TP Chatz: 2 Things I Learned | Neat’s Kevin McMenamy
Listening to the “TalkingPointz Chatz” podcast featuring Dave Michels and David Danto with their guest, Kevin McMenamy, the CTO of Neat, was an enlightening experience. Two key insights stood out to me: the rapid evolution of video conferencing technology over the last couple of decades and the unique culture and innovation at Neat.
Firstly, the evolution of video conferencing technology has been remarkable. Kevin McMenamy shared his extensive experience in the industry, starting from his early days at Cisco. He reminisced about the pioneering days of video conferencing, working on technologies like IP video telephony and telepresence. The journey from early video solutions to today’s sophisticated systems has been driven by continuous innovation and the pursuit of high-quality communication experiences. Kevin highlighted significant milestones, such as introducing 1080p telepresence, which revolutionized the industry by providing an almost lifelike meeting experience. The seamless integration of video into enterprise communication systems was a technological feat and a strategic move that required navigating complex challenges, including bandwidth management and network infrastructure.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this evolution was the transition from desktop video solutions to immersive telepresence. Kevin described how this shift was akin to working in a startup within Cisco, with a small, dedicated team working tirelessly to bring telepresence to market. The story of cutting up and painting a table in the parking lot, with the security guard thinking they were crazy, paints a vivid picture of the passion and dedication behind these innovations. The impact of telepresence was profound, enabling people to sit across a table from someone on the other side of the planet and feel as though they were in the same room. This immersive experience set the stage for the future of video conferencing, making it an integral part of modern communication.
The second thing I learned was the unique culture and innovation at Neat are truly inspiring. Kevin’s transition from Cisco to Neat was driven by his admiration for the people and products at Neat. The company, which emerged in 2019, consists of many former colleagues from Tandberg, a team known for their exceptional talent and innovative spirit. The industrial design and user experience at Neat are described as best in class, and the company’s approach to video conferencing solutions is both creative and effective.
At Neat, Kevin continues to lead the development of cutting-edge video solutions. The company’s products are technologically advanced and thoughtfully designed to enhance user experience. The Neat Bar Pro and Neat Center, with their intuitive camera and microphone array technology, exemplify this commitment to innovation. These products are designed to seamlessly adapt to different meeting scenarios, ensuring a smooth and natural communication experience without complexity to the end-user.
Kevin’s enthusiasm for his role at Neat is palpable. He speaks highly of the company’s culture, where creativity and technical excellence go hand in hand. The respect and camaraderie among the team members foster an environment where innovative ideas can thrive. This culture of innovation is crucial for staying ahead in the rapidly evolving video conferencing market.
The two Daves and Kevin also covered many other aspects of their journeys, and experiencing global cultures in person and over video.
Transcript
WEBVTT
1
22
00:01:35.530 –> 00:01:57.356
Dave Michels: Alright. Put the camera on me. It looks like it’s there. Okay, Hi, to save Michael some talking points. Welcome to another. Another episode of talking points. Chats Dave, Dave, Dave, Danto and myself will be interviewing Kevin from neat Kevin. You’re in a brand new role at neat and I and I just saw you change seats. i i i know you wear multiple hats. I didn’t know you said multiple seats.
23
00:01:57.640 –> 00:02:01.210
Kevin McMenamy: Exactly. I just wanted to be a little bit closer to all the equipment.
24
00:02:01.340 –> 00:02:02.140
Kevin McMenamy: Okay, so.
25
00:02:02.140 –> 00:02:03.169
David Danto: But are you using.
26
00:02:03.170 –> 00:02:06.630
Dave Michels: Quick introduction, a quick introduction of your role at me.
27
00:02:06.930 –> 00:02:10.830
Kevin McMenamy: Yes, I’m a CTO and run the software engineering team here.
28
00:02:11.750 –> 00:02:13.350
Dave Michels: And you’ve been there for how long?
29
00:02:13.350 –> 00:02:17.169
Kevin McMenamy: 10 months. I joined in September of 2023.
30
00:02:17.640 –> 00:02:24.299
Dave Michels: Alright. Well, that’s gonna be a part of our conversation. We’ve got a whole lot of history to cover before we get there. So alright.
31
00:02:24.880 –> 00:02:28.870
David Danto: So. So, Kevin. 1st of all, what what equipment are you using right now? Where are you.
32
00:02:29.570 –> 00:02:38.160
Kevin McMenamy: So I’m in Oslo 1st of all at neat’s headquarters, and I’m on a bar pro with 3 screens.
33
00:02:38.220 –> 00:02:44.900
Kevin McMenamy: I see both of you really, fantastically well, we’re using neat center here for
34
00:02:44.930 –> 00:03:03.649
Kevin McMenamy: the microphone array. And also, if I sit and you know, look at you guys this way, you know, which would be awkward and uncomfortable but for demo purposes. But you know, if I was talking to somebody across the table, then, you know. Within a few seconds the neat center would detect. Oh, I’m looking here and switch to this camera view. And then if I turn and talk to you guys.
35
00:03:03.660 –> 00:03:07.306
Kevin McMenamy: you know this way on the screens. Then it’s gonna detect that I’m looking there.
36
00:03:07.550 –> 00:03:14.969
Dave Michels: We can’t see that neat center. So let me just ask, out of curiosity, is that sitting on the table or hanging from the ceiling.
37
00:03:15.280 –> 00:03:17.380
Kevin McMenamy: It is sitting on the table right.
38
00:03:18.060 –> 00:03:18.806
Dave Michels: Old school.
39
00:03:19.470 –> 00:03:43.419
David Danto: When you get up and walk over to the screen we’ll see it in the foreground there. So so let’s let’s go backwards a little bit you were. You were lucky enough or unlucky enough. I don’t know how you want to phrase it, to to be at Cisco when video actually became a thing working for, you know ultimately for John Chambers, you know. Wh. What was that experience like? I know that the Cisco vision originally was, you know the Kuva, the Cisco unified video advantage. Right? Gotta remember that. That’s.
40
00:03:43.420 –> 00:04:03.530
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah. But actually, that that came after. yeah, you know. So I I’ve been doing video conferencing since 96. I’m super, you know, privileged to have been a part of the industry since then. Back in the days of Idn. H. Dot 3, 20, and then H. Dot 3 21 ISDN. Or I’m sorry. H. Dot 3 20 over ATM.
41
00:04:03.530 –> 00:04:20.660
Kevin McMenamy: At a company called 1st Virtual, and then I joined Cisco in 2,000, working on H, 323 video conferencing. And then we came up with the idea for Kuva and IP and video telephony as part of the enterprise. PBX solution call manager back, then. People nowadays know it as unified communications manager.
42
00:04:21.190 –> 00:04:29.409
David Danto: So. So that would the idea again. For people who aren’t familiar with that is like you would pick up a phone and call somebody, and if you had it, and they had it all of a sudden. You see their face on the screen when you’re calling so.
43
00:04:29.410 –> 00:04:30.259
Kevin McMenamy: And it’s just magic.
44
00:04:30.260 –> 00:04:31.520
David Danto: To bolt on
45
00:04:32.190 –> 00:04:35.320
David Danto: to the to the IP telephony. And then.
46
00:04:35.470 –> 00:04:41.489
David Danto: you know, Charlie, Jean Carlo and the team, you know, around telepresence that that sort of became a thing right?
47
00:04:41.490 –> 00:04:45.299
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah, exactly. And then we’ve we pivoted, you know, really big from
48
00:04:45.757 –> 00:04:53.500
Kevin McMenamy: From, you know, desktop communications with with Kuba, the unified video advantage, and and IP phones to
49
00:04:53.560 –> 00:05:02.789
Kevin McMenamy: high end, 1,080, p. 30. Frames per second, immersive telepresence. And that was an incredible journey, really privileged to have been a part of that. You got some.
50
00:05:02.790 –> 00:05:17.650
David Danto: That we may not know about that. You know. Obviously, you know, those are people are familiar with the technology. We get the technology. But what was it like inside Cisco? Around trying to kick that off around the bandwidth, around the network? What? What was that experience like.
51
00:05:17.860 –> 00:05:25.456
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. And you know, we were essentially like a startup inside of, you know, Cisco, so it’s like fantastic. Right. We had all this funding
52
00:05:25.750 –> 00:05:55.289
Kevin McMenamy: from Cisco, but we were. We treated ourselves as like a seconded, you know, often in another building, working on this skunk works, telepresence thing, small team completely focused, working like startup hours. We’re out there in the parking lot, cutting up a table and painting it. Security guard came driving by, what are you guys doing? Oh, we’re doing this telepresence. It’s going to be amazing. He’s like, you guys are crazy. And he drove off
53
00:05:55.290 –> 00:06:18.169
Kevin McMenamy: and yeah, bringing telepresence to market was a thrill. Just the immersive experience sitting across the table from somebody on the other end of the planet. Just going. My God, you’re aware you’re in Hong Kong. Holy Cow! You look like you’re right there across from me. That’s amazing. We weren’t the only ones doing it, as you know, Tamburg had their T. 3, and Polycom had their Rpx.
54
00:06:18.170 –> 00:06:29.609
Kevin McMenamy: HP. Had halo and such, and that the success of telepresence really set us up to then start to think seriously about. We need to triple down on this market.
55
00:06:29.870 –> 00:06:32.790
Kevin McMenamy: you know, and that led to the acquisition of timber
56
00:06:33.130 –> 00:06:34.479
Kevin McMenamy: which brought me to Oslo.
57
00:06:35.100 –> 00:06:40.320
David Danto: Well, that’s actually a great point. Talk a little bit because you were there for Tandberg’s acquisition.
58
00:06:40.340 –> 00:06:43.999
David Danto: and you were there for Kano’s acquisition. A few years later. You know.
59
00:06:44.000 –> 00:06:44.480
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah, that’s.
60
00:06:44.480 –> 00:06:50.169
David Danto: Those product lines probably wasn’t easy. Anything you want to tell us about the that joy or those scars.
61
00:06:51.024 –> 00:06:57.625
Kevin McMenamy: I would say very few scars all joy. But you know, I tend to be an optimist. So
62
00:06:58.460 –> 00:07:27.870
Kevin McMenamy: yeah. 1st of all on a personal level. Moving to Oslo was a phenomenal opportunity for me and for my family. My wife, my daughter. Our daughter, was 7 at the time she loved it. My wife loved it. I loved it working here. The Tamburg team is phenomenal. It was a joy to work with them, and I was got to wear many hats, you know. It was kind of like part product, manager, part architect, part janitor, part. Whatever you need help with getting to understand how to operate within Cisco, you know
63
00:07:27.870 –> 00:07:40.820
Kevin McMenamy: all, all. And what do you call that master of Jack, of all trades, master of a couple, you know. And just just here to help right and so I think the tambour team really appreciated me as an asset.
64
00:07:41.060 –> 00:07:41.530
Kevin McMenamy: and.
65
00:07:41.893 –> 00:07:47.706
Dave Michels: Went through another transition, too, because when Rowan came in, everything is shifted to spark.
66
00:07:48.070 –> 00:08:12.190
Kevin McMenamy: The cloud. Exactly right. That’s right. That’s been a journey. But yeah, the you know here, working with the tambor team is all about getting all the Tamborg endpoints to register to communications manager. So line side sip and integration getting the Codeian Mcu and telepresence server to act as conference bridges on on Communications manager. So really like bringing telepresence and unified communications together and integrating all of that whole.
67
00:08:12.200 –> 00:08:20.950
Kevin McMenamy: you know. All 3 right, Cisco, Telepresence, Tamburg and Cisco, Uc altogether, and then and then we acquired a condo in 2,015.
68
00:08:21.800 –> 00:08:26.209
Dave Michels: No, no! Where. Where were you working when, when neat emerged.
69
00:08:27.796 –> 00:08:37.600
Kevin McMenamy: I was in in London so fast forward. After 2015, Cisco acquired a kano fast forward. 3 years later, 2,018, I moved to London
70
00:08:37.659 –> 00:08:40.710
Kevin McMenamy: to act as a director of engineering for
71
00:08:40.789 –> 00:08:47.809
Kevin McMenamy: what? What was born out of the coding acquisition which became the tele transcoding back end of Webex
72
00:08:47.840 –> 00:08:52.790
Kevin McMenamy: and the on-prem conferencing portfolio, which was the account portfolio.
73
00:08:52.830 –> 00:09:20.709
Kevin McMenamy: and those 2 teams, both very close to each other. About a 15 min drive away from each other are 15 mile drive away, depending on traffic that can be anywhere from 15 min to an hour and 15 min in London. And so I took on both of those teams and brought them under common leadership and common vision, common goals and all that, even though one team was focused on Prem and the other in cloud, really doing very similar things, transcoded conferencing applications, servers, and such.
74
00:09:20.750 –> 00:09:33.769
Kevin McMenamy: So that was a a really fantastic journey, and that that was after Cisco Spark. Dave cause. Cisco Spark started around 2014 or so, and I moved here in 2018.
75
00:09:35.080 –> 00:09:41.209
Kevin McMenamy: Sorry. So the coding acquisition was after Cisco Spark. But then I moved here in 2018, trying to put the chrome together.
76
00:09:41.210 –> 00:09:52.144
Dave Michels: When when neat emerged, that was yeah. It was app it was after. After spark. You’re right. But where were you working? Were you? Were you still at Cisco at that time, or were you.
77
00:09:52.440 –> 00:10:01.229
Kevin McMenamy: So yeah. When neat, neat started in 2,019, I’m sorry. That was a question you had asked. So neat started late. 2,019 is they announced themselves at Zoomtopia
78
00:10:01.643 –> 00:10:06.789
Kevin McMenamy: so I was still at Cisco, very much competing with me and watching
79
00:10:06.890 –> 00:10:20.670
Kevin McMenamy: them succeed, and knowing all of them right, they’re all former colleagues from Tandberg. So I was like, Oh, that’s a great bunch of people great products super amazing industrial design, the user experience team and does industrial design team that need is
80
00:10:21.260 –> 00:10:23.069
Kevin McMenamy: top notch best in class
81
00:10:23.596 –> 00:10:28.099
Kevin McMenamy: so seeing the products that they came out with knowing the people knowing
82
00:10:28.160 –> 00:10:33.159
Kevin McMenamy: their ability. You know all of us were watching need closely, of course.
83
00:10:33.510 –> 00:10:35.969
Kevin McMenamy: and fast forward to 2023
84
00:10:36.381 –> 00:10:46.008
Kevin McMenamy: I’ve been at Cisco for 23 years 47 years old, and I thought, Jesus, that’s half my life almost. And
85
00:10:46.620 –> 00:11:09.689
Kevin McMenamy: I thought jeez maybe I should consider for the 1st time in my career at Cisco. Consider leaving Cisco. I love Cisco. I think the world of Cisco. It’s a great company it always has been. I’ve had so many opportunities gratitude to Cisco for all the opportunities it’s given me, but it was the right time for me to think about a change.
86
00:11:09.941 –> 00:11:35.050
Dave Michels: What I was trying to get to, and I guess it’s kind of tricky for you, cause you knew everybody at neat, and you had a lot of respect for them, but I would imagine that when neat popped up that that a big company like Cisco kind of probably was kind of dismissive of them. I would. I would imagine that. Oh, you know th they’re they’re a fly on the wall, whatever you know. But you knew all these people, so you probably had a little more respect for that. What they were.
87
00:11:35.050 –> 00:11:44.249
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah, yeah, I I think you’re right, Dave. I I think lots of other people at Cisco, new all the people that need as well. I think we all had a healthy.
88
00:11:44.600 –> 00:11:46.199
Kevin McMenamy: healthy amount of respect for them.
89
00:11:48.340 –> 00:12:11.120
David Danto: That’s that Tandberg, DNA, that if you really take a step back and look at it in the industry it’s in. So the diaspora there’s so many different companies that have a little bit of that piece of Tandberg. And obviously, you know, at the time, you know, you’re you’re you’re you’re essentially, you know. Oj started it. You know. Oj was running this. It was a lot of back and forth. It’s almost like a volleyball game where people are coming in and out.
90
00:12:11.387 –> 00:12:20.999
David Danto: So so it’s interesting. So tell us a little bit about what you do on a daily basis at neat. What’s the what’s what’s the the magic sauce there that that got you to come over.
91
00:12:21.530 –> 00:12:30.629
Kevin McMenamy: Well, yeah. So maybe those are 2 different questions. So what got me to come over was a as a we were. We’ve both been talking about just in the last couple of minutes. Is the people the talent?
92
00:12:31.120 –> 00:12:41.700
Kevin McMenamy: You know, the products are phenomenal. You know, they’re so simple, elegant ease easy to use. You know, the out of box experience is best in class for anybody who hasn’t experienced
93
00:12:41.820 –> 00:12:51.310
Kevin McMenamy: taking a neat product out of the box. Pick any one of the products. It could be a neat frame, a neat bar. It doesn’t matter. A neat board. 50 is, you know, a really truly magical experience.
94
00:12:51.741 –> 00:13:05.929
Kevin McMenamy: And just, you know, plug it in and walk through the the setup process, and you’ll be floored. How simple it is! And you know all the microphones are built in. So you don’t need cables, you know, stringing across the floor onto to a microphone
95
00:13:06.020 –> 00:13:22.333
Kevin McMenamy: on the table. We do have a pad for control, and that does have a cable, of course, but that just plugs into an Ethernet jack on the floor. So there’s no like cables running, you know, between the devices. It’s all over. IP, we’ll talk about more that the technology side of that a little bit later.
96
00:13:22.650 –> 00:13:47.489
Kevin McMenamy: So that’s what you know attracted me to me. And then the 1st part of your question about what what my role is. You know, it’s really a dual role right? For as leading software engineering, it’s really execution. Oriented is getting it done, getting all those features done chewing through our backlog, delivering high quality software on time, consistently, reliably, etc. And then there’s also the CTO hat, which you know is much more outbound
97
00:13:47.724 –> 00:13:57.330
Kevin McMenamy: talking to customers going to trade shows meeting with you guys which I love. So it’s it’s a joy for me to be in this role and have the opportunity to do the more of the outbound stuff again.
98
00:13:57.690 –> 00:13:58.240
Dave Michels: Hmm!
99
00:13:58.540 –> 00:14:06.680
Dave Michels: Everyone enjoys meeting with us. That’s understandable. But I was thinking about I was I was thinking about when neat launched.
100
00:14:07.120 –> 00:14:12.969
Dave Michels: It was a zoom play. It was all about. It was, it was focused 100% on zoom.
101
00:14:12.980 –> 00:14:23.119
Dave Michels: And of course, Cisco was always a hundred percent focused on on Cisco for the whole time you were there, and both company, or both meet and Cisco now have
102
00:14:23.170 –> 00:14:30.360
Dave Michels: moved into the Microsoft ecosystem much bigger opportunity, and and a whole new set of requirements and and user base.
103
00:14:30.948 –> 00:14:43.339
Dave Michels: Is, it was that hard for for you cause you for so much of your career. You saw Microsoft as the enemy. And now, all of a sudden, it’s an opportunity. And partner. Was that was that a hard shift, or is that pretty easy.
104
00:14:44.010 –> 00:14:59.639
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah, no, it’s a really good question, cause I think you know, in some ways it was hard, like, per. Personally, I was in engineering. So it’s not like I was spending a lot of time, you know, evaluating the competitors right? Like like somebody in more of a customer facing role would do
105
00:14:59.959 –> 00:15:09.180
Kevin McMenamy: so I I didn’t have a whole lot of hands on deep hands on experience with either Microsoft teams or zoom living in the Webex bubble for the last several years. But
106
00:15:09.470 –> 00:15:37.100
Kevin McMenamy: That part was a little hard, a bit of a learning curve for me to instantly be an expert in. Oh, let me introduce you to our new CTO. And you feel like oh, I have to be able to answer all the questions, so that was certainly a bit of a learning curve for me. But it’s all the same stuff, whether it’s teams. Zoom, Webex, Google meet, whatever it’s all the same technology. We’ve all been working on it for the last 26 years, or whatever. So it’s picking up pretty quickly.
107
00:15:38.350 –> 00:15:48.369
Kevin McMenamy: It was easy in the sense that. Hey? You know, this is just the role, the transition to the new role. New business. Microsoft is now a partner
108
00:15:48.729 –> 00:16:09.239
Kevin McMenamy: embrace that relationship. You know, I I get on really well with everybody at Microsoft Illi and I have regular sync ups. We meet with the Ilias team on a weekly basis. They were just out visiting us about 4 weeks ago here in Oslo, and they also visited Cisco and Pex up another
109
00:16:09.280 –> 00:16:12.880
Kevin McMenamy: players here in the what’s called Video Valley here in the
110
00:16:12.970 –> 00:16:16.079
Kevin McMenamy: the Oslo Lee soccer fornabu area.
111
00:16:17.510 –> 00:16:21.020
Kevin McMenamy: so yeah, from from that perspective, it’s been no problem.
112
00:16:21.240 –> 00:16:22.520
Kevin McMenamy: Seamless transition.
113
00:16:23.550 –> 00:16:41.510
David Danto: So let’s take advantage of the fact that you’re sitting in that room. And and while you’re there I want you to show us some of the stuff that’s in there, and then, maybe later on, on the call we can get you to, you know, disconnect and reconnect from one of the other devices. So you said, you’re a bar pro. Now I see you’ve got some bars behind you. I see you got the board behind you. You want you as long as the camera will track, which I assume it does on the.
114
00:16:41.510 –> 00:16:42.120
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah, thank, you.
115
00:16:42.120 –> 00:16:45.670
David Danto: Why don’t? Why don’t you get up and just really quickly walk around and show us what’s in the room?
116
00:16:45.910 –> 00:17:00.560
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah. And the reason I set this up is I wanted to talk, and it kind of ties into what you wanted to talk about Dave about what’s coming in the next year. What’s coming in the next 10 years? Our neat’s vision is to try to keep things super simple. So really.
117
00:17:00.580 –> 00:17:09.300
Kevin McMenamy: we strive to reduce, you know, cabling complexity, you know. Lots of nerd knobs and tweaks and like just make it work.
118
00:17:09.550 –> 00:17:12.050
Kevin McMenamy: Users haven’t shouldn’t have to think about it.
119
00:17:12.210 –> 00:17:15.930
Kevin McMenamy: Having tons of options is not necessarily, you know.
120
00:17:16.000 –> 00:17:19.089
Kevin McMenamy: sometimes a bad thing. So we try to try to
121
00:17:19.540 –> 00:17:27.840
Kevin McMenamy: give flexibility without introducing complexity and not just clutter the user interface with a bunch of options and nerd knobs and things like that.
122
00:17:28.263 –> 00:17:40.906
Kevin McMenamy: And to do that, we’re doing everything over IP, so the bar pro which you can’t see cause you’re on it is mounted on top of 3 televisions, and
123
00:17:41.470 –> 00:17:42.729
Kevin McMenamy: that’s just connected to like.
124
00:17:42.730 –> 00:17:43.580
David Danto: Behind your head.
125
00:17:45.340 –> 00:17:46.580
Kevin McMenamy: Sorry, the one.
126
00:17:46.580 –> 00:17:47.640
David Danto: Directly behind you.
127
00:17:48.270 –> 00:17:50.230
Kevin McMenamy: The bar pro you mean.
128
00:17:50.230 –> 00:17:53.709
David Danto: It’s not nice. I see bars that are right behind you, your head in the shot.
129
00:17:54.290 –> 00:17:58.839
Kevin McMenamy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Thanks. Here, let me grab it.
130
00:18:01.221 –> 00:18:21.960
Kevin McMenamy: Good suggestion. So yeah, the bar pro is what you guys are on there. And that’s just connected to an Ethernet jack right? Power, Ethernet. HDMI to the TVS, and then over IP. It’s pairing with the neat pad. You can see that. And with the neat center, and
131
00:18:22.483 –> 00:18:42.639
Kevin McMenamy: you know, the neat pad is, you know, one thing you could think, oh, well, that’s just control signaling, right? But the neat center is something else. Right? The media is streaming from the neat center. Microphone array is doing all the neat audio, processing like de-reveration and noise, suppression, and so forth
132
00:18:42.650 –> 00:18:46.600
Kevin McMenamy: and streaming that to the bar pro. And then the bar pro is deciding.
133
00:18:46.670 –> 00:18:56.782
Kevin McMenamy: Is that microphone better? Or is that microphone? Better? So we’re doing dynamic beam selection, which is, when we met Dave in Las Vegas a couple or sorry
134
00:18:58.597 –> 00:19:04.217
Kevin McMenamy: yeah. Yeah. Couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas. So I did.
135
00:19:04.780 –> 00:19:05.449
Kevin McMenamy: the
136
00:19:06.990 –> 00:19:17.529
Kevin McMenamy: we we had announced, and we were demonstrating there the dynamic beam selection which we just released in our 24 dot re-release a couple about a month ago. So.
137
00:19:17.530 –> 00:19:30.330
Dave Michels: When when you, when you do that dynamic selection, is it one or the other? Or do you use both? Mic like? Is is the other mic become a noise cancellation? Or or is it explain that a little more clearly.
138
00:19:30.330 –> 00:19:41.819
Kevin McMenamy: Yeah, yeah, it’s a great question. Because that’s that’s why I started calling it dynamic beam selection. Because we’re not actually mixing just yet. That’s the next step for us. Right now we’re selecting which beam
139
00:19:42.350 –> 00:19:43.589
Kevin McMenamy: is best.
140
00:19:44.070 –> 00:19:53.429
Kevin McMenamy: Every single audio frame on a frame by frame basis. We’re switching to this beam, or that beam, or this beam or that beam, or this based on who’s speaking? That means that if 2 people literally speak at the same time.
141
00:19:53.450 –> 00:20:05.549
Kevin McMenamy: one will win and the other will be slightly attenuated. Because we haven’t selected that beam. So we’re attenuating the other beams to reduce like air conditioning noise. And you know, so that that’s how beam forming works. Right? You select a beam that you want to
142
00:20:06.016 –> 00:20:08.300
Kevin McMenamy: gain in gain up on
143
00:20:08.380 –> 00:20:10.020
Kevin McMenamy: to enhance that
144
00:20:10.060 –> 00:20:13.620
Kevin McMenamy: the volume of that speaker and attenuate the others. Right?
145
00:20:14.310 –> 00:20:23.009
Kevin McMenamy: In the future we hope to literally mix. If there’s 2 beams that both have, you know energy on them attenuate the others and mix those 2.
146
00:20:24.164 –> 00:20:33.240
Kevin McMenamy: But the reason I brought all that up is, if you think about technologically, these devices now are streaming over IP doing real time media in a distributed
147
00:20:33.780 –> 00:20:45.360
Kevin McMenamy: architecture right? And you could start to think about scaling that out to other use cases in a distributed architecture, and that that’s what brings me to the board. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to show you so
148
00:20:46.159 –> 00:21:15.809
Kevin McMenamy: you know, as as people might be able to tell from the user experience we’re using zoom for the meeting we’re on. This is Microsoft teams on a neat board. 65, and our newer neat board 50 and one of the features that we have we’re it’s not fully shipping yet, but we’re coming out with it is called neat share. And it’s another example of how we’re doing this distributed media processing and distributed architecture that let’s pretend that we were in a meeting on this Microsoft teams
149
00:21:16.245 –> 00:21:24.959
Kevin McMenamy: device. But I wanted to share something that I’m working on in like a mirror board or some other collaborative application on the neat board. 50
150
00:21:25.410 –> 00:21:30.029
Kevin McMenamy: if I just swipe out to get the neat menu up and hit share
151
00:21:30.260 –> 00:21:34.959
Kevin McMenamy: instantly. You see, on the new port 65 everything that’s on that screen
152
00:21:35.050 –> 00:21:53.300
Kevin McMenamy: today. It’s only video in the future release will include audio as well. So you can like, watch a Youtube video, for example, over this. And on this side, we’re essentially treating it as like a virtual HDMI input, so the Microsoft teams application thinks, oh, a user just plugged in the PC. Do you want to share that into the meeting? Yes.
153
00:21:53.860 –> 00:22:05.248
Kevin McMenamy: and that is configurable on the Microsoft teams application, whether you want it to auto share when you plug in a computer source or whether you want it to prompt and you have to hit share right? That’s configurable by the user.
154
00:22:05.770 –> 00:22:17.180
Kevin McMenamy: so either way, you know, it would either automatically share into the meeting, or you’d have to click on your Microsoft app to say, yes, I want to share this. And then everybody in the meeting sees whatever this, whatever’s on this screen.
155
00:22:17.987 –> 00:22:21.390
Kevin McMenamy: So that’s an example of us
156
00:22:21.480 –> 00:22:24.019
Kevin McMenamy: pairing and associating
157
00:22:24.260 –> 00:22:28.319
Kevin McMenamy: multiple devices in a distributed media architecture.
158
00:22:29.110 –> 00:22:33.280
Kevin McMenamy: And that’s our vision of how we go forward is rather than having
159
00:22:33.690 –> 00:23:02.219
Kevin McMenamy: complex codecs with lots of inputs and outputs and wires running through ceilings and floors and to get multiple cameras in a large auditorium style room. Well, what if you could just take multiple neat products, arrange them in the room the way you want them to be a neat bar pro on that wall, maybe another neat bar pro on this wall, maybe a neat board 65 in the back, neat center, which can provide like a presenter camera. Because if I’m standing, you know more like up here
160
00:23:02.502 –> 00:23:14.917
Kevin McMenamy: in this position talking to an audience. You know you’re looking at the back of my head, but with neat center, you know. Then you’re gonna see me from this perspective. Instead of, you know, from that perspective, does that make sense? Did that
161
00:23:15.560 –> 00:23:16.770
Kevin McMenamy: did the flow?
162
00:23:17.250 –> 00:23:18.050
Kevin McMenamy: That’s great.
163
00:23:18.050 –> 00:23:39.889
David Danto: And and the idea that these cameras and and and audio pickup devices are talking to each other. You know that’s the the AI, that that’s hidden in plain sight. If I quote my Buddy Kevin again, that talks about that, that it’s not, you know, generative AI. It’s this machine learning algorithm smart enough to recognize your face smart enough to switch smart enough to do everything else. And.
164
00:23:39.890 –> 00:23:40.370
Kevin McMenamy: Exactly.
165
00:23:40.370 –> 00:23:42.000
David Danto: Into all your products, I guess.
166
00:23:42.340 –> 00:23:43.220
Kevin McMenamy: Exactly.
167
00:23:43.560 –> 00:23:53.790
Dave Michels: Well, that was a very neat demo, I have to say. Did a good job there, Kevin. Great looks very easy. You can’t see all the little a bunch of kind of behind the behind the scenes, making it all work.
168
00:23:54.040 –> 00:24:06.559
Kevin McMenamy: I, you know I literally am here by myself, and I did not rehearse that I rehearse the neat share bit, but the getting up and doing the presenter camera thing that was totally on the spur of the moment.
169
00:24:07.060 –> 00:24:15.139
David Danto: Hey, are you able to connect from one of the other devices like the neat frame, and and give us that experience while we finish this conversation.
170
00:24:15.140 –> 00:24:20.729
Kevin McMenamy: Absolutely. Yeah. Tommy’s perfect. Let me just drop here, and I’ll jump over to another room and dial in from a new friend.
171
00:24:20.730 –> 00:24:24.059
David Danto: Okay, there’ll be a magic edit here, so people won’t have to wait. Only Dave Michaels and I.
172
00:24:24.060 –> 00:24:27.845
Kevin McMenamy: Right? Yeah, they’re gonna play like the do do music right?
173
00:24:28.190 –> 00:24:30.480
David Danto: You mentioned it. I suppose I have to.
174
00:24:30.860 –> 00:24:33.909
Kevin McMenamy: Alright. Thank you, guys. I’ll be right back. Give me 2 min.
175
00:24:37.230 –> 00:24:45.419
David Danto: Dave. That’s because Kevin sent that email this morning that the room he’s in is needed by a customer. So I’m you know, turning a problem into a feature, and you’re muted right now.
176
00:24:46.160 –> 00:24:56.280
Dave Michels: So. So I keep on actively muting because I got traffic noise out my window. But I don’t know this. The Cisco desper supposed to mute all that stuff out. Have you heard any traffic noise from me?
177
00:24:56.900 –> 00:24:58.420
David Danto: Not not a bit. Nope.
178
00:24:59.860 –> 00:25:02.969
Dave Michels: Good. Leave it unmuted here for a second. See if somebody drives by.
179
00:25:02.970 –> 00:25:03.590
David Danto: Okay.
180
00:25:05.660 –> 00:25:12.759
David Danto: I wanted to show Atlantic City in the background, but I just don’t have enough front light to compensate for the daylight coming in through the window. So
181
00:25:12.770 –> 00:25:14.720
David Danto: no, no Atlantic City pictures.
182
00:25:19.150 –> 00:25:29.470
Dave Michels: I have a window behind me, and like right now it’s pretty bright, and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. This camera does A is the desk pro camera does a pretty good job of adjusting.
183
00:25:29.470 –> 00:25:42.480
David Danto: It’s nice. You probably. I don’t know if you give you gamma control, or if it gives you a contrast control, you could probably tweak it just a little bit. You’re a little bit from calling no true black on your face, because it’s very bright.
184
00:25:42.610 –> 00:25:48.549
David Danto: But one thing you and I will have to do when it calms down. If it ever calms down, as I’ll try and get you like studio lighting
185
00:25:48.560 –> 00:25:50.810
David Danto: set up for your desk, so that you know you’ll yeah.
186
00:25:50.810 –> 00:26:02.445
Dave Michels: Yeah, I got the. I got your lamp on over here. The the the desk pro is so fat that both the lamp you gave me, and the one that Zoom just gave me.
187
00:26:03.280 –> 00:26:10.030
Dave Michels: They’re meant to be clip on on the top. But the desperate, still fat. But none of these things will clip on, so I gotta figure out how to.
188
00:26:10.030 –> 00:26:13.890
David Danto: One of the ones that I gave you the the old bar one.
189
00:26:14.080 –> 00:26:14.510
Dave Michels: Yeah.
190
00:26:14.510 –> 00:26:18.800
David Danto: But mounted on this one of the Cisco old Cisco devices, with a Velcro strip.
191
00:26:21.210 –> 00:26:23.336
Dave Michels: Oh, what did it come with the vocal strip? Or do you have.
192
00:26:23.500 –> 00:26:25.799
David Danto: I may have come with one. I hope it did, but if it didn’t.
193
00:26:26.316 –> 00:26:28.899
Dave Michels: That would solve my problem.
194
00:26:38.310 –> 00:26:46.539
Oslo Opportunities: Alright. I’m back. That I was hoping to use is in use by somebody else. I’m just in like this little phone booth style size room.
195
00:26:46.890 –> 00:26:48.259
David Danto: And that’s still a neat frame.
196
00:26:48.700 –> 00:26:49.869
Oslo Opportunities: And it’s a neat frame. Yeah.
197
00:26:49.870 –> 00:27:02.756
David Danto: Okay, so we’ll talk about it. I mean, one of the downsides of me now getting an analyst account at Zoom is, I apparently can’t turn off the security features, so I either have to put a pass code on it, or I have to admit people into the room, which means.
198
00:27:04.034 –> 00:27:05.069
Oslo Opportunities: Really.
199
00:27:05.070 –> 00:27:09.960
David Danto: Terrible where is the lighting in respect to where you are? Are you? Can you.
200
00:27:10.653 –> 00:27:15.666
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, not not the best lit room, I would say. It’s 100% down lighting.
201
00:27:15.980 –> 00:27:21.113
David Danto: We’ll just play with it and talk about it. So so we’ll pick this thing back up again. The the
202
00:27:21.715 –> 00:27:28.470
David Danto: we want to talk about the future a little bit more than we did. David got one or 2 questions lined up, and then we can wrap this up.
203
00:27:30.891 –> 00:27:34.540
Dave Michels: You think I have questions lined up. You’re you’re pretty confident
204
00:27:35.600 –> 00:27:38.520
Dave Michels: there’s anything you wanted to talk about, Kevin in particular, that we haven’t got to.
205
00:27:38.807 –> 00:27:47.130
Oslo Opportunities: No, I think that that that little bit about the distributed processing was the one I wanted to get across. I guess we can also talk about
206
00:27:47.557 –> 00:27:52.610
Oslo Opportunities: the dynamic beam form of what we talked about. We’re also just coming out. And then the
207
00:27:52.730 –> 00:27:59.610
Oslo Opportunities: today we’re publishing the next Beta version 24, which supports microphones in the pad
208
00:28:00.310 –> 00:28:08.440
Oslo Opportunities: which has been asked for feature since the day neat came out as a company in 2019
209
00:28:08.810 –> 00:28:14.029
David Danto: Definitely don’t use the word today, because again, this is going to be airing over the course of the next week or time.
210
00:28:14.030 –> 00:28:14.560
Dave Michels: Yeah.
211
00:28:14.560 –> 00:28:17.579
David Danto: Just now, or something like that. Alright! So.
212
00:28:17.580 –> 00:28:20.355
Dave Michels: I I got a question for you that’ll get that. I get you there.
213
00:28:20.950 –> 00:28:29.680
David Danto: Introduce you as now that you’ve now that you’ve rejoined us from the the neat frame, and tell us about it for a second, and then, Dave, you ask your question.
214
00:28:29.900 –> 00:28:34.329
David Danto: So let’s go into this in the in 3, 2, 1. So
215
00:28:34.830 –> 00:28:43.510
David Danto: welcome back now that Kevin has rejoined us from a different room. You’re in one of your little demo rooms. The lighting might not be perfect, but you’re on a neat frame. Right? Tell us about that.
216
00:28:43.510 –> 00:29:10.483
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. It’s a portrait mode you can look on neat, you’ll you’ll see it. It’s a great product, super portable. You can. Literally. There’s a little handle built into the top of it. You can just pick it up, carry it around just a single power cable Wi-fi or Ethernet, if you want to, you know, connect it to the corporate network via Ethernet. But you know I use Wi-fi on my neat frame at home all day long, and it works fantastic.
217
00:29:12.230 –> 00:29:37.440
Oslo Opportunities: And the, you know, microphone array and the camera built into it and the speakers built into it. It’s beautiful you can pinch to zoom, you know, if the somebody’s sharing content. That’s a little bit hard to read like a Powerpoint, or sorry like a excel spreadsheet or something you can just pinch to zoom. And it’s a great experience. Sitting on a neat frame behind me is some of our engineering desk, so forgive the clutter. But I’m here at our neat engineering headquarters in Oslo, Norway.
218
00:29:37.960 –> 00:29:41.239
Dave Michels: Okay, I got a I got a specific question about the frame.
219
00:29:41.270 –> 00:29:47.610
Dave Michels: and you don’t have all the history and baggage of neat. And you’re the new guy. So this is, this is a this is a tricky question. Because
220
00:29:48.080 –> 00:29:50.300
Dave Michels: the 1st time I saw the frame
221
00:29:50.440 –> 00:30:10.120
Dave Michels: I said, Why don’t you stick a handset on it and make it a phone. And I think Simon was gonna start crying. I think you know, it was like it was like, oh, no, don’t go there whatever. So so let me ask you, have you thought about making that a phone, or where W. Where does Zoom have any? Excuse me, does neat have any thoughts about expanding into into telephony?
222
00:30:11.070 –> 00:30:20.050
Oslo Opportunities: That’s a great question. David, especially, I think in contact center, right? Video is increasingly becoming important in contact center
223
00:30:21.600 –> 00:30:38.740
Oslo Opportunities: products. Right if you think about like Cisco’s contact center offerings and and 5 9 and and others. You know, video is, you know, still sort of a minority use case, but it’s or like a niche use case, I guess. But but becoming more prevalent, becoming more of a requirement.
224
00:30:38.850 –> 00:31:00.149
Oslo Opportunities: so I could definitely imagine use cases with, you know, agents sitting in front of a neat frame with, you know, headphones, or, you know, a handset plugged in. But I think in general that the the sentiment of you know, the phone business is not really the growth market. It’s not really where we want to focus video telephony as we spoke about earlier, was.
225
00:31:00.150 –> 00:31:08.830
Oslo Opportunities: you know, back in the 2,004, 2,006 time period. Until we then we kind of focus more on the high end. Immersive stuff with telepresence.
226
00:31:09.280 –> 00:31:15.076
Oslo Opportunities: although, having said all that, I mean, Cisco just came out with a brand new what 8,800 series phone, I think.
227
00:31:16.329 –> 00:31:22.700
Oslo Opportunities: with, you know, beautiful camera in it and beautiful screen. So you know, video telephony is still a thing. It’s just not
228
00:31:23.070 –> 00:31:26.020
Oslo Opportunities: the market that need wants to be focused on.
229
00:31:26.820 –> 00:31:29.780
Dave Michels: Alright! Broader picture.
230
00:31:29.820 –> 00:31:39.839
Dave Michels: I would say the past year or so the story has really been about multi camera in the room. You just demonstrated that in the other room, with all these different cameras
231
00:31:40.361 –> 00:31:48.599
Dave Michels: and they were also showing multiple microphones. Do you see? Multiple microphones as expanding as a concept.
232
00:31:49.020 –> 00:31:55.220
Oslo Opportunities: Well, we do. Yeah, absolutely. So. I showed you earlier. Neat center that’s got a 16 microphone array.
233
00:31:55.560 –> 00:32:08.250
Oslo Opportunities: The top of it. Phenomenal mic array and you, we imagine, I I wanna set expectations. I wanna set expectations appropriately. Here, I’m also responsible for software. So
234
00:32:08.621 –> 00:32:20.500
Oslo Opportunities: there’s an element of once I say it. I have to deliver it. So we envision adding multiple neat centers in a room. That’s that’s 1 step, but we also envision, as I look.
235
00:32:20.500 –> 00:32:25.883
Dave Michels: Then they can’t be called centers. If you do that, then you you know near center, or something like that.
236
00:32:26.936 –> 00:32:29.324
Oslo Opportunities: And center. Yeah,
237
00:32:31.514 –> 00:32:35.959
Oslo Opportunities: but also sort of in in
238
00:32:36.439 –> 00:32:48.850
Oslo Opportunities: if you read between the lines of of the demonstration I showed you with neat share, and I mentioned audios coming as part of me chair and a future release as well is, you know that those boards that I was showing you that demonstration on a neat chair had microphone arrays in them.
239
00:32:48.920 –> 00:32:55.150
Oslo Opportunities: So imagine the microphone array and the bar pro that we were talking on, plus the microphone array and the neat centers.
240
00:32:55.527 –> 00:32:56.630
Oslo Opportunities: In the room.
241
00:32:56.870 –> 00:33:13.780
Oslo Opportunities: plus the microphone arrays and the board in the back of the room. We can. You know, wire all this up in a distributed IP based, you know, distributed media architecture and be able to do dynamic beam selection and mixing, and and so, you know, we can’t do that today. But that’s absolutely where we see it headed, you know.
242
00:33:13.780 –> 00:33:16.879
Dave Michels: Yeah, but you didn’t even mention the the pad. What what about the pad?
243
00:33:16.880 –> 00:33:33.409
Oslo Opportunities: Oh, yeah, thank you. I skipped that one in my mental map of the room there. Yeah, on the neat pad. Neat has always had 2 microphones in the pad, and we’ve talked about doing, enabling those microphones, the features known as mics in the pad.
244
00:33:33.470 –> 00:33:46.488
Oslo Opportunities: And I’m super excited to announce that in the upcoming release, 24, which we’re literally putting out to Beta imminently like in the next like. By the time you watch this recording it’ll be out
245
00:33:47.548 –> 00:33:51.720
Oslo Opportunities: mics in the pad are enabled as a beta feature, and the only reason.
246
00:33:51.720 –> 00:34:03.039
Dave Michels: Well that that I bet I gotta say, Kevin, that’s a really bad idea, because you hang those pads outside the room on the wall. So so that seems like that. Seems like a really bad idea to have active mics outside the room.
247
00:34:03.220 –> 00:34:05.510
Oslo Opportunities: You won’t you won’t. We wouldn’t activate those those.
248
00:34:05.510 –> 00:34:07.649
Dave Michels: Oh, you thought of that already. Yeah.
249
00:34:07.650 –> 00:34:10.439
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, yeah, lot of that one already. Those are
250
00:34:10.780 –> 00:34:19.639
Oslo Opportunities: scheduler mode. Mics are never enabled in scheduler mode. The way that it works is they have the neat pad has to be paired with like a board or a bar, or whatever
251
00:34:20.179 –> 00:34:21.139
Oslo Opportunities: parent device.
252
00:34:21.469 –> 00:34:26.770
Oslo Opportunities: and then they you know about one another, and
253
00:34:26.820 –> 00:34:34.262
Oslo Opportunities: the bar or the board, you know. Bar bar pro board board 50, whatever whichever model
254
00:34:34.719 –> 00:34:53.900
Oslo Opportunities: you know, activates the microphones in the pad. And we’re using you’ll find this probably interesting. We’re using the IEEE 1588 precision time protocol for clock synchronization. Between them. Which is why we say you have to connect them via Ethernet. Wi-fi is
255
00:34:54.739 –> 00:34:59.069
Oslo Opportunities: harder to make that work right because of the you know variability
256
00:35:00.270 –> 00:35:02.839
Oslo Opportunities: of the, you know, transmit receive
257
00:35:02.880 –> 00:35:13.462
Oslo Opportunities: on wi-fi. So we’re for now we’re saying they have to be connected on Ethernet, and we negotiate PE. P to P. And then we take the microphone.
258
00:35:14.250 –> 00:35:20.760
Oslo Opportunities: signal from the neat pads, stream it over IP to the to the bar and the board, and then we do all the processing there.
259
00:35:21.660 –> 00:35:26.200
Dave Michels: Seems like a lot of things are going back to wired Ethernet just because of the Poe standard.
260
00:35:26.200 –> 00:35:31.429
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, yeah, Po is another reason why you’d want the Ethernet on the especially on the pad, because you can power the pad
261
00:35:31.500 –> 00:35:40.269
Oslo Opportunities: through Poe. So you just need a single Ethernet port under the table for the pad to plug into power. IP, and then it pairs with the bar over IP.
262
00:35:40.910 –> 00:35:46.619
Dave Michels: Well, you’ve been been extremely open and transparent. Tell us something confidential that that’s that hasn’t been announced yet.
263
00:35:50.810 –> 00:35:51.190
Dave Michels: Alright!
264
00:35:51.190 –> 00:36:02.479
Oslo Opportunities: I just did. I? I just did. Actually, you know the the fact that we’re shipping mics in the pad and the the next release coming out like literally
265
00:36:02.630 –> 00:36:06.880
Oslo Opportunities: as soon as I, you know, walk out of the room here. I think we’re pushing.
266
00:36:07.130 –> 00:36:09.929
David Danto: Thing we were gonna do 3 weeks ago. Go now, do it now. No.
267
00:36:11.456 –> 00:36:17.289
David Danto: let’s forget Nda for a second. Forget current releases or current roadmap.
268
00:36:17.510 –> 00:36:22.539
David Danto: Think in your head, as I said when we were talking before, 5 years from now, 10 years from now.
269
00:36:22.680 –> 00:36:32.800
David Danto: what? What are your as the CTO. Of the company. Now, what’s your vision for the collaboration space I’ve I’ve always envisioned that what you described with your microphones
270
00:36:32.800 –> 00:36:56.070
David Danto: is something we’re going to do with cameras more than just front center back. But you know a little cameras around a bezel and all being brought together by a processor. Maybe it’s holographic in some way. Maybe it’s 3D. In some way without glasses, with lenticular screens. We know, you know, that project is going on right now, and we’ll see if that has any legacy. What do you see happening in the space to to be cutting edge in a head.
271
00:36:56.350 –> 00:36:59.897
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, I you know, 10 years is a is a long time. So
272
00:37:00.520 –> 00:37:01.350
Oslo Opportunities: you’re gonna be so.
273
00:37:01.350 –> 00:37:02.600
David Danto: Safe from an nda perspective.
274
00:37:02.600 –> 00:37:03.989
Oslo Opportunities: Nobody’s. Nobody’s gonna.
275
00:37:03.990 –> 00:37:05.820
David Danto: Come back and ask why it wasn’t done.
276
00:37:05.820 –> 00:37:35.530
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, you know, I think I think our focus at need is definitely on the multi-device distributed media kind of architect. Because you’re exactly right. What you said is exactly right. I talked about doing using the microphone arrays. But absolutely, there’s also the cameras right in all of those devices, and the intelligence to be able to select the best camera based on where people are looking today with neat center. If the majority of people are looking towards neat center. We select that camera view. If the majority of people are looking at the main front of room screen
277
00:37:35.914 –> 00:37:37.066
Oslo Opportunities: device, then we
278
00:37:37.901 –> 00:37:58.630
Oslo Opportunities: you know, select that camera view. But we absolutely don’t wanna stop there. We wanna be able to select the best view of each individual from that camera or from that camera or for that from that camera, from that camera. So you can, you know, imagine neat products around the room and all working in conjunction with the best microphone being for that person who’s speaking in the best camera
279
00:37:58.994 –> 00:38:00.940
Oslo Opportunities: based on where people are looking.
280
00:38:01.400 –> 00:38:08.550
David Danto: Video processing is a thing. Now where you can, you know, open up some some apps and have, you know, virtual cameras do things.
281
00:38:08.550 –> 00:38:09.029
Oslo Opportunities: Oh, sure!
282
00:38:09.030 –> 00:38:28.399
David Danto: And have deep fakes. Go on, and and there have been a couple of companies, successful and unsuccessful, that take, you know, a camera view and kind of stretch it, or unstretch it, or do things with it. I’m of the opinion that you know. If you if you use, you know, telephone size 8, 1620, megapixel cameras around the bezel of a screen
283
00:38:28.900 –> 00:38:47.949
David Danto: or around the table, or wherever you do it, and the camera might not have a shot to go to that camera, but there might be some intelligence in the back end that takes a piece of this, a piece of that a piece of this reassembles the room and creates some sort. So I mean, I’ve got to think we’re going in that direction because the processing power is there at this point.
284
00:38:47.950 –> 00:39:04.410
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, I I would say, you know, like, if you look at some of the holographic offerings that are on the in the market. You know, from Google, from Cisco, etc. That’s essentially how they’re working right? Multiple cameras in an array, you know, generally speaking, in a horizontal line, because the application is video. So you kinda wanna shoot
285
00:39:04.450 –> 00:39:13.670
Oslo Opportunities: that the scene like from that perspective, right? And then interpolating between multiple cameras. So you get that 3D effect of you know.
286
00:39:13.970 –> 00:39:25.950
Oslo Opportunities: if if you know, David sees me looking from this perspective, and the other day sees me looking from this perspective, because based on where my head is, you know, based on where you’re sitting, you know, you wanna you know.
287
00:39:26.570 –> 00:39:34.451
Oslo Opportunities: the system makes you feel it makes it feel like you’re looking at me from that perspective, right? Cause there’s an array of cameras.
288
00:39:35.140 –> 00:39:38.900
Dave Michels: I I just wanna clarify that the other David is down, though. But go you go.
289
00:39:38.900 –> 00:39:40.459
Oslo Opportunities: Oh, yes.
290
00:39:41.570 –> 00:39:42.470
Oslo Opportunities: right?
291
00:39:43.230 –> 00:40:04.319
Oslo Opportunities: So, yeah, I think you’re right. I think you know, those are 2 kind of different things, right? Like an array, a camera array doing stereoscopic holographic video, conferencing telepresence. Whatever you want to call it is one application. Multiple cameras around a room is a completely different thing. Right in both cases.
292
00:40:04.765 –> 00:40:09.650
Oslo Opportunities: You know, there’s some selection of which camera is best, and then compositing
293
00:40:09.914 –> 00:40:14.499
Oslo Opportunities: that into a view for the far end to to, you know, for the remote participants to see
294
00:40:14.926 –> 00:40:20.140
Oslo Opportunities: and whether that compositing is done locally on the device, because, as you said, processing power is
295
00:40:20.300 –> 00:40:22.919
Oslo Opportunities: always increasing Moore’s law.
296
00:40:24.490 –> 00:40:31.730
Oslo Opportunities: but also in the cloud, right? We see increasingly, like Microsoft and Telefarm. A lot of that processing is being done cloud side right.
297
00:40:32.218 –> 00:40:41.309
Oslo Opportunities: And you know there’s there’s a pendulum there as well, because doing it all in the cloud means, you know. Well, that means you’re
298
00:40:41.390 –> 00:40:49.670
Oslo Opportunities: by definition, decrypting, decoding processing, compositing, re-encoding, re-encrypting. So what about end-to-end encryption.
299
00:40:50.900 –> 00:40:58.330
Oslo Opportunities: right and versus doing it on the device you can maintain that end-to-end encryption all the way through so there’s pros and cons to those 2 approaches.
300
00:41:00.050 –> 00:41:03.939
Oslo Opportunities: so yeah, I think the next 10 years will be a continued advancement
301
00:41:04.110 –> 00:41:08.571
Oslo Opportunities: in all of these fronts, right. And like you talked about earlier, David, the
302
00:41:09.316 –> 00:41:16.920
Oslo Opportunities: actually, it was before before our session. But you and I were chatting about center of room cameras like the neat center. And
303
00:41:17.253 –> 00:41:34.470
Oslo Opportunities: outside in cameras that other competitors are doing. And there’s not a right answer or a wrong answer. Right? There’s there’s sort of advantages and disadvantages we chose to approach it from the center point of view. But I think ultimately, in 10 years timeframe. The right answer is a combination of all
304
00:41:34.490 –> 00:41:55.360
Oslo Opportunities: right, which is kind of what I alluded to with multiple needs neat devices around the room. So then, you have a combination of center of camera looking out at the tape people at the table, but also the bar or the board in the back of the room. The bar in the front of the room, you know, maybe another bar on the side of the room, and being able to film the room from either outside, in or inside out. Perspective.
305
00:41:56.100 –> 00:41:59.089
David Danto: Alright. One last unfair question before we end this, and I’m prepping.
306
00:41:59.090 –> 00:42:02.422
Dave Michels: No, no, I have the last question to go. You go ahead.
307
00:42:02.700 –> 00:42:26.949
David Danto: Yeah, my last question. The unfair question is really simple. If you take any of the neat products and you use them for Microsoft teams. They work beautifully, and we use them for zoom. They work beautifully, and every end user on the planet is saying, Why can’t that be a button? You know. Why can’t I do a zoom call and a team’s call? And the answer is that there’s no technical reason why you can’t provide that.
308
00:42:27.040 –> 00:42:35.090
David Danto: Will we ever see that? Or do we think companies like Zoom and Microsoft are going to be preventing that capability to switch for as long as they exist?
309
00:42:35.090 –> 00:42:41.289
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah, that. That’s a. That’s a good question. It’s a tough question, because it’s a politically charged question, right? Yeah, you’re right.
310
00:42:41.290 –> 00:42:41.740
David Danto: Thanks.
311
00:42:41.740 –> 00:42:48.680
Oslo Opportunities: Technologically, I mean, technologically, there’s no reason but the but the honest. You know. Let’s let’s.
312
00:42:49.260 –> 00:42:55.279
Oslo Opportunities: you know, dig into that a little bit more that, you know, scratch one layer of beneath the surface on that one. Technologically.
313
00:42:56.012 –> 00:43:05.369
Oslo Opportunities: there’s no reason why why we they couldn’t or we couldn’t, as an industry. But there is work that would require be required right? The Microsoft teams room application
314
00:43:06.212 –> 00:43:07.629
Oslo Opportunities: is not designed
315
00:43:07.730 –> 00:43:11.779
Oslo Opportunities: as an you know. Think about it like a software app, any software application
316
00:43:12.183 –> 00:43:25.590
Oslo Opportunities: running on an Ios or android phone mobile platform. It’s designed to be foregrounded to background. Right? It’s in the software developers who developed that app did it with knowing that it’s gonna be backgrounded. And they built
317
00:43:25.830 –> 00:43:40.750
Oslo Opportunities: the software application to to be, you know, accepting of that Microsoft teams rooms, Zoom Rooms. You know, Webex, on the Cisco devices, Google meet on Google meet devices.
318
00:43:40.790 –> 00:43:42.929
Oslo Opportunities: The applications weren’t built.
319
00:43:43.513 –> 00:43:45.880
Oslo Opportunities: To be foregrounded and backgrounded.
320
00:43:46.060 –> 00:44:13.950
Oslo Opportunities: They expect to be running all the time they’re registering back to. They’re calling home back to Microsoft or Zoom Zdm or Webex control hub, etc. when the app is backgrounded. Oh, in your control hub, in your Tac or Zdm. They look like they’re disconnected. That’s not good. So there is some software development required to make it possible. But technologically there’s nothing stopping it.
321
00:44:14.150 –> 00:44:39.519
Oslo Opportunities: And then, politically, you know, charged because you know what’s in the best interest of Microsoft and Zoom? You know, do they? Do they want to enable that, you know lots of customers are are begging for it. But the current. The current approach is the direct guest. Join using Webrtc is sort of the industry standard for any app to talk to any other back end. Microsoft can talk to Zoom Webex. Webex can talk to Zoom. Microsoft
322
00:44:39.570 –> 00:44:43.230
Oslo Opportunities: Zoom can talk to the Microsoft Webex and Google and
323
00:44:43.320 –> 00:44:45.811
Oslo Opportunities: those combinations as well.
324
00:44:46.827 –> 00:44:52.659
Oslo Opportunities: as neat. We’re like, Hey, you know, we’re a hardware platform. We’re happy to support all this stuff. So
325
00:44:53.154 –> 00:45:05.200
Oslo Opportunities: not only can you run Microsoft teams and zoom on our devices and in the future, perhaps others like Mike, like Google, meet, for example, potentially in the future, but also our whole app hub.
326
00:45:05.290 –> 00:45:23.869
Oslo Opportunities: a strategy built on top of neat pulse, where neat pulse becomes like an app store for collaboration, apps like what I demonstrated with the the sharing a mirror board into a Microsoft teams call right? So we have 50 plus partners signed up to partner with us on Apple to be able to run.
327
00:45:23.940 –> 00:45:28.813
Oslo Opportunities: You know we don’t want people running angry birds on neat boards, but you know any app.
328
00:45:29.100 –> 00:45:30.519
David Danto: Unless you’re sitting on a trade show floor.
329
00:45:30.520 –> 00:45:36.090
Dave Michels: Is a really good point, though a lot of customers are asking for, but a lot of customers
330
00:45:38.190 –> 00:46:00.020
Dave Michels: aren’t asking for, and that’s a that’s a tricky line, and I’m 1 that often says, Don’t listen to your customers because they’ll steer you down the path. And so it is a. It is a balancing act. I. I have a question for you more on a personal level, because I’m aspiring to be more like you, a man of the world traveling all the world I was last summer. I’ll be back in Sweden soon, and I was just in London.
331
00:46:00.500 –> 00:46:07.080
Dave Michels: When you travel around. I wanna ask you each city, San Francisco, London and Oslo.
332
00:46:07.090 –> 00:46:21.280
Dave Michels: what is it? What is the one meal that you try? Not necessarily the name of the restaurant. But what is the one meal that you try to have like? For example, when you’re in Oslo, one of your favorite things when you’re in San Francisco, give us a little bit of a world menu here.
333
00:46:21.280 –> 00:46:43.699
Oslo Opportunities: I wish you’re really putting me on the spot there, David, because I am not a foodie, Dave. Sorry I am not a foodie. I wish I was. I have lots of friends who are foodies. I was in Boston a few weeks ago with my great friend and mentor and former colleague, Jonathan Rosenberg. He’s a big foodie. We’ve gone to Michelin Star restaurants together.
334
00:46:43.740 –> 00:46:47.470
Oslo Opportunities: But that’s not what that’s not my personal thing.
335
00:46:47.962 –> 00:47:04.159
Oslo Opportunities: No, I would say, you know, California, London and Oslo are all incredible places for different reasons. Right? And one of the things that I love about London is, you know the variety of of restaurants, the variety of evening, you know.
336
00:47:04.448 –> 00:47:25.209
Oslo Opportunities: entertainment, but also, like the the the amount of green space, the public parks. Every park in London has a cafe in it where you can get great food like pup food, not Michelin star food, you know. Great beer, you know you can hang out in the grass have a beer, have, you know? Have your pup food? I love it. I love London. It’s incredible.
337
00:47:25.210 –> 00:47:29.378
Dave Michels: Yeah. Well, one thing about London. I always try to get Indian food in London. This is,
338
00:47:29.610 –> 00:47:30.000
Oslo Opportunities: Yeah.
339
00:47:30.000 –> 00:47:43.659
Dave Michels: Harder, harder to find, because the limits having such a food scene right now that all these new restaurants are opening up. And yeah, so anyway, we could talk about. I’ll talk. I’ll I’ll have to give Jonathan the call and ask him about some products.
340
00:47:43.950 –> 00:47:49.400
Oslo Opportunities: I’ll say, coming from California. I love Mexican food, and that is hard to find in London. And Oslo sorry.
341
00:47:49.400 –> 00:47:49.920
Dave Michels: Yeah.
342
00:47:49.920 –> 00:47:51.930
Oslo Opportunities: It’s good, it doesn’t apply.
343
00:47:51.930 –> 00:48:00.510
David Danto: I have a lot of respect for what you’ve done in your career and all you know your, the patents you’ve created and the products you’ve helped bring to market. I hope you’re smart enough in Oslo to have not
344
00:48:00.790 –> 00:48:04.080
David Danto: bitten the line, and, drinking, drank the aquae.
345
00:48:04.080 –> 00:48:26.849
Oslo Opportunities: The akovit. Yeah, I have. If you go to a really good restaurant like a Christmas dinner, for example, up in Holman Colin. By the ski jump. There’s a fantastic restaurant up there, and they did like a five-course meal for Christmas dinner, and they served akovit with each one like a pairing, and it was actually good. It was actually good. Yeah.
346
00:48:26.850 –> 00:48:30.140
David Danto: No, no, I don’t feel now. I don’t feel like you’re as smart as you were when you started the call.
347
00:48:30.940 –> 00:48:31.400
Dave Michels: Okay.
348
00:48:31.400 –> 00:48:32.020
David Danto: Movie it.
352
00:49:00.850 –> 00:49:15.005
Dave Michels: Alright. Well, that’s fantastic conversation. I have to say, Kevin, your your arrival at neat raises the bar, need I? I? It really is exciting to see that need is so committed to this. You bring such a pedigree of experience and expertise.
353
00:49:15.581 –> 00:49:30.950
Dave Michels: We. I know we can talk for hours on this stuff, but it’s just. It’s just great to see what you’re doing. Great to great to continue to follow what you’re doing. So thank you, Dave. Send this up and thank you, Kevin, for participating, and we’ll be back soon with another episode of talking points, chats.
354
00:49:31.200 –> 00:49:35.399
Oslo Opportunities: Thanks, David. It was really fun. I really enjoyed talking with you guys. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
355
382
00:51:43.140 –> 00:51:46.590
Oslo Opportunities: That’s awesome. I really appreciate it, guys, thanks a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot of fun.
383
00:51:47.040 –> 00:51:47.570
David Danto: Thank you, Dave.