Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon if you are in Europe. This episode we have the honor of seeing of being with Miko. Miko is was actually my professor at Polytechnical, Milan. And he also worked a lot with initially we met because we, I was working on an assignment that was based on parametric architecture. But then he helped me a lot. And he was the master of that subject. I remember, it was very, very cool what he was working on, he also work on the museum, the Louvre Museum in France. And I've been doing very well, thanks to him at school. And I think we would I find in common with Miko is that we were both interested in seeing whatever is the latest technologies in the field of design. So probably, it was natural for both of us to start to leaning towards some AR and VR spaces where architecture is a very good introduction for 2d Space understanding of space understanding of, you know, 3d modeling, and eventually also coding when it comes to creating engineering geometry. And I invited him because now he's on a new journey, and is one of the, in my opinion excellence in Europe, particularly in Italy, I am, you know, lucky to know him because it was very close to me. But I'm not the only person recognizing his work, because he's been also recognized by unity, different conference unit, a couple Copenhagen, if I'm not mistaken. And in a lot of work that he did, it's been recognized by, you know, like other items, things as well. Like, it's been recognized by people using his work under the format or unity acids, or under the format of like, you know, APK everything really. But it's astonishing what he's trying to do now, because now he's working on trying to make some VR experiences looking like incredibly high resolution and high render pipeline on very low end devices like Oculus. And I don't know if you ever just checked their website on arrows VR, but it's pretty crazy what what he's doing. So I hope that in this in this call, we will get to know Him. And also his work in any format that he prefers. I never push it. You know, everything that cannot be revealed, won't be revealed. And I also want to say that this is not part of my main job and Magic Leap. This is just for fun. And just for creating a community, I am not promoting material, I'm not selling anything. And I just like, really, it's important that I mentioned in every time so yeah, without like further ado, I just want to let start. Just wanna let you start. Introduce yourself. What led you to be here? What led you to be on arrows or founding on arrows and tell us about your story, and the transition to where your role from where you started?
As you said, everything so we I think we can just go through the discussion. But yeah, my name is Miko, and the co founder and CEO of Nero's and my journey, as well as Alessio did was a quitter. Particular, not so traditional, because I graduated in architecture in at the Politecnico di Milano. But in my in one of my interest was always about how to create some software, some trick related to recording to improve some workflow to speed up some aspects that usually are made handcraft or stuff like that. So I started very soon to learn about C sharp, sober as an associate, and in Python. And when I was still a student, actually, I moved to Paris and work in the code and I used to be a sort of mix between an architect and a developer because especially for the most important project, I've participated. I work with Resharper, Python and C sharp for the production and The automatization of 3d models for the production for laser machine construction industry, the stuff out there for the layout project for the country. And it was quite interesting because for the first time, we are talking about Gaussian 1000 of pieces completely growing automatically. So I started that way. And when I came back to Milan, I started my career as assistant professor. And I met Alessio, when he was doing his other graduate, bachelor. So in that period, I was teaching how to create in a sober, C sharp and Python, I'm coding for the production of 3d models. In in, in Rhino, but in the meantime, I started to work as in department, and for the first time, I got in touch with VR industry. Because one of my colleagues as much as the UK to the aqueous one Forster aqueous device, when it was still a deaf kid. So the first time I tried it, it was a soft, blow mine. And I saw so much potential in that in that kind of device in that candle industry. And I said, Okay, I want to learn how to do this. And I started to learn unity. And in that period, I started to work on some VR project for Polytechnical. And I met Ruggiero that is a steal my co founder of UN heroes, and in 2016, we found that own heroes, and we start to work with some international brands, quite soon, because one of our main focus is not to do some generic VR application. But our focus was to find and work every day to figure out how to produce the best balance between performance and rarely is of the of the content. So we became quite soon, fortunately, a sort of reference for all those people that are interested to hire about how to achieve that kind of visual quality in Unity. Because for those people that are in this industry, of course, they know that we are two main rendering engine, we are talking about the Unity unreal. And it was quite a stereotype that you can use Unity, sorta our generic, like our sort of generic tool, and unreal to do super cool, realistic stuff. But that's not true. That's not true. And it's like a bit of shame, because a lot of people are focused more about the engine and about the parameters, and about his kind of aspect. And not understanding that there really is more of environment is not related to a parameter, but how to know how their materials, physical materials, works, how their real lighting works, and stuff like that. And I think it's a better understanding about who those people that come from the gaming industry, because for all those people that come from engines, like Ray or corona, or stuff like that, they know that there really is more of a rendering. So a steam age is more related to find the correct balance between lighting to create a sort of mood of your image, more than the single parameter of V ray or corona. And when you move in unity, but as well in Unreal, you should keep the same mind to achieve the same result. So this is also one of our main issues, too. I found as a founder of my company, because when we set our standard of quality that our clients are looking for its complement to find the prepared staff that already work in such level, so it's not blocked. Then we need to prepare the stuff about how our workflow about our workflow about how to think the machine to achieve that kind of result. But at the same time, of course, it's quite complex and takes time to do that. So this is one, one or the main complex to achieve that kind of rallies in real time. But working day by day on this aspect, so for example, a lot of people think about that geometries. So production of 3d models of the mesh materials, allottee can be three completely different areas of an environment. So someone create a model, some others create a new materials model, others create a lighting. And that's okay. But you should always should keep in mind that in real word, for example, materials, and it was all together, it is not possible. To think about material, we'll have to think about anything, because for example, if you can have a red cube, but if you turn off the lights, your cube looks black, and not red. So it's a maybe a silly, silly example. But it is just to say that, you should always think about that their workflow as a unique, it's a very important to achieve that kind of rallies. And we work every day to figure out the best workflow to achieve that. But always keep in mind, the performance. That's also because this is another means understanding about unity unreal, where unity is lighter, faster in terms hardware, and Rei is more hardware consuming. And speaking in general, that's true. But a lot is related to your workflow, about how you optimize your geometries, your groco, how to approach the word pipeline, and all these kind of aspects. And they are on my side, they are super important, because just just think about it. Just, I don't know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, maybe the first PC we had, may work, I don't know 20 fi 50 megahertz as a as a as a, as a GPU. And now it's quite a joke, because it just our smartphone is 20 times more powerful than our PC. And it sounds always not enough to run our software. And it's a weird if you think about it, because
we increase a lofty the powerful the power of our hardware, the consumer in terms of VAT or hardware. But we don't care almost anymore about performance and optimization of software. And honestly, I think it's one of the main issue in the metaverse industry right now. And speaking in general, about their real time VR content. And that's because if you think about I don't know, Metaverse, I think is going to be harder to adopt. Because currently, if it runs on WebGL, it's super limited in terms of visual quality. Or if you're talking about I don't know, to achieve a higher visual quality, then you you need to have I'm videography cars are super expensive, super powerful, etc. And I think it's like a missing chain between these two aspects. And when we start on URI, or on euros, per se, well, actually, we had in mind to find the best balance between two aspects. And that is we bring us to work with the major international companies in Indonesia is there I saw as as well with unity that it became a force one our color clients actually, we made the free demo for a tech demo for them. Maybe the most famous is the unit on the office, where we test in a sort of very, very, very soon hours. far the HD render pipeline. It was a, it was a challenge, but a very interesting project. And always with them, we work with a very alpha, HD render pipeline for VR. So PC VR for sure. And then we focus also on universal render pipeline. And this way we became two years ago, the pattern you need to contract partner. And with that in mind, we start to think about to achieve a new ways to create real time content, but that Quran is on low and other. Why because in TCRs, two main aspects had makes me think about it, the first one, of course, the lockdown. And in that case, a lot of people or our our clients, at least, switch from to PC VR approach to our web approach. Because of course, you need to be remote. Not everyone have a powerful PC in their home, PC VR headset in their home. So they start to ask something more flexible in that terms. So way more web content, as well, of course, Oculus has been through at meta, and they start to work on meta quest, Oculus quest, that meta quest. And a lot of our clients were more interesting in the standalone version, compared to the PC VR approach. That's because the standalone is more Spartan, more portable, it's easy to bring around. And of course, it's it's easy to use. So the human aspect was surfing that could run on web, surfing more integrated in a VR headset. But it was a challenge for us, because we were always focused on achieve a very high visual graphics quality, but working on PC hardware. So these candles, which was with it was tough, because as probably everyone in this industry know why BTL is super limited in terms of performance. And so if you're talking about metaclasses, we are talking about mobile hardware mainly. So the main challenge was how we could achieve something that looks like high visual quality content. But that can run on low end hardware. And with that in mind, we started at force her to of course, optimized for the or our unity content. So switching from HD render pipeline to universal render pipeline. So figure out the best balance between keys to values, optimized for the geometries, recall, or this kind of stuff. But in any case, we had so much limits in terms of WebGL. And with that in mind, we started to think about a completely different approach. And we started to design on nearly nearly is, is something that I don't like to define a
full
real time experience, I like to call it a hybrid retirement experience. Because only the differently compared to be it made with unity. It's always a sixth off so you have a six degrees of freedom. So you can freely move, look around using VR in WebGL and all the stuff but he works with nothing completely movement for the work environment, but by areas and that's because also that was made, think about how our clients who are using our content, because of course with a teleporter you are always you are always are using You're just using the teleport areas, because no one has, I don't know, 10 meters square 20 meter square in your room as a free free space. So you usually work anyway in the no four meter square. And if you move around, you need to teleporter your ladder, you click your last arrow and move in another point of the, of the of your environment. And using the same approach, we keep that logic in a way. So we started to think of something that does not require a completely new optimization, starting from the high poly model that usually provided are provided by our clients. That's because when I was talking about the they're challenging about to find our staff to prepare our staff to achieve that kind of result. It's Mina, it was made because a lot of our clients as well speak in general are our industry or more and more used to usually used to work with a high poly models and not low poly models, not PBR models. Non rapid in the forsure on the second channel, UV map, suffered that. So every time that a model or environment or received by the client, we need to recreate basically all the geometries. So we need to do the order Topo or them graphs or the materials, it is time consuming for sure, there has to increase the cost. So we don't need instead, you can convert directly your high poly models in something we call the heavy realtime content that works on WebGL. And in VR standalone, almost without loss of loss of quality, and optimism, optimizing the of course, the pipeline, because you don't need any more to optimize your geometries. You don't need to convert your lighting, your materials, everything is converted automatically. And without loss of quality. Because for example, one of the main challenge of our industry is about an unknown vegetation. Because everyone know that if you had a nice tree made for I don't know v ray or Corona in maxima, there's nothing that that I don't know, has around 200 milliamps polygon do you need to reduce it, I don't know from 200 meters polygon to 1k polygons, or 10 100k polygons, it's talking about reduction of the polygon on I don't know 99.9% Starting from the original fights, and it's super complex to achieve to keep a something realistic. But having this kind of mesh reduction, instead, we don't really it is possible to achieve more or less the same visual quality you had in a high polygon models. I can I can turn this momentum, explain too much how new rewards but very soon, we're we're planning to release some via some public builds made for metal quest and WebGL. In this way, users can see what is possible to achieve with or near you. I'm not going to explain too much about how it works, because in this moment, at first we were in alpha. So the call is still not super stable in any situation and in any in in any kind of industry. But especially we are still figuring out with our force the users and force clients what is the best approach to commercialize our software? So we are still evaluating if to keep it as an internal tools or to give it as under license or suffer that. So speaking in general, what can you do is to have a plugin in Max or Maya or another cinema or other classic 3d model Ng and take through the plugin some information from that model and compile the wall geometry the wall material the world lighting and to receiver in this way geometry and the textures that you can come verta directly for WebGL order, we aim to key to keep the door open with competently in terms of in terms of compatibility with Unity unreal. So you can eventually to bring to import those geometries or structures also in Unity or Unreal, or you can still keep a worker in Unity integrating other side of your programming or other contents or stuff like that. So the pipeline is sort of seamless between high polygon polygon models, or nearly unit area, then WebGL or MetroWest. So we are still SSL, we are still figuring out if to keep as internal tools or to share it under license. So, yeah, more or less, is it it's a welder started from VR students of architecture interested in technology and how the country can help an architect and the AEC industry, moving to programming, and the core and developer languages like C sharp Python, moving to unity, and to neuroscience, really
amazing, thank you. Thank you for like the very, you know, extensive story. I think this is probably you know, a lot of this discord group has been started really for people that were interested in transitioning from a more design space to a more software development space. So that was the main that was the main function. Initially, I talk to a lot of students been lucky to, you know, being part of a lot of workshops. And also, miracle has been involved in a lot of educational endeavors. And so it's it's great to know, you know, that that, especially your background in design can inform all of your choices. Of course, it comes with a lot more, you know, effort in understanding what to do, because you're we're talking about optimization and strategies, there is a mix of like technicalities, and also understanding what to do from from a render pipeline perspective, which is, you know, not very small work. And I also want to say like, I try Mikos on every product. I also posted here in the chat, the website of bows and arrows and Neary if you want to check it out, and up to you really to look, look that up. It looks incredible. I tried it on the Oculus quest. And you know, like Oculus quest, as you, as you probably will know, is like an Android phone, basically. And the fact that you can get into a space and with that quality, and it really makes you think about seriously about this idea of Metaverse that we always like keep talking about and I don't like that word a lot. But it's something that everyone represents in this way now. So I want to keep going in Ask me your co like, since since I think like this is one of these episodes also takes in configuration consideration the fact that we have guests from Europe. And we all know that technology scenes are different from place to place. And I'm really curious to know what is the perception of the word Metaverse was the perception of AR VR in a place like Italy slash Europe if you want to expand a little bit more, but however you would like to know what what would what has been your understanding of all of this new, you know, movement that started during COVID. And I mean, it really didn't start you're in COVID Like it's been started years and years ago. But let's say the manifested through COVID with the word Metaverse to lead to Mara to change their name and all this stuff. So I wonder what what has been the perception of all of these contexts for you so far? And what does it mean Metaverse for you? If we really need to go into details Hmm.
It's a it's a good question. First of all, I think, I think, of course metadata and excited industry. If you're talking about Italy is not the first country you think about probably. And I see some scotch skeptic cheese about Metaverse, not only in Italy, but also in in Europe. And partly honestly, I can see why I can see why. Because answer like new technologies there is a lot of hype and a lot of people and companies trying to work on the on the theory to work on the wave. So I don't know what to say. It's there to pusher, their companies through the last hyper in terms of technology. So I see a lot of metaphors that are not so interesting, loose like Second Life. All the games are suffer death. And I can see why a lot of people are skeptical about Metaverse, and I couldn't even be angry about it. Because that, you know, you need you need to find a value, a value in the technology to really use it in your day. If you're talking about I don't know, internet smartphone is something you need to use you use everyday you need to use it. And probably a lot of Metaverse are not that power, currently, because I think as I said a lot of people still don't understand what Metaverse is. They can see just the low quality game behind the metaverse and they are not interested in in that kind of stuff. I think then the reason our main to the first one, of course he the visual quality, because starting from PlayStation app today. I think the console brings a lot of good habits, Intel mouse in terms of graphics quality of your games. So in this moment, you just want that kind of graphics, because why we can have in our in a game, a super visual quality. But the metaverse is so low graphics. So the I think people don't understand why some aspects. Some industry can work in that way the metaverse doesn't. And the second aspect. I think the metaverse is very poorly integrated in what we do daily. So I think the two main aspects to bring the metaverse in your habit is to have increase in increment of visual quality of your content. And the second point is to bring the metaverse in your devices is so Metaverse embedded in your web page, your VR standalone headset, but in an easy way. So in this instance in this moment, or do you have WebGL content that is integrated in a web page, but with low visual quality, or otherwise you need to download some stuff you need to connect to your PC, by cable or via Huaraz. Your to your PC, you need Nvidia super expensive graphics card or sci fi that you could use for sure cloud gaming, or that kind of technology. But it's super expensive in terms of scalability, scalability. So I think the goal of the metaverse will be to have a high visual quality, highly integrated in your web browser, in your websites, in your social networks and stuff like that. Since we don't have both areas I don't think the metaverse can work. Honestly. That's, that's, that's that's my, that's, that's my idea.
And in someone that works with the metaverse say that, so that I feel like this is very kind of very mature view of how things are going. And you know, I really like to call people in the space that are working with really like challenging the technology. I agree 100% that web XR is whatever is going to be next. Because the access of it, because the easy interaction with it, because the fact that it's not pushing you mandatorily to use a headset that is more about sharing your space, sharing some information. And the way that they can be accessed is always up to the users finally. Yeah, I just wanted to remember Yeah, yeah, please.
Yeah, I totally agree with you, Alessio, because I wasn't just talking about VR. But I was talking about the wall XR industry. So AR mixed reality VR. First Person PC will keep all your game paths after that. Yeah, totally agree with you.
Exactly. I'm just reminding Chad that if anyone wants to do some question and wants to conversate like, please go ahead. And, you know, just like unmute yourself and ask what you want to ask or just like writing in the chat. If you're shy, like, don't, don't worry. I mean, here is more for our conversation. Otherwise, it just keep going to get more of, you know, mucosae adventure and journey. But feel free to ask anytime, things. Christian, I see that you unlock your camera. So do you want to do you want to participate in any way?
Yeah, thank you so much for all the all the information and all the background. It's fascinating to hear. I guess my question is probably something you've been hearing a lot. But based on your experience, right, building the tools, using the tool, seeing where the industry goes from, both from understanding of what AR VR metal versus from the public perspective, and also having more opportunities to use more affordable tools. Where do you think that industry is going in terms of the future of it? But do you believe that it's going to be a next big thing as the iPhone was like a smartphones was for like normal phones? Or do you think there will be a huge split between people using AR glasses on the day to day basis, and people who you know, completely will steer away from it, because I've been seeing like, to almost different school of thoughts, saying that, in a world will never adapt that kind of technology. So I'm kind of curious to understand, what is your perspective? What, what options you're looking for? Personally?
It's, it's, it's an interesting question. First of all, I think that, as I said, before, any big technology breaks within the summer scalp tree. If you think about the, for pricy internet, a lot of poor was to say, internet is not going to be used for people about adjusted from war for work, stuff like that. And we see how bigger the internet impact our life. And so I think I think VR as well, mixed reality industry can be the next big thing. Only if we'll be able to to amplify the connection between that layer of information content and stuff like that with our devices, because currently, if you think about smartphone is like an accession our hands, so you don't think about a smartphone as a tool, but to just a part of your body. Sorry about that. And I think Metaverse but as your headset XR AR is going to be integrated in our life. Only if with our worker we will be able to do the same thing the smartphone does at time iPhone does 20 years so yeah,
Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you.
It's not gonna be easy, actually. Yeah, it's for sure. Nice challenge. But I think it's interesting in these moments be in this industry, because a lot of stuff are happening. Of course, we are thinking about AI. Related, of course, we are talking about charity, but also in terms of 3d model production with AI, environmental production with AI. It's, it's nice to be in this moment in this industry. So it's a challenge. It's like a, it's like a Farwest, actually, because you don't you don't know what you're going to find. Working through less banter you need to go just to check what's what's going on, and what you can do in that area. So yeah,
it reminds me, like when Silicon Valley was, was emerging, right, like everyone were jumping on, on, like, personal computers, and like, when the microchips are getting on the rise, right, like, everyone tried to, like, come up with ways how to use them. And it felt like extremely, like, this space. Now, it looks exactly the same. But something that I'm personally thinking about is like, small hypotheses is that our technology is, is developing so fast, right? Like, it's like, there's more and more complex, like heart we are interacting with. But at the same time, there's even more and more information that is presented to us, right? Like internet is already itself so busy, like it's, you can get absolutely lost in it. But then at the same time, when you think about it, if you're going to have like this XR, another layer of information to the real world, this is like completely mind blowing. And I'm wondering, are we ready for it as a humans, not from society personally, or purely from biological perspective, it feels like we are not able to, like we're not capable to hold on to so much information at the same time. And with like this additional hardware, it's going to be even more difficult if everything is going to be thrown at you at the same time. What do you think about that?
I honestly, I don't agree with it. Because if you think about it, we move if you have born in the in the 80. So you already see something similar, because you moved, I don't know the library, the books and stuff for that, except in Chico pedia from web, so you move from a very limited access to information to essentially our worldwide information. So it's a it's in any way challenging, because you need to know how to manage this kind of information. And it is something that a lot of people don't know how to do it. Let me explain. I think a lot of people really don't know how the technology works. So they are just consumers of technology. So but they really don't understand how the technology works. So they are just the victim of technology. And and I think iPhone is was something like a game changer in this aspect. Because if you think pre iPhone apostar iPhone, I can see a lot of different in terms of approach of technology. Because before iPhone, you need to know at least a bit how to approach your PC how to, I don't know, use Windows, MS DOS or stuff like that. With iPhone, you just need to click up an icon and you really don't know anymore. What's happening behind that click. And I think interesting because as you think about it, even not knowing what's happening, everyone, even two years old kid can use that crunchy. So I think also in the next decade. Mixer reality we ar, ar, etc, can be integrated in our life. And I think you need to see if you want to be part of the creators and understanding that chronology or just a consumer of technology, because I think it's already. It's happening anyway. So I don't know exactly if we'll be more AR XR, VR, I don't know if we'd be more XR lab or stuff like that, but I think it's going to be absolutely the only way. So you just need to understand, if you want really understanding what's going on in your life, or just be a consumer. I don't, I'm not saying something good or something bad. And no, no, I'm not saying that. I just say that you just need to evaluate what is good for you. And what is care about your passion, your, your work, etc.
Thank you. Thank you. Let's see interested. Thank you. Good to
see. Ya. Tomiko. Thank you so much for sharing your, your experience and your story. And LSU thank you so much for organizing this event. I just wanted to ask you a quick question, because I've been working on with Unity shipping products for Mehta quest, too. And you mentioned before about the importance of having like a sort of workflow to represent materials like properties of materials in the in the engine, essentially. So how material behavior real life should be represented again in the engine. So my question for you is, do you have any recommendation for workflows, or resource resources that you use to create these types of materials, more like more realistic materials inside the literally
it is easier than you think. And I think the key here is a keep it simple, keep it simple. Don't Don't think about overcomplicate the lighting, stop the material stop, because you can, you can do it only on so you're really understanding what they are doing. So, for example, let me give you two example actually, one related to the lighting and another one related to materials. I can see a lot of people when do the lighting, setup, plays or lights, Spotify, etc, just randomly in your environment. But it's not our to the real life work. If you think about real life work, you really have a very, very few point of light, you have usually son, whoever, eventually some spotlight, we are talking about lamps. And that's us. So you don't need to overcomplicate the lighting stop. If you think if I think about our content, usually we use a very, very few lights, because it is easier to control the result. Of course, then you can balance the lighting, I don't know putting some other lights behind your windows, just to increment the light. But we never we never place a light or source light water, there is not our real elements that produce light. That's the key, keep it simple the lighting stuff. And in the same way we approach the material because we always work with PBR materials. So we are talking usually about four channels or the albedo normal mask map if you're talking about the new pipeline or unity and yeah, free free main free main channels because occlusion is integrated and metallic is already integrated in mass Whap emission is ready to their materials if you need it, so you You shouldn't work with those maps. If you don't really understand what that maps do, because so much time I can see completely wrong metallic map applied to the PBR material completely wrong Norma apply to the materials. So keep it simple. Just start for the albedo, for example. It is, there is a lot of misconception misunderstanding about albedo, because the albedo, in natural to just represent the color, the texture, the color of the material. So no shadows, no information about the reflection, or refraction, etc. The albedo should just represent the color of the map. So if you want them add information about the metallic properties, to those material to that material, you should be integrating the albedo, you shouldn't be integrating the metallic map. As well, I don't know, if you're talking about upper K. On the Floor Plan floor, if you think about the division between the tiles, the wooden dies, you can have some shadow between the editors, but that shadow could be not integrated in the albedo, it should be integrated in the ambient occlusion. Of course, we are talking about some minor tweaks. But just to give you a simple started with albedo data with a normal map that works in specific ways, and then integrator information about reflection, refraction, etc. Another very, I think a very good advice I can give you is to start from something ready. So don't do materials from scratch, you don't need it in 90% of the cases, you can just start from substance source, I'm not paid to say that you can just I don't know if you're if you're confident with Adobe, Adobe, Adobe software like Substance Painter, Substance Designer, and substance source substance sources or library or PBR material is not the only one. Of course, you can have some free CBR. So with the weak cell, or other libraries, and my suggest is to start from that material that is already physically collected. And then to modify through designer through painter mainly through designer, that material to adapt it regarding what you need. So don't do materials from scratch, if you don't need it. Start from already something very, very professional, and modified that.
God thank you. Thank you so much for all the advices.
I posted some reference in the chat here. Yeah, I wanted to I wanted to share also like going back to the discussion that we were having before. I think that it's it's so hard to predict what's going to happen in this kind of Metaverse environment because like Nico said, like a lot of things needs to be still defined. And especially not just from whatever people wants to do. But also from an interaction standpoint, I feel like accessibility and interaction are things that have not been figured out yet meaning that to onboard the person even with the Oculus quest, even if they think I met Mara did a great job on that because it's a very pleasant process to onboard with the Oculus is still something that just some people wouldn't do. It just something that is not that mainstream is something that still requires a level of Oh, I like to do that very much in I'm putting myself to date to do it. And you know, I just I gave to my parents I had to because I I managed once to have like a call with them in via chat or something like that. Just for fun. And it was it was a nightmare, like meaning that setting up everything with them. It was the hardest challenge ever. And and even for someone that maybe is familiar with all of this, like they could say like hey, it's easy. New Generation stuff still like you, you are competing with an industry like the one from Apple that creates devices that are comprehended and well used by everyone, every age, every it's like very inclusive, let's say. So the technology still need to go there. And there is also the fact that requires a certain kind of interaction. Both I would say direct interaction and re interaction are still very fatiguing for users, because you need to have your hands like this, and you just need to do something. And we are not used to. And it's not like a very, you know, kind of swapping, the interaction that we have with phones, where we literally move one finger. And we can just achieve so much just with that. It feels like going back and not going forward. So for sure people are not for me, like very, you know, they don't sneak into that very quickly. But they just like think about it multiple times and remains like a subculture rather than just the mainstream utilisation of things. But I think the effort that you're doing there is really like making things more accessible and easy to integrate. And this is like a step forward. And it's needed for from here to arrive into a point where they are hardware will be mature enough to allow us to capitalize on all of these tools that are built now. Because also the fact is that when everyone talks about AI, and the speed of AI, that is like moving so fast, and in there are you can see every year that papers come out, and they are so like the you know, parameters are exponentially augmented in models, and things get exponentially better. Meanwhile, in AR and VR seems like things go very, very slow. It's really because we are talking about software versus hardware here. So hardware is a totally different beast. And it's not going to be you cannot you cannot just write a line of code and make it get better. You need to work with scientists, electrician, and you know, opticians and all of a part of a stack which are not even familiar with, because I never worked with hardware. So yeah, that that is to me like something that will develop in, it's unavoidable to me that things are moving, even if slow things are moving. And we're gonna get somewhere where somewhere No one knows yet. And that's also the exciting part of being part of this far west as you as you named it earlier. I want to keep going and asking, like transitioning. I mean, we need to talk about AI somehow it's a topic that is a hot topic, but not really our topic is more like a topic that is changing our generation. It's defining a new generation, I think. Because what you can do now with AI is not something you could do just like two years ago. So it's crazy how you can take advantage of this technology. And not really just I think that right now there is often the mistake to say like, oh, yeah, my startup is an AI startup or something. My company is an AI company AI is like works with everything. Like even if you have a restaurant, you can capitalize on the Yeah, so it's like as a way to facilitate workflow and like just making things better, automated, scalable, hiring less people and personalized models for yourself. And there is really there there is no limit, there is no cap in what you can do depends more about also the component of your creativity as an engineer or as a designer comes in and you can define solution that can can be very, like game changing for everyone. For example, I think that notion, integrated some AI feature lately, and you can do like checklists with AI and you can just like ride one, like autocomplete one word that is full text comes out, like all of these kinds of applications are sorry about that are very, like game changer for multiple industries. So in your case, Miko, you're building products, mainly on the array, it's off after all, like it's a product that is trying to go on market and he's already on market and he's trying to take a slice of a very specific use case. I wonder if you had the chance and the time because also that you're going to be very busy to look into some of the latest AI publication leaders of AI development or integrated any epi into your workflow or if you're planning to do it in the future.
I always keep an eye on all the technology. We we have around a in our in our field for sure. The AI AI is one of them for sure. But for example also I don't know, I'm really it's not a danger to us. But I totally take a look. Take an eye on Riyadh to see what they're doing, how they do some staffers some approaches they have, and specifically about AI. It's a it's an interesting field this moment, for sure. But I have to concern about A I. The first one is about, of course, as the metaverse high, we have the AI hype. And it's going to be important to divide to split, what is going to be really negative, and what could be what is going to disappear. Very, very visual, because of course, for example, if I take a look about my LinkedIn page, last year was 90%, of Metaverse, posts, and now 90% ai posts. And I am bit skeptical about when so that someone is an expert of a field. And sigma six months later, is an expert of another field. It's, it's kind of weird for me because any of this industry is super complex. In terms of terminology and knowledge, you need to have to really understand what they're doing. Because otherwise you are a consumer of the technology. Even if you talk about it, you are a consumer of that chronology, you are not a creator. So that's my first concern about AI. Of course, I can see of course, I can see a lot of potential in GBT as well as in, I don't know, NAFTA or the other AI content AI approaches. But the second concern about AI, but I think it's a matter of time, it's about to control the result. Because I think AI like sort of black box where you put inside the input. And the black boxes give you back some output. But you don't really know what happening. In the meantime, in the meanwhile. So you're going to trust the result of the AI. But you're not checking if that's really correct the content. The AI is giving you of course, if you're talking about I don't know, a piece of code, it's easy to check to verify because you're just pasting copying your code. And it can work or not work. So it's a it's a it's easy. It's become more complex. If we're talking about I don't know, the XO or suffer that. It's I think I can see a lot of voices talking about AI to replace a Google as a search on a search engine. I don't know, actually, because, of course, in both ways, you're not verifying the sources. But in AI, it's a it's like a matter of faith because you're going to trust the result. But you really don't know if that answer is correct. And there are a lot of example, the data of wrong answers. That chalk that up to give you but I think it's a matter of time. The data industry is super promising for the future. I think it's gonna be Well, the first time I tried to chat to GBT, it was really blue mining. It was like, high end. Feeling I didn't finish that like that. Since the time of the first rider. I tried the VR headset, or the first time I gone on a website. So we are talking about an innovation shorn of that, or that importance. So besides DISA concern, and I think GBT AI speaking join ai, ai for production of 3d models, it's going to be a very, very, very interesting challenge. And in the same time, super interesting to see what is possible to do in the next I don't know, five years, four years, 10 years, is going to be the next being changed in our in our word. And we still didn't integrate in on really AI approach. Because as I said, I need to add force the really see where AI deliver me real advantages. In our work, I just, I don't want just put AI in our software, just to say, just to say you're really getting a I do AI. That's not an important aspect for for us. So we don't work, we don't want to use AI, just to say to the word owners is innovative, because use AI. Every time we approach a new technology, we need to understand how really how that technology can help us. I can see, of course, a lot of I have a lot of ideas, but we need to still integrate that evaluated deeper. What what to do with with AI?
I think so this is a very good, I see why like this, this space, because I see a lot of podcasts and a lot of things like that. And when these terms are just thrown there in the conversation, there is always like a very big hype and in, it's a little bit disappointing, because the fact is that, like you said, these technologies takes time to understand and like we I mean, I've been in in the field of AR and VR, almost for eight years. I still like I don't know anything yet. And I feel like every day really they work on something, I just like discover something new, that gives me more experience. But it's it's to come to conclusions and say, Okay, I'm going to be the product on that specific thing takes time, takes understanding the technology. Otherwise, you're always like you said, like you choose to be a consumer, rather than actually a user or a creator of this technology. And there is always I think there is all there is also like us a place in between these two figures, which is a developer, which doesn't go deep enough in the understanding of the technology and find a fine find themselves kind of depending so much from another third party technology, which it's almost like being a user, in a way, it's almost like like being a consumer. Because now what is happening is that all of these AI language models, some might be open source, some maybe not. But I mean, the way they capitalize is still like acquiring users that they that they get, and these users also act as improvement of their own software. Because anytime that you use these software's, you're also helping to improve. And if I'm improving software, and I'm also paying for the software, and I giving all of my staff to the software, I think that people are a little bit more incentive ated to try to host themselves as much as they can, you know, like as much you could have, like, you have like authority on your own product on your own income. And everyone will is going to try to do this. But yeah, there is definitely like, a way that big, you know, big companies are trying to create dependency from what they're doing. And it's tough. It's tough to find that kind of balance between, okay, I'm using the service, but how do I how much do I know about this, like, how does this work in and why should I use it? Because otherwise really, like I can see, I can see a lot of companies that maybe just that show the word AI and maybe it's like 1% of the features They have, but that's really just for because they need to do that, again for investments. Sometimes it was like that for the metaverse, he was like that for crypto. And I don't know what's next. But it's going to be going that way. So yeah, I, from what I understand, though, like, I can see that AI is like really reshaping so much of, it seems like differently from the crypto bubble. And the metaverse hype, it seems like this technology is well, more is way more understood and used. That's what I it's easy to, it's easy to use it like it's very accessible. Because you're on the web, and you insert the prompt, and you have a result there is also like a mechanism of reward, which is so instantaneous, and is so like rewarding that you're almost like you become most almost addicted to it is that when we use Google that you just typing something and you get like the best results, and you just can access to that result. And it's kind of like a slot machine mechanism that you just get into oh, I need this. So I get that. And and that makes it to me going way more viral than any other technology that has been done before. Besides the outcome that can be like right or wrong. Yeah, what do you think about that?
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what sound like aI hater actually, because I love charity. So it's it's one of the most amazing thing I ever tried in my life. The first time I tried to charge it was a really blow mining because for the first time it was like to talk with a PC. But just like you're you're talking with a person. And it was a social meeting. So it's it's a it's really, really addictive as the, as you said, just like Google or other other services. But I know every time is different than another era, but and also hold so I can say that in the last 50 years. It's probably the same, the same story. But if you're talking about No, no, no. The last 10 years. I already. So AI wave before the VR wave. Then I saw crypto wave, Dan. So Metaverse wave. And now I'm going to share again the AI wave. So VR wave is not born with with Metaverse, but we already had, I don't know 678 years ago, talking about us in terms of investment by Vc, etc. So I'm not comparing these AI wave to the previous one because it's a completely different and at time I remember a lot of stuff tapper that used to just if the calendar itself like a company, so okay, it's completely different. But also this time a lot of I'm missing a lot of company in that they T themselves like our AI company, and that they just are integrated integrated API in the in the in the product. So I don't think to integrate an API you have another company your product makes you
your company ai ai company sorry. That's been said. I'm totally agree with you when you say that I never seen something new like the new wave of AI and especially with chocolate chip it be so firstly integrated in such amount of companies and use from such amount of people so It's really, really interesting to see here in this moment, understanding technology and see what will happen in the next five years. Yeah.
Yeah, I think like you said, like, when you have these waves of trends, for me, I just see it as a new opportunity to learn something new. And see how much I can just get into this and how much stick with me for what I need to do with that. Because sometimes truth is that you might not need it for what you do so. But it's cool that like, every time that I think everyone that it is like a tech savvy person, every time that there is a trend, you're like, Okay, what is this about? Like, let's try this out. And let's just see what what is this doing for me and how it really makes sense to me investing like long term effort in trying to understand this very well, and just making a part of my workflow. But yeah, this is this is very good view. So we we are past one hour and 20 minutes. I don't want to take more time for you. Is there? I seen a Reese in the chat. Do you have any question or any concern? You're the only one remaining otherwise we can just like conclude this episode. And it was you know, thanks so much for your time you go. The work that you're doing amazing. I'm gonna just make some just put some videos of your staff when I assemble this video. And yeah, Noreen Sorry, there, or do you want to chat or anything? If you didn't want to say anything for yourself? Seems fine. Okay.
Okay, it was a pleasure. Thank you for having me here. So for inviting me for inviting me here. Yeah. For anything, if someone has some other question. So after the streaming, I'm totally available. So it was a pleasure. And we can if you can, we can close.
Okay, thank you and have a good rest of your day there in Italy. Okay,
