot of things in all kinds of shapes and forms.  What are the challenges you face in selling this? I would imagine a key challenge is that people don't understand that you can even do this, and also that perhaps what they've seen in terms of transparent film at trade shows, if they're pro AV people, is what companies like LG have, which are LED on film, but pretty coarse, so to speak, pixel pitch that you'd look at and go that's cool, but I'm not sure what I could actually do with that. Marius van Bergen: Yeah, and LG is one of these companies that, as far as I can understand it, they haven't managed to really market this thing maybe because of price, I don't know. They have a brightness of only 2000 nits, I think, and it's pretty coarse, as you said. We have a P10, a P8, and a P 6.67 now that we are selling in China. We're selling the first samples, I should say. But we can go down to 2.5, and we could probably go down even further but then, where's your transparency? Because that's what we are looking at, and when you're asking me about applications or potential clients, I'll give you an example. We're talking to a very nice Dutch company, it's called HoloConnect, and they make these holograms, and there are only three companies doing that. There's one in the United States, and there's one in Canada, if I'm not mistaken, and there's one in the Netherlands, and it's a very nice product, and they're thinking, if we use that film maybe we can do more than just show the hologram. You can actually show an NFT with a metaverse world or something like this. It's wherever your imagination takes you. But you can add this digital layer to the hologram to the box, which would be a very nice application. I've been paying attention to “transparent displays” for years, and when I see the mesh-based LEDs, I've thought those are getting better, they look really good from the front now, but when I go in behind them, they've improved, but they still look like a mesh or a grill and when I've seen most of the transparent LED on film products, they look really nice from the front, and when I look at them from the rear, the non-business end, it's reminiscent of the old printer ribbon cables, that sort of thing, where you see this plastic kind of long, horizontal or vertical stripes. What does your product look like from the nonilluminated side?  Marius van Bergen: The very honest answer, I have no idea. I'll explain why, because we've been focusing on introducing this product last week at the fair, that's the reason why I haven't got a sample yet. So we've been producing for the fair and our first distributors. We're building a distributor network is in China because, like I said, the factory's in China, and that's where our focus is for now.  T=hey promised me that I'd get my first sample this week so they'll send it my way this week and then I'll tell you what it looks like from the back, or I'll put it on the website so that you can see it. But I've seen videos, obviously, and it's not intrusive. It's not disturbing or painful for the eyes. It's very soothing because it's transparent, and the natural sunlight still comes into space.  Does all the light that is generated go out, or does some of it lead back into the rear view?  Marius van Bergen: From what I can tell from videos and pictures, it doesn't lead back into the room or the space.  What do you see as the market for this?  Marius van Bergen: It's pretty broad. We said retail industry, public spaces, the entertainment exhibition industry. The Christmas market is actually an interesting one because we have Christmas trees now with LED strips for the festivals, but you can do more than that if you have a transparent ribbon, that way you can show your Christmas bars or snowflakes or stuff like this, and the creative projects  Is this sort of thing that can be used on a temporary basis or if you adhere this to window glass, it's on that window glass and if you're getting it off, you're pulling it off and you're done with the thing, you can't apply it to another sheet of glass? Marius van Bergen: You can apply again. It's like a sticker but it's not like you take off the sticker and you're done with it. It's reusable. But again, one of the big advantages is it's light and it's very thin, so you can transport it back and forth. You can actually also make fixed installations, of course, and use it like a curtain maybe, or something that you pull up when you don't need it and you let down when you do need it.  So could this be a rental unit?  Marius van Bergen: Absolutely.  When you say you could transport it, could it actually be rolled up or do you put it on some sort of flat pieces of cardboard or whatever on both sides to protect it? Marius van Bergen: It has a protective foil that you remove when you use the film but it's rolled up. You can't fold it because when you go, you are 90 degrees, then you have a circuit problem.  So the transport costs of this versus traditional LED cabinets would, in theory, be substantially lower. Marius van Bergen: Substantially lower, and there's almost no installation once you have your content, and you have your setup, but you don't have all these cabinets to build up, which are heavy, clumsy, and not very practical. And now you just have a roll, you roll it up.  So the entertainment industry is also something that we think has potential for this product, especially with the brightness that we can achieve.  When you're talking to potential customers and partners in Europe, what are they interested in? Is it the transparency, the lightness, or the ability to put in windows?  Marius van Bergen: All of the above. The challenge, I think, is going to be to determine the right price for this product because, as I said, not the cheapest technology. It's COB, it has its own IC driver per LED chip, but y I think, for something like this, which people like to use the word disruptive, but, if you look at it and you have a bit of a vision, you can see this thing going into the consumer market even. I'm biased, obviously, and price-wise, it wouldn't be something that you can consider at this point, but we have our mass transfer system, so we can go down with prices pretty quickly once it gets traction in the market.  Are your plans to sell primarily in the EU or are you looking at North America and other markets as well?  Marius van Bergen: Yes, global. We're looking everywhere. The main focus right now is China. But Europe, the United States, Canada, you name it. We have a lot of countries that we look at. So we'll see where the market takes us.  And are you selling direct, or are you developing country-by-country partnerships or reseller partners? Marius van Bergen: We haven't ruled anything out, and in China, we'll be using distributors—just channel partners.  You mentioned that there are some other companies that have products as well that don't have the same level of brightness and so on. Do you consider those competitors, or are they going after a different part of the market? Marius van Bergen: Personally, I don't see them as competitors, but again, I'm biased because I have a very strong belief in the woman who's the brains behind this technology, and that's because I've been with her to ISE for a couple of years, and I know that all big players that everybody knows, they know this very small company, they know there's so much knowledge there but they're a bit afraid of letting us get on the radar. But I think it's going to happen, it's just a way forward.  As I explained, there's no way around COB. With everything going on in the world, whether you are a climate activist or climate denier sustainability, it's just from an economic point of view. You don't buy a package. You have a cheaper product and a better product at that. So I really believe that we have technology that has a bright future.  When you talk about the “green signage” aspect of this, are the benefits around energy savings, or is it as much about the manufacturing footprint that you don't have the same amount of material that you're required to produce a display? Marius van Bergen: It's both as well. It's not only the material, as I said, but we also have a strong R&D background, so it's all about reducing the number of components to get better heat dissipation and use less power.  The company, the Chinese side of this, are they in Beijing or Shanghai or Shenzhen or somewhere else? Marius van Bergen: Dongwang, next to Shenzhen. But the woman who started this at beginning of. 2000, she's from Sichuan. I don't know if you know where that is. But she started with this very small company, almost a sweatshop doing traditional modular displays, the top matrixes, and from there, she evolved and got this idea. She was working for a PCB company in Taiwan, and then she got this idea, what's this SMD all about? And then she started thinking about COB, and it's very interesting how she developed, and then she moved to Beijing, then she moved back to Shenzhen, and now we have a factory in Dongwang. It's not a very big factory. It's very clean. It's very nice, and yeah, we're very confident.  I assume part of her thinking, along with her interest in COB, is just simply that there are so many LED manufacturers in China, particularly addressing the domestic market, that if you're going to be successful, you somehow or others have to come up with some kind of differentiation, right? Marius van Bergen: Yes, very true, and again, I think maybe it's not the wise thing to say on the podcast, but I think maybe it's changing a little bit, but very much mission-driven. Like we want to educate the LED industry. Why are people making all these packages when it's not necessary? And so there is a drive on educating the industry and making it clear that COB is the way forward, and actually, COB is only a name but what we have now, we actually call it COB-IP because it's a chip-on-board integrated package. So it's actually a sealed assembly of a LED ship and an IC driver within one pixel. All right. If people want to know more about this, where can they find you online?  Marius van Bergen: Online, you can find us at COBstr.com, but you can ask me, and I'll be glad to share all the information.  All right. Marius, thank you very much for your time. Marius van Bergen: Dave, thank you very much for having me, it was a pleasure.

Come celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ABC daytime drama Port Charles in The Locher Room.Joining us to help celebrate are creator and Executive Producer Wendy Riche, Executive Producer Julie Hanan Carruthers, cast members Ise formerly known as Kiko Ellsworth (Jamal Woods), Jon Lindstrom (Dr. Kevin Collins), Julie Pinson (Dr. Eve Lambert) and Marie Wilson (Karen Wexler).Port Charles was a spin-off of ABC's General Hospital and made its television debut on June 1, 1997. The show ran for six years until October 3, 2003.Don't miss the chance to look back on Port Charles.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT If you've spent any time in bars and pubs - not me, but I've been told - there have always been signs of walls promoting beverage brands. They were neon, or backlit plastic, and they were there to perhaps be the last thing someone sees before a server asks, "What'll you have?" Imagine if you could do that instead with digital displays that were changeable and had the kinds of motion graphics or video that drew eyeballs and influenced decisions. That's what a New York-based company called Videri offers up. Very quietly, guided by a whale client it can't talk about publicly, Videri has almost 100,000 networked displays operating around the globe - driving brand awareness and delivering a consistent 30% sales lift, month to month, on promoted products. That means an ROI on the investment for the brands who put them in that's measured in months, not years. The big reasons why it works? It's a turnkey solution based on super-thin, super-light custom-manufactured all-in-one flat panels that a beverage brand's field staffers can install and activate in a matter of minutes. If they can hang a picture on a wall, they can put these in. I had a great chat with Wes Nicol, who came on as CEO about a year ago and is busily bringing Videri out of a somewhat stealthy period, and making some broader marketplace noise. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Wes, thank you for joining me. Can you give me the rundown on what Videri is all about?  Wes Nicol: Hey, Dave, thanks for having me. I am excited to be on the podcast. I've been a longtime listener, first-time interviewee. But yeah, the history of Videri, it's been around for about ten years, in 2013, we started with digital out-of-home, ruggedized products working with Outfront, which was CBS Outdoor at the time, and then subsequent to that, maybe a few years later, developed a series of thinner indoor displays, Videri Canvas that we built hand in hand actually with one of our large customers And then continue to expand that globally.  We're typically more of a white-label shop. You don't really hear much about vi I think when we talked before you mentioned, “I have never heard of you guys.” That was probably on purpose. We can talk about that later but we have a complete end-to-end solution: we build hardware, CMS & device management software, and I'm happy to get into the details.  I had heard vaguely of you in the past, I think one of the jobs that Videri was doing, you mentioned Outfront was on the MTA in New York?  Wes Nicol: Yeah, exactly. So anything that you see on the MTA is our product.  Oh, okay. Now, do you still do that sort of work, or was the move to these thin canvas displays something of a pivot for the company?  Wes Nicol: We're still doing that. We are still actively deploying right now at the MTA, and there's gonna be a refresh cycle that we're hoping to participate in. But I think strategically we want to become more of a software company and there's a lot of green space in the indoor product. As you know obviously in the industry, there's a lot of opportunity there. So that's kinda where we're focusing most of our efforts right now. You have been very quiet. I would say almost stealthy, but in the past year, you started to make some noise in the market, right? Wes Nicol: Yeah I'm new to the company, so I joined about a year ago… So you're the noisy guy?  Wes Nicol: Exactly, and I'm Canadian. So typically we're pretty humble folks, but it's funny. We were at the ISE show. I think we saw you there at your event, at the actual show itself, people are saying, “Hey, we've been trying to find you guys like. We've seen this product somewhere, we just didn't know who made it”, and there's nothing written on the actual display that actually says, Videri on it. You have to kinda pull it off the wall, look at some serial numbers and do some Googling to figure it out. And that's been great because some of our partners love that. They love the fact they got something really special and unique, and we're going to continue to do that kinda white-label approach. But when you see your list of the top display manufacturers in digital signage, we're nowhere near where I think we should be based on deployments, and that's cause we're not really being captured.  We're in a lot of cinema projects. We're in many of the top beverage brands obviously we're in QSRs, and there are tons of retailers that you probably wouldn't even realize that it has Videri.  I have this interesting story that I relate of my experience at DSE, going back to November, and being just like dead tired on my feet and some guy from a company called Videri asked if I could come to their hospitality suite at The Aria, and I didn't wanna go. I was just so tired, but it was right next to the hotel where I was staying, so I figured, okay, I'll go and I met him and we went up the elevator and then walked down a hallway that was, I swear, three miles long to the end unit in this hospitality suite and said hello to some people and they brought me over to the product and it was three skinny monitors on a buffet or whatever you wanna call the thing, and I was thinking to myself, really, I did all this to see some skinny desktop monitors and I thought, please god, get me out of here. But then your guy started to explain to me what was going on and I thought, oh, wait a minute. This is actually interesting and how I've since described it to others is it does a bunch of things, you can explain all that.  But what I said was, if you think about bars and restaurants that you've been in that had a display on a wall for a beer brand or some other beverage brand and that used to be neon and then it became backlit plastic, printed out plastic. Now it's digital, it's skinny, it's changeable, and it can go up in a matter of minutes and be fully managed on a network and affordable and there's an ROI out of it.  Is that kind of a fair description of what you're up to? Wes Nicol: Yeah, absolutely. So that was the kind of the need of this large customer, which shall remain nameless, that worked with us, and the idea was like, you've gotta build something that's gonna fit nicely into a bar, a restaurant that's gonna fit in the environment. There are weird wall situations. It's gotta be something that can fit in. Just like you're hanging a picture effectively, and it's gotta be easy to deploy, being like the sales rep that is working with that bar, the restaurant has to be able to be one that actually installs it. You don't need a third-party installer to come in, roll a truck out and do it.  Cause that's $150 an hour or something, right?  Wes Nicol: Exactly. Plus there are all the costs, so these people are already going there. They're dropping off the beverages, they're dropping off merchandise, they're talking to their clients. They have to be able to deploy this in 15 minutes, that was the requirement, and so that spurred a whole bunch of things and thinking about how that is being used in that environment. It's not a tv, right? So part of the importance of this is that we're able to build this cause of what it doesn't have, right? So there's no need for a tuner, no need for speakers, no need for HDMI cables. We have media players embedded inside, a SOC running Android, and they're really thin power cables because we're not actually consuming a ton of power, and we need to be able to store a certain amount of content locally that is connected though it can be modified and centrally managed. And so the way that works for the restaurant or bar owner is they can have customized cocktail lists, they can do menu boards that will benefit them, but the beverage brand in this case can showcase their products and maybe include that in a cocktail or do some branding exercises and that can all be centralized and managed. This particular brand which shall remain nameless manages, I think over 40,000 locations globally in 80-something countries now with one person managing content with two interns, and they're managing content globally, and part of that is as part of the installation, obviously, the sales rep is able to just screw it into the wall, there are two screws that you pop it on, plug it in and then they use this app to connect to the WiFi and then connect the network, and effectively they walk away, but they can, with the bar owner in this particular example, customize that content, do some stuff, and so the way we've had to create our CMS platform and device management platform, Is to enable hierarchy of permissions and it maps into this particular customer's CRM system. I think you're using SAP so if that rep is no longer part of the company, they lose their permissions to access those displays. But they can only access these 10 locations and they can work and the bar owner says, Hey, I wanna change this content. I wanna manage this or do something different. That rep can manage that. But the global programs, the programmatic marketing, it's all done centrally from the headquarters, and so by building this product, we were able to then see other benefits, right?  “Oh wow. It's really thin, it looks beautiful, that's an advantage for events”, and so there's been countless sort of offshoots from building this core product.  And was it a case of the European beverage brand, I know we're dancing around this because you wanna make sure you're not doing something that's going to upset an apple cart, were they already doing screens in these kinds of environments and thinking this is too challenging, we need something different. Can you help?  Or were you already working with them and they said, this is a start, but we need to work with you to fine-tune something that really suits our needs? Wes Nicol: This particular brand has always been very innovative. They've always been pushing the envelope in terms of on-premise marketing. When you're consuming products on the premise, you've got, as you mentioned, like kinda the neon signs, those types of things. That's been kinda standard. They are always the first ones, and so they were testing different digital signage options and they were never really getting what they're looking for, and then they said, we kinda gotta build it ourselves, and luckily through the initial relationship the connection was made and we started building this and testing it and they said, ok, we'll run a pilot, and we'll see what it does. They ran it in a number of locations. Over a period of time, they said, this has to be a one-year ROI or less. That was like the requirements of the pilot.  They significantly busted through that. It was a lot quicker, and they've seen a 30% increase consistently over four years and tens of thousands of displays consistently driving that because when you're in that location, when you're in that bar, you don't go to a bar thinking, Hey, I want a gin and tonic. Yeah. You're going in there I wanna go for a drink with some friends, right? And oh, what are we gonna have? What do you have here? What's on the menu? Oh, that, okay, great. I'll order that, and so it's kinda that power of influencing people subtly in the background. We're not like a big TV that's showing a sports game, right? We're something that's in there as part of the environment that's. So it was built for that purpose, for that kinda subtle influence of that decision at the point of sale and the deployment, in terms of the requirements of the hardware, they weren't happy with buying TVs. Like when I came to the company a year ago, I said, hey, TVs are a lot cheaper. We should just make TVs, and they're like, absolutely not. We've built this for a reason, and so that really kinda made me understand the product a lot better. So when you say 30%, that's a 30% lift on sales of that item in that venue? Wes Nicol: Yes. Consistently, Wow, month over month. So that would pay for itself in I don't know, six weeks or something, right? Wes Nicol: It depends on the product and we've seen in other environments, like in a retail store, get a return on investment in two weeks, it's crazy. And that's the thing I think about this whole industry. I'm coming from a different industry before, but coming into it, realizing like everyone I talk to about my job here at Videri goes wow, never thought of that. We could totally use that in my industry. And people from all different spaces, and I feel that in this market, there's such a green field opportunity. There's been the traditional stuff, QSR that's been done, but there are so many different areas that I see this potentially going into and when you see these kinds of impacts, like if you're at the point of sale and the customer doesn't really know what to get, think cannabis and others, there's a whole bunch of new industries that you just need a bit of guidance, right? I don't know what I'm coming here to buy, but I want something, and just being able to explain to that customer in a digital way. We have the tools now. We didn't have them before, and yeah, it's really exciting.  I suspect that the kind of turnkey element of it is also very attractive in that if you want to do something in, let's say a bar, you're gonna have to buy a display, buy a media playout device, or maybe there's SOC on it, but you're gonna have to buy them out. There's a whole bunch of parts involved, and then you've gotta identify software that you're gonna work with. Is it compliant? On and on. So it can become complicated and expensive quickly, and the end users just say, you know what? Maybe later, but not right now. And they're just selling the dream, so to speak, as opposed to you, because you've got this client and some other clients who can actually say 30% consistent lift month on month, it's like holy shit, where do I sign?  Wes Nicol: Yeah, exactly. Even as you were mentioning, I'm thinking about my TV in my apartment here in New York. I hung it up and I screwed it up a million times, right? And it's heavy, and you're trying to hold it up against the wall. These things are super lightweight. We stripped out everything, right? It's just really down to the bare bones, but it does what you're looking for it to do, and so you're absolutely right. The idea is a very simple consumer-like experience in terms of out of the box, installation. We're talking about a simple iOS app and you've gotta connect to the cloud and then you can manage that through the console, and we're just about to launch a whole new refresh of the platform that is like super user-friendly that will make that possible, and I'm not able to announce a big partner that we're launching other than this beverage brand that's gonna make this a lot more accessible to the average SMB taking advantage of those key features.  Because you worked pretty closely and continued to work pretty closely with us particular beverage brand, did that restrict who else you could work with? Wes Nicol: They frowned upon us going with their competitors directly. But not necessarily, no. There's no kinda exclusivity there. But they are pushing to build a product specifically for them and they have got some unique features that they put in that we can't use with others, but those are software features, so no, we're open, we can work with others.  Does it become a challenge in the venues themselves where they say we've already got these Videri screens for this beverage brand, we're tapped out, we don't have more wall space, or we don't want competing ones here, this is good enough?  Wes Nicol: Yeah, that's the genius of this idea. It probably wasn't even Videri's idea to go and do this, but it was this beverage brand's idea like, hey, this is a bit of a land grab, right? There's only so much real estate in these locations, and if we can own that space it's a win-win for the bar, restaurant, and brand but if we can go and get out there, and they have an aggressive plan to expand then they own that space kind of indefinitely since these things last for a while.  So that's one of the models we're looking at where the brand is being showcased in a third-party location and the brand owns the display and that's unique and I think it's gonna continue to play out in a few different areas. The other one we're looking at, and we're starting to see some real interest in that, is that the actual retailer owns the display and they have a closed network where they are already getting the brands to spend money on merchandising in the stores. Think about a Telco that's launching a new Samsung Galaxy phone that is 23 or 25 or 57, whatever version it's now, and they wanna buy space in that retail location, they can actually use these displays to, number one, pay for themselves immediately, but also be revenue generating for merchandising in that closed network. I'm not talking about connecting to an exchange or anything, I'm talking about a private closed network and we've seen a lot of it.  It's just endemic advertising.  Wes Nicol: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think wireless retailers are like the poster child for that. It is perfect because there are always new products and there are always new plans and features and everything else and the compliance issues of having the right posters up at the right time and all that are massive in that kind of environment, and if you could just all do it digitally, that would be great, but historically retailers tend to be very cheap, would be the impolite term for it, they don't want to spend the money on that infrastructure, they'd rather have the brand come in and do that.  Are you seeing that shifting?  Wes Nicol: No. Retailers are under a ton of pressure, you know, 80% of the sales that happen in the US are actually in brick-and-mortar. I didn't realize it was that high, so they're under pressure. But I think the idea is that we have to find a way to displace ourselves. So you've gotta figure out an OPEX model, or maybe it's a three-year term or something like that, and then you charge them monthly, but ok, it's gonna cost you X, but you're gonna make 3X back in a month, let's do a trial for free for three months, see what happens, and they say, wow, like this is actually gonna be generating money from your marketing as opposed to, it's not gonna be a cost set, it's actually gonna be positive. It can show the results immediately.  So part of the issue for us is like we really need to be able to report that and tell that and really ideally getting access to the point of sale information and say, Hey, like when we've displayed this, we put this out there. We've been running these particular promotions, we've been focusing on X sneaker brand, and that sneaker brand increased dramatically and increased margins at this location by X and Y and really making it affordable and that's the whole thing. I think in terms of the adoption of digital signage. You just have to make it easy to deploy, whether it's a partner that does it or it's in-house, if you're able to make that happen, like this beverage brand, and I think others are able to do it, you still can have a partner come in and it's inexpensive for them as well to kinda just deploy and manage. And so it has to be I think on a monthly basis and it has to drive that business return on investment, very quickly.  If you pay upfront for the hardware, these displays are expensive cause you're buying the hardware, that's when you're in the year ROI but if you're saying, I'm gonna advertise this over three years and it's monthly, and we know that we're seeing the return quickly, usually in month two or three you'll find that it's actually paying for itself.  Yeah. I wrote recently just the other day actually about a company that was starting down the path of AV as a service, the very high-end IT services and everything else related to that, and you're starting to hear about deals that kind of roll in all the costs of a digital sign network into just like a subscription, a monthly fee, to do everything, not just the software, the hardware, the whole nine yards. Is that something that you are doing now or looking at?  Wes Nicol: Absolutely, and we have partners that have been doing this for a long time. Here in the US, Velocity Managed Services they're one of our partners. Oh yeah. Out of Dayton or Toledo, or something like that? Wes Nicol: Yeah, and they provide a monthly all-in package. They've been doing a lot of stuff with cinemas and other brands. I don't know if I can mention the brands. I'm just going to be really careful. But yeah, so that's already provided by them and they can also do a la carte: Do you want to have content management? Do you wanna have content development? We've got all the different services. They even do the installation as part of the monthly, so instead of paying upfront for installation, you can do it over a period of time. I think that's a good model. I think that you can see more and more of that.  Yeah, because not every end-user client is going to have field reps bringing flats of drinks or whatever into a venue every three days or whatever it may be. With other ones, you're going to have to have some sort of an install crew, even if the labor costs are relatively low because it's quick. Wes Nicol: Absolutely, and many companies don't want to deal with that, right? They just say just give me a turnkey solution. I want a partner to manage this for me, I'll pay for it, and that's completely reasonable because the business case justifies it. You guys provided the screens at my mixer in Barcelona and we had multiple screens with content cascading over multiple screens, shifting back and forth. So there were many matrixes of rectangles and squares and so on. You could do interesting stuff like that. But what we've been talking about mostly till now has been with what sounds like single displays that would go up and replace a backlit display or backlit printed signs that might have been there in the past. Are you doing much in the way of these multiple displays? Wes Nicol: Yeah, that's a whole other space, right? And this product is fantastic because of it, the name Videri means ‘to be seen' and it's an interesting play on words in terms of, like, how do you want to be seen? How do you want your brand to be seen if you're at an event, if you're launching a new product, how do you want that to be seen? You want an elegant, beautiful display, but you also would love to see an array of displays that's unique and different, right? You can do a wall, an LED wall, that's one thing but if you want a unique layout that's like Eye Catching, we built this orchestration software that really enables you to do that automatically. So you can pinch and zoom the entire video, and if you're able to see the screen behind me right now, and I know we're just on audio, but I have videos running across a number of displays in the back wall of my office that just automatically happens. So when you're looking at events, activations, and others, unfortunately, a lot of our stuff we can't really share. We have some hidden places that I can share with certain customers, but yeah, so it could be like, you're launching a new car, or you're doing a new whiskey brand or trade shows. That's a huge opportunity for us. People didn't realize this existed, and since we've come out in the last few months here, we're getting tons of inbound requests, and we're going to an event in Kentucky that's a booth-building event. So Booth builders are looking at this product, saying, this is super light, I can hang this anywhere. I don't need special reinforcement. It's very thin, and then I can do these mosaics, and we have a lot of examples of doing an entire huge stand of 50-60 displays, all orchestrated content and it's kind of a unique way, and we've done some studies on that, and it really draws your attention because firstly it's unique, but we purposely put gaps in between the displays by the way, that's what we've learned as a best practice, at least an inch or two in between. So then your mind is drawn to it like you're trying to fill in the gaps and it just draws your attention more. So that's been kind of like one of the key best practices in terms of how we arrange these displays.  It's interesting because the mantra in digital signage for 25 years has been to try to get to seamless and not have gaps or bezzles or anything else, but you're saying that visually it works the other way.  Wes Nicol: Yeah, just to be unique, and to catch the eye. Like we're an LED wall, and the LED walls are fantastic, right? They're really cool for certain things, but we have a unique product that lets you stand out, do something different and draw people's attention because you can do things that you couldn't otherwise do.  Are you constrained by the creativity of that? If a creative person is listening to this, are they starting to think, okay, what does this file look like? What am I doing that's different? Do I have to design something very custom? Or is it just a file, and it'll run on here? Wes Nicol: It all comes down to actually how you mount the displays. You've got three ways to do it. It has to be a square, portrait, or landscape, right? And you can't have some weird triangle thing going on with displays because it looks kind of weird.  But yeah, in our creative studio platform, it shows like certain content will render well in that aspect ratio, and so if we work with you on an event and you're saying, okay, we've got this wall that we're going to be working with, we can say, okay, we can do a couple of portraits, we can do landscape, we can do whatever, and then the content has to match up to that. But generally, all the major formats of video, and then you can go back to still images, to video. We can schedule all and manage all the different slots. So if it's an interesting-looking matrix,, if you step back and look at it, you're thinking in terms of it being a 16:9 rectangle as the overall canvas, even though it might not fill all of it or a square, or whatever. Wes Nicol: Exactly.  Okay. So you've mentioned partners a few times. Are you mostly selling through partners, or do you sell direct, or a little bit of both? Wes Nicol: This is kind of a miss, I think, over the company over the years is we haven't really set this up properly, and we're fixing that. But we have a lot of direct customers, and then we have a very small handful of resellers, a couple in the US and one in Israel. Having gone to this ISE show in Barcelona, realizing people want the product in Poland, they want the product in Spain, they want the product in the Middle East. So we set up a partner program that we just launched two or three weeks ago. We're getting resellers and distributors that will give us the products in the country throughout EMEA. That's like a big push right now. So the product can be sourced there.  In the past, you'd have to get a shipment from New York and it would take forever to reach Saudi Arabia. Now we're gonna have a local presence with local distributors. So we're definitely actively signing up a ton of resellers and partners. There's been a ton of demand at the show, I think I mentioned that people were just like, wow. where have you guys been? I've seen this. I'm from South Africa, I've been trying to find this product for years and no one would tell me where they got it. So that's all that's changing now, and we're really actively recruiting partners.  You guys did the reference design, I assume working with your big client or clients, is the manufacturing done in China or somewhere in Asia?  Wes Nicol: That's correct, done in China. We do all the design work. Our New York office is the sales and marketing, and finance. But we have all of our engineering is done in Canada, based in Montreal. So we have hardware and software engineering up there. So we design, we got mechanical engineering, we deal with radio stuff, and like a whole bunch of designing everything from the display. We're actually building some other unique things I'll talk about maybe a future podcast that is taking advantage of some of the skill sets up in Canada. But yeah, all that stuff gets designed, and we work for the entire process. We're launching a whole series of products right now, and it's QAd in Canada and then it goes back to the manufacturers in China.  Would that just be an evolution of what you already have or distinct?  Wes Nicol: It's an evolution with some interesting new twists to it.  Like what? Wes Nicol: We can talk about it when you invite me back to get back on this show.  Now, what about a large retailer that's already working with Brand X CMS software company. Can you integrate with them, or do they have to be like parallel activities that don't cross one another?  Wes Nicol: We're completely open. We just had a big meeting about that. We're working with some other partners around integrating their CMS platforms. We've got killer device management. So I think our role, when we're working with other partners, we want to be able to manage the provisioning and, making sure the device has the right software, we're able to get a lot of really good insights in terms of CPU performance, memory, WiFi signal, temperature, all that stuff. We would continue to play that role, but we definitely integrate with any other CMS platform.  When you were at the show, we were sitting across from Appspace, and we went, hey, can we run your Android APK on this? And within 15 minutes, we had Appspace running on our displays at the booth in Barcelona. There are some gotchas to this. We have to do a little bit of modification, but it's actually quite easy for us to start running some other CMS platforms. Does that cannibalize your revenue?  Wes Nicol: I don't know if you have my history, but I was at Blackberry, and we were talking about the fact that do we just stay focused on the hardware or do we open up our platform? And you remember Blackberry Messenger, and then they kept that unique to Blackberry because they thought that would help sell hardware, and you saw where that went.  So I understand that we need to work with other partners. We have to be an open platform. We were talking about a potential partner of ours that's got I think a million displays that they're managing, we're not going to rip out existing deployments, right? We want to play nicely. Maybe they want our display. I see our device management platform being something that could be really valuable, and we'll take a small piece for that, and I think that's reasonable.  You mentioned that you're in 40,000 locations with this particular client. What's the overall footprint if you can tell me? Wes Nicol: With all our install base? We're around the six-figure number, but I can't say exactly.  Okay. So north of a hundred thousand? Wes Nicol: In that kind of range, yeah. Wow. That's a pretty big footprint for a company that very few people have heard of. Wes Nicol: Yeah, I know. I have to get that fixed.  It's working.  Wes Nicol: Yeah, it is. But I think there's just so much more potential and we need to make people aware of this. The structure of the company. Are you privately held or public?  Wes Nicol: We're privately owned, primarily by a family office here in New York. Oh, wow, and you're able to just grow organically?  Wes Nicol: Yeah, for now, yeah. I mean there could be some potential acquisitions later on. But yeah, without going into too much detail, we completely revamped our whole software platform and refreshed our hardware platform, and invested in marketing. So there's a lot of stuff going on right now that we're just focused on kind of coming back out into the market. Once that plays out, then there could be some other things we can focus on. For now, we've got our hands very full.  I appreciate you taking half an hour for me. Wes Nicol: Thank you. It's great chatting with you and nice meeting you there in Barcelona, and excited to hopefully get back on here sometime. I need some more excuses to talk to you again.  Absolutely. Thanks again, Wes.

Mokuhanga is a lot of things. It is a meditative process even at its most chaotic. And a lot like meditation, where you need patience, calm, and to breathe, it is a craft that pushes you to be your best.  I speak with mokuhanga printmaker and author Faith Stone on this episode of The Unfinished Print. Faith's current work is to preserve the Buddha woodblock, a once-thriving tradition within mokuhanga, to preserve it for years to come.  Faith speaks with me about her introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Thangka painting, the history of these beautiful images, her process, tools and materials. She also discusses experimentation, her teachers within her life, and what inspiration means to her.  Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own mokuhanga work on Instagram @andrezadoroznyprints or email me at theunfinishedprint@gmail.com  Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase. Artists works follow after the note. Pieces are mokuhanga unless otherwise noted. Faith Stone - website, Instagram Thangka paintings - known as “sacred paintings,” originated from Tibet. They are commissioned for various reasons, some for meditation, prosperity, merit, etc. Depending on the commission, thangka paintings use multiple pigments and imagery. Peaceful or ferocious deities and mandalas can be pictured.  Rudi's Bakery - established in Boulder, Colorado, in 1976, this once mom-and-pop shop bakery serves organic and gluten-free baked goods around the United States.  Celestial Seasonings - is an American tea company based in Boulder, Colorado. It started in 1969.  Colorado - established by settlers in 1876 but initially inhabited by many Native American peoples, such as the Cheyenne, Pueblo, Ute, Comanche, and Apache. The state is known for the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado Eastern Plains. For more information about Colorado, check out its tourist and visitor info here.  Zoo New England - comprises both the Franklin Park Zoo and the Stone Zoo. Founded in 1912, the FPZ is on 72 acres of land in Franklin Park, Boston. The Stone Zoo is 26 acres near the Spot Pond reservoir and located in Stoneham, Massachusetts, about 12 miles (19km) away from each other. More info found here.  Albert Rudolph (Swami Rudrinanda) [1928-1973] - was a spiritual teacher and yogi originallty from New York City.  Pointillism - is a technique in painting conceived by Georges Paul Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac (1863-1935), where small compounded dabs of colour create an image. More info from Sotheby's, here.  Paul Signac - Portrait Of Félix Fénéon 1890, oil on canvas Shiva - is one of the principal deities of Hinduism, which creates, protects, and transforms the universe. More info can be found here. Ganesh - in Hinduism, Ganesh is one of Shiva's offspring. Ganesh is a benevolent deity said to remove obstacles in your life, both spiritually and materially. More info can be found, here. Durga - is, in Hinduism, the mother protector of the universe and a warrior goddess. Depicted with eight hands in the form of a mudra, Durga holds eight weapons. More info can be found, here.  Waves On The Turquoise Lake - was an art exhibition at The University of Colorado at the Boulder Art Museum in 2006. It exhibited Tibetan artists from Tibet and in exile from around the world. Karma Phuntsok - is a contemporary Tibetan artist who lives and works in Australia. His work is his take on Buddhist art and history. More info can be found on his website, here.   Van Buddha - painting El Dorado Canyon State Park - was established in 1978 and is located near Boulder, Colorado. It is 885 acres known for hiking, rock climbing, and mountain biking.  Tara - is one of the most powerful deities in the Buddhist pantheon. Some Buddhist traditions see her as a guide, as a bodhisattva, or as a philosophy of living. Find more info, here. Faith Stone - 22" x 28" Mount Wai'ale'ale - is a volcano on the island of Kaua'i, Hawai'i. The mountain is 5,148 ft. It is one of the rainiest on the planet, with 460 inches of rain annually. Shakti - has many meanings, such as goddess energy, death and life, and the natural elements of the universe. The Aisa Society has an excellent article for a detailed description of Shakti, here. Rama -  is an important deity in Hinduism, and is the seventh avatar of Vishnu.  Shoichi Kitamura - is a woodblock carver and printmaker and has been involved in MI Lab through demonstrations. More info can be found, here.  Kyoto Senbon Torii (2021) Hiroki Morinoue - is a mokuhanga printmaker and artist living in Holualoa, Big Island, Hawai'i. He is a co-founding member of the Holualoa Foundation For Arts & Culture, the establishment of the Donkey Mill Art Center and Studio 7 Fine Arts. Iceberg Cube (2016) Anderson Ranch Arts Center - located in Snowmass, Colorado- was established in 1966 by Paul Solder, who worked in Japanese ceramics called raku. Today it is an international Arts Center with artist-in-residence programs, visiting artists, a print shop, wood turning, master classes and more. Information can be found here.  Information can be found, here.  Gotō Hidehiko (b.1953) - is a mokuhanga printmaker and tool maker based in Japan. He makes and teaches seminars about the construction of the mokuhanga tool, the baren.  Stone Window -20-3/4" x 17" April Vollmer - is an established artist who works predominantly in mokuhanga. Her book Japanese Woodblock Print Workshop is one of the most authoritative books on the subject and has influenced many mokuhanga artists.  Dark Light (2015) 16.5" x 13.5" MI Lab - is a mokuhanga residency located in Kawaguchi-ko, near Mount Fuji. More info can be found, here.  Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design - located in Denver, Colorado and was founded by Philip J. Steele in 1963. It is an art school with many different programs and subjects in the arts. You can find more information here.  Mayumi Oda - is a Buddhist teacher and artist who works and lives in Hawai'i. Her work has travelled the world. Mayumi is also an environmental activist and continues to live and work at Ginger Hill Farm, an eco-retreat on the Big Island of Hawai'i. More information about Mayumi Oda's work can be found here. Storyville II - silkscreen, 24.6" x 33.9" Jing Jing Tsong - is an American illustrator of books. She is also a printmaker in lithography and monoprints. You can find her work on her website, here.  Munakata Shikō (志功棟方) - (1903-1975) arguably one of the most famous modern printmakers; Shikō is renowned for his prints of women, animals, the supernatural and Buddhist deities. He made his prints with an esoteric fervour where his philosophies about mokuhanga were just as interesting as his print work.  Hanami no Saku (Tanizaki Utauta Nangasaku - 1956) Bodhisattva - a person who has achieved enlightenment through spiritual practice, whether meditation or through good deeds. The word "bodhisattva" can are found in Indian Buddhism and its associated traditions, as representing the Buddha and his transformations. In the Mahanaya tradition of Buddhism, a bodhisattva desires enlightenment as a buddha.  kozo paper -  is paper made from mulberry bark and is commonly used in woodblock printmaking. Manjushuri - is the bodhisattva of wisom and is associated with the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism.      Faith Stone - 22" x 28"   Vajrakilaya - is a wrathful deity in Tibetan Buddhism who embodies the enlightenment of all Buddhas. Commonly described as a deity with three faces, all with a crown of skulls, with six arms carrying various ritual implements in Tibetan Buddhism.  Cow Rinpoche -  is a painting by Karma Phutsok. This particular series of paintings shows animals in exhalted positions on a lotus. They are depicted like a traditional thangka painting.  Dakini As Art -  is an online art gallery which sells and distributes Buddhist art throughout the world. More info can be found on their website, here. Lakshmi - is a goddess in the Hindu pantheon of deities and is the goddess of wealth and prosperity, sitting on the lotus throne.  Kehinde Wiley -  is a portrait artist based in New York City. His work focuses on fusing the past and the present while creating a dialgoue about power, gender, race and reimagining the past. More information can be found on his website here.  Portrait Of A Young Gentleman (2021) oil on linen and canvas LaToya Hobbs -  is a painter and printmaker based in Baltimore, Maryland. She explores relief printmaking and painting together in her works. Her topics deal with the Black female body and stereotypes. More information can be found on LaToya's website here. Nina's Gaze  - relief, ink and acrylic on wood (2019) 20" x 16" hangintō sizes - the hangitō is a stylized Japanese mokuhanga tool. It is the primary tool in mokuhanga and is used in cutting lines and for colour blocks. It comes in various sizes depending on your ability and the technique. The lower number on the handle signifies the blade's thinness, therefore, the experience of the carver.  kentō - is the registration system used by printmakers in order to line up the colour woodblocks with your key block, or outline block, carved first.   McClains Woodblock Print Supply Co.  - based in Portland, Oregon, McClain's is the go-to supplier of woodblock print tools in the United States. Their website can be found here. The Unfinished Print interview with Daniel Jasa of McClain's can be found here. floating kentō - is a removable registration system attached to the block when printing. As the kentō isn't affixed to the block, blotting and immaculate borders are positives of this registration method. It is an "L" shape.  baren - is a Japanese word to describe a flat, round-shaped disc, predominantly used in creating Japanese woodblock prints. It is traditionally made of a cord of various types and a bamboo sheath, although baren have many variations.  urauchi - is a way of backing Japanese washi paper to the back of works on paper. This process is used in bookbinding, scrolls and can be used in mokuhanga.  Ozu Washi - is a paper store located in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. website, Instagram alum -is a binder used in paper mounting, fabric dyeing, household items such as fire extinguishers, and baking powder. It is also used in size for washi to hold pigments better in your works.  Tetsuo Sayama - was an instructor at MI Lab until his passing in 2019. He worked closely with students, was a scholar of Japanese printmaking history, and left an impression on many who got to know him.    Washi Arts is an online brick-and-mortar paper store in Blaine, Washington, USA. They sell Japanese papers for crafts, bookbinding, mokuhanga, and other artistic media. More info can be found on their website here.    Shin-Torinoko paper - is a mass produced, machine made Japanese paper that is relatively inexpensive. It comes in various weights and colours. More info can be found, here.    kitakata - is a specific type of washi made of Philippine gampi, and sulphite pulp. For bookbinding, and mokuhanga and other types of printmaking.  More info, here.    Saraswati -  is the Hindu goddess of knowldedge and dispells ignorance.    monoprint - is a type of relief print which uses metal or glass, even wood. The final outcome is one good print.   Grumbacher - is an art supply company started by Max Grumbacher in 1905  in New York City. It is now owned and operated by Chartpak Inc. More info, here.   Winsor & Newton - is a British artist supply company, started in 1832,  which sells artist materials such as pigments, brushes, paper, etc. More info can be found, here.    M. Graham & Co. - is a company founded in the late 1990's which provides many different types of pigments for all kinds of artists. More info can be found, here.   Da Vinci Paint Co. - was founded in 1975 in Orange County, California. They make an assortment of watercolours, oils, heavy-body and fluid acryl, and gouache. More info here.   Tōsai Pigment Paste - is a brand of pigments manufactured by Holbein, Japan. They were conceived by mokuhanga printmaker Richard Steiner. Tōsai is the name given to Richard by his teacher. Richard's invteriew with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.   Roslyn Kean - is an Australian printmaker who makes her ball bearing baren called the Kean Ball Bearing Baren. The KBB baren comes in two sizes and are lighter than the yuki baren or other ball-bearing barens. Roslyn's baren are made of high-grade plastic. For more information about Roslyn, her work, and baren can be found, here.     Defining The Edge 1 - 70 x 50 cm   sumi - is a rich black stick or liquid used by artists, calligraphers, and traditional Japanese horimono tattoo artists. Sumi is made from the soot of burnt lamp oil. Sumi is used predominantly in key blocks in traditional mokuhanga and to mix pigments. Pigment Tōkyō conducts a great interview with their chief of pigments, Kei Iwaizumi, about sumi ink, here.   tapa cloth - is a designed barkcloth found throughout the islands of the South Pacific, French Polynesia, New Zealand, and Hawai'i, where it is called kapa. Kapa is made slightly differently than tapa; different shapes are used for a more robust design.    Japanese book-binding - in Japan, the binding of books began with scroll books based on the Chinese method. Other binding methods evolved, such as flutter books (sempūyō) and butterfly books (detchōsō). By the Edo Period (1603-1868) and with the relative peace of the period, washi paper was produced steadily, creating a demand for books. Tale of Genji and Tales of Ise were published in this form for the first time. *   shallow carving -  is a way to add dimension and texture to a woodblock. Various sizes of u gouges work well. It can make beautiful shades of colour within your work.    Maile Andrade - is a mixed media artist who has focused on the Hawai'ian kapa process of weaving mentioned above. Kapa, made with mulberry bark, was used for clothing and blankets in Hawai'i. Maile uses kapa in various ways in her 2019 exhibit at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, here     Moana (Ocean) - 30.4 x 30.4 cm   mokuhanga brushes - come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Smaller brushes (surikomebake) have long handles and are numbered regarding bristle size, and are used for various sizes of colour blocks. Flat back brushes (marubake), are like a shoe brush and are for wider areas for printing. They also come in various numbered sizes. Brushes are traditionally made of horsehair from the horse's tail, although the smaller surikomebake are made of deer hair. You can find mokuhanga brushes most anywhere today such as McClains, Terry McKenna, Michihamono, Jackson's Art Supplies, and many other places.    sharpening stones - these stones come in a variety of grits, colours, and sizes. Some stones are natural or composite. They vary in price from the ridiculously expensive to the more affordable. Generally, for your mokuhanga you will need a 1000-grit stone to start, and in time you can explore various other methods of sharpening your tools. An excellent video to begin with is Terry McKenna's video on sharpening here.   Karma & Faith: The Artwork of Karma Phuntok and Faith Stone - is the self published book made for their Denver exhibition in 2019.    Tassajara Zen Center -  is a Buddhist monastary and zen center located in San Fransisco. They have published cookbooks since the 1970's.    Tibet House - is a not-for-profit cultural preservation society to preserve Tibetan culture worldwide. There are many Tibet House offices and buildings around the globe. More information can be found at Tibet House US here.    John Lewis  - played a large part in many important events in the civil rights movements of the 1960s in the United States. Was one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960-1971. More information about John Lewis and his essential work can be found here at Stanford University: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.    Kannon - is the deity of compassion in Buddhism.      Kannon Reigen Ki - Ima Kumano Temple from the series The Miracles of Kannon by Utagawa Hiroshige II (1829-1869) 9.6" x 14"   Shoshoni Yoga Retreat - is a yoga retreat in Rollinsville, Colorado. The retreats are much like an ashram experience, with meditation, yoga, meals and selfless service. Find more info here.    * Ikegami, Kojiro, and Barbara B. Stephan. Japanese Book Binding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman. New York etc.: Weatherhill, 1990.   © Popular Wheat Productions opening and closing musical credit - Dropkick Murphy's, Where Trouble Is At. From the album, This Machine Still Kills Fascists (2021) on Dummy Luck Music. logo designed and produced by Douglas Batchelor and André Zadorozny  Disclaimer: Please do not reproduce or use anything from this podcast without shooting me an email and getting my express written or verbal consent. I'm friendly :) Слава Українi If you find any issue with something in the show notes please let me know. ***The opinions expressed by guests in The Unfinished Print podcast are not necessarily those of André Zadorozny and of Popular Wheat Productions.***      

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT When I was at the big ISE pro AV trade show a few weeks ago, I yet  again saw several products that were billed as holograms, even though they didn't even loosely fit the technical definition. I am always paying attention to news and social media posts that use that terminology, and once in a while, I come across something that actually does start to align with the true definition of holograms and holography. Like Voxon, which operates out of Adelaide, Australia. Started years ago as a beer drinking and tinkering maker project in a garage, Voxon now has a physical product for sale that generates a visual with depth that viewers can walk around and see from different angles. That product is mainly being bought by universities and R&D teams at companies to play with and learn, but the long game for Voxon is to produce or be the engine for other products that really do live up to the mainstream, Hollywood-driven notion of holograms. I had a great chat with co-founder and CEO Gavin Smith. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Gavin, thank you very much for joining me. I know you're up in Scotland, but you are based in Adelaide, Australia, correct? Gavin Smith: Yes, that's right. I'm originally from Scotland. I grew up here, spent the first part of my life in the north of Scotland in Elgin, and then I went to university in Paisley, Glasgow and then eventually, after working for 10 years in the banking sector, I immigrated to Australia and I've lived in Adelaide for the last 14 years.  That's quite a climate shift!  Gavin Smith: Yes, it is a climate shift. I was speaking to my wife the day before, and it was about 40 degrees there, just now they're having a heat wave, whereas up in Elgin here, it's about 1 degree at the moment. Yeah. I'm thinking, why are you there in February? But on the other hand, why would you wanna be in Adelaide if it's 40 Celsius?  Gavin Smith: I quite like the cold. I prefer to be in this temperature right now than 40 degrees, that's for sure.  Oh, I just spent 45 minutes with my snow machine clearing 25 centimeters of snow off my driveway, so I wouldn't mind being in Adelaide today.   Gavin Smith: Thankfully I can have the best of both worlds. I'm heading back there in about a week and a half time.  I was intrigued by your company. I saw a couple of LinkedIn posts with embedded videos and thought that's interesting and I wanted to speak more. So can you tell me what Voxon does?  Gavin Smith: Yes, sure. So Voxon is a company that started in about 2012-2013, and it came out of two joint research projects. One was me and my friend Will, based in Adelaide, we had a Thursday Night Lab Session, as we called it, where we went to the shed and we drank a few beers and we tried to invent things. It was a bit weird, science-esque. So this wasn't exactly a lab?  Gavin Smith: It was a shed. Let's face it, with a beer fridge and there was a lot of machinery, which was in various stages of repair. We used to get hard rubbish off the right side of the road in Adelaide and take it apart and see what we could make.  It was just amateur invention hour. But it was at the start of that project, we built fairly rudimentary machines, CNC machines and we took apart laser scanners and were just inquisitive about how they work from a mechanical point of view. But that then turned into more of a, let's see how far we can push ourselves and learn new stuff, and we've been inspired by sci-fi, Star Wars, all those sorts of things. So we said, let's try and make the sort of 3D display that we'd seen in the movies and those science fiction movies always had the same type of display, and that wasn't a screen, that wasn't a headset. It was always some sort of floating image that you could walk around and you could look out from any direction and the common name for that in popular media was a holographic display. That's what people called it. So that's what we set out to build, and we very quickly figured out that this type of display had to be something to do with projecting images or dots onto some sort of surface that moved and that's because in order to render these little dots that make up the image, inside a space that had physical dimensions, you couldn't make the lights just appear on air. We figured you, you might be able to do some sort of gas or some sort of lasers and things like that. But the way we approached it was starting off by just shaking business cards back and forwards and shining lasers on them, and then that made a line because of persistence of vision.  I always think that Neanderthal man invented the volumetric display because they probably waved burning embers around on the sticks at nighttime and drew those patterns in the air and those patterns really only existed because of the persistence of vision and the extrusion of light through a volume of space, and so that's what we decided to do, and we realized if you could draw a line, then if you could control the laser and turn it off and on again, you could draw a dot. And so we did that by cutting the laser beam with a rotating CD that was stuck on a high-speed drill with some sticky tape on it. We chopped the laser into little bits, and by controlling the speed of the laser, we ended up having a single dot, which we referred to as a voxel, that's what we Googled that a dot in space is referred to as a voxel and then we extrapolated from there and say if we're building these images out of little pixels of light or voxels, we need more and more of these dots, and when you do the math you quickly realize that you need millions of dots of light or volume to make an image, and that's difficult. And really that started us down the road of experimenting with video projectors, with lasers with all sorts of things and more and more advanced moving surfaces, and eventually, we made a small helical display using a vacuum-formed helix that we basically made in Will's wife's kitchen when she was out, in the oven, and yeah, we created a very small image of an elephant. You might call it a hologram at the time. That's what we called it at the time, but it was a volumetric swept surface image. The terminology I'll go into a bit more detail, but at the time it was just a hologram to us, and we thought this was amazing and we'd never seen it before. So we put a video of it on YouTube and some guys in America who were unbeknown to us doing the same project got in contact with us and push came to shove, we decided to join forces and form Voxon, and that was back in 2013.  So when you created this little elephant, was that like a big ‘aha' moment? Like, “Oh my God, we figured this out”? Gavin Smith: Yes, very much so. We believed at the time, we were the first people to do this. In fact, we weren't. But it was the first time we'd seen this type of image, and it was literally spine tingly amazing, to see a truly three-dimensional object that you could look down from, above, from the sides, from any angle, and it filled a space the same way as you or I fill a space in the physical world, you could measure its length that's spread, that's height and even its volume in gallons or liters. It had a tangible existence in the physical world and not on a screen as other 3D images tend to do. At this point, was this a stationary object?  Gavin Smith: Yes, at this point the elephant was stationary and the way I'd created the elephant was we'd figured out, in order to make this elephant, we first needed to have the swept surface moving. So that was the helical screen, which was spinning at about 900 RPM on a very small electric motor and then we had a video projector that we'd managed to get going at about 1,200 frames per second, and in order to create the images, which were cross sections, helical cross sections of an elephant, that was all done offline. So the way I approached that was, we used software called 3D Studio Max, which is a design software, and in that, I modeled a helix and an elephant, and I then intersected the helix with the elephant in the software, rotated the helix digitally, and then I rendered out the resultant cross-section, the boolean operation of one on the other, and this is like taking a drill and drilling a hole into the ground and looking at just a helical core sample. So really it was like a CT scan of this elephant, but just slice at a time, and then I rendered those images to a file. I wrote some software to convert it to a new video format that we had to invent to compress all that data into this high-speed image stream, and then projected that onto the helix. Now, of course, the timing of the images and the rotation of the helix were not in sync, and so much like an old CRT screen where the vertical shift is not dialed in, the elephant would drift out the top of the display and come back in the bottom, and at that point, we knew that this was all about a combination of mathematics, optics, precision, and timing. And to make it interactive, we'd have to write a real-time computer program capable of generating these images in real-time, and that was the next part of the puzzle. This was a work working prototype basically.  Gavin Smith: This was a working prototype, yeah.  How big was it?  Gavin Smith: The helix was very small. It was about five centimeters in diameter, about an inch and a half in diameter, and about an inch tall. But because the projector that we used was a Pico projector at the time, and it was about half the size of a pack of cards. This tiny little thing that we got off the internet from Texas Instruments, and you could focus it at about one centimeter away. So all those little pixels were infinitesimally small, so it was a very high-resolution display and very small, and we realized to get these number of frames per second, we'd have to take advantage of one of the most incredible pieces of engineering ever conceived, in my opinion, and that is the DLP chip from Texas Instruments invented by Larry Hornbeck who passed away several years ago, sadly, and that is an array of mirrors that is grown on a chip using photolithography, the same process as you create microchips, and that array of mirrors contains upwards of a million mirrors arranged in a two-dimensional array, and they can tilt on and off physically about 30,000 times a second. And that's called a MEMS, a microelectromechanical display or in optical terms, a spatial light modulator. So it's something that turns the light on and off at ultra-high speed, and those on-off cycles are what give us our Z-resolution on the display. So that's the slices that make up the display. Wow. So where are you at now with the company now that you've formed it and you've grown it, what's happened since that very first prototype elephant? Gavin Smith: Following that we realized that my programming skills were finite. I'd spent 10 years as a COBOL programmer in banking, and I wasn't up to the task of writing what was needed, which was a low-level graphics engine. This didn't need a mainframe, no, and we couldn't afford a mainframe, even if we wanted one. So we looked up on the internet to see who we could find in terms of programming to join the company, and there were two programmers who stood out. They were referred to as the top two programmers in the world and were John Carmack of Oculus, and then there was Ken Silverman who wrote the graphics engine for Duke Nukem back in the late 90s, so we contacted Ken. John wasn't available so we contacted Ken and demoed to him at Brown University in Rhode Island where he was working subsequently as basically a computer programmer teacher with his dad, who was the Dean of Engineering there, and Ken really liked what we were doing and his understanding of mathematics and foxholes and 3D rendering really made him think this was something he wanted to be involved in. So he joined our company as a founder and chief computer scientist, and he has led the development of the core rendering engine, which we call the Voxon Photonic engine and that's really our core IP, it's the ability to tick any 3D graphics from a third party source, from Unity, from a C program or something else, and turn it into a high speed projected image, which can be processed in such a way as to de-wrap them when they're projected, so they're the right size. We use dithering in real time to make color possible, which is similar to newsprint, CMY newsprint in the newspaper, and this all basically allows us to project images onto any type of moving surface now and do it in real-time and make applications that are much bigger and extensible so we can plug it into other programs or have people write their own programs for our displays. So you've emerged from being an R&D effort in the shed to a real company to having working prototypes and now you're an operating company with the product.  Gavin Smith: I like to say we've emerged, but I'd very much say we're still crossing the chasm, so to speak, in terms of the technology landscape. After that initial prototype, we spent many years batting our heads together, trying to work as a team in America, and eventually, Will and I decided to raise some money in Australia and set up the company there. We raised about a million and a half Australian dollars. It was about a million US dollars back in 2017, and that was enough to employ some extra engineers and business development, and an experienced COO and start working on our first product, which was the VX1. Now, the VX1 was a different type of display. We decided not to do the helix back then, and we decided to make a different type of display, and that was a reciprocating display and so we invented a way of moving a screen up and down very efficiently using resonance. It's the same I guess mechanical thing that all objects have, and that is at a certain frequency, they start vibrating if there's a driving vibration force. So the Tacoma Bridge falling down when the wind blew at the right speed was an example of when resonances destroyed something. But an opera singer, breaking a glass at the right pitch is another example of something that vibrates due to a striving force, and so we found out if we built a screen, which was mounted on springs that were of a very particular weight, and the springs were a very particular constant of Young's modulus, we could vibrate that subsystem and the screen would vibrate up and down very efficiently and very fast, fast enough that you couldn't see the screen. So that's what the VX1 became, and onto the back of that screen, we project images and those images from a swept volume, and the VX1 had a volume of about 18x18x8 cm, I think it's about 7 inches square by about 3 inches tall, and we have a single projector mounted inside of that and a computer and a ton of electronics keeps it all in sync, and we built a software API for it and a library of programs that come built into it. So it's off the shelf, you turn it on and it works. And so we built that back in 2017 and over the last five years, it's evolved into something which is very reliable and now, you can't tell them apart when they're manufactured at the start, each one might look different with hot glue and duct tape and all the rest of it. But now we have a complete digital workflow. We outsource most of the manufacture of the parts and we do final assembly software, QC, and packaging up and then ship them out to companies we've sold probably about 120 VX1s globally since 2017, and those have gone out to companies all around the world, like Sony, MIT, Harvard, CMU, Unity, BA Systems, Verizon, Erickson, a lot of companies and they've bought them and they're generally going into explorative use cases.  Yeah, I was going to say, it sounds like they're going into labs as opposed to stores.  Gavin Smith: Yeah, they're not going into stores. The VX1 is really an evaluation system. It's not prime time ready for running all day long, and the reason for that is it has a vibration component to it, and also the refresh rate of the VX1 is actually variable within the volume. It's hard to explain, but the apparent volume refresh rate is 30 hertz in the middle and 15 hertz at the poles and so it has a little bit of flicker. But in a dark environment, it's really spellbinding and it's actually used in museums. There's some in Germany and a science museum there. It's been used in an art exhibition  in Paris, where the art was created by David Levine and MIT Media Lab and it's frequently used in universities and it pops up in all sorts of trade shows, and it's always a talking point and it always gathers a crowd around it, and what we like to say with the volumetric display from a marketing point of view, or really a description of what it is, it's really about creating a digital campfire. That's the kind of user experience.  It's gathering people around something intimately in a way that they can still have eye contact and maintain a conversation, and each person has their own perspective and view of the 3D data.  The scale you're describing is still quite small and that seems to be What I've experienced with, when I've seen demonstrations at the SID trade show of light field displays. They're all like the size of a soda bottle at most.  Is that a function of just the technology, you can't just make these things big? Gavin Smith: You can make them bigger, and we have since that point. The biggest display that we've made so far was one that we just delivered to BA Systems in Frimley near London, and fo that one, we've gone back to the helical display for that particular one, and it's. 46 centimeters in diameter and 8 centimeters deep. So that's about nine times the volume of the VX1. So that's a much bigger display.  Now you can, with a swept volume, you can go as big as you'd like within the realms of physics, and what I mean by that is with a rotating display, you can make the display as big as something that can rotate at a speed that's fast enough to make the medium kind of disappear. So if you think about propellers and fans, for example, I've seen pedestal fans that are a meter in diameter running faster than we run our display, and with rotating displays, it's easier to do because you have conservation of momentum and you have inertia which drives the display around, and yet you can rotate the volume as well, have it enclosed so that you're not generating airflow as a fan does.  So for example, if you have a propeller-shaped blade encased in a cylindrical enclosure, and that enclosure is spinning, then you don't get the air resistance you get with a fan and the display that we made for BA Systems is ultimately silent and flicker-free because we're running at exactly 30 hertz throughout the volume, which means you don't get flicker, but reciprocating displays, ones that go up and down, scaling them is more of a challenge because you're having to push the air out the way up and down, and as the size of the screen moving up and down gets bigger, if you're projecting from behind, for example, you also have to start considering things like the flexing of the substrate that you're projecting onto. For a front projection display where you project down from the top, we can go bigger because you can make a very lightweight, thicker screen out of exotic materials and those are materials that are very light but very stiff. Things like air gels and foamed metals, and very lightweight honeycomb structure so that way you can go bigger but we may need to move into the realms of using reduced atmospheric displays, partial vacuums, and things like that to reduce the resistance or using materials that are air permeable, such as meshes that move up and down very quickly. And we have done experiments with those and found that we can go a lot bigger.  However, with the current projection systems that we're using, you then have to increase the brightness because the brightness of the image is also stretched out through a volume. If you imagine a home cinema projector projecting 3k or 4k lumens, you have to consider that each of the images that it's projecting is pretty much evenly lit in terms of all the pixels that you're projecting. Whereas what we are doing is we are projecting these thousands of images, we're only illuminating the cross-section of every object. So we're maybe only using 1% of the available brightness of the projector at any one time, unless you project a solid slice all the way across, which is really you're building up this construct, which is how I explain it to people as it's very similar to 3D printing. If you look at how a 3D printer works, we are doing exactly the same thing, except we are printing using light instead of PLA and we're printing thousands and thousands of times faster.  In digital signage, the thing that always gets people nervous is moving parts, and that directly affects reliability and longevity. How do you address that? Gavin Smith: So the VX1 is a good example of moving parts in a display that isn't yet ready for long-running and when I say long-running, we do have it in exhibitions, but we have recently engineered it in such a way that the parts that may break or will break are the four springs that drive the machine, and those have been engineered to resonate at particular frequency. Now after several hundred million extensions of those springs, they can fatigue and they will fatigue break and that's something that we're working on, and that might be a month or three weeks of running 24/7, and so we've made those springs user replaceable. You can change them in two or three minutes for a fresh set. So it's almost like the mechanical profile of something like an Inkjet printer where you have to change the cartridge every so often. And we find with mechanical stuff, people accept mechanical things in their lives as long as the maintenance/utility ratio is at a level they can accept like bicycles, cars, and things like that. You maintain them as long as their utility outweighs the inconvenience of the repair. Now for projection equipment and things like that in digital signage, there are a lot of two-dimensional technologies that are ultra-reliable on those things, big LED panels, 2D video projectors and just lighting. You can turn them on and leave them and you should be okay. So in our rotating displays and we have another rotating display that we're working on, which we can't discuss just now cuz it's still under NDA, is part of the reason we're going down that rabbit hole or going down that design sort of path because we can make rotating displays, which are very reliable, they're effectively like a record player. You turn it on and it spins around and you could leave it and come back in three weeks and it would still be spinning around, and also a rotating display if properly manufactured within tolerances won't cause the vibration, and the vibration is really the thing that can cause the issues because vibration can lead to fatigue and failure in electrical components, electronic components, small cracks in circuits, and things like that. So from our point of view, we're going towards rotating mechanics because that ultimately allows us to make things which are reliable enough to be used in a wide range of industries including digital signage, advertising, medical imaging and gaming, and many more. In my world, there are all kinds of companies who are saying that they have holographic products of some kind or another. As somebody who's doing something that sounds very much like a hologram or close to what we thought of when we all saw Star Wars, what do you think of those things?  Gavin Smith: I don't like to be a troll, first of all on LinkedIn, and so I try to shy away from saying, look, that's rubbish. But what I try to do is politely point out how things work when it's not clear from someone's post how something might work or where it's misleading. Now if you look at the term hologram, it comes from the Greek, hólos and grammḗ, which means the whole message, and in a way, I tend to think of an actual hologram, which is created using lasers, laser interference patterns, and light beams and things like that they don't represent the whole message. Because if you take your credit card out, which is one of the few places you will see a hologram you'll notice that you can't look down on the hologram from above, you can't turn the card over and look at it from the back. They are a limited view of something, and so the term hologram has become, as you say, in popular fiction, and popular media, it's really a catchall for anything that is sci-fi 3D related, right? And it's misused, everyone calls it a hologram, and our staff sometimes call it a hologram. I like to say it's not a hologram because it has a lot more features than a hologram. Holograms have some really interesting properties, one of which is that you can cut a hologram into 10 little pieces and it turns into 10 individual little holograms, and that's a really interesting thing. But holograms from a 3D point of view don't exist in signage anywhere. They simply don't. The terminology used to describe things that you see in signage and popular media is completely misused, and I like to go through them and categorize them into different things. And those are, first of all, volumetric displays of which we're the only company in the world that's making a commercial volumetric display. There's one other company Aerial Burton, who are based in Japan that makes a volumetric display, but it's a very high-tech scientific prototype that uses lasers to explode the air and has very low resolution. And then you've got autostereoscopic 3D displays, and they broadly fit into the categories of lenticular displays which are as you probably know LCD panels, which have got a plastic lens array on them that allows you to see a left and a right image, and those left and right images can give you a stereoscopic view. I would call them stereoscopic displays because they're not 3d. You can't look at them from any direction and they don't physically occupy three-dimensional euclidean space, which is what the real world is, and those types of displays come in different formats. So you get some with just horizontal parallax, which means you can move your head left and right and see a number of distinct views. You've got some that you can move up and down as well, and also get a little bit of vertical parallax as well, and there's probably five or six companies doing those sorts of displays. You've got Looking Glass, Lightfield Labs, Acer, and Sodium, so that area can grow. The physical size of those displays can get bigger, but the bigger they get, the harder it is to move further away because you're pupil distance means it's harder to get a 3D view, and also with any display like that, the 3D image that you see because it's the result of you seeing two independent images with your left and right eye, that 3D image can never leave the bounds or the window of the display, and that's something in advertising, which is very misused a lot, they show a 2D monitor with the image leaping out beyond the border of the monitor, and that just can't happen. That breaks the laws of physics, and so that's the kind of three auto stereoscopic 3D landscapes, and it's hard to say that autostereoscopic, 3D display because people zone out and they go, is it a hologram? And no it's not.  The other types of 3D that are popular just now are obviously, glasses-based display, AR, VR, mixed-reality, and we don't really, we don't really mind about that or care about that because it's something you have to put something on your head, and that's our different thing really. So those offer you an immersive experience where you go down a rabbit hole and you're in another world and that's not what we are about. And then you've got the fake 3D displays, which are not 3D stereoscopically but appear that way, and that's where I get slightly annoyed by those displays, but I understand there are people making types of signage I guess you would say, that is perfectly suitable for a scenario and those are things like Pepper's ghost which is when you reflect a 2D image off a big piece of glass or plexiglass, and that's the pepper, the famous one, the Tupac hologram at Coachella. I met the guy and spoke to him. He's a really lovely guy and I had a good chat about that, and he knows full well that it's an illusion, but it's the illusion that Disneyland has been using for many years, and it's a perfectly good illusion for a seated studio audience because they see someone on stage and they're doing it now with the, I think the ABBA Show in London is a similar type of setup.  They call them holograms, but it's a 2D picture that's far enough away that you can be made to believe that it's three-dimensional and it might exist at different levels like a diorama. You could have a stack of images, on fly screens or whatever, that appear to be layered, but ultimately they are 2D, and then the one that's come out recently, which causes probably the most amount of confusion for people are the anamorphic projections on large billboards, and everyone's seen these displays on LinkedIn and YouTube, and they tend to appear on large curved billboards in parts of China where the rental of the billboards is sufficiently cheap as you can put these big images up there, film them from one particular spot in 2d, and then put that on LinkedIn and have people comment on it and say, wow, that's an amazing hologram. Even though a) they haven't seen this in real life and b) it's not a hologram and it's not even three-dimensional. It's a perspective-based 2D trick, and so one of our challenges is expectation management, and that is people see large-scale fake 2D images, and fake 3D images and then they conclude that it must be possible and they want to buy one, and then when they see yours they go, oh, it's much smaller than I imagined, and you feel like saying, it's real. It's actually based on science, and you could walk around it. And that's the challenge we're at just now. Trying to move away from this feeling that you have to have the biggest display in the world for it to be valid, and a lot of the business for us and a lot of the inquiries we get are from the likes of the Middle East, where they want to build very big, very impressive, very bright, very colorful displays and they say, we want a hologram that will fit in a football stadium and fly around in the sky, and you have to say well, that's great, but that's also impossible using anything that's even imaginable today, let alone physically achievable, and so yeah, we are very much a case of trying to be as honest as we can with the limitations, but also with the opportunities because regardless of the fact that our technology is relatively small compared to large screen billboards, we have got the ability to create sci-fi-inspired interactive displays that you can put in personal spaces, in museums, in galleries, in shopping centers, and they really do look like something up close under scrutiny that you might see in a Marvel movie, and that's the kind of relationship we're trying to find with other companies as well. There are other types of the display as well. You probably talked to Daniel about some of his displays, which are levitating grains of dust and things like that, and the challenge I have with them is yes, you can make a 3D image, but you have to look at how long it takes to make that 3D image and they're really more akin to painting with light. It's long-exposure photography. You have to manipulate something and move it around over a long period of time to bring it, to build a single image, and scaling those types of displays is impossible. It's the same with laser-based displays, whenever you're moving a single dot around, you run out of resolution extraordinarily fast because it's a linear thing, and even with Aerial Burton exploding the air with a laser they can only do about 1000 or 2000 dots every second, and that breaks down to being able to draw maybe a very simple two-dimensional shape whereas to draw a detailed image, an elephant or anything like that, that we've displayed in the past, it requires upwards of 30 or 40 million dots a second to do that with each image, each volume contains millions of dots.  Where do you see this going in, let's say, five years from now? And are you at that point selling products or are you licensing the technology to larger display manufacturers? Or something else? Gavin Smith: So at the moment what we're doing is we're looking for projects that we can scale and one of the first projects that we're working on just now and the technology can be applied to a range of different industries. As you can imagine, any new display technology. You could use it for CT scans, you could use it for advertising, for point of sale, for a whole lot of different things. But you have to choose those projects early on when the technology is immature, and that is low-hanging fruit if you want to use that term, and so our low-hanging freight at the moment, we believe is in the entertainment industry, digital out-of-home entertainment to be specific, which is the likes of video gaming and entertainment venues, and so 2018, we were in the Tokyo Game Show with one of our machines, and we were situated next to Taito at the company that made Space Invaders, and their board came across their senior members and they played with our technology and they really liked it. And so we entered into a conversation with them and over several years, we have built a Space invaders arcade machine called Next Dimension, and that's using our rotating volumetric display with three projectors each running at 4,000 frames per second and a large rotating volume, and we've written a new Space Invaders arcade game and Taito has granted us the license to bring that to market. In order to do that, we're now doing commercial testing and technical testing which involves taking the technology into venues, play testing it and getting feedback from the venues on the suitability of the game and the profitability of it as a product. So with that game, our plan is to follow in the footsteps of the previous Space Invader game, which was called Frenzy made by Roth Rolls. It sold 3000 or 4000 units globally. So if you could do that, it would be a profitable first venture in terms of bringing technology to market, and at the moment, we're looking to raise some capital. We need to raise $2-3 million USD to do the design from the manufacturer for that and build the first batch of machines which would be rolled out globally.  Now, that's really seen for us as a launch of technology using the IP of Space Invaders as a carrier, a launch vehicle for the technology, but once launched and once our technology is widely known and understood, what we then plan to do is build our own revenue generating model and technology platform that can be deployed to venues around the world who can use this as a kind of an entertainment device where you can run different IP on it from different vendors and do a sort of profit share with the venue owners. So a cinema, Chucke CheeseB, Dave & Busters, those types of venues, as well as bowling alleys, VR arcades, and all those types of entertainment venues that currently is starting to grow in strength, largely because people are now looking for entertainment experiences, not necessarily just staying at home.  COVID obviously threw a curve ball our way as well. When our Space Invaders machine was sent to Japan for testing, COVID had just happened so it went into internal testing within Taito, and then Square Enix who owns Taito, their parent company decreed that Taito would no longer manufacture arcade machines but would license their IP only so that kind of threw a spanner in the works and they've come back to us and said, we'd love the game, but we want you to bring it to market, not us. So that's one thing we're working on just now. There's a video of Space Invaders: Next Dimension on YouTube that you can look at, and it's a really fun experience because it's a four-player game. We've added the volumetric nature. You can fly up and down during sub-games. You can bump your next-door neighbor with your spaceship and get a power-up. It really is for us a way of saying, look, this is a new way, it's a new palette of which to make new gaming experiences and the future is really up to the imaginations of people writing software.  All right. That was super interesting. I learned a lot there and some of it is, as often the case, I understood as well. Gavin Smith: That's great. I'm glad you understand. It is a hard thing to wrap your head around, especially for us trying to demonstrate the nature of the technology in 2D YouTube videos and LinkedIn videos, and you really have to see it with your own eyes to understand it, and that's why this week I was over for a meeting with BA Systems, but I took the opportunity to spend several days in London at a film Studio in SoHo, in London, the owners very gratefully let me have a demonstration group there, and I spent two days last week demonstrating the product to ten or so companies come in and see the technology, and it's only then when they really start to get their creative juices flowing and that's where POCs projects kick-off.  So that's what we're looking for just now, are companies that have imaginative people and they have a need for creating some new interactive media that can be symbiotic with their existing VR and AR metaverse type stuff. But really something that's designed for people up close and personal, intimate experiences.  If people want to get in touch, where do they find you online?  Gavin Smith: So we have a website, which is just www.voxon.co. Voxon Photonics is our Australian company name, and you can find us on LinkedIn. Actually, my own personal LinkedIn is generally where I post most stuff. That's Gavin Smith on LinkedIn, you can look me up there around, and then we have the Voxon Photonics LinkedIn page and we're on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube as well. We have a lot of videos on YouTube. That's a good place to start. But if you wanna get in touch, contact us via Voxon.co. Drop us an email and we'll be happy to have a meeting and a video call.  All right, Gavin, thank you so much for spending some time with me.  Gavin Smith: My pleasure. Thanks very much for having me.

A reading for meditation of excerpts from the text "To You: Zen Sayings of Kodo Sawaki". Kodo Sawaki 沢木 興道 (1880 - 1965) was born in Ise, Japan and was a prominent Japanese Sōtō Zen teacher of the 20th century. He is considered to be one of the most significant Zen priests of his time for bringing Zen practice into the lives of laypeople. He has been stated as being "one of the most striking Zen masters of recent times." He was called "Kodo without a home" because he refused to remain in a temple and always travelled alone. He brought with him, a breath of fresh air to the declining practices within zen, reintroducing the universal practice of zazen.

Gwinnett County police are investigating the death of a teen who was found dead on Paden Mill Trail in unincorporated Lawrenceville. The 16-year-old male's body was found at about 1:05 p.m. behind a house located at 651 Paden Mill Trail. Police discovered the body while visiting the house to conduct a follow up on a missing person's case that they were investigating. The teen had been shot. Anyone who has information about the teen's death is asked to call detectives or Crime Stoppers, which lets tipsters remain anonymous. Please head to Gwinnett Daily Post dot com for more updates. The Georgia Department of Education recently released the list of AP Honors Schools — with 23 Gwinnett County public high schools making one or more of the lists. Several Gwinnett schools were recognized in more than one category. Paul Duke STEM High School and Mountain View High School made the list in all seven categories in which they are eligible while Archer, Brookwood, Dacula, Duluth, Grayson, Lanier, and Mountain View high schools made the list in six of the seven categories in which they are eligible. DeNelle West, Gwinnett County Public Schools' Chief Learning Officer, says the recognition is a testament to the dedication of the district's educators. AP exams are administered by the College Board, which also administers the SAT. AP courses are one of several ways Georgia students can access college-level learning at the high school level. Students who earn a 3, 4, or 5 on an AP exam may receive college credit. The 2023 AP Honor Schools were named in eight categories, based on the results of 2022 AP courses and exams. Please head over to Gwinnett Daily Post dot com for a full list of schools and honors. The Sip & Swine BBQ Festival not only touts some of the best Kansas City-style barbecue in America, but it also impacts the future in extremely positive ways. The festival is set Friday and Saturday at Coolray Field in Lawrenceville. More than 100 professional and shade-tree barbecue competitors from 12 states and two continents will vie for the coveted People's Choice Tasting award in an event sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society. Admission and parking are free for the two-day porcine extravaganza, which will also feature some 80 craft vendors and 40 food vendors. Now in its eighth year, the Sip & Swine BBQ Festival was originally established as a fundraiser for Home of Hope at Gwinnett Children's Shelter in Buford. Home of Hope is focused on ending homelessness two generations at a time, providing service for homeless infants and children up to 17 years old, along with their young mothers. The nonprofit also aids teenagers aging out of the foster care system. The festival has grown to feature bands, crafts and family-friendly activities, and this year's event is expected to be the largest to date. Proceeds from competition and vendor fees, raffle ticket sales and the purchase of People's Choice Taster Kits all go Home of Hope. Thus far, the festival has raised $742,000 on behalf of the children's shelter. For more information about the Sip & Swine BBQ Festival, visit Sips and Swine dot com. For more information about Home of Hope at Gwinnett Children's Shelter, visit Home of Hope GCS dot com. Is E.T. hanging out around the Lawrenceville Square? Maybe he's buying comic books at Galactic Quest before heading over to Strange Taco for dinner?  We'll leave that to the pundits, both inside and outside the peanut gallery, to debate. Regardless of whether you believe in aliens or not, Lawrenceville has notched a Number 1 ranking on what some people might consider a weird list: the most likely places in America to see a UFO. According to BonusFinder.com, you have a higher chance of seeing strange objects in the sky over Lawrenceville than you are in the skies over places such as Sedona, Arizona, and Greenville, South Carolina (which came in at Numbers 2 and 3 on the list, respectively), or the state capitol of Pennsylvania — Harrisburg — which is Number 4 on the list. BonusFinder.com ranked cities based on how many sightings there have been for every 10,000 residents rather than total number of sightings. Sedona, with 96 sightings, would be Number 1 if the latter criteria were the determining factor since Lawrenceville only had 67 sightings. But, it's sightings per capita that determined the rankings, and Lawrenceville — which is home to Gwinnett County Airport at Briscoe Field by the way — was Number 1 in that regard. The city reached the top spot with 144.64 alleged sightings per 10,000 people, according to BonusFinder.com. The sightings lasted, on average, 15.47 minutes.  Lanier High School has earned the College Board AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award for achieving high female representation in AP Computer Science A. Schools honored with the AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award have achieved 50% or higher female exam taker representation in one or both AP computer science courses, or a percentage of female computer science exam takers that meet or exceed that of the school's female population. Sallie Holloway, Gwinnett County Public Schools' Director of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, says the award is an acknowledgement of Lanier High School's commitment to inclusivity. More than 1,100 institutions achieved either 50% or higher female representation in one of the two AP computer science courses or a percentage of the female computer science exam takers meeting or exceeding that of the school's female population during the 2021-22 school year. In 2022, Lanier High School was one of 209 schools recognized in the category of AP CSA, and the only school in Gwinnett County to be recognized. Lanier has worked with its partner, State Farm IT, and the cluster schools to create a culture that supports more diversity in computing and other STEM fields and are seeing the fruits of this labor. Beyond the College Board recognition, Lanier High has always been well-represented at the National Center for Women & Information Technology local and national awards. The school regularly sees dozens of girls recognized at the Georgia awards ceremony. Additionally, Lanier has had five girls recognized nationally, including a national honorable mention for Valentina Diaz Romero and national winner Makenna Reilly for 2023 In its long and distinguished history, Buford High School has won untold state championships in just about every sport. And now the time has come to make some room on the school's trophy display for the school's latest state crown. On February 24, Buford's Game Day Cheerleading squad won the Class AAAAAA state championship at Columbus State College. It was the team's first state title in its four-year history. Co-Coach Caroline Parker said the competition – which began with 16 teams in the preliminary round and had eight in the final round – called on squads to showcase their skills in band chant, a crowd-leading cheer, and a routine that accompanies their school's fight song. The 24-member squad – which was selected last April – is made up of cheerleaders for the Wolves' football and basketball games. Now that they know just exactly what it takes to win a state championship, the next season will serve as a lesson on how to effectively defend that championship. There were six seniors on the 2023 team and Parker said she was pleased they were graduating on such a high note. And those involved will get to take a brief break, although it won't be long before the title defense begins, as tryouts begin in three weeks. For more information be sure to visit www.bgpodcastnetwork.com   https://www.lawrencevillega.org/  https://www.foxtheatre.org/  https://guideinc.org/  https://www.psponline.com/  https://www.kiamallofga.com/  https://www.milb.com/gwinnett  https://www.fernbankmuseum.org/  www.atlantagladiators.com          See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT When I was doing my initial recon walk through the many halls of ISE a few weeks back, I went by a stand that was highlighting something called the Global Signage Alliance, which was unfamiliar to me and made me curious. The stand's occupants weren't there, and I was on the go, so I never got a chance to get filled in at the show. But I asked some questions and made some contacts after the fact. I assumed this was a Euro-centric version of the Digital Signage Federation. There have been 2 or 3 of those, I think, and maybe this was another. But it turns out that's not what the GSA, as it is called for short, is all about. It's a formalized user community for Samsung digital signage software and smart display products. The cynic in me thought "OK, this is kinda like big pharma and energy companies that form institutes." Imagine me doing air quotes around institutes. But that's not what this is, according to GSA chairman Mark Ossel. He says the organization was initiated out of common needs among companies - starting in the Netherlands - who wanted to share information, ideas and business opportunities ... who were all, also, using Samsung's CMS software MagicINFO, or Samsung's smart signage displays. It's the shared purpose, strength in numbers thing at play here. However, Ossel did say that Samsung does now provide some financial support. This makes sense, at least to me. A user group has the interest and mission to stay closer to a product and its evolution, as opposed to being disparate end-users that end up with new functions or features just getting dropped on them by a technology company. Which happens. For Samsung, they can be closer to some key customers and support a user community, without perhaps doing as much heavy lifting to build and nurture that community. Have a listen. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Mark, thank you for joining me. Can you tell me what the Global Signage Alliance is all about?  Mark Ossel: Yeah, my pleasure, thanks for asking. The Global Signage Alliance is a user group, meaning a group of companies, and individuals from the digital signage world, coming from the creative side, coming from the services side, or being an end-user company using digital signage. So it's all kinds of companies who basically come together in the organization. It's a nonprofit organization, on a global scale, to exchange information, and share experiences but at the same time where there are opportunities to work together because these days more and more opportunities cross country boundaries as well as of course cross the own area of specialism. So you want to join forces with other companies to basically be able to fulfill the requirements of a proposal, tender, or procedure where you basically need to combine hardware, software, services, implementation, installation, integration, whatever it is, beyond what your own capabilities are. So it's working together as well and then last, but not least, joining forces for marketing events or all kinds of exposures, which we jointly do to promote digital signage and the capabilities of the group. Moreover, the group as well secures the quality of what is being delivered by, in fact ensuring training to employees, and staff members, raising the bar in the quality of what is being delivered. In the future, we want to create a quality stamp to let the market and the buyers know that these are companies that have the right skills to deliver a quality solution.  What's the backstory? Where did this come from?  Mark Ossel: It started in the Netherlands with a few companies in digital signage who basically understood that it makes sense to work together as well as to exchange experience, and information sharing and those companies had in fact an informal network, then it was growing with other companies across Europe, and then basically, yeah, it came to the point that we said it makes sense if we formalize this as a nonprofit organization with the structure of members, have a dedicated staff, have a formal board and comply with all the necessities you want to have as a decent organization.  When I was at ISE two-three weeks ago, I was walking through one of the halls, the digital signage hall, and walked by the Global Signage Alliance stand. Unfortunately, someone must have stepped away for a break or something like that, there wasn't anybody there to chat with, so I'm catching up after the fact.  I assumed when I was walking by that, oh, this is like a European version of the Digital Signage Federation, and there's been a couple of runs at that by different organizations In the past, I'm not quite sure where they're at, but when I'm digging into it a little bit, I actually see this is not necessarily a broad community, it's really focused around Samsung and Magic Info and its platform. Is that accurate? And why is that if so? Mark Ossel: Well spotted and, no one was there at the time you passed by, but it was interesting because we wanted to raise awareness for the GSA at ISE and ISE basically does recognize that we now start to represent a segment of their target audience and of the market, and they were willing to give us the ability to be there on the stage.  Yeah linked to Samsung platforms, not only Magic Info but any Samsung platform. The reason is, you need to make a choice as a company on what technologies you use, and approximately half of the screens come from Samsung. We do believe in the architecture and the embedded capabilities in the screens. So it made sense that all those companies joined forces using the Samsung platforms and believed that it was a proper way forward. We also get some support from Samsung and that works both ways.  As a user group, we are now recognized by Samsung as well as a proper sounding board for them, providing input on the requirements of the market. So they listen to us, we talk directly to their developers and give direction to the developments and the next generation, based on what we feel we need as a market and with new products, of course, we are the Guinea pigs to test it before it gets to market. So it works both ways. It works quite well to have a loyal dedicated highly skilled group of companies working with Samsung on moving digital signage to the next level Yeah, I could certainly see the business advantage to companies to stay close to Samsung or some other company that's developing a platform like that, because you can either have the new advances, the new thinking dropped in your lap, and hopefully it makes you happier or you can be contributing to what that development roadmap and product roadmap looks like by being tight with them. Mark Ossel: Exactly, and now we not only get to know it in the beginning, but we basically drive development as well in the direction, and we have the discussions on next-generation technologies because there might be a time delay of one or two years from development to market release. So we are involved in the early stage but as well with any changes to current products and new requirements or taking with new products as well, the migration path from one to another or the coexistence. It all comes to play, and then, yeah, being able to provide feedback from the market, from real people who work with it on a daily basis. That is to the development team of great value as well.  Did Samsung as a corporate entity approach a loose-knit group in the Netherlands to formalize something? Or was this something that this group formalized and then went to Samsung and said, hey, we wanna do this but in order to make it happen, we need some financial support ‘cause there's just the day-to-day of a nonprofit and you may have a small budget, but you still have costs? Mark Ossel: Yeah, sure. So it went the first way. So the group of companies coming together created the organization, regardless if Samsung could support it or not. Because we saw the need and the benefit of a group of companies working together, like exchanging information and all the things I said to work together on larger projects and we had seen the benefits already of that. So the drive came from the market and Samsung, they do welcome it.  What happens if you are a digital signage company that works across a number of platforms and not necessarily just Magic Info and Samsung's embedded smart displays? Is there any value in being a member and can you be a member? Mark Ossel: Good question. Although many of the members we've got today are dedicated to using the Samsung platforms because that's where their skills and knowledge are based upon. So I don't see many of them using other technologies as well. But if there would be a company that has a mix of technologies, yeah, sure, they're welcome as long as they use the Samsung platforms as well. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to join. I'm pretty confident that over time, they will use the Samsung platforms more and more because of the added value of focusing on a specific platform and technologies. If you spread your knowledge over a number of platforms and development tracks, your staff becomes too thin, instead of being really deeply focused and trained on a specific technology. I'm in favor of focusing in every respect, that means as well on skills. Knowing a little bit about a lot of platforms does not give you the advantage of knowing some technologies and platforms very deeply. How many members do you have right now?  Mark Ossel: We started, in fact, just before the Corona. The timing was unfortunate, so we had to put it on hold. There were no events. It was a bit of a strange world. So we held a ceasefire for some time. And in fact, this year we relaunched the organization. We have a few dozen members right now. It's good to see that even during ISE quite some companies basically were interested, and a number of them signed up on the fly immediately. There are some, of course, who have had to request permission internally or approval from their senior management to join. But most of them, if not all, see the benefit if we talk and explain what we're doing, and the fees are so low that it's not a showstopper to become a member. We expect during the course of the year, to bypass a hundred companies as members, and then of course grow beyond.  When you have somebody walk by the standard at ISE or elsewhere and they say, okay, give me your elevator pitch. Why should I join? What do you tell them?  Mark Ossel: Ah, good question, and that question of course we answer quite a lot of times. But basically, If you are in digital signage and if you have projects which cross your own area of expertise or cross geography boundaries, you need to act to basically have a partner network of companies you can rely on, data level quality as well. You build a family network. You can work together as well as you can benefit from the experience or the complimentary solutions which the other parts of the family have, then it makes sense for you to join as a member.  If you basically now look at the memberships they're mainly from Europe, but we are now expanding as well. In fact in Africa, and South Africa, we have members in mid-Asia, and Eastern Europe is growing. We get some interest from the United States, so it's getting more global as well.  Is Samsung helping raise awareness?  Mark Ossel: Oh yes, they welcome it in many respects. First of all, this has become a channel to market for them. A way to communicate to the market as well as new products, provide training. We are using doing where Samsung does presentations as well as where if our members do presentations or demonstrate showcases of successes they have implemented, then we see Samsung staff joining those webinars to learn about how their products are being used in the market.  So in that sense, it works and vice versa. They like the success stories, they like to understand how those products are used and see those showcased, and we basically create a portfolio on our portal as well through online sessions, get the messages across on what can be done or what has been with the technology.  So in a lot of ways they're encouraging a user, community, user forums, and user discussion without having to directly manage that themselves and not create the illusion, but have that degree of separation so it doesn't feel entirely like, “Here's our Samsung forum. Come here, and oh, by the way, while you're here, we'll sell you our pots and pans.”  Mark Ossel: Correct. It's to some extent, of course, related to technology and discussions on exchanging information about how they deploy the technology, but it's the other wider discussion on trends as well. Take the trend to the cloud. Not only as storage but also as software in the cloud. The integration of all the social media, the metaverse type of concept, and the impact on digital signage. We spent quite some cycles on security. We did as well security audits on some solutions. Interconnectivity and interactivity as a topic is being discussed, where more and more sensors of any kind, any format are being applied where the interconnection between applications to basically have more data-driven content, use more artificial intelligence in the backend, between the different applications, which through APIs, access data.  The market demands more flexibility, and more real-time interaction with the end user, and the consumer as well. There are so many trends in the markets that can be discussed and discussed between members. If you look at the younger generation, they want experiences in every respect being in a museum or in a retail store. How can you create that experience? How can you create that interaction with the social media platform? It all comes to play. It's as well, regardless of the lower level technology, these are the topics that are of interest to all the members and yeah, if you talk about it, you hear the different ideas, and it triggers your creativity as well.  So once in a while, we have those sessions where it's a bit like sitting with friends at the bar and discussing major things and trends, which basically trigger your creativity to gain some new ideas on how to apply that as well.  For the interest that you've had from North American companies, has there been any kind of pushback or questioning about, “I'm already a member of the Digital Signage Federation, why would I also join this or do I have to choose?”  Mark Ossel: No, I don't think we get the matter of choosing. In most cases, we talk to them and they see the advantage specifically for American companies that they now get access to a network in Europe, and if they have a customer, like a retail chain, which basically has a global presence, it's of great interest to have access to partners network, friends, and family in Europe, which basically in rollouts or in that kind of thing, it's beneficial to basically expand the network, in fact, beyond the United States. So if there's a let's say an integrator that is using Magic Info for actually, I'm thinking of a school district in Florida that has an integrator that does a ton of stuff like that if they somehow end up getting questions about, could you take this platform to France or to the Netherlands or Belgium or whatever if they're part of your alliance, conceivably would have business ties or at least exposure to companies over there that could maybe do this in tandem with them or in collaboration with them? Mark Ossel: Exactly. You got it, and of course, if they have built a great solution, why not promote that in Europe? And it might be something that works, as you said in the case of that school district, maybe that is an application that could be a perfect showcase here, and it gives them access to this market through the network of partners here. One of the things that were happening at ISE, apart from the black-walled fortress that Samsung weirdly had limited access to their whole stand, was discussion around the evolution of Magic Info and how there was a new platform coming called VXT. Is that something that your group has been aware of and has been talking to Samsung about? Mark Ossel: Oh yeah, sure. Long before ISE, we started discussions with Samsung on that new platform, VXT. So yeah, as said our alliance is not limited to Magic Info, but all the platforms of Samsung, so this will be part of it as well in the future, and we have discussed functionalities as well as coexistence migration between platforms and so on with Samsung. So would you say there's been a benefit around that in that you somewhat have insider knowledge of what's coming ahead of perhaps some other companies that are just now starting to get exposure to what this thing is?  Mark Ossel: Yeah, absolutely. Before ISE, we had conversations about it already and at ISE we even had a specific session with Samsung and some of the members were present on this topic as well. Yeah, we are at the forefront of that development as a group.  Now, there would be some people who would suggest, it's got some similarities to, let's say, pharmaceutical manufacturers who create institutes and associations and alliances and things like that as a front for their company. It gives them separation by doing it that way.  Are you getting those kinds of questions or even criticisms at all, like this is just a Samsung thing and they've called it an alliance, but it's not really a nonprofit, and so on?  Mark Ossel: No, in fact, I don't get it. It is truly a non-profit organization and independent. It's our own choice to work closely with Samsung, and we see it as mutually beneficial. We get early insight, we have the ability to give feedback and change direction where we feel it would be required. Samsung sees the advantage of having a loyal group that provides professionals with proper technical knowledge to provide valuable feedback.  It's a win-win. There is no dependency either way. It is beneficial for both sides.  And what's your background on this? How did you get involved in the work that you do in digital signage, what is that?  Mark Ossel: I started a long time back, with a video company that goes back to the early 80s.I have been in the IT industry as well since the early 80s. So the combination of audio, video, and digit digitization has been my path. Been on the board of a signage company for 30 years.  Oh wow. Which one was that?  Mark Ossel: It's DVC, a Dutch company, pretty significant. One in digital signage and in traditional signage. But yeah, I have some other activities well in the energy sector, and it's funny to see that all those things now perfectly come together. Energy and sustainability have become even big things in digital signage. It's one of the major topics and concerns of many customers, ranging from, how much energy a screen use? Or how can I manage the energy consumption or sustain it?  In a broader sense basically reflects everything from packaging to your total CO2 footprint which now becomes a topic in many discussions as well. So that's one we see as well in the development conversations of hardware and what you can drive and manage through software in this sense on this hot topic. Yeah, that's such an interesting area now that people in North America, like me, have looked at Europe and thought, okay that's a different circumstance. Few people in North America seem to be asking questions about energy consumption for computing devices and displays and so on, and then Ukraine happened and everything else has happened around it and now you're even hearing people in the United States and Canada asking the questions around, how much power is this consuming and how do we limit that?  Mark Ossel: Exactly. It's simple things like, what's your standby power? How can you control the energy? How can you measure it? And I'm assuming it goes a step further. Even if you look at content, some content can be created to use less power than others.  You use all white it's blinding and it's really sucking it up. If you use black backgrounds, it's not using power. Mark Ossel: Yeah. Those simple things start to make a difference. But then as well, if there's nobody walking nearby can you dim it, can you have the sensors checking and dims if there's nobody it's the area, why would you have streetlights on if there's nobody in that area at all, huh? And so more sophisticated solutions to address this topic are hot right now as well.  So if people want to find out more about the Global Signage Alliance, where do they go? What do they need to do?  Mark Ossel: First of all, look at the website, gs-alliance.org. That's where they basically have the initial information and the contact details to our staff who basically then provide them with anything they want and then we'll take it from there and welcome them as a member.  And it's just one tier of memberships, right? Mark Ossel: Yeah, it's simple.  EUR 250 and you're in, as long as you qualify, right? Mark Ossel: Exactly EUR 250, then you're in and you start making money if you really use take advantage and use the network.  Thank you very much for spending some time with me. Mark Ossel: Thanks, Dave, for asking the right questions and giving the opportunity to get the GSA across to your audience as well Thanks for that opportunity, and continue with your great programs.

This episode we start our look at the reign of Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Niha, aka Kinmei Tennō. We'll start off with a look at his ascension to the throne and some of the politics that we can see going on in the court. We'll also discuss some of the theories regarding this reign, particularly its chronological placement in the Chronicles, which may not be exactly as it seems. Still, we are in what many consider to be the historical period, meaning that the records the Chroniclers were working from are assumed to be more accurate—they were likely using more written material, including books we no longer have extant. However, that doesn't mean everything is factual, and it is clear there are still some lacunae in the texts and some additional massaging by the Chroniclers themselves. For more information, check out https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-81   Rough Transcript: Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 81, the Politics of the Early Yamato Court. Last episode, before our Nara tour interlude, we covered the life of Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennō.  He picked up where his brother, Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennō, had[EB1]  left off, and is said to have reigned for about two and a half years, from 536 to 539.  During that time we see more of the rise of the family of Soga no Omi but we also see the Ōtomo no Muraji and the Mononobe going quite strong.  The sons of Ōtomo no Kanamura ended up involved with the government in Tsukushi, aka Kyuushuu, as well as the war efforts across the straits, mainly focused on Nimna and the surrounding areas.  Indeed, as we talked about last episode—episode 80—it is said that Ohtomo no Sadehiko went to Nimna and restored peace there, before lending aid to Baekje[EB2] .  This preoccupation with Nimna and events on the Korean peninsula are going to dominate our narrative moving forward, at least initially.  Much of the next reign focuses on events on the peninsula, rather than on the archipelago.  Oddly, this preoccupation isn't found everywhere.  In the Sendai Kuji Hongi—and other copies of the same work—there appears only a brief mention of Nimna, aka Mimana, in the record, which otherwise simply talks about inheritance and similar issues. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we dive into all of that, to include all of the peninsular goodness that we have coming our way, let's briefly talk about some of the things a little closer to home.  Mainly, let's talk about the succession and who our next sovereign appears to be. So first off, his name is given as Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Hiro Niha, and he is posthumously known to us as Kimmei Tennō.  For my part, rather than repeating the whole thing, I'm going to refer to him simply as Ame Kunioshi, though I'm honestly not sure if the best way to parse his name, assuming it isn't just another type of royal title.  He is said to have been the son of Wohodo no Ōkimi, aka Keitai Tennō, and his queen, Tashiraga, a sister to Wohatsuse Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennō. This would all seem pretty straightforward if it weren't for the fact that two of his half-brothers had taken the throne before him.  Prince Magari and his brother, Takewo, were descended through another line, that of Menoko, daughter of Owari no Muraji no Kusaka.  Menoko did not appear to meet the Nihon Shoki's Chroniclers' strict requirements for being named queen—namely, they don't bother to trace her lineage back to the royal line in some way, shape, or form.  As such, the Nihon Shoki tries to pass off the reigns of the two brothers as though they were just keeping the seat warm while Ame Kunioshi himself came of age. None of the language used, however, really suggests that they were not considered legitimate in the eyes of their respective courts, and in all aspects they played the part of sovereign, and it is quite likely that if they had reigned long enough, or had valid heirs, themselves, we may be reading a slightly different story.  As it is, the Chroniclers likely manipulated the narrative just enough to ensure that things made sense in terms of a linear progression. And that manipulation hardly stopped at his ascension.  The account of Ame Kunioshi on the throne is filled with questionable narration.  Beyond just the fantastical—accounts of kami and of evil spirits—much of the reign is focused on events on the Korean peninsula, and these are almost always portrayed as actions by the Kingdom of Baekje, one of the three largest kingdoms across the straits, along with Silla and Goguryeo.  Baekje, in turn, is portrayed in the Nihon Shoki as a loyal vassal state, constantly looking to the sovereign of Yamato as their liege and attempting to carry out their will. For the most part, this is a blatant attempt by the Chroniclers to place Yamato front and center, and in control of events on the mainland.  Taken at face value, it has for a long time fueled nationalist claims to the Korean peninsula, and may have even been designed for that very purpose.  Remember, a history like this was written as much for a political purpose as it was record for posterity, and the narration is about as trustworthy as that of a certain fictional radio host in a sleepy desert community.  And yet, we want to be careful about throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, here.  The Nihon Shoki is a treasure trove of stories about this period and what was happening on the mainland, even if we have to be careful of taking everything at face value.  The details given in the text are sometimes more than any other sources we have for this period, and they are certainly closer to the source.  Korean sources, such as the Samguk Sagi, the Samguk Yusa, and the Tongkam all have their own gaps in the literature of the time, as well as their own political aims and goals, such that even they are suspect.  Sure, the flowery speechification is probably a little too much, but much of the back and forth seems reasonable, and there are numerous times where the Nihon Shoki directly quotes the copy of the Baekje annals that they had at the time—a text that is no longer extant, and which seems to have items that did not make it into later collections.  By following the back and forth and the flow of allegiances and deceptions, and looking at who was said to have been involved—both the individuals and the countries—we might be able to draw a picture of this era. And what a picture it will be.  I probably won't get to it all today, but there is conflict over Nimna, with Baekje and Yamato typically teaming up against Silla and Goguryeo, but there are other things as well.  For one thing, nothing in this era is cut and dried, and while there are overarching themes, alliances were clearly fluid, and could quickly change.  Furthermore, all this activity spawned a new level of interaction, particularly between Baekje and Yamato, and we see a new era of Baekje sharing their knowledge with Yamato.  For instance, this reign we see the first mention of Yin-Yang Divination studies—the famous Onmyouji—as well as calendrical studies in the archipelago.  We also see the arrival of Buddhism to the islands.  Well, at least we see the formal introduction of Buddhism; given all of the people in the archipelago who came over from the continent, there were likely more than a few Buddhists already living in the archipelago, but it hadn't grown, yet, to be a State religion, as it would be in later centuries. To try to do this period justice, I'm going to try to break things down a bit so that we can focus on various themes as we move through the stories here.  It will probably take us a few episodes to get through.  Furthermore, at some point here I want to talk about this new religion, Buddhism, and how it traveled all the way from India to the islands of Japan.  But for now, let's focus on the Chronicles. Not all of what is talked about in this reign is focused on the mainland, so I'm going to start us off talking about the stories about this period that are taking place in the islands themselves, starting with how Ame Kunioshi came to the throne.  Or rather, with some events just before he came to the throne. The first story about Ame Kunioshi comes when he is simply a prince—it is unclear during which reign this is supposed to have happened, only that it happened before he came to the throne.  The Chronicles say that Ame Kunioshi had a dream in which he was told to seek out a man named Hata no Ōtsuchi. We've seen in the past these kinds of oracular dreams, where the gods, or kami, will speak directly to a person—often to the sovereign or someone close to the sovereign.  By all accounts, the ability to act as a conduit for the kami was an important aspect of rulership and political power at this time, and we've seen the supposed consequences of not listening to such an oracle as well.  And so he sent people out to find this man, who was eventually found in the Kii district of the land of Yamashiro. Now this area is not surprising.  It is identified as the area, today, in the modern Fushimi district of Kyoto.  In fact, it includes the area of the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha—the Fushimi Inari shrine.  That shrine is also connected to the Hata family. For those who don't recall, the Hata family appear to have been descended from weavers who were brought over from the continent.  The kanji used for their name is the same as that of the Qin dynasty, from which we get the modern name of China, though the pronunciation is taken from the word “Hata”, which appears to refer to a type of cloth, and also resembles the word for banners or flags.  We mentioned them some time back in episode 63, when we talked about one of the early heads of the Hata, who was given the name Uzumasa.  That name is still used to identify a district in Kyoto to this day. And so here we are, back in the Kyoto area, near Fushimi shrine, which is also, as it happens, connected to the Hata family.  That story is found not in the Nihon Shoki, but rather it is attributed to fragments of the Yamashiro no Fudoki.  In that account we hear tell of a wealthy man named Irogu, whom we are told is a distant relative of Hata no Nakatsu no Imiki—no doubt a contemporary to the Yamashiro Fudoki, and the reason the story made the cut.  Irogu, it seems, had made himself wealthy through rice cultivation.  In fact, he had so much rice that he was using mochi—pounded glutinous rice cakes—as targets for his archery practice.  As he was shooting at the mochi, suddenly one of them turned into a swan and flew up into the sky, up to the top of a nearby mountain.  Where it landed rice, or “ine”, began to grow. That mountain is none other than the site of Fushimi Inari Shrine, a shrine that will show up again and again in various stories, as it was quite prominent.  Though the shrine was only founded in the 8th century, the story may indicate that there were older rituals, or perhaps that it was a focus of worship much like Mt. Miwa, down in the land of Yamato, to the south, and that shrine buildings were simply added to the mountain at a later date.  Fushimi is, of course, the place, and Inari is the name of the god, or kami, worshipped at the shrine.  Inari is a god of farming—specifically of rice cultivation—and today small Inari shrines can be found throughout Japan.  They are typified by red gates—usually multiple gates, one after the other, often donated by various individuals.  In addition, one might see Inari's servants and messengers, foxes, which take the place of the lion-dogs that often guard shrine precincts.  Importantly, these foxes are not the kami themselves, but simply the kami's messengers.  Still people will often bring gifts of oily, deep fried tofu—abura-age—said to be a favorite of foxes, to help ensure that their prayers—their messages to the kami—are swiftly and properly delivered. I could probably do an entire episode on Fushimi Inari and Inari worship in Japan.  There is so much material on the phenomenon on foxes, or kitsune, and fox-spirits, especially with the co-mingling of both continental and insular belief, which is sometimes at odds.  For now, however, we can confine ourselves to the fact that Fushimi clearly had connections to the Hata family, who have shown up a few times in the past, but are still largely taking bit roles in things at the moment.  Nonetheless, since the Chroniclers were writing from the 8th century, things like this, which were no doubt important to the powerful families of their day, were often included. Getting back to our main story, when Hata no Ōtsuchi came before the prince, Ame Kunioshi, he told a story of how he had been traveling the land, coming back from trading in Ise, when he came upon two wolves, fighting each other on a mountain.  The wolves were each covered in blood from their hostilities, and yet, through all of that, Hata no Ōtsuchi recognized them as visible incarnations of kami.  Immediately he got off his horse, rinsed his hands and mouth to purify himself, and then made a prayer to the kami.  In his prayer he admonished them for delighting in violence.  After all, while they were there, attacking each other, what if a hunter came along and, not recognizing their divine nature, took both of them?  With his earnest prayer he got them to stop fighting and he then cleaned off the blood and let them both go, thus saving their lives. Hearing such a story, Ame Kunioshi determined that his dream was likely sent by the same kami saved by Ōtsuchi, or perhaps another spirit who had seen his good deed, who was recommending this good Samaritan to the prince.  And who was he to deny the kami?  So when he came to the throne, Ame Kunioshi put Hata no Ōtsuchi in charge of the Treasury. That would have to wait until he actually ascended the throne, however; an opportunity that preserved itself with the death of his half brother, Takewo no Ōkimi.  When Takewo passed away in 539, we are told that the ministers all requested that Ane Kunioshi take the throne, but at first he deferred, suggesting that the wife of his eldest half brother, Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennō, take the throne, instead. This was the former queen, Yamada, daughter of Ōke no Ōkimi, aka Ninken Tennō, so no doubt she had a good sense of how the government should work.  Yet she, too, waved off the honor.  Her reasoning, though, is a very patriarchal and misogynistic diatribe about how women aren't fit four the duties of running the country.  Clearly it is drawn from continental sources, and it always makes me wonder.  After all, the Nihon Shoki was being written in the time of rather powerful women controlling the Yamato court – which, I imagine irked some people to no end, especially those learned in classic literature, such as the works of Confucius. So I wonder why this was put in.  Did he truly defer to her?  Or was this just to demonstrate his magnanimous nature?  Was she pushed aside by the politics of the court?  I also wonder why they went to her, and not Takewo's wife.  It is also interesting to me that the Chroniclers only note her own objections to her rule, and there isn't a peep out of the assembled ministers. There appears to be another possible angle.  Some scholars have pointed out inconsistencies with the timeline and events in the reign of Ame Kunioshi that may have actually happened much earlier, including the arrival of Buddhism.  They suggest that perhaps there was a period of multiple rulers, possibly rival dynasties, with Magari no Ohine and his brother, Takewo, handling one court and Ame Kunioshi ruling another.  If that were the case, then was Yamada the senior person in the other line?  At the very least she represents the transfer of power and authority over to Tashiraga's lineage. Moving forward, we're going to want to pay close attention to these kinds of political details.  Often we'll see how how princes of different mothers will end up as pawns in the factional infighting that will become de rigeur in the Yamato court, with different families providing wives in the hopes that they might eventually be family members to the next sovereign. So, however it really happened, Ame Kunioshi took the throne.  He reappointed Ōtomo no Kanamura and Mononobe no Okoshi Ōmuraji and named Soga no Iname no Sukune back to his position as Ō-omi.  He set up his palace at a place called Shikishima, in the district of Shiki in the middle of the Nara Basin in the ancient country of Nara—still within sight of Mt. Miwa and, by now, numerous kofun built for previous kings, queens, and various nobles.  Both the Emishi and the Hayato are said to have come and paid tribute—apparently part of the enthronement rituals—and even envoys from Baekje, Silla, Goguryeo and Nimna are said to have stopped in with congratulatory messages.  These were probably fairly pro forma messages to maintain good—or at least tolerable—relations between the various states of the day, not unlike today when various people call a newly elected president or prime minister to congratulate them on their own entry to office. He also took as his Queen his own niece, daughter of his half-brother, the previous sovereign, Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennō.  Her name was Ishihime, and she would provide Ame Kunioshi with several children, including the Crown Prince, Wosada Nunakara Futodamashiki no Mikoto, aka the eventual Bidatsu Tennō. By the way, for anyone concerned that Ame Kunioshi was” robbing the cradle”, so to speak, remember that he was already 33 years younger than his brother.  It is quite possible, assuming the dates are correct, that he and Ishihime were roughly the same age.  To put it another way, if Ame Kunioshi was a Millennial, his brother Takewo had been a Boomer, meaning that Ishihime was likely either Gen X or a Millennial herself, to extend the analogy. Of course, they were still uncle and niece, so… yeah, there's that.  I could point out again that at this time it was the maternal lineage that determined whether people were considered closely related or not.  Children of different mothers, even with the same fathers, were considered distant enough that it was not at all scandalous for them to be married, and that we probably should be careful about placing our own cultural biases on a foreign culture—and at this point in history many aspects of the culture would be foreign even to modern Japanese, just as a modern person from London would likely find conditions in the Anglo Saxon era Lundenwic perhaps a bit off-putting.  Still, I don't think I can actually recommend the practice. Now it is true he was coming to the throne at relatively young age.  He was probably about 30 years old when he took charge of the state, while his brothers, their father's eldest sons, had come to the throne much later in life, in their 50s or 60s.  And if Ame Kunioshi was actually ruling earlier then he might have been younger, running the state of Yamato—or at least some part of it—when he was still in his early 20s. Along with Ishihime, Ame Kunioshi took several other wives.  The first two were Ishihime's younger sisters, Kurawakaya Hime and Hikage.  Then there were two daughters of Soga no Iname—and yes, *that* Soga no Iname, the re-appointed Ō-omi.  At least three of the next four sovereigns would come from those two unions, and I'll let you take a guess at how the Soga family's fortunes fared during that time.  Finally, the last wife was was named Nukako, and she was the daughter of Kasuga no Hifuri no Omi.   Kasuga was also the family name of Kasuga no Yamada no Himemiko, who had turned down the throne to allow Ame Kunioshi to ascend, though we don't hear too much else from the Kasuga family.  This could be connected to that, although it is hard to be certain.  For the most part the Kasuga family seems to stay behind the scenes, but the fact that they are inserting themselves into the royal line at different points would seem to be significant.   The Soga, on the other hand, are going to feature quite prominently in matters of state moving forward. While it is unclear just when the various marriages occurred—they may have happened before or after his ascension to the throne—it is interesting to see how much influence the Soga family may have had in the royal bedchamber, something we would do well to remember as we look into this period.  And while the Soga family was on the rise, other families were not doing so well.  In particular, it seems that something happened to the Ōtomo family. Now don't get me wrong, Ōtomo Kanamura, that veteran courtier, was reappointed as Ōmuraji at the start of the reign, and given all of his influence up to this point, he clearly had been doing something right.  But then we have a single incident at the start of Ame Kunioshi's reign that makes me wonder. It took place during a court visit to Hafuri-tsu-no-miya over at Naniwa—modern Ōsaka.  Hafuri would appear to refer to a Shinto priest, so apparently they were at the palace—or possibly shrine—of the Priest, at least as far as I can make out.  When Ame Kunioshi went out, much of the court came with, including Ōtomo no Kanamura, Kose no Omi no Inamochi, and Mononobe no Okoshi.    Of those three, Kose no Inamochi seems a bit of an odd choice, but we'll go with it, for now. While they were there, away from the palace, talking over various subjects, the conversation turned towards talk about invading Silla.  At this, Mononobe no Okoshi related the story of how Kanamura had basically orchestrated giving up four districts of Nimna over to Baekje.  Those were the Upper and Lower Tari, Syata, and Muro.  This had pissed off Silla, who no doubt wanted as much of a buffer state between them and their allies as possible, and who also may have felt that Nimna and other border states were theirs to manipulate.  Through all of these talks and deliberations, which apparently went on for some time, Kanamura stayed at home, out of the public eye, feigning illness.  Eventually, though Awomi no Ōtoshi no Magariko came to check in on him and see how he was doing, and Kanamura admitted that he had simply been feigning illness to get out of the humiliation of having given up the provinces so many years ago. Hearing of this, Ame Kunioshi pardoned Ōtomo no Kanamura of any guilt.  He could put the past behind him and speak nothing of it. And he did.  Speak nothing of it, that is.  Or at least nothing that was recorded in the Chronicles.  From here on out, we don't hear of Kanamura—and barely of Ōtomo.  There is a brief mention of Kanamura's son, Sadehiko, who had gone to the Korean peninsula to fight back in the previous reign.  Then, another member of the Ōtomo pops up again in the reign of Bidatsu, but this appears to be the last time we see an “Ōtomo no Ōmuraji”—no other Ōtomo would be recorded as having taken that position, even though others, particularly the Mononobe, would continue to be honored with the title up through at least the 7th century. Ōtomo no Kanamura's exit at this point in the narrative seems somewhat appropriate, as the narrative will go on to focus on Nimna, and the violence on the peninsula.  That fighting would consume much of the next century, with Silla eventually winding up on top, but that was not always a foregone conclusion.  In the meantime there were numerous battles, back and forth.  Sometimes it was Silla and Goguryeo against Baekje and Yamato.  Other times, Silla and Baekje fought against Goguryeo.  Then there were the smaller states of Kara, Ara, Nimna, and more. With all of that chaos, the Chronicles record numerous people from the peninsula coming to stay in the archipelago, but also there were many ethnic Wa people—possibly from Yamato, especially based on their names—that went to live and fight on the peninsula as well.  Family names such as the Mononobe, Ikuba, and even Kibi show up with Baekje or Silla titles, intermingled with other names of unknown, though likely peninsular, origin.  This intermingling would appear to indicate that the states of the Korean peninsula were multi-ethnic states, with individuals from all over.   Despite—or perhaps even because of—all the fighting, there seems to be an increased intercourse between the various states, as well as with states like the Northern Wei, to the West, in the Yellow River Basin, and Liang, to the South, along the Yangtze. We'll dive into all of that chaos and confusion—and try to draw a few more concrete facts and concepts—next time. Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support.  If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

In this Podcast Walt Zerbe, Sr. Director of Technology & Standards at CEDIA and host for the CEDIA podcast talks with Rich Green of Rech Green Design and Christiaan Beukes of Sphere Custom and Jesus Delg, a guest to the stage and someone we met last year at the ISE show who is taking a deeper look into human interaction with technology.  In this talk, we get into the discussion of the 'smarts' of a connected home.

On the heels of returning from ISE 2023 in Barcelona, Dan Ferrisi, host and editor-in-chief, chats with Control Concepts' Steve Greenblatt and Brittany DiCesare on their takeaways from this year's show. The trio discusses the following:ISE 2023 in comparison to other trade shows (2:33)Diversification and interoperability in the industry (13:21)AV industry's shift toward experiential (17:57)…and much more!Watch or listen to the discussion in full above. Visit CommercialIntegrator.com for more exclusive coverage of the ISE show in Barcelona.

This week; Phil looks at the latest Ambilight TVs revealed at the recent Philips event in Amsterdam and Jules fills us in on the ISE exhibition in Barcelona. There're also reviews of the SVS Prime Wireless Pro speakers and the NAD C 3050LE integrated amp. Plus, after the TV community's hopes were raised with talk of support for 4x fully featured HDMI 2.1 ports, we talk about the disappointing news that the MediaTek Pentonic 1000 chip will still only cater for two, and what it means for TV manufacturers. There's also our usual AV and Hi-Fi news roundup. (00:00:00) Start (00:00:29) Welcome and feedback (00:04:00) Comments from the last podcast (00:15:05) What we've been up (00:24:30) Competitions (00:26:33) Philips announces new OLED808 and OLED+908 Ambilight TVs for 2023 (00:32:26) Philips unveils its new MiniLED and LED TVs for 2023 (00:36:10) Mediatek Pentonic 1000 SoC limited to 2 fully-featured HDMI 2.0 ports (00:44:36) Sony announces five new 8K AVRs (North America only so far) (00:46:12) McIntosh announces MHT300 Home Theater Receiver (00:51:30) ISE 2023 event report from Jules (00:59:35) Paradigm Founder Multichannel Package Review (01:04:39) SVS Prime Wireless Pro Speakers Review (01:08:12) KEF launches new-generation R Series speakers (01:10:56) Cambridge Audio unveils two new music streaming solutions (01:13:11) Philips reveals new line-up of noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds (01:21:43) NAD C 3050LE Amplifier Review (01:25:15) Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2023 Preview (01:26:29) System Audio SA Air 9 Wireless Speakers Review (01:29:03) Ed's Album, vinyl and playlist recommendation

While some of us are still reeling from the show that is Integrated Systems Europe 2023, the news never stops. In light of that, we are committed to bringing you the latest stories surrounding the commercial side of the AV industry. Joining us this week is Building Technology Designer for HGA Kelly Ciccheti and AV expert Dawn Meade.Looking at the success of ISE 2023, how manufacturers are pushing through supply chain issues, and looking at LG's massive LED screen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 196Mike Pedersen welcomes Joe Andrulis, Executive Vice-President of Corporate at Biamp to discuss their new launches, the 2023 ISE show, and the impact on higher education.Learn more about Biamp:Website: https://www.biamp.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/BiampConnect with Joe Andrulis:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeandrulis/Connect with Mike Pedersen:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-pedersen-cts-d-cts-i-7477191/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ped1971

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 197Ryan Gray welcomes Carlos Ocampo Senior AV Technician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kat Taub, Product Marketing Manager at Audinate to the Midwich Booth, live at ISE 2023. They discuss the show, product launches, and how technology impacts higher education.Connect with Carlos Ocampo:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crocampo/Connect with Kat Taub and Audinate:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-taub-823534158/Website: https://www.audinate.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/AudinateConnect with Ryan Gray:LinkedIb: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanagray/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ryan_A_Gray

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 198Joe Way welcomes Brad Hintze, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Crestron, and Mikelis Studers, CEO at Catchbox, to the ISE 2023 Influencer's Lounge to discuss how their product offerings are essential in the daily success of higher ed tech managers. They discuss the show, Barcelona, and the move post-pandemic to creating products and services to support the higher ed vertical.Connect with Brad Hintze and Crestron: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradhintze/Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bradhintzeWebsite: https://www.crestron.comTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/crestronConnect with Mikelis Studers and Catchbox:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikelis-studers/Website: https://www.catchbox.comTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/catchboxConnect with Joe Way:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiahwayTwitter: https://twitter.com/josiahway

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 199BC Hatchett welcome's a who's who of the AV industry to the Epiphan Video studios, Live at ISE 2023, to discuss recent product offerings, issues facing higher ed and the industry, and the overall impact of the tradeshow on higher education.Connect with Paul Harris, CEO at Aurora Multimedia: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-harris-0830bb1/overlay/photo/Twitter: https://twitter.com/pharris202 Website: https://www.auroramultimedia.comConnect with Dave Amann, Audiovisual Team Leader at the University of Cambridge:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-amann-35696330/Twitter: https://twitter.com/daveyavConnect with Julian Fernandez, Director of Product Marketing at Epiphan Video:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianmfernandez/Website: https://www.epiphan.comConnect with Tammy Fuqua, Developer Partner Mgr at Q-SYS & Co-Chair AVIXA Women's Council:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammy-fuqua/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TammyFuqua3Website: https://www.qsys.comWebsite: https://www.avixa.org/membership/committees-councils/avixa-women-s-councilConnect with Rene Karass, Marketing Lead at Panopto:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rene-karras-754057ba/Website: https://www.panopto.comConnect with BC Hatchett:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bc-hatchett-88746312/Twitter: https://twitter.com/bchatchett

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 200In a milestone 200th episode, the Higher Ed AV crew of Joe Way, BC Hatchett, Mike Pedersen, and Ryan Gray run through their top finds and moments of ISE 2023.Connect with Joe Way: LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/josiahwayTwitter: https://twitter.com/josiahwayConnect with BC Hatchett:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bc-hatchett-88746312/Twitter: https://twitter.com/bchatchettConnect with Mike Pedersen:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-pedersen-cts-d-cts-i-7477191/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ped1971Connect with Ryan Gray:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanagray/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ryan_A_Gray

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 201Representation for women and people of color is essential for the longterm success of the AV industry. Joe Way sits down with Iffat Chaudhry, Tammy Fuqua, and Karen Ethier, Live at the ISE 2023 Influencer's Lounge to discuss the state of the industry and what we can and should do as an industry and vertical.Connect with Iffy Chaudhry and the #WhatIff Podcast: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iffat-chaudhry/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Iffsi#WhatIff Twitter: https://twitter.com/WhatIffAVConnect with Tammy Fuqua and the AVIXA Women's Council:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammy-fuqua/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TammyFuqua3Website: https://www.avixa.org/membership/committees-councils/avixa-women-s-councilConnect with Karen Ethier:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-ethier-7614566b/Connect with Joe Way:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiahwayTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/josiahway

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 195Mike Pedersen welcomes Caroline Pepper, vice-chair of SCHOMS and learning spaces manager at the University of Birmingham UK, live from the Influencer's Lounge on the show floor at ISE 2023. They discuss her experience and how it impacts higher ed.Learn more about SCHOMS:Website: https://www.schoms.ac.ukTwitter: https://twitter.com/SCHOMSinfoConnect with Caroline Pepper:Learning Space Manager, University of Birmingham UKVice-Chair, SCHOMSConnect with Mike Pedersen:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-pedersen-cts-d-cts-i-7477191/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ped1971

Ted Romanowitz has been around the commercial display and tech sectors for a whole bunch of years, and for the last two or so, has been an industry analyst for the research firm Futuresource Consulting. Futuresource is in the UK, but Ted works out of the Portland, Oregon area - spending his time looking at professional display technologies, ranging from projectors to mini and microLED video wall products. He was at CES and he'll be at ISE this week, meeting with manufacturers and walking the halls, seeing what's new and interesting. We had a good chat about where the different display technologies are at, and how miniLED is seeing a lot of traction for fine pitch LED displays. We talk projection and we spend quite a bit of time discussing the state and vast potential for microLED. One thing I particularly liked was his qualifier about "true" microLED, as all kinds of manufacturers market their premium products as microLED, when they're really miniLED. Ted, thank you for joining me. Can you explain what you do for Futuresource and what Futuresource is all about?  Ted Romanowitz: Oh, I'd love to do that. I'm a principal analyst at FutureSource Consulting in our business-to-business (b2b) practice. I lead the entire professional display Segment. So we cover everything Projection, LCD panels, tiled LCD, and interactive displays, as well as my forte, as you may know, is LED. I have more than 10 years of industry experience in LED with Planar, Leyard and Christie Digital. It's wonderful. There's a lot going on in pro displays right now.  So what would you be doing primarily? Are you producing research reports? Are you talking to companies? You know, what's your day-to-day? Ted Romanowitz: We do three really big things. One, we do quarterly trackers for all these technologies. So you can look at the data by company, by specification, by country, and comparatively by brand. We also do annual reports. We've just published a video wall report as well as a strategic market outlook. We've got a big digital signage report coming in the springtime. We're looking forward to publishing that, as well as a refresh of our true micro-LED report coming in the first half of the year. So we do a lot of annual reports, and then the third bit is custom research. So if there are any companies out there that have a specific business need for the information, they can reach out to me and we'd love to talk to them about a one-off type of project to get the analytics that they need to make an informed business.  How hard is it to get the data from all the different display manufacturers and to talk about their sales and their market size?  Ted Romanowitz: It is definitely a challenge and I think, especially during the Covid timeframe, to keep relationships established has been challenging. We just came back from a major trip to the Asia Pacific in November, so we were literally the first company meeting these large pro AV vendors in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. We spent two weeks over there face-to-face and you just can't say enough about building face-to-face relationships and having those conversations and that's why we're so much looking forward to ISE this year, getting everybody back together.  So when you say you are the first company, what do you mean by that?  Ted Romanowitz: A lot of these vendors haven't had research companies or other people come and visit them face-to-face. So they were really glad, almost ecstatic to have us show up at their doorstep for a meeting. It was wonderful to rebuild a lot of relationships. It's so much different to do it face-to-face. It's more meaningful. As opposed to at a table in a trade show booth? Ted Romanowitz: That's also face-to-face, so I think those are good as well.  It's hard to get good data, setting yourself aside, there are one or two other companies that are focused on this, but there's this avalanche or a steady torrent of crap coming out of research factories from India. Do you have to fight against that?  Ted Romanowitz: I think what Futuresource is really good at is having these long-term relationships. We've been doing this for two decades. We have relationships with the brands. We're getting data, hard data. We're having not only quantitative discussions, but we're having qualitative trends impacting the industry, what's coming next, and those sorts of things, so it's much more robust practice that we do, and that's why people are coming to us wanting our research.  And part of your routine as well is going to the big trade shows, I believe you're just at CES and you're planning to go to ISE as well? Ted Romanowitz: Absolutely. It was my 14th trip to CES in my career, and it's like a little bit of a family reunion for me actually. But it was amazing to see the energy and people actually queuing up to be able to get into some of the booths there, the larger booths because they were controlling the traffic for Covid and everything. But the energy was there, a lot of great new technologies. It was quite exciting, and as a little preview, I know we're gonna talk about micro LEDs at some point, but I was able to see the industry's first true micro-LED displays, so that was worth the trip, just that one thing.  Yeah, I get asked every year, am I going to CES? And I say, I've done it, don't want to do it again, too many people line up for everything. But the biggest thing is it's consumer electronics and it's pushing away to some degree it seems at least from displays into gadgets and cars and everything else, so I'm curious if you said that one thing alone was worth the trip, but for somebody who is maybe not as well versed as you, is it worth going to CES if you're in the digital signage industry?  Ted Romanowitz: There were digital sign signs everywhere, even in some of the smaller halls like North and West, there were LED signs in almost every single booth promoting different technologies and companies, brands. It was amazing. But yeah, I was also amazed at how some of the big consumer brands were starting to bring in LED technology in particular, and showing the consumer applications of that and it's still not gonna be sold through a CEDIA channel, it's going to be sold through pro AV consultants. So it's our heart and soul still for some years before it becomes priced for the mass markets if you will. Do you get cues from CES about, a product that comes out for TVs whether it be OLED or QLED whatever the case may be, are those cues to what's gonna happen on the pro side or does it not necessarily track that way? Ted Romanowitz: There's not one way or the other, but I definitely think, specifically to LED technology, that is primarily a pro-AV thing and it is starting to creep into CES and that's exactly why I was at the show.  Venetian had three floors of smaller companies, and it's amazing how much of our ecosystem is starting to show up there. Different companies looking for ODM and OEM arrangements were in the Venetian, showing prototypes and whatnot of not only LED but also see-through LED and transparent OLED.  I was curious about one of the announcements at CES where LG unveiled an OLED TV that was wirelessly powered. Now there was a box that you still had to plug in, but between the box and the display panel itself, there was no wire. It was being transmitted by IR or something or other, I forgot. Is that something that you see as coming or is it just an outlier that nobody would actually use? Ted Romanowitz: LG had a wireless OLED display. But my understanding is that it was wireless connectivity on the data side and not necessarily on the power side. But that's certainly something I think it'll be interesting to see if that shows up at ISE, and definitely, a trend that we should all watch, especially in historic buildings across the east coast of America plus Europe, where you have a historical building and you wanna hang a display in this space, but you don't have power to it, and you don't want a god awful power cord, video signal cord running down the beautiful brickwork or whatnot. There could be some real applications for it.  Yeah. I know a company in Israel. I did a podcast with them and they now have wireless power technology and they insisted it's safe and everything else, and you don't get fried if you walk in front of it, or anything. Ted Romanowitz: Interesting. I'm not aware of that. I'll have to get the information from you so we can have a good look.  So what display segments are growing right now?  Ted Romanowitz: Overall, the pro display is growing over the next five years at about an 8% compound annual growth rate, which is healthy. That's really being driven primarily by direct view LED, which is, over 20% year-over-year growth. So that's really where the growth is. LCD is still showing basically flat growth over the next five years. It's very slow growth, but yet by 2026, it's still 50% of the pro displays marketplace, and we won't see that shift between LED and LCD until we have some of these advanced technologies like mini LED, as defined by flip chip COB, which I think we're gonna see some really interesting demos at ISE on this technology finally. There have been technical and manufacturing issues that have held it back from mass production. So I think 2023 will be the year, we're predicting that 2023 will be the year when companies will come into mass production and resolve these manufacturing and technical issues. So that's where you get pixel pitches under 0.7, 0.6, perhaps even 0.5 with flip chip COB that will start to challenge LCD panels, which are really that close-up viewing experience really predominant.  Yeah, I remember Leyard's CTO or he some kind of title like that, he was saying once you get to about 0.7, you're very close to the pixel pitch that you would have on an LCD.  Ted Romanowitz: That is correct. It's around 0.5-millimeter pixel pitch on an LCD screen. So yeah, LED is getting there, and then the really last bit is, once you have that close-up viewing experience, you can put it into, let's say small to medium room sized meeting rooms as well as digital signage, eye level, close up wayfinding, informational displays, those kinds of things. It gets really interesting for LED, but the price differential right now is still fairly substantial. What is it now? I understand there are a whole bunch of variables. Ted Romanowitz: That's a loaded question. I wish I could just say, oh, it's X percent but it depends. I hate that answer, but it's the truth. We're seeing these advanced technologies in LED come in the mass volume where you get economies of scale, you're gonna see that differential shrink. So that's first with this flip chip CEOB, mini LED and that gets you to around, 0.5-0.6 millimeter, certainly 0.7 so you're on the verge of competing with LCD panels and then with what we're calling true micro LED technology, that is sub-100-micron chiplets mass transferred onto a TFT backplane with an active driver technology. So that is what one of the brands was showing at CES Samsung. They had from 55-inch to about 140-inch displays. They weren't able to give me pricing on that officially, but we know they estimated it last year at about $150,000 for a 4K display over 100 inches. And that's probably not gonna go into your house or mine, although we aspire to that. But over the years as they come into mass production in the next five to seven years, it's going to drop from $150,000 down to around $4,000 is what we're estimating and volume production, once you get under, let's say 40,000 or 30,000, it'll start showing up in the CEDIA channels. So it'll start shifting from pro AV consultants to the CEDIA channel but they'll need lots of help to figure out how to do it, and then once it gets into the $4,000 to $5,000 range, it's definitely more of a broad consumer electronic, still very expensive for you and I, a lot of people will really want to jump on this technology. It looks really beautiful. The stuff that Samsung was showing at CES was that when you frame it as true micro LED, as the Samsung stuff part of the wall series and they're now doing genuine micro LED with that?  Ted Romanowitz: That's a great question, but they had the wall separately. These were consumer television sets that are true micro0LED, but they weren't ready yet to do an announcement in the pro AV space but one could reasonably assume that might be coming, that they'll offer this true micro-LED display, and whether they brand it ‘The wall' or whatever else they're gonna call it, that's up in the air.  But it looks fantastic. It'll start to impede LCD panels in a significant way, and then shift the industry towards that where right now, LED is already in video walls the predominant technology that has the highest value. Within five years, it'll be three times the value of a tiled LCD. So LED  is taking over the video wall. We see in the broader pro AV space, not in the next five years, but certainly, within the next 10 years, LED will be the number one display technology.  Yeah, I think there's always going to be a demand for LCD for some kind of meat and potatoes digital signage, like menu boards and ticketing information, all that sort of stuff, but you get into any kind of specialty application or something where shape needs to be flexible, they're gonna go to mini or micro-LED once the price is there.   Ted Romanowitz: Yes, true micro-LED eventually will also challenge LCD panels in that more, I guess what you would call hang and bang, on the commodity side. I believe that it'll bring LCD prices down. There'll always be a place for LCD technology but LED will start to take over where image quality, where impact is really important and there's just a smaller uplift in pricing for that better experience where people and customers want that big impact, it's going to be LED.  I was at Touch Taiwan about four years ago, pre-Covid, and I left that trade show with a distinct impression from manufacturers that they saw mini-LED as kind of an interim technology, and it was mostly gonna be used for LCD backlighting like addressable zones, local dimming that, all that stuff. But it seems like mini-LED is getting a lot of take-up as a direct-view LED product as well.  Ted Romanowitz: Absolutely, and LG has a version of their consumer LED product showcased at CES. It was about a 150-inch display and had some really good features. I think it was 1.2 millimeters with beautiful image quality but it's $300,000. It's still the consumer market that is very expensive for them to get into. But, then again, personally, as a product manager for LED, I've worked in multiple companies where we have done high-end homes with LEDand, putting up a $750,000 wall in a Bel Air home wasn't a problem They have the budget. That's again, not my house as much as I would like that.  Yeah, as much as I'd like to be a midfielder for Manchester United, I'm too small and way too old, I don't think I'm gonna have that kind of salary.   Ted Romanowitz: I think you and me both, but we can still hope, can't we? It's not too late.  Oh, I think it is for me at least. Ted Romanowitz: I think another important thing is with projection, you were talking about where the pro AV industry is going and all of that, projection both front and rear are in relatively steep decline, and some people would say, oh my gosh, that's super scary, there are so many projection companies out there, and we see so many demos at ISE and at CES, there are a lot of consumer protection companies displaying products. Even though projection is in decline, double-digit decline over the next five years, in the end, it's still a $4 to $5 billion market, it's massive, and so it's not like projection is gonna go away, it's just getting a little bit smaller.  So I think there's some hope there and we're seeing high brightness being a big thing over the last year. Already we've heard whispers from several of the projection brands that they're gonna be unveiling new high-brightness projectors. A lot of demos on projection mapping, blending, warping, and those sorts of things to support immersive, really engaging interactive displays.  Yeah, in the right physical environment and lighting conditions and everything else, projection is awesome because it's got that ability to surprise you. It just shows up and forms around things in a way you can't do with more conventional displays. Ted Romanowitz: Exactly, and if you need to have a large display of information or whatnot, there's no more cost-effective way to do that, to show a big image, let's say in a theater or something other than projection, right? LED is just far too expensive to do that, although some brands are in customer-facing theaters. Some very large technology brands are putting in LED displays to impact their ecosystem, and their end customers in a very impactful way, but still, projection is wonderful. It has legs to continue for decades but LED is the up-and-coming thing.  Why is projection getting better, like they're able to do brighter, is it because of laser, or are there other factors? Ted Romanowitz:  Yeah, it's the laser technology that they're implementing. I think smaller form factors, are quieter, as well as the prices are coming down as well. Those are all factors that are gonna give it legs for quite some time. One other thing too, I think there are so many immersive exhibits that are happening now, right? In Portland, Oregon, we get one every month or two where they're using projection and or a blend of projection in LED to provide a really amazing sensory exhibit. And when our team was in Japan, we went and saw the Team Labs exhibit there and it was wonderful that you actually took your shoes off, and put them in a locker. You roll up your pant legs and you're about knee-deep in warm water and, it was really cool, the projection map Koi onto the water that you're walking through, and the fish react to you. So you can reach out or, as you approach one of the fish, it'll look over at you and then scurry off as if it was a real fish. It was just an amazing experience to go do that.  I'm curious as well about OLED and light field displays and I recognize that light field displays are still probably a few years off, but are you seeing advances in that?  Ted Romanowitz: That's one of the things that we're going to be doing some further research on at ISE and it'll be interesting to see how that trend emerges, and OLED is really interesting. On the transparent side, a lot of companies have been working on that to help with merchandising or promoting products, putting them in an OLED box and putting marketing messages around the product even while you're able to reach in and touch the product.  Those are some super creative things, but at the LG booth at CES and a couple of others, they're showing transparent OLED and transparent LED applications where you can get a 10-foot high glass wall and cover it with an image. It's just cool. It's beautiful. It'll be interesting to see how corporations and other organizations invest in that, and what the adoption rate will be, and that's definitely an area where we're going to be researching further.  Yeah, the LED on film and LED embedded in glass particularly when micro-LED matures, that seems exciting as hell in terms of the amount of brightness you can get and the fact that you can just make it part of the building material. Ted Romanowitz: Exactly, yes, and you look at all these big cities. I don't know when you were in China last, but you go to Hong Kong and you're sitting on the Calhoun side at night and the choreographer does some choreography with music and a light show of all the major tall office buildings on Central. It's just amazing. And Shenzhen, Shanghai, a lot of cities in China are doing these light shows and lighting up all the buildings and in America, we're starting to see that as well. Obviously, Las Vegas is a great example, but I think it'll be interesting to see how that evolves, not only in America but also in Europe with all of the historical buildings, what the regulations will be and you know how they'll allow technology to be used architecturally and artistically on some of these historic buildings, or if we'll just keep doing projection onto them. Which you can do without affecting the building, which I'm sure makes the people who protect buildings happy.  Ted Romanowitz: Absolutely.  You're going to ISE, I assume. For somebody who's going and they're particularly interested in seeing what's new and what's emerging and what's important to know on the display side of things, what would you recommend? What should they be looking for? Ted Romanowitz: I definitely think the big trends will be the flip chip COB, and mini-LED. I don't know if a true micro-LED display will be shown, but they're certainly, if not from one of the big brands, I would expect some of the manufacturers like BOE or Seoul Semi might be showing some things in their booth, so that's one thing to look for. I think projection is gonna be sexy. People are gonna be doing projection mapping and blending and warping and all of that. 8K displays, I think you'll see more and more of those out there. Yeah, those are some of the big things. There's the digital signage section as well. We're gonna be spending a lot of time out there.  As I mentioned, we are doing a digital signage report in the next few months. So we will be looking at that as well.  Would that be a display report or software?  Ted Romanowitz: It'll be both. It'll be the whole ecosystem.  This is great because it's so hard to get any credible research on the software side of this business.  Ted Romanowitz: Exactly, and It'll be hardware and not only just the displays itself but the media servers, players, the content in the cloud. All of the above. It's gonna be a really exciting report. We're very much looking forward to that one.  Good. All right. Ted, thank you so much for spending some time with me.  Ted Romanowitz: Thank you so much and I look forward to seeing you in Barcelona.  Absolutely. Tapas! Ted Romanowitz: Exactly. See you there!

It's time to look at the latest news surrounding the commercial side of the AV industry, and discuss it amongst a panel of experts. Experts like President of Frank DJ & Event Services Willie Franklin, Regional Sales Manager for Avocor Kylie Pfile, and Vice President of EDGE Patrick Whipkey.The Women in AV/IT group is established, DTEN has multi-platform products for ISE, and asking if IT and AV are really one and the same.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bullards Bar kokanee; sturgeon coming soon; Scott Leysath-recipes; Delta stripers & boat ramps; "King tide" effects; youth section at ISE show

Higher Ed AV PodcastEpisode 191Higher Ed AV is heading to Barcelona to bring you targeted coverage for the higher ed vertical. The press crew of Joe Way, Karen Ethier, Ryan Gray, BC Hatchett, & Mike Pedersen, discuss what they expect to see at the show, why North Americans should attend, and why it is important for the vertical to be represented.Be sure to follow the ISE Live Coverage page for all the fresh content: https://www.higheredav.com/ISE-2023.

Atenção (disclaimer): Os dados aqui apresentados representam minha opinião pessoal. Não são de forma alguma indicações de compra ou venda de ativos no mercado financeiro. Primeira mulher a comandar BB é competente, mas terá desafio, dizem fontes https://www.istoedinheiro.com.br/primeira-mulher-a-comandar-bb-e-competente-mas-tera-desafio-dizem-fontes-2/ Lula escolhe Jean Paul Prates para Petrobras https://www.poder360.com.br/governo/lula-escolhe-jean-paul-prates-para-petrobras/ Haddad pediu a atual governo que desoneração de combustíveis não seja estendida https://br.investing.com/news/politics/haddad-pediu-a-atual-governo-que-desoneracao-de-combustiveis-nao-seja-estendida-1070205 Haddad promete cortes robustos de gastos e déficit menor já no primeiro ano, diz jornal https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2022/12/28/haddad-promete-cortes-robustos-de-gastos-e-dficit-menor-j-no-primeiro-ano-diz-jornal.ghtml Governo Lula enfraquece base no Senado com escalação de ministros https://redir.folha.com.br/redir/online/poder/rss091/*https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2022/12/governo-lula-enfraquece-base-no-senado-com-escalacao-de-ministros.shtml Putin veta exportação a países que impuseram teto de preço a petróleo da Rússia https://valor.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2022/12/27/putin-veta-exportacao-a-paises-que-impuseram-teto-de-preco-a-petroleo-da-russia.ghtml Ofertas de ações terão processo agilizado a partir da semana que vem https://www.moneytimes.com.br/ofertas-de-acoes-terao-processo-agilizado-a-partir-da-semana-que-vem/ Itaú investe R$ 4,1 bi para ter 27% de veículo da Cosan que detém ações da Raízen https://valor.globo.com/empresas/noticia/2022/12/28/ita-investe-r-41-bi-para-ter-27-pontos-percentuais-de-veculo-da-cosan-que-detm-aes-da-razen.ghtml Gafisa dispara quase 50% em meio a short squeeze https://braziljournal.com/gafisa-dispara-quase-50-em-meio-a-short-squeeze/ BRF fecha acordo de leniência e pagará mais de meio bilhão de reais à União https://www.istoedinheiro.com.br/brf-fecha-acordo-de-leniencia-e-pagara-mais-de-meio-bilhao-de-reais-a-uniao-2/ Minerva Foods integrará duas carteiras de índices da B3 relacionados à sustentabilidade em 2023, compondo as listagens ISE e ICO2 https://www.noticiasagricolas.com.br/noticias/carnes/337140-minerva-foods-integrara-duas-carteiras-de-indices-da-b-3-relacionados-a-sustentabilidade-em-2023-compondo-as-listagens-ise-e-ico-2.html Guararapes (GUAR3), dona da Riachuelo, presta esclarecimentos sobre possível venda de participação https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/guararapes-guar3-dona-da-riachuelo-presta-esclarecimentos-sobre-possivel-venda-de-participacao/ Oceapact (OPCT3) negocia com credores e apresenta novo waiver https://capitalist.com.br/oceapact-opct3-negocia-com-credores-e-apresenta-novo-waiver/ Subsidiária da MRV (MRVE3) nos EUA vende empreendimento por US$ 113 milhões https://www.moneytimes.com.br/subsidiaria-da-mrv-mrve3-nos-eua-vende-empreendimento-por-us-113-milhoes/ Queen of the Phone Hackers https://podcasts.apple.com/br/podcast/queen-of-the-phone-hackers/id1646691064?i=1000591550470 How Preppy Became Streetwear https://podcasts.apple.com/br/podcast/how-preppy-became-streetwear/id1376577202?i=1000588947236

On this episode of The Hollywood Outsider podcast, it's the Best of 2022 as we assemble our most popular topics of 2022 in ONE episode: Controversy, Multiverses, and 80s Movie Soundtracks! First up, we decided it was time to get a bit controversial and weigh in on a few of our unpopular opinions or theories in entertainment news. Is Wes Anderson vastly overrated? Should Star Wars have ended with Return of the Jedi? Is E.T. really an allegory for something deeper, perhaps a love story? All of these and more are discussed and probed as The Hollywood Outsider gets controversial. Then we're taking a journey through the multiverse. Specifically, the concept of multiverses as a storytelling device. While many might think this starts and ends with Marvel's recent slate of films including Spider-Man: No Way Home, in fact, multiverses have been around for decades in various forms. As this backdrop of storytelling explodes in popularity, we take a look at it and discuss if it has a long-term future in modern filmmaking. We conclude with our most popular topic of the year as we decided to look back at the original for inspiration and devote our topic to 80s movie soundtracks! Top Gun, Dirty Dancing, Purple Rain, The Blues Brothers, the list goes on and on and on. What was your favorite soundtrack from the 80s era? Discussed on this episode (0:00 – 49:16) Let's Get Controversial (49:17 – 1:13:34) Journey Through the Multiverse (1:13:35 – 2:05:12) 80s Movie Soundtracks Please support The Hollywood Outsider and gain immediate access to bonus content, including Patreon exclusive podcast content like our Bad Movie Night by visiting Patreon.com/ TheHollywoodOutsider Be sure to join our Facebook Group

Higher ed AV PodcastEpisode 188ISE 2023 is upon us, so it's time to start thinking about a return to Barcelona, Spain! Mike and Joe reflect on their time at ISE 2022 and discuss new developments for 2023. We give the lowdown on why higher ed should attend and what they can expect this time.Mike BlackmanManaging DirectorIntegrated Systems EuropeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellblackman/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ISE_Mike

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The roots of Austria's Easescreen are as a AV systems integrator, but when the company looked around in the late 1990s for software to use for jobs that weren't yet being called digital signage, there weren't many options. So Easescreen wrote its own software, and the company is now, by far, a software company first ... though it still offers hands-on solutions work in its home country Austria. Now Easescreen is looking beyond central Europe and actively developing partnerships and business in North America. I had a good chat with CEO Gerhard Pichler, and marketing manager Zuzana Yalcin, about the roots of Easescreen, how it differentiates itself from the many software options out there, and why they now have their sights set on this side of the Atlantic. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Gerhard and Zuzana, thank you for joining me. Gerhard, can you give me a background on what Easescreen is all about and how long you've been?  Gerhard Pichler: Sure, Dave. Easescreen started in the late 90s, so actually, my first company, which still exists, is an AV integrator, so we come from quite a strong technical background, and in some of the projects, the customer requested solutions, which we now call digital signage. So we started, more or less, as the second role on the market as a manufacturer of software, as I told you, more than 20 years ago and now this year, we have rolled out more than 10,000 projects in nearly 100 countries. So it developed quite well, I would say. Would you describe what you now do as being software-first? Or do you still operate as an integrator as well?  Gerhard Pichler: Software-first, but in our home country (Austria), we have two offices there, one in Graz, which is in the south of Austria, and the other in Vienna, the capital. So in this home market, we also do AV integration so we still keep our knowledge regarding network, transmissions, protocols, screens, and so on quite high. My team does this kind of job but definitely, the most important thing within the company is the digital signage of the Easescreen. I assume having that capability and current knowledge of the hardware market and the installation challenges and all those things is probably quite helpful in giving you insights as to what the end users and the resellers need versus just guessing and talking to people about it?  Gerhard Pichler: That's for sure. Especially one thing is the contact with the other manufacturers. So for our businesses, we have very close contact with two manufacturers: LG, and Samsung, and on the other hand, we know how the integrators, which actually are our customers with who we do indirect business, how their mindset is, what their pains are because we experience the same. So that's quite helpful.  I'm guessing that you got into the software side of this business, back in ‘99 because there weren't a whole bunch of software options out there at that point, right?  Gerhard Pichler: Yeah, you're right. There were some dinosaurs, like Scala or Omnivex in Europe but the options for the customers weren't many compared to now. I would say in the 2000s and on, there were quite a lot of solutions coming up and disappearing again so it maybe was not very helpful for the signage industry because many of these solutions were not really professional, so the customer had a bad experience. They didn't touch signage for long, but I would say 10-15 years ago, it started again when customers trusted in professional solutions, and now the markets as you know as well, it's merging and there are a lot of solutions out there and there's some kind of consolidation going on. Of all those different deployments that you have, do you have some large ones?  I think I saw that recently you did some sort of a deal where you have, I think, roughly 8,000 displays for a tobacco company in stores in Germany. Is that correct?  Zuzana Yalcin: Yes. That was Japan Tobacco International. They carry brands like Camel, Winston, et cetera. I believe they're the third largest tobacco company in the world.  Yeah, and what are you doing with them? Are there screens at the point of sale?  Gerhard Pichler: Yeah, point of sale. So each point of sale has, I think, between one and three screens and behind each screen, there's an Easescreen license. So this is one of the larger projects.  I told you we have 10,000 out there and the project means networks the small network consists of 1-3 screens, and the larger ones like JTI for example, with at least 6,000 or 7,000 screens. The larger networks have more than thousands of screens in one network. So do you have a reference case or two that when you meet a potential business partner or customer, they say, “give some ideas on the kinds of projects that you've done.”  Do you have one or two go-to's that you tend to mention? Gerhard Pichler: We go through the channel, which means our strategy is just all the know-how we have about our solution and all the things around digital signage software, we transfer to our resellers. The resellers are 20% AV companies, 60% IT companies, and 20% agencies, I would say from the creative side. Every one of these companies has to go through a training and certification process. For many projects, we don't really know where our license goes because they can stand on their own feet. That's one of our strategies is to be able to multiply without having hundreds of employees. Usually, the customer asks for signage. In the meantime, digital signage is some kind of expression that the customer already knows, and if the project has some specialties, like integration of databases, or something like that, which is not which cannot be configured out of the box with our solution, then we work together very closely with our resellers and with the end customers, and we help them to integrate all solutions in their not only network but the environment, but most of the projects, we are not involved in it as a manufacturer.  So you stay behind the scenes and you're not even really marketing that you did this, and let your partners shine? Gerhard Pichler: We call our solution the Austrian Army knife. It's like the Swiss, but the Austrian Army knife. It's a toolbox for our integrators that is very full of features, and functions that now after 23 years can be used out of the box for various vertical markets.  The most important for us is definitely the corporate market. So most projects are in this field. Companies use our software to inform the employees and the customers, on production lines, for example, real-time data showing to the teams there, digital door sign canteens. So these are the kind of projects we do. The project with the many licenses, I mentioned before, 1000-10,000 are more in retail because these are the projects with a lot of licenses, but besides corporate and retail, we identified ten verticals where our solution is widely known and used, for example, higher education, transportation, healthcare, for example, is very interesting because we are certified in Europe with some kind of protocol so we can show patient names. So they can use our software for calling the next patient on one side, but also for showing their offers that the hospital has or some advice they give, or for wayfinding, things like that. It's quiet interesting..  I often say to companies that are marketing CMS software that I encourage them to find a vertical market or a specialty of some kind that has a lot of opportunity associated with it versus being a general offer because if you're a general offer, you are mainly competing on price because the functionality is maybe different across different companies, but in general terms the same.  But it sounds like you're doing fine with being a general offer because you've got 20-plus years in the business and established resellers. Zuzana Yalcin: Yeah, so that's where our sales channel comes in because our integrators have specialties, so they are the experts on different vertical markets. They know how to customize our software to the end customers' needs. So it's also an example of where you empower the integrator, you empower the reseller, and then they're able to do amazing things.  Is the software white labeled?  Gerhard Pichler: There are some examples, yes. So if a business partner, a reseller wants to say this is Brand X's software, you guys are behind the scenes entirely, but driving it?  Gerhard Pichler: Yes, we are prepared for this so we can easily white-label it for partners. Usually, this discussion comes up with large integrators. They say, okay, I want to hide the name and I want to add my own branding to the solution. But when we talk to them, it often turns to the opposite. They say, okay, it's better that we have a very close relationship with you, and we can start with all the references we bring to the table.  Still, there are some examples where Easescreen is hidden behind the different names. We met on the floor at a Digital Signage Experience in November and you agreed to do a podcast, and one of the things that intrigued me was that you're an Austrian company, but you are in the United States looking to expand into North America and build up partnerships here. I gather that's been something that's been an ongoing effort for the last couple of years. Gerhard Pichler: Yes, that's true. So from time to time, we do get some projects in the US. For me, the US is definitely the Mecca of digital signage. There are a lot of really professional companies there, which could be great partners for us. There are so many opportunities. The market is that huge. So for me, it's a challenge to start a business there, and I wished to do this many years before, and we decided I think two years ago to install some guy there to do market research, to find ways how we can sell it, through which channels, and so on. He is a very experienced guy out of the AV business and after we see that there are enough opportunities, there are chances for us with our solution.  The market in the US does not really have a lot of software that is comparable to ours. So then we decided, okay, we go to the next step. The next step was founding a company called Easescreen America LLC in Miami, which we did this year, I think it was in June. Because we have had success in the US for a long time, it's definitely important and necessary to have a company there, and I think 2023 should be our year. The pipeline is quite full now with projects.  So some of our guys were doing the DSE in Vegas, they were on the East coast visiting future partners or partners, which already signed contracts with us, and they brought I think five or six projects to Austria. So I think the start is quite successful up to now. If you're an AV integrator or an IT systems integrator, whatever it may be, there are a lot of options in North America. There are a lot of companies selling software solutions and it wouldn't be that you'd get a meeting where they'd go, “oh finally, somebody's got software that can do this.” Why are they choosing to partner with you when there are other options out there? What's ticking their boxes?  Gerhard Pichler: One thing that we experienced is that we tell them and they seem to trust us. We only go through integrators. So many examples in the past, the integrators told us that manufacturer, they promised us they promised not to make shortcuts directly to the end customer, but they didn't do it. The integrators, they're waiting for, I think manufacturers who they can trust. Other thingsinclude things like we have so many options in the setup, we can be installed on-premises, for example, which many other solutions are not able to be because they're only cloud-based. We have a cloud infra as well if the customer wants to use it, they can use a private cloud, and so there are many options for the integrators and multipliers, it seems for them very interesting, and besides that, we have technical feature wise I think so many things on board out of the box which nearly no other solution can bring to the table, and these are some of the reasons why they change because many of them when you talk to them, they would tell us about the bad experiences with other solutions. With us, it's always good if some company is experienced and tells us the pain and we can show him how our solution would do it, then you can win them very fast. So it's interesting and very good for us if companies give us the chance to talk to them, they have already had experiences with solutions, then these companies are the best us and for them, we can be quite fast.  In terms of partners, do you have a kind of partner, like a profile that you would prefer to work with? Gerhard Pichler: It seems the larger projects are done by IT companies. So in the US, they're large IT companies, they do the job for digital signage for companies, and so on. So the profile seems more to be IT-focused companies than AV. But we have experienced in the last months, the really interesting projects, they come up more from bigger IT companies. So one way to the market was through reps, so they introduced us to the integrators there. So we cover now I think nearly 45 states, reps like Simco or BP Marketing, and these guys, who have a large network of AV and IT integrators behind them. For Easescreen, this is the way we can reach the integration network quite fast.  Is it a challenge on the educational side?  One of the things I've heard over the years is if you're going to have a reseller channel, you have to invest a lot of time in ensuring that the people who are talking about your product and solutions, fully understand what it is, and if they're an IT systems integrator, they're thinking about all kinds of things, including network security and bandwidth and so on.  Gerhard Pichler: Yes, of course, it's a challenge, but since we have been so long on the market, there are so many slides and training programs exactly prepared for these kinds of topics. We can talk about the language they talk. So you have to talk to IT companies differently of course than to agencies, and in the end, in the US market, we have to learn our marketing lessons because the first step to the customer more than here is by a colorful brochure and things like this, which is quite old fashioned, but it's definitely necessary. And here, I would say, comes in Zuzana again. So what has been your experience on the marketing side, comparing the North American market to Europe, and what homework we had to do?  Zuzana Yalcin: So definitely from a marketing perspective, it's way more abot storytelling. Of course, at some point it's about the USP, it's about the features, it's about all the amazing things you can do. But the first story is always: who are you? Where do you come from, and how do you actually serve the people all around the world?  So for me, this has been a big lesson in trying to focus on the human side of software because in the end, our partners are human, the end customer is human. The user is human, so how can I translate that story in a way that makes sense to everybody from a professional integrator all the way to an amateur user? And I say that without any negative connotation, but just so they know what digital signage is, what the screen is, and what it can do for them. This is something I'm noticing actually in Austria as well, most people see digital signage every single day, multiple times, if not countless times, but they have no idea what it is. They cannot label it, and if you talk to them about digital signage, they think it's maybe digital signatures or something like that, so just raising awareness in general is a pretty exciting thing for me.  Yeah, I was gonna ask about the evolution of all this. Given that you've been involved in it for as long as I have that, what have you seen changing through the years? Obviously, something's never changed. There's still a limited understanding of what it is, but I suspec I find in my own life that I don't have to go on and on at length to explain what it is I do and what I'm involved in. They get it pretty quickly versus it was, a five-minute conversation back in 2005.  Zuzana Yalcin: I think software is definitely becoming more accessible to the end customer in general, and it also changes customer expectations because they expect to be empowered more. They expect to be involved more. But I think, 10-20 years ago, you could be a genius technician with amazing software and rely on people coming in. Now you definitely have to tell the story if you definitely have to go out there and share the message.  Gerhard Pichler: Yeah, but you are right, Dave. Of course, the awareness now is different than 20 years before. In shows like ISC or Infocomm and so on, we've been part of ISE, I think 15-17 times. In the first years, you had to explain even to the people in the industry, what is digital signage and so on, and that changed completely. Now, people quickly understand what it is. I would say that changed.  The trust in signage is there. That means customers who want info screens and systems for showing content, know that if they make the right choice they can buy systems that are stable and reliable. That is different than it was 5-10 years ago. I think what didn't change is that the end customers are not aware of which kinda tasks they have when there is a digital signage solution. When we are involved in projects, we try always tell the customer, I hope it's clear to you that there will be a technical, very perfect system for you, but in the end, you have to think about who do you want to reach? What are the contents? How is the way that content coming to the screen? Who is responsible? So in many projects, this didn't change. The customer is not aware that he has to give resources, that the digital signage system is successful and lives and is active, I would say. So that slightly changes, but it's the same story as many years before I would. But we help them in creating concepts, for example.  How is the company set up? Are you privately held or do you have a private equity backer?  Gerhard Pichler: Oh, private, a hundred percent. A hundred percent of the code is made in-house and we are privately held. What's your headcount?  Gerhard Pichler: 25.  Has that grown much through the years? Obviously, it started with one, but...  Gerhard Pichler: Yes. I would say by one or two per year, so we are growing but not that fast There's a lot of companies that are your size like you have larger companies, particularly private equity backed ones, actively looking at as potential acquisitions, I suspect you're getting those emails and phone calls pretty regularly?  Gerhard Pichler: Yes, that's right. But we didn't decide on one until now.  You're staying on your own path.  Gerhard Pichler: Yes, up to now. Our mission is not completed yet.  So if people wanna know more about your company, where can they find you? Obviously, you're going to be at ISE in a couple of months, but online they would find you find you at… Zuzana Yalcin: www.easescreen.us, and of course we are on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Simply type in an Easescreen and you will find us.  Simply put, I like it. Thank you very much for spending some time with me.  Gerhard Pichler: Thank you very much, Dave. Zuzana Yalcin: Thank you. The pleasure is all ours. 

UC Today host Rob Scott and expert guest and Microsoft MVP, Tom Arbuthnot bring us this DECEMBER 2022 Microsoft Teams news update sponsored by NUWAVE.This month's news highlights include:Microsoft Teams News & EventsMicrosoft named a Leader in 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Unified Communications as a Service, WorldwideMicrosoft has added Microsoft Teams calling plans for MexicoEnding the year on 43 Microsoft Teams Operator Connect service providersMicrosoft Teams Games for Work appMicrosoft Teams Panels room occupancy sensors.EventsUC Summit launches 23 JAN 2023, we're taking hybrid head on! Register now here.ISE 2023, 31 January - 3 February 2023, BarcelonaMWC 2023 end of FebCloud Comms Summit - London - early MarchEnterprise Connect - end of March

Ise (ee-say) is an Emmy Award winner, Inspirational Speaker and Men's Self-Mastery Coach who's the founder of The Divine Man Self-Mastery Coaching Program that trains individuals and teams alike to perform as their highest self, fulfilling his mission of "Once you have YOU, you have everything!"Additionally, Ise has appeared on hundreds of tv shows, film, commercials, and radio such as Lucifer, Bad Boys 2, Criminal Minds, General Hospital and many others while recently starring in the upcoming film “Alone Today” opposite Eric Roberts, Danny Trejo, Shannon Elizabeth and Frank Whaley to be released in 2023.This is an amazing conversation with and amazing man who has helped so many men and women with his coaching program. We dive deep, so be ready when you listen.To learn more about Ise visit his website here: https://kikoellsworth.com/

Hey Wicked Hunters! So excited to introduce the 50th episode!  Today I will be talking with Paul Zizka - our first guest who became part of The Art of Photography Podcast.  Paul Zizka is a passionate explorer who shares his journey through his art and photography.  He uses his journey to create a positive impact by inspiring and helping other photographers who are looking to follow his journey, as well as spread awareness.  If you want to get to know more about Paul Zizka, you can listen to the first interview on - https://podcast.thewickedhunt.com/e/ep2-with-paulzizka/  Today we will ask Paul Zizka how he use photography to create positive impact and chat about his upcoming project The Cryophilia You can get involved and learn more about the project on: https://www.zizka.ca/cryophilia  ------------------- For those of you who want to check out Paul's photos, you can find him on: www.zizka.ca https://www.instagram.com/paulzizkaphoto/ https://www.facebook.com/paulzizkaphoto/ Other ways to listen and subscribe to the podcast: Spotify - http://bit.ly/twhspotify  Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/Theartofphotography  Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheArtOfPhotographyWithStanleyAr  Website: podcast.thewickedhunt.com   Tune In (Alexa) - https://bit.ly/TuneInTheArtOfPhotographyPodcastWithStanleyAr    For those of you who want to see connect with Stanley Aryanto, you can go to the following: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt/    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewickedhunt/ https://www.TheWickedHunt.com/    Don't forget to let us know your favourite part of the Podcast in the comment below and subscribe --------- Transcription: Paul Zizka  0:00   really the goal is is to raise awareness of how quickly those places are changing, and how beautiful they are. And I feel like we hear a lot about the vanishing ice and the rapidly receding glaciers. Over the last few years we've seen some glaciers lose 100 200 metres in one year. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  0:30   Hey, wicked hunters Welcome back to The Art of Photography podcast, where we share artist journey and show how photography given us hope, purpose and happiness. And today, I'm very excited to have someone who is in the very first episode of this podcast, and I want to have him back because there's a few different things that he has in the horizon, as well as you know, Canadian Rockies in its prime season for wild skating. And I think Paul's is is one of the best capturing those so I really want to chat to him about it. I've met Paul's has got back into Rockies. And it's been such a pleasure to not only follow his journey, his adventure, but also to learn from him about the creative process about how to give back to the community and about how to help other photographers. So I'm sure you will get a lot of benefit from today. Well, without further ado, Paul, how's it going? Welcome back to The Art of Photography podcast. Paul Zizka  1:34   Thanks so much, Stanley. It's great to be back. I guess I did okay, the first time around, because you're you're having me over again. Always a pleasure chatting with you and connecting with your community. So I'm excited to be here. Thank you. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  1:48   Oh, fantastic. Yeah, I mean, like, it's so much has been going on right? Or we had, we had a pandemic and we had everything that's going on and travelling is opening again. But before we started for the listener who haven't really hear about about you and your journey, just give us a quick you know, cliff note because I know that we the first podcast, talk a lot about who you are and stuff like that. But just give us a little bit you know, a cliff note about who you are so that if they don't if they want to hear more about you, they can go to the first podcast, Paul Zizka  2:23   for sure. I am a outdoor photographer based out of Banff in the Canadian Rockies and I shoot pretty much anything outside. I'm interested in Adventure photography, Astro photography, travel photography, landscape photography. Yeah, wildlife, anything outside. Works for me. And yeah, I've been doing photography full time for gosh, I guess over 12 years now probably and there's nothing else I'd rather do. And yeah, it's that's sort of the gist of it. That's, that's where I'm at in my journey. Yeah, if anybody has any questions, they're welcome to reach out or check out that first episode. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  3:03   100% Yeah, look, you know, when I first moved to Canadian, Rocky, so let's just starstruck with your with your photograph, right? Because I feel like your photograph is, it's like no other, you know, I haven't seen that kind of style, the way you use human element in through your, your, through your adventures, you know, through the ice, the winter, the summer, as well as when you go out through hiking and stuff like that. So when you create this image, what is your thought process? You know, what is your creative process that make you come up with all of these images? Because, like I say, it's not something that's very common, I could say, you know, when I see a photo gets shared on Nat, Geo, or, you know, some of the Rockies account, I know exactly, that's your photo, because, yeah, no one else have that sort of concept. So how do you create this sort of what's your thought process to create this inspiring photograph? Paul Zizka  4:06   That's a good question, Stanley, I think part of it comes down to, to me there's, for me, there's two ways to approach photography, you can approach photography more from a spontaneous with a more spontaneous approach. Or you can plan things out and pre visualise images and stage things out if you will, a little bit more. So I think, a lot of the photos that, I guess people just have ended up associating me with or maybe at the pre visualised end of the spectrum where an idea will come up in the field, maybe even while I might be at a location with the family in the daytime, and then something will sort of pop in my mind's eye and I'd be cool to come back at that time of year at night with a certain person Doing this doing that when conditions align for a specific type of image, and then sort of make a, make a wish list of everything that needs to happen and then wait for the conditions to come together, arrange the logistics and then go create that image and image that would not be possible to create in a spontaneous fashion, because you're just not going to go to a place like that at that time and found some find someone doing that certain thing in that exact spot. So some of those images that are more like, Can, that are constructed well ahead of time, require a different approach than those images where you know, you go to a beautiful place at a time of day where you know, the light is likely to be nice, and you don't really know what you're going to come up with, which I think is most different. The approach that most photographers most outdoor photographers go with is the sort of tried to align a whole bunch of ingredients that are likely to yield really cool opportunities, but they don't really know what they're going for when they sat out that morning. And I liked that approach to it, I try to bounce from one to the other, because I find that they really tap into different parts of their creativity. So I'll go, I'll go and create more of the spontaneous end of the spectrum for a few outings. And then I'll feel the need to sort of plan something out, dream up an image that wouldn't happen spontaneously, and then try to make it happen. And it just bounced back and forth. And that's sort of been the process for me for gosh, over a decade now. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  6:36   So where does all of this inspire inspiration come from? Because you know, some some of your photograph. I know what you mean, with, you know, waiting for the right moment. I mean, one of the photo that we use for the thumbnail for the podcast was ice climbing on this beautiful thing. It was a glacier. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a glacier and Aurora right behind it. And, you know, like, like, you say that things like that is very difficult to come by. Right. So where does the inspiration come from? You know, you kind of share that, okay, well, maybe you're going on an adventure. And then you go to this place, and like, things kind of pop up here and there, right? It's like, Oh, that'd be cool to do this, and that, and this and that. But where does the inspiration come from? Because I know there are a lot of photographers out there a lot of listeners who are, you know, like, well, it's really easy for you to say, but I could never think of it that way. So yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit where the inspiration come from. Paul Zizka  7:39   For sure, I think it comes from just wanting to keep photography fun, and interesting, especially if you've been doing it for a relatively long time. I just get bored doing the same thing over and over again, frankly, and so I feel like I need to. And that's purely for myself, that's, you know, what the audience may or may not like the result, but just purely for myself, I find that I just get I just lose interest, repeating the same ideas, and I'm sure fellow photographers will relate eventually it becomes it's easy to get a little bit robotic with photography and sort of start microwaving the same ideas over and over again. And then it's just, yeah, then you don't get anywhere on your journey as a photographer, because you're not, you're always staying within the realm of what's comfortable. So I think those ideas come out of just wanting to keep photography fun and interesting. And, and just to go out there and try to play around with some new ideas. And sometimes they work and sometimes they don't work, but I find that for me, it's the only way to keep photography sustainable is to really just get away from what's familiar at least once in a while. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  9:06   Yeah, no, that's, that's a great advice. You know, just keep it interesting, keep it fun, keep it you know, dynamic, and we definitely can see on your photography, because you live there year in year out, but every year you keep coming up with this new photograph, you know, with a different concept from the same place, right. And one thing that I was wondering was like, you know, when people can go to that process and you know, try to think about a different way to create different images and when, you know, to have that condition or line up, it's very difficult to come by, right. So, how do you like I'm just wondering, like, how do you go after that moment, because I know a moment like that, you know, it can be difficult Um, do you just like, drop everything when that moment come? Or, you know, cuz life happens, right life happens, everything's, you know, it's, it would be nice if all we we have in our life is just adventure and we can go anytime anywhere whenever we want but that's not that's not the reality. So how do you make things happen when a rare condition, you know, like the Aurora lining up with the composition that you want or the frozen lake at a certain point, you know, at a critical point before the snow up full on it and ruin the whole surface. How do you chase after this Paul Zizka  10:43   moment? I would say yeah, you looking at social media, you you'd be, you know, I can see how people think you're looking at each other's accounts that everyone's always in a position where they can drop everything and go, it's just not true. I'm sure for myself and other people, I've got a wife, two little girls and, you know, other life commitments, and I'm just not able to chase absolutely everything that I would ideally Chase. But I think I'm very, very fortunate that my wife is very, very supportive of what I do. And so, and she understands that some of the conditions rely on phenomena that are fickle, right that you don't, you can't really plan a couple of weeks ahead with wild ISO rora, or things like that, that are time sensitive, and that are hard to read and are very, very dynamic. And so I've been very fortunate that ever since I began in this field that my wife has encouraged me to just drop everything and go, at least, you know, within the realm of what's reasonable. If conditions align for an image that I'm excited about, and I'm home, and I'm able to rearrange the schedule, or you know, or we just take a rain check on something we had planned and do it the next day instead, then it's I've had the flexibility to do that. And I think for Yeah, I think, you know, just to expand on that, I think for anyone who's in a relationship and wants to really pursue photography seriously. I mean, we're talking about the ingredients that make that possible. And I think one of the ingredients that is sort of that's not talked about enough, is just having support from your, from your friends, from your family to just go out there and get after it. When, when things are when the timing works out. So I've been I've had an amazing Circle of Support since the beginning. And that's been huge for me. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  13:01   No, that's yeah, that's, that's a really good point, you know, being able to find people that support you in your journey. And, yeah, I'm glad that you're able to do that. Because you know, some of your photos just absolutely incredible. Like, you know, people can look at it and just think, how do you even like, know, that's gonna have it, you know, and share, you know, there is a lot of uncertainties goes with it as well. But you take that chance you go out there anyway. And, you know, you get rewarded by this, this beautiful phenomenons, one way or another. So and Paul Zizka  13:35   I think Stanley just just to add one thing to that, I think a lot of it comes with being very familiar with the playground that you operate in, right, like because I get, you know, when I travel, I get what I can, I don't know how to read the desert, or the ocean, the way that I know how to read the Rockies, having lived here for 15 plus years and having kept a close eye on why do these things happen? What set of conditions lead to those phenomena to happen, and being able to just anticipate a little bit, whereas I get totally thrown off an environment that I'm not familiar with. So I think a lot of it comes down to really knowing your subject. Really, really try to get to know your subject as best as you can. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  14:25   Yeah, no, that's a really good point. You know, I, I learned a lot from you. And when I met you in chat about the condition in the Rockies, and that really helped me to kind of predict and understand what what could happen and what, what when to go and you know when to wait. So I think that's really good advice. Now, you know, it's been, gosh, I don't think we're about two years I think about a year and a half to two years since I have you last in the podcast. So I know you have some project coming up. I know that travel open up again. So What exciting project, I know what it is. But you know, I just wanted to introduce it, what exciting project have you got into horizon at the moment, Paul Zizka  15:09   for sure my big project is going to be a project that spans several years. So I'm going like, I'm diving really headfirst into this. It's called cryo failure, which means an affinity for cold places, which I've always had. But and I've always been drawn to shooting ice and snow and the high latitudes and cold places in winter. But now I'm going to do that with quite a bit more effort and intention, and and really, really target that part. That field of photography. And really, there's two purposes to the project. One of them is to document how dynamic those places are speaking more specifically about glacier. So I'm fortunate that I live within, you know, you've lived here, so I live with him, if I left the house. Now, within a couple hours, I can be at five different glaciers, looking at how they change how they've changed since last time, marvelling at the features that are on display that are always always different. So one of the purposes is documenting the changes in the ISE, both locally and abroad as well. And the other purpose is to document just purely the aesthetics, the incredible beauty of those rapidly changing places that are glaciated areas. So that's a project that in a way I started many, many years ago, but now I'm really that's got a lot more purpose to it now a lot more direction. And the idea is that it would culminate in a book and an exhibit, maybe three or four years down the road, a lot of the details remain to be determined. But for now, really the goal is is to raise awareness of how quickly those places are changing, and how beautiful they are. And I feel like we hear a lot about the vanishing ice and the rapidly receding glaciers. And a lot of people have a scientific approach to how they demonstrate that and I think that's wonderful. But I'm not going to pretend I'm a scientist, I'm an artist, and I think I can contribute, the best way that I can contribute to the conversation is really showcasing the changes, and the aesthetics of those absolutely incredible places. So that's where I really want to focus. Let other people do the talk around the science. And I've got unfortunate, I spent a lot of a lot of time close to that ice on that ice on the side under that ice. And so that's where I can bring something new to the conversation. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  17:54   Yeah, I think that's really great. You know, I love I love the cause behind it. And for, you know, for someone like me who never been who never live in winter places like Canadian Rockies until I was there, it was a big eye opening, right? The fact that glaciers doesn't usually lasts more than a year that usually, by the time the summer comes, it gets too warm, and most most likely it's gonna crumble, the fact that the glacier actually receding, and I think you told me about 1510 to 15 metre a year, you know, that's just mind blowing, right. And for most people who are living in tropical country, for example, or in, in Australia, where there is no direct access and see the to see this, we don't feel the climate change as much, right. But when it comes to ice, you know, zero, I stay in tech, one degree, it started to melt, all it takes is just one degree difference to melt the ice. So I love the project that you're doing. And I think I think it's really cool to be able to show that because, yes, the scientific approach is great, but a lot of people are visual. Right. So just being able to show that and see the difference. I think that can tell a lot tell the story, a lot of story behind that. Now. Paul Zizka  19:27   I think also just to add one thing to that Stanley, I think, you know, there's there's a lot of fatigue that I think there's a lot of fatigue with the scientific argument right now right like people whether we like it or not, I think people are tired to have numbers thrown at them. And and sometimes I find that where where other methods can fail perhaps to reach people photography, because it's so visual can really be The help people connect with an environment or a cause. So I feel like, yeah, I feel like that's why I feel like I'm so I'm so drawn to showcasing those places for people. And we're, you know, and in a way, it's almost like, as someone who lives, whereas a camera and lives really close to those places, it sort of feels that I owe it to the rest of the world to go out and document those places. And the changes are been astonishing, like we are seeing. Over the last few years, we've seen some glaciers lose 100 200 metres in one year. So we're talking about changes that are happening like on human timescales, we're not talking about stuff that happens over hundreds or millions of years this, you can go to the Athabasca glacier, the dome glacier, from one year to another, it'll feel like a completely different place. It's happening very, very quickly here in the Rockies. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  21:02   Yeah, no, that's, that's really sad. And I absolutely agree with you, you know, like, we often say, seeing is believing and you know, sometimes having the number of backing up with you know, the photo can really make a big difference. And hopefully, more people are aware about this. Now, I find it interesting, right? And then we kind of you know, have a chat about this before the podcast, but people like war, people go to Bali because they enjoy the warm the tropical but you chase after the winter, you know, the ice skates when the wild skate? So where does that passion come from? Do you actually enjoy the winter? Or is it do you like to go out there? Because it's just so beautiful. It's is there one or the other? Or is it does it complemental Paul Zizka  21:57   I do really like winter. Frankly, I find it's a little bit long here in the Rockies. Like I find that I absolutely love November, December, January. By the time you know, when April rolls around, and you're still getting snowed on, I start to look forward to summer adventures, to be totally honest with you. But I find that winter just brings along with it so many elements of magic, like, like the ice to snow. Just I love the silence of winter. So it's not just not just the visual appeal of winter, but I love the silence just there's less people here in the park. For one, you can go to those iconic locations and have a more more of a solitary experience. But also, a lot of the sounds are muffled in the winter, you just go out on a windless day in the winter and just sit there and you can literally hear the silence, right you don't hear anything at all. And that's not something that's possible in the summer. I find that the landscape is all is simplified, it's a lot more there's a lot less clutter. And so I think like photography photographically I think that makes for a very different experience than does the summer. And so I think winter has so so much to offer. Being able to shoot stars at 5pm is pretty awesome not having to wait till midnight as an astro photographer is quite nice. And yeah, I love the winter activities. I love documenting people enjoying winter whether it's on skis or ice climbing or on skates and so yeah, there's there's so much that appeals to me about the winter especially here in the mountains and then I would just gladly swap one month of winter for an extra month of summer but for the most part I'm a big winter lover for sure Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  23:59   yeah no that's you know when like you said the winter just bring the magic in in Canadian Rockies and you know the snow the snow tops it just makes it absolutely different right now I know that you you like to wander you like to explore you like to look for new places and you know from what you say it's what keeps things interesting because you keep looking for the new thing keep things dynamic. Now when it comes to winter it's you know the atmosphere especially in Canadian Rockies can become very extreme and and yet you from time to time again you would go you know solo exploring these things now, just take us through like what goes into your head and what you know what what makes you want to go out there during this extreme conditions. Paul Zizka  24:54   I find that a lot of the magic in photography happens on the edge of extreme conditions sometimes right in the middle of extreme conditions, but typically on the edge of weather systems on the edge of those nasty periods of weather is when you'll find the unusual in the landscape where I, especially if you go to places that you've been to hundreds of times. I mean, as I'm sure you know, and you have those places that all your listeners have those places close to where they live, you know that you can show up at a place that you've shot three 400 times, and you feel like unless Mother Nature gives you a little something to work with, you're kind of out of ideas, like you feel like you've, you've experimented, you've done it all, you've shot it from a variety of perspectives. So then I find that you're kind of maybe in a way forced to rely on the weather a little bit and go out in dynamic weather, basically. So I find for me in the winter, it's not, it's not hard to find dynamic weather in the Rockies, you see it coming three, four days ahead of time in the forecast, and you can plan around it and rearrange the schedule. And so much of the magic happens when yeah, there's this front moving and or front has just moved out and or the winds are high. And that's when you can go to those iconic locations and see them in a way you've never seen them before. And so I feel very much compelled to go out when the weather is, you know, a little bit more harsh, I suppose. But now that the gear is so good, both the photo gear, the clothing, the apparel, there's no really reason to not be comfortable out there, there's a way that you can shoot and pretty much any kind of condition in relative comfort if you're prepared. And if you have the proper gear. And so I find that less and less as photographers, we can use weather as an excuse to really to not go out there and try to catch the the the edge of that those weather systems. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  27:00   Yeah, no, that's I 100%. You know, when you it's important to have the right gear because it can make or break the experience. And yeah, I love I love, you know how you share that, that passion of yours and pushing, you know, the comfort zone, because, like you say that's, that's when things can happen, and interesting things happen. So, you know, hopefully the listeners are out there are, you know, taking notes, you want to create something unique, go out there when no one else goes out there. So that's incredible. Now Paul Zizka  27:35   you're sure it's been, I think it's you know, it's something that you hear all the time in photography circles, right, get out of your comfort zone and get out and it starts to get repetitive, of course, but I don't know how else to put it. I mean, it's so it's so important. And I think especially in the age of social media, where it's very, very easy to go and recreate similar images over and over again, that will automatically please a large audience. But for you as a photographer, they don't really get you anywhere, because you can shoot them with your eyes closed pretty much, right? They're very comfortable to you. And, you know, these are the settings and this is the composition and I go to a beautiful place at sunrise and I can shoot something that will, you know, gather mass appeal for sure. But I think you can't keep photography sustainable that way, you have to just please yourself first. And I don't know how you can please yourself first, if you just repeat the same ideas. I mean, everybody goes through a period of just learning and perfecting their technique and emulating the work of other people. And I think that's totally normal, as on your journey as a photographer, but eventually I find that everybody will hit that wall sooner or later, where photography just gets boring if you keep doing the same things over and over again, it's the same in all aspects of life. It just gets monotone after a while. So I think just if only purely for yourself, eventually you just have to find ways to innovate. And that just requires trying new things and getting away from what comes easy to you know, that's Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  29:15   100% you know, true and it's interesting that you say that because I feel like for you know photographers who are already in it for a long time, that phrase get repeated a lot, right, create something different, create something new. Go outside of your comfort zone, but when I first started photography, I wish I had listened to you know what you just said because I never heard that phrase. You know? It's it's so common that people go like you say the immolation is it's more popular where people just go to the popular places right take and a popular time so that they get that popular plate shot and get that one They call it adoption from from the social media user, right? But over time, I think people that's, that's when people can start to realise. So honestly, when I first started photography, I wish I had heard that a lot sooner. So it's really good that you mentioned that, you know, hopefully, listeners out there who are in their photography journey can take inspiration from that. Now, when it comes to, you know, your project, cryo Philia, and you have been to a lot of different places, you know, Canadian Rockies being the most predominant, but also Greenland, Nepal, Iceland, Antarctica, is there any place any, any, any favourite place, or any favourite moment from dos adventure that, you know, if I were to ask you, you know, what was the top, you know, experience from all of these places? Is there any one experience that literally just pop up your head? And yes, this was it? And if there was one, what is it? Paul Zizka  31:14   There's a clear destination that comes to mind for sure. And that would be Greenland hands down. I, I've always said, you know, if you forced me to move outside of Canada, that's where you'll find me in Greenland somewhere. My I don't know if my wife would be very happy to relocate to Greenland. But as far as photography goes, for me, it's the ultimate playground and it's the the landscape is just vast and wild. And the sense of freedom that you get wandering around Greenland is just incredible. There's so so much to offer to the artist. It's very powerful magnetic plays just like the Rockies and is becoming more and more popular for a reason there's nowhere else like it that I know of. It's it's reunites a lot of the elements that I find the most exhilarating to shoot in photography, like ice and Aurora. And so for me, it's it's really a place that I'm just so thankful, whenever I get to just set foot on Greenland and walk around a little bit and document that place. It's next level for me, I've had many of my most memorable experience of photography have happened in Greenland. With the icebergs on the glaciers on the ice sheet, or under under Northern Lights, the people are wonderful as well. I love the cultural the cultural aspect of Greenland I love how people make a go of it in one of the world's most inhospitable places. And so yeah, for me, I think it's the clear, the clear, standout location as far as where I've been outside the Rockies is clearly Greenland, just phenomenal. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  32:59   Wow, ya know, 100% You know, when I see your photo, and, you know, when, when you tell me about, you know, what, what, where to go and what to look for in Greenland. It become top of my bucket list ago, so 100%, you know, it's just so beautiful. Now, something interesting that you mentioned earlier, you know, like, you love Greenland, for one of the reasons why you love Greenland is the playground for photography, you know, the different dynamic, different ingredients, I suppose, that you could find from that place. Now, when you look for destinations, or adventures or places to go? What is your main driver that makes you want to go to those certain place? Is it mainly driven by photography? or is there other experiences that you look for from this different destinations? Paul Zizka  33:54   I look, I think for the wilderness first and foremost, Isla, I looked for places that yeah, that offer a lot of space. And a lot of, you know, they're pretty low density in terms of population, and so that the main thing that I look for is just nature really. And so that's the reason that I went to Greenland in the first place, and, you know, Mongolia and those other parts of the world where very, very few people live. And then so that's first and foremost, secondly, would be Yeah, of course, as a photographer, I think just the aesthetic aspect. What what is there? There's always something went wherever you have nature, there's something wonderful to shoot. I'm very much drawn to the high latitudes and really big empty places I like I like emptiness and remoteness. And I think so those are other things that I look for in destinations. Especially now you know that the world is reopening to travel, maybe try to get into those places that have such that are so so special that it's only a matter of time before they become a little bit more mainstream. So while I still have that sense of adventure, and an ability, trying to get to those places that require maybe a bit more physical effort to get into. So that's another aspect that I look at as well. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  35:34   Great question really interesting. Yeah, that's really interesting. And I would have thought ice was gonna be on the top of a bucket on top of that list. Paul Zizka  35:44   Well, you know, what, I think what tends to happen is the places that reunite all of those factors tend to be the high latitudes, right, where not a lot of people live that are wild, that are beautiful, that are hard to get to. There's, there's there's some that are, you know, what, that in other parts of the world, but a lot of high latitude locations, meet all those criteria, which is why you'll find me often at the high latitudes. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  36:14   No, that's, that's really interesting. Yeah, absolutely. Right. You know, I think one of the inspiration for me to go to more difficult places in the Rockies was that principle, you know, when you when you kind of say like, well, you know, like Rockies have everything, you know, if it's too busy, just go further and higher, and you got less and less people as you get further into it. And I love that, you know, because, I mean, there are time for everything, or the time where you just want to have that the sidewalk, car parks or a spot and just, you know, enjoy just being out there. And there are times where you want to feel that sense of adventure, and you don't want to be, you know, feel go to a place that filled with millions and millions people. And actually, it's, yeah, it's one of the things that I miss about rock is because here in Indonesia, even you know, the highest the higher mountains or volcanoes is pretty accessible that we still line you know, line up. It's like a traffic jam. So Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a bit crazy. Paul Zizka  37:21   Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think it's something that's easy to take for granted. For sure. I think and like you said, you know, I'm, I'm, I sound like all I do is stuff that gets me away from people and away from the road, but it's not true at all, you know, I love I love roadside photography, as well. And I don't always have a full day or multi days to commit to getting away from people. And so sometimes I'm very thankful that in a place like Banff National Park, even a habit, even if I have a two hour window to shoot, while I can go go out with Lake Louise with everybody else and still witness a scene that is really beautiful. And see what I can come up with with the camera. It's, it's like you said there, there is a time for everything. And it's just, it's, frankly, it's nice to not have to just, you know, drag all that stuff on your back for kilometres before you take a photo. It's nice to do a bit of a bit of both. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  38:20   Yeah. 100%. And, you know, I think it goes back to what you said earlier, it's about the dynamic, just keeping things fresh. Interesting, right? That's, that's really cool. Now, when it comes to a high latitude, and you know, like, all these black countries, places, extreme condition, you just mentioned that those are the ingredients to create something unique, like that's the biggest opportunity. Because sure, you can go to Lake Louise and find a crazy condition. I think one time I had like, a thunderstorm passing to that. And I was like, you know, incredible, but it's very difficult to find moments like that, right? So all of these new places that harder to get to harder condition give you a lot more opportunity. Now what are taking share with us some of your biggest challenges to go to some of those places and reach to those places and create a suppose a piece of art a photograph that, you know that that's not only a whiteout, you know, because sometimes when it's no, it's just a white up. So how do you how do you, you know, what are the challenges and how do you push past those challenges? Paul Zizka  39:35   That's a really good question. I think the main challenge one of the main challenges anyways, I think would just be time management, right? When you go out in those places, and you've got to look after yourself, you've got to maybe pitch the tent and cook and see the scene through the camera but also without the camera and so you may need to make sure you Go home with an experience as well as the photos. It's trying to constantly your brains on overdrive trying to constantly rearrange the schedule so that you can accomplish all of that and, and the more that we shoot, and I'm sure everybody here will relate, the more you shoot, the more you realise that good photography typically takes time, it takes commitment, you get lucky with an image on the fly once in a while, but most of the stronger images that we all have, the more that we shoot, they require us just committing that 1020 30 minutes plus to one shot if we're really excited about a possibility. So it's trying to find time for all that in the wilderness when the weather's not that great sometimes, that's that's the main challenge for me is trying to get really good at time management, and really trying to trying to really just assess every scene, every possibility in terms of the return of investment on investment, if you will, you know, like, this is a shot that does this shot, Warren 20 minutes of my time, it's a great shot, but at the same time, it would be worth it if it was like a one minute investment. But if it's 2030 minutes, then it doesn't really quite meet that ROI threshold that I've set for myself. So sort of trying to assess the scenes that way, you know, and then you find a shot that you're really, really excited about, that does warrant you know, 30 minutes. And sometimes there's a shot that, yeah, I'll put the pack down for one minute, it's not an amazing shot, prefer a one minute investment, it's worth shooting. So trying to always like, assess, assess the different scenes, different possibilities that way, I think is one of the main challenges for sure. And another challenge, the other main challenge I can think of I think is just and goes along with that is just being adaptable. I think the best photographers that I know are very, very adaptable photographers, they respond very quickly to the stimuli around them, they they are very quick at bailing on an idea. If it's not working out, if the conditions are not conducive to a certain image, they will quickly turn around and they won't just turn get tunnel vision into wasting 2030 minutes on an idea that's never going to happen. They are very, very quick thinking and they adapt to dynamic conditions, dynamic environments very, very well as, as we should. As photographers, we work with a subject that's ever changing, especially, you know, working in mountain environments in rapidly changing weather, it makes no sense to have to stick to one approach, you have to just keep adapting. So I think that's another one of the challenges out there. And I call it a challenge because sometimes I do very well at it, and sometimes not so much I get, I spent way too much time working on ideas that are never going to lead to anything in hindsight. And so I think being adaptable and managing your time properly, so that you can go home with the images, the experience and still, you know, look after your basic needs out there at the same time. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  43:19   That is incredible. advices you know, I think I'd never heard them, you know, those points being being told that way. And the time management, especially I know, we kind of have that running in our mind when you're out there. But when you say it out loud, and when you you know, put it that way. I've become more conscious about about it now, you know, and I think that's a really great point. Thanks a lot for sharing that. Paul. It's, it's a great piece of advice. Now, you know, you you do a lot of workshop, right. And you've been taking photography for a long time, and you have a lot of thought, a thoughtful approach to photography. And I think that's why you, I feel that you are such a great mentor because of that. Now you have a few kind of like photography trips, you also do like a virtual mentoring, as well as, I think a mentorship that you just opened up as well. Now, I'm curious, you know, out of those whole thing, what are some of the different aspects that most photographers are missing in their in their photography journey that make a whole lot different to their photography? Paul Zizka  44:45   Oh, wow. That's an awesome question. And I think one of the in a way I think a lot of what and I think that comes down to like, it's the same. Same question as asking you know what, what What takes a photographer from like, Good to Great or photo from good to great? I'm not saying I'm not saying like, I'm great. And I've got it all figured out, but just looking at other people's work that surround me, the other people I shoot with. And I admire what takes them to the next level. And I always come back to the intangibles. And what I mean by that is like, everybody, sooner or later will have the math figured out behind photography, right? Like, this is what I do with, this is what I do with the shutter speed, the ISO, the aperture, eventually, that becomes second nature to everyone. Some people pick it up in one day and other people pick it up in five years. But eventually, you get that under control, you don't even think about it. In a way, same thing with the composition, composition, I think it's very mathematical. You know, it's it's the way that you rearrange the geometry and the shot. In a way it's not, it's not quite as sort of academic, or I suppose like, it's not, it's a bit more intuitive, I suppose, than the exposure triangle. But it's still kind of like something that becomes second nature a little bit after a while. What takes people to the next level, and what a lot of people are struggling with, I think, is commitment, and intention. And I think, by commitment, I mean, through doing mentorship, and workshops, I think a lot of people are just like, they really want to take a different geography to the next level, or they want to make a business out of it. But when you dig a little bit, you realise they're not that ready to make sacrifices. And I think it's like, that's like everything in life, you can't eventually you have to make sacrifices to move on to the next level. Once you know, all the math, once you know your camera inside and out, you know how to assess good light, good opportunities out there, I think and you have you have your vision, you even have your style of photography, I think eventually you have to make sacrifices, and you have to really commit you have to want it more badly than everybody else, I think, especially if you want to run a business, right? So I think that's something that's something that I find went through mentorship workshop that people are missing. The other thing is, intention is I think, just really working with purpose to tell your story as clearly as you can, knowing what you want to say with the camera. And being very intentional, working with a lot of direction, a lot of purpose and being very deliberate about about all the micro decisions that go into making a photograph. Why why do you do everything that you do? That leads to a photo, I think you look at the photographs that great photographers take. And you notice that the breathe a lot of intention, Oh, I see why he or she did that. That's clever. I love that they did this with a composition. I love that they chose those settings they chose to you know, use a filter or dis lands over a dat lands, everything is done for reason, I think and I love to see that in other people's photographs. And those are the harder things to teach. I think like as someone who does a lot of teaching and mentoring. It's not hard to show people the exposure triangle or even composition, those things can be taught but trying to get people to work with commitment and intention. That's the real challenge. I think as as someone who likes to teach, it's really, really trying to get people to work on those aspects, those more intangible aspects of photography. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  49:02   Wow, you elaborate that so eloquently. I love it. And I totally love it. It's very true. You know, it's, you know, I mean, people thing, like shooting manual is so hard. It's not like it's it's a three step process. You know, it's not that hard. And it's only up or down. You know, if one goes up, the other goes down. It's not that hard. And even a lot of how you say even the composition can be mathematical after a while can be rigid because there is a formula to it. But the thing that makes a big difference is that consideration, how do you mix between your gear and the settings and the composition and putting that together? And yeah, I love that perspective. And, man, that was that was a really, really great advice. Thanks a lot for sharing that poll. And, yeah, it's one of the reason why I want you back here. You know, you have a perspective that no one else has, you know, it's always it's always a big eye opener when I listen to you and your your advice and your, your wisdom. So that's really great. That's really great. See, I'm Paul Zizka  50:29   glad, I'm glad you can. I'm glad you connect with that. I figure, I figure you would, you know, I think I think a lot of people. And I see that in workshops, because people, I'll go over to someone hunched over a tripod and say, what are you working on and their settings are perfect. The composition is, could be very good. But they still feel like, they still feel like they're missing something, right. And sometimes it's hard to put your finger on it. And sometimes it's just, yeah, just just working with direction and intention and making sure that you're going home with the most compelling rendition of the story that you can get. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  51:19   Yeah, that's amazing. So you know, we're coming into the hour mark. And I know you have another commitment after this. So I want to try to keep it within the leaner the hour. Now, one last question that I have for you is, so for the listeners, you know, you this this advice that you just gave, I think that is one of the most important thing in photography right now. Like you say, it's really hard to get there, because it's not, it's not tangible. It's not, you know, there, there are no formula to it. So for the listeners out there for the photographers who feel like, okay, I got the composition, you know, I know my composition, I know, my techniques, my settings, I know my camera, I know my post processing, but it's just like, it's never Wow, it's just like, it's great. It's good, but it's not Wow. Right? So what advice would you give to those people? What sort of exercise? Or how can they approach photography differently, so that they can apply what you just, you know, what you just said earlier on your wisdom, to their photography. Paul Zizka  52:34   Two things, I think, look at the photography, look at a lot of photography and look at the photographs of people you admire, look at what they do. And instead of scrolling past 500 shots a day, when you see a shot that stops you in your tracks, just take like five minutes to really deconstruct it and think about why it makes you feel a certain way and why it's so impactful to you and why it works so well. And sometimes it takes a while to figure out what's going on behind the scenes and the mechanics of it. But once you're once you figure it out, then you get used to analysing images from other people. That way, I think you can get so much out of it. So once you see an image that you really, really like that you find is really powerful. Take time to stop and try to list out in your mind. What did they do that is just so cool. Try to put your finger on it on what's the wow factor? What's the the the intangible in that image, or the tangible could be the composition, a choice of settings. But what is it that makes that image so compelling. The other thing that I would highly recommend people do is just getting out with people that they may, that people get out with people that you admire, get get out with people whose work you respect. And see how they go about approaching a scene and just see even though you guys all went to the same location at the same time, just pay close attention to what they come up with when they post 510 days down the road. And just make a mental note. And I think that will really impact the way that you assess the scene, the next time you go out. And I'm not saying just start emulating your friends. But just like nobody works in a vacuum right pick and choose ingredients from other people's strategies that you really like to form your own sort of approach to photography. So get out with other people who see the world differently. We all have a different view of the world. We all work differently as artists and look at a lot of photography that you really like and instead of like hating like and moving on deconstruct Hawaii that day. Marriage works so well for you. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  55:02   That is great advice. And I love how you say, you know, be you, you know, like, everyone is different. And you could use the same exact techniques, the same exam in the same exact shot. And I feel like, that's what makes your photography very unique, very different. Because, you know, you put a lot of you try a lot of this landscape photography, with your passion with hockey, for example, with wild eyes with your love for going to extreme temperature extreme places, looking for that unique, unique conditions. And that's, that's what makes it different. So I think that is such a great advice that you share there. And yeah, we're just very grateful to, you know, hear all of this wisdom from you. So, Paul, it's been a great, you know, having having you back here having another conversation with you. So, let us know a little bit. Where does cryo philia go from here and let the audience know, if they do want to find out about this project or about your workshop? What is the best way to get in touch? Paul Zizka  56:23   For sure, I think the website might be a good starting point is just my last name cisco.ca. Because then from there, you can quickly hop over to the cryo philia project, or you can check out the workshops, or the latest work, et cetera, you can have sort of everything in one place. Otherwise, we have separate social media accounts for the cryo philia project. So it's easy to find on Instagram and, and Facebook everywhere you would expect. Yeah, so I would say just hop on the website and take a look and see if you. Hopefully you like what you see. And yeah, I'm always you know, I'm easy to find online, always looking forward to connecting with fellow photographers. And really, Ron, we want to thank you, Stanley, for just the just the work that you put in preparing, I think, for these types of podcasts because they have, you know, the questions are always very thoughtful. And the conversations have always been great. So I'm really, really thankful for the experience. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  57:31   You are welcome. And a little bit, you know, behind the scene fact, I actually don't prepare a lot from this. I just been curious. Because, you know, being curious, make me ask this weird question that is interesting. Paul Zizka  57:48   Your back, I think that's a great skill to have as a, as an interviewer, I think is just seeing where the conversation leads, and taking it in the most interesting possible, most interesting direction possible. And so you've definitely developed that skill. So thanks for that. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  58:05   Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. So you know, with your project, how can we get involved? And you know, for people who want to get involved, or for people who want to support your project? What is the best way to contribute or to get involved with with your project? Paul Zizka  58:23   I would say just for, I would say, just providing feedback, providing feedback, how do the images make you feel? You know, as you start maybe following along under one of the accounts, let me know how the images make you feel. Other people read the comments, things feed into one another, I think just trying to generate that conversation around the images is great. There's a lot of talk about and a lot of arguing about the science and the numbers and the math and in the statistics. And those conversations in a way are already happening, which is fantastic. But there's a lot of fatigue, like I said, relating to those conversations. And so if you have some feedback that pertain to more like more of the visual, then I'd love to hear Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  59:13   it. That is that is I think that's great, you know, because different things appeal to different people. So yeah, if you if you have anything, it when you go to the social media and the website, if there is anything that you can think of it as anything that speak to you more than the other, please do let Paul know, you know, so that he can take that and do more of that and you know, think about what other ways he can do to you know, reach more people so that is fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this. You know, I think this project is so important. When I when I go to the Rockies and start exploring the ice scape is such a heartbreaking fact to know that. Geez like in I'm getting goosebumps right now. But in about 10 years, a lot of that would would go away. Right? And it's it's really sad. It's really sad that a lot of the icebergs gonna break off and you know, melt it with the rest of the water. So, yeah, I, I admire you for doing this and I love that you're doing this. All right, well, we can handle this hopefully you get a lot of benefit a lot of wisdom and hopefully you take a lot of notes from there. You know, these are some of the advices that you would pay hundreds of dollars if you want to work directly with Bose this guy and you're getting it three years. Thank you very much for doing that poll. But yeah, with that being said, thank you for for Thank you very much for listening in. And if you haven't subscribed, hit the subscribe button. And we do appreciate any feedback coming from you. So leave a review on in Apple podcasts or even email us you know, if you do enjoy this, it would mean a lot well poses God thank you very much for being here again, for sharing your, your project, as well as for you know, giving us all this wisdom and advices on how we can move forward, but also how we can find hope, purpose and happiness to our photography. Unknown Speaker  1:01:21   It was such a pleasure, Stanley. Thank you. Stanley Aryanto - The Wicked Hunt  1:01:25   Fantastic. All right, we can do this. I'll see you guys next week. Keep shooting and keep creating