Space Summary
The Twitter Space NATIX Network x DIMO | AMA Session hosted by NATIXNetwork. Explore the synergy between AI technology, dynamic mapping, and community engagement in the NATIX Network x DIMO AMA session. Discover how DePIN technology enhances mapping precision while understanding the pivotal role of community feedback for projects like $NATIX. Witness the live $NATIX project showcasing cutting-edge dynamic map features and services, enriched by DIMO's collaboration. Dive into the future of mapping technology, where innovation and user-centric approaches define the evolution of mapping solutions. $NATIX sets itself apart with AI-driven capabilities and a commitment to continuous enhancements shaped by collaborative driver community feedback.
For more spaces, visit the AI page.
Space Statistics
For more stats visit the full Live report
Questions
Q: How does DePIN technology benefit the NATIX Network?
A: DePIN technology enhances the functionality and precision of the AI-powered NATIX Network.
Q: Why is community involvement crucial for projects like $NATIX?
A: Community engagement is vital for garnering support, feedback, and user adoption of innovative projects like $NATIX.
Q: What are the key features of the live $NATIX project?
A: The live $NATIX project offers dynamic mapping capabilities and services for users.
Q: What value does DIMO's collaboration bring to the NATIX Network?
A: DIMO's collaboration enriches the AI-powered NATIX Network with added expertise and resources.
Q: How can innovation in mapping technology impact user experiences?
A: Innovative mapping technology can enhance user interactions, navigation, and overall experience.
Q: What role does the driver community play in $NATIX's success?
A: The driver community contributes feedback, data, and usage insights crucial for the evolution of $NATIX.
Q: What future developments can users expect from $NATIX?
A: Users can anticipate continuous advancements, new features, and enhanced services from $NATIX in the future.
Q: How does $NATIX differentiate itself in the mapping solutions market?
A: $NATIX stands out with its AI-driven dynamic mapping capabilities and community-driven approach.
Q: What sets the NATIX Network apart from traditional mapping services?
A: The NATIX Network integrates AI, community input, and dynamic mapping features for a modern and interactive mapping experience.
Q: How does community feedback shape the evolution of $NATIX?
A: User feedback influences updates, improvements, and the roadmap of $NATIX's dynamic mapping solutions.
Highlights
Time: 00:15:45
DePIN Technology Integration Exploring how DePIN technology enhances the AI functionality within the NATIX Network.
Time: 00:28:12
Community Engagement Dynamics Discussing the impact of community involvement on the success of projects like $NATIX.
Time: 00:40:59
$NATIX Live Demonstration Witnessing the dynamic mapping features and services in action during the live $NATIX project showcase.
Time: 00:55:32
DIMO Collaboration Insights Insights on how DIMO's collaboration adds further value and expertise to the NATIX Network.
Time: 01:10:20
Future of Mapping Technology Exploring the innovations and advancements expected in mapping technology and user experiences.
Time: 01:25:18
User-Centric Approach Detailing how $NATIX integrates user feedback and community needs into its dynamic mapping solutions.
Time: 01:35:47
Innovative Features Teasers Teasing upcoming features and updates that users can look forward to in the $NATIX mapping platform.
Time: 01:45:03
Driving the Future Together Emphasizing the collaborative efforts of the driver community in shaping the evolution of $NATIX.
Time: 02:00:14
Continuous Enhancement Commitment Highlighting $NATIX's dedication to ongoing improvements and service enhancements for its users.
Time: 02:15:29
Innovative Mapping Solutions Market Discussing $NATIX's unique positioning and differentiation in the competitive mapping solutions market.
Key Takeaways
- DePIN technology enhances the functionality of the AI-driven NATIX Network.
- Community involvement is pivotal for the success of projects like $NATIX.
- The live $NATIX project showcases dynamic mapping capabilities.
- DIMO's collaboration adds value to the AI-powered NATIX Network.
- Innovation in mapping technology can revolutionize user experiences.
- Exploring the connection between AI, mapping, and community engagement.
- Learn about the implications of DePIN technology for mapping solutions.
- $NATIX introduces new features and services through its dynamic map.
- Understanding the role of the driver community in the success of $NATIX.
- Insights on the future developments and enhancements of $NATIX.
Behind the Mic
Introduction and Welcome
Our channel subscribe. Hey everyone. Alex, I can hear you. All right, I think. Hello everybody. Now I can hear you as well. There we go. Very nice. All right, I see that Daimo has joined us today as well to co-host the event. Should we take one more minute until some more people join and then we can start the thing? Yeah, sounds good. As always, thanks for hosting. I guess it's time to reshare again. Karina, have we posted in the demo discord at all? I guess maybe let's look at them in that. All right. Shall we get started, Jens? Let's do it. Awesome.
Event Introduction
Okay, so, ladies and gentlemen, and of course, I mean all deep in drivers, coming from both natics and demo communities, I mean, I'm more than happy to welcome you to our second AMA, actually with demo, which most of you already know and love. So, as you know, demo has been one of our very first deep partners in the space actually for quite some time now. And I'm really excited to have them back here today so we can delve a bit more into like, what's new, what other developments have been done, and as always, talk more about deepen. Right? So for that, we have Alex Demos, co-founder, joining us today, and of course Adireza, our own CEO and co-founder. So welcome again, Jens.
Community Updates
Glad to have you both here today. Before we start with the main event, I usually want to do like a little housekeeping and give you guys some community updates, so I'll try to keep it short as usual so we can go ahead with the main event. But yeah, meanwhile, while listening, feel free to post any questions you might have into the AMA post here on x, as well as on our discord server where we have a dedicated AMA channel there. We'll be checking them throughout the session, try to answer as many as we can. And at the end, of course, at the end of the session, if time allows, we'll invite some of you up onto stage so that you can ask your questions live on here.
Updates on Growth and Milestones
So, yeah, starting with the updates. First off, to give you guys some background on our growth milestones, we just announced now that we reached 177,000 registered drivers, 456 million Evans detected, and as well, very importantly, over 90 million km mapped by our app users as of today. Which means that we are actually very close to hitting our 100 million km milestone, where once we hit it, we'll commence our network lapse airdrop, which is equal to 1% of our token supply. So, yeah, big one, keep pushing bushing ice and we'll be there in no time, I think.
Ambassador Program Announcement
Going next a while back we announced our new ambassador program called Natick's Racers, which will give you all a more inclusive opportunity to dive deeper into our ecosystem and engage with our products more. It's actually formula racing themed so it's actually quite fun for all of you drivers and racing fans and also offers a quite good rewards and benefits depending on your activity, of course. So if you're interested into that, just go to our website, check the ambassador article on the blog and you'll find all the info you need there on how to apply, join and all the other stuff.
Partnership with Helium Mobile
In addition to that, one of the major milestones, sorry, announcements that we had in the past month was our partnership with Helium Mobile, which is truly bullish for us as it basically will enable our users to share mapping data via Helium's 5G network. It will save costs, but also it will provide you guys an opportunity to earn mobile and native tokens at the same time. And lastly, to commemorate basically this AMA and our gathering here today, but also most importantly the launch of demos flagship product, the newest one. We have decided to give you guys, one of you guys, an LTE R one device.
Giveaway Announcement
So in order to join, the rules are quite simple. Follow both naticks and demo accounts here on Twitter, like and retweet the original AMA announcements. And of course, being part of our AMA here today is one of the requirements. Tomorrow I'll announce the winners of the giveaway on our socials and we'll send the winner a DM. So make sure to participate if you haven't yet. So there's still a bit more time left, but yeah, that's it for me. Without further ado, Ali, I'll give you the mic over.
Transition to Discussion
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Alice. Sorry guys for the very long introduction. So I think now we're getting into the interesting part. Alex, welcome again, I was just reflecting back before going into asking you questions and talking about bunch of new stuff that we have been cooking. But I was just thinking like, I think demo was the first deep end product in our marketplace and it was a moment for us, I think for you guys as well. We realized that it actually works very well and you know, there's this appetite for, you know, good deep in projects within our communities and you know, both of us actually are offering a lot of other deepen products and projects in our marketplaces.
Reflections on Partnership
So. So it's quite interesting because you guys were the first partner for the marketplace from deep end, but it was also a big lessons learned for both of us, that is, it works. And I think for a bunch of other projects, from what I saw after they saw our collaboration. Yeah, I was thinking about that, too, and thinking about when we did this a year ago, Deepin was still kind of a relatively new category, relatively new terminal. And it's amazing. Like, whenever there's a new category like this, whether it's in crypto or even in other areas, you wonder, like, does this have legs? Is this industry going to be, is this category going to be bigger a year from now than it was, than it is when we're talking now?
The Growth of Deepin Sector
And I think it's pretty amazing how much the deep end sector has grown. I mean, certainly you could argue, and I agree, that there's many areas in crypto, there's some more and more questionable quality in some of the things that I've launched and have taken on the DPin brand, but I think it's just an incredible amount of validation for the space. And I think the thing I always come back to about what DPIn represents is we are here proven that crypto, web three, blockchain, whatever you term, all of that technology is valuable beyond just financial products. When DeFi summer happened five years ago, it was amazing. And the narrative was all about how financial freedom, obviously, that goes back to bitcoin, all about financial freedom, new finance primitives.
Transformation in Industries by Crypto
What we're proving is that so many other industries can be transformed by crypto. And that is what I think over the next five to ten years is going to lead to such a massive transformation in technology and be so, so bullish for the space. Agreed. Agreed. You know, years ago, I was working for Pricewater House Cooper. I was actually leading their blockchain, let's say, advisory for Europe. And, I mean, back in the time, we were trying to inject blockchain also as a fan into every business model, into everything, into supply chain, into IoT, into. And I actually genuinely think, like, deepen is the connection there, right?
Deepin's Role in Technology Integration
So DeFi was kind of trying to revolutionize the financial sector, and deepen is, in my opinion, just trying to bring a lot of, if not everything from web two into web three. So a lot of this, like, yeah, I would say a lot of the businesses that are running on a web two model. And, I mean, there are a lot of definitions. Right. Deepen, originally, for me, was a lot about the combination of IoT and blockchain in one shape or form. But then it got into ride sharing and things like that. So it got bigger and bigger. So yeah. I mean, it's insane how far we have came, basically.
Changing Landscape of the Industry
Yeah. So how on. And I'm happy also to talk about the demo side, too. But what's changed, like in terms of mission and or anything on the natick side? Have you guys learned? Have things changed? Is it still kind of everything we're doing a year ago is exactly what we're doing now? Or how has the, like, big picture evolved? Oh, actually quite a few things. So we always knew, I think I was saying this in a lot of my talks, I was saying this, that we want to build the largest camera infrastructure in the world because we believe that camera is a super sensor.
Cameras and Infrastructure Plans
And this could take any shape or form from cameras in the car, cameras on the smartphone, drones. And you see a couple of projects doing each one of these things individually. But we wanted to build that vision and we started with smartphones because it's scalable. I thought you guys are also doing a lot more on the smartphone these days because it's scalable, but you're also doing hardware. So I never said hardware is not the right way to go, but I said, you know, when you can do things with smartphone, probably it's just faster rather than selling hardware.
Future Directions and New Products
But we're actually tapping into more camera types very soon and we want to go beyond even mapping. So we are right now working on a new product, which is a lot, let's say, within the autonomous driving vertical. So we are very much excited for it and yeah, kind of going that direction. And I mean, the other thing that we have been working on, and I have very good news to share very soon, is obviously demand. A lot of different projects, Alex, have been grilled for the demand side. I'm sure you guys do. But here's my take on the demand.
Challenges and Opportunities in Supply and Demand
I think what people, I mean, people always tell you, supply is easy, you know, show me also somebody. I mean, there are very few projects that have done very good quality, sustainable supply side as well. So especially if you do with smartphones, you have retention, stickiness issue, you have a bunch of other factors that you need to figure out. And so there is this product market fit both on the supply side of the story and on the demand side. And many of the times, let's say, let's take the example of Natick's or demo. If you don't have a good supply side, critical mass, let's say, and a bunch of other things, nobody is even going to look at the data, right? What data are we talking about to monetize?
Strategies for Sustainability
So even if I could go back and redo this, I still believe we first have to build a sustainable supply side and demand side, at least for us as natics, probably for you guys in demo as well, because it's a very similar kind of direction in terms of data collection and monetization. Yeah, it's very much similar. You know, the supply side is so key. And when we first met with companies, we've almost five x'ed and we should, before the end of the year, five x, the number of drivers, vehicles that are connected.
Growth in Supply Side Connectivity
So we've been growing very well on the supply side. But when a year ago we had 10,000 or so cars connected, we got meetings with demand side partners, developers and enterprises, but they said, hey, you know, come back when there's more. And now that we're over 100,000 cars, the conversations come a lot more easily and the next order of magnitude up will help us talk with even more enterprise partners. And I think there's absolutely a huge shift in the space where everyone, from investors to your average speculator, your average deep end enthusiast, everyone is realizing how important that demand side is.
Building Demand Side Tools
And so we've been spending more and more time building those kinds of tools. We've gone through a huge account, really wallet upgrade. We realized how important it was to have a more interoperable system for our drivers to interact with other apps that are going to leverage the demo data and the other, you know, this probably doesn't surprise anyone, but we've seen a huge, huge influx of AI companies that are interested in demo data. And this is some companies that want to train underlying models with the data, but also many companies that want to build consumer facing products.
AI Integration with Data Collection
So these could be maintenance agents that you give your car data to the AI and it can interpret that data and then give you a chat interface, dealer tools, insurance tools. There's been a ton more interest in AI. And the really important thing is there's some ability to train a model with generic data that's out there in the world, or commodity data, maybe call it. What is most valuable to any agent is can it learn from your data in particular, if you are interacting with an AI agent, if it has two years of driving data, or if it has your camera data, real world data becomes so much more valuable.
Realizing the Value of Data
So we've realized, and I'm sure you guys are talking with many AI companies as well, just how valuable this data is to the huge shift in the AI space that we're seeing. Correct? I mean, it's the same story for us. We are also working very heavily on the demand side, actually closing our first customer very soon. Some more information on that. Yeah, it's. It's. It's going quite well, and we're building a new product, a new vertical, which is. I mean, I just cannot talk about it, but I'm kind of jumping off my chair.
AI and Data Quality
So it's gonna be very interesting, and it's gonna add a kind of a new revenue stream for naticks as well. But the common denominator, I wanted to confirm that it's a lot of AI training, because AI needs data right now. AI needs two things, computation and data, and I think Deepin is pretty much providing both of those at scale and with super low cost, with super efficiency. And another advantage of us within deepen is, again, we can provide targeted data collection more efficiently than a lot of other web two players.
Comparative Advantages of Data Collection
Right? So, as you said, like, also when you were 10,000 devices versus 100,000 devices for us, was the same thing. Like, we just actually made a coverage map for. Not right now, but, like, two months ago, we made a coverage map for one of the potential customers we were talking to, and it blew our fuse and their fuse that we saw in, like, a span of, I think one week, we covered over 75 to sometimes 90% of our focused cities. Right? We're talking Tokyo, New York, London.
Localizing Data Collection
I mean, it's insane. And then we did another test. We were like, okay, we have blind spots in the map, so let's try to. In our case, it's important, right, to cover certain streets that there is no data, let's say, in the past one or two weeks. So we said, okay, let's try to map those. So we have some gamified mechanisms to do that. I'm not going to go into details, but we tried that, and within 24 hours, we. We mapped all of those, too. So, yeah, this kind of network coordination and the fact that we can localize our network very efficiently is very attractive for AI.
AI Applications and Data Training
I give you one example, actually. So just for some applications, the more data that you have from all over the place, the better. Like, you feed that into something called. Something like GPT model. It's a different story. They want as wide range of data as possible, but when it comes to, let's say, our applications, we want to train an AI model that can detect traffic signs in different jurisdictions. Right? And these signs are different in the US, Europe, East Asia, and.
The Importance of Localization
Yeah, so it really matters, actually. So, you know, the best mapping companies that are out there, they're sometimes very much localized, right. They're very good, let's say, in the US or East Asia, but. But they don't have good models to process in different jurisdictions. That's why they don't enter that market easily or it's very hard for them. And this is something that we can do far more efficiently than these guys, or at least help them to do if you're helping them with the data. And so are you guys also running the models yourselves to process that data or you're just collecting?
Collaboration on AI Model Development
And then some of these customers of yours are going to be, they'll have their own specialized models regionally, both, actually. So we originally started by running our own models, but obviously there is so much we can do. I think AI is right now. So, I mean, I love the fact that AI is getting more and more open source, so we're very appreciative of that because we can use a lot of these open source components to build our own AI models. But it's too big of a field, Alex, to just us being able to do everything.
Engaging with AI Partnerships
So right now we're talking more and more, and we're getting actually more and more partners, like this new avenue that we are. I'm going to share more information soon for autonomous driving. The AI kind of model that we need for the post processing of the data is something these guys have been working for 15 years on.
Industry Leaders
They're best in the industry. I mean, look, it's proprietary kind of AI, and we don't have access to it. Therefore, we're working with a partner. But they also cannot collect the data the way that we do. That's why they're hungry for that. So, yeah, so it's 50, I would say we try to do as much of it as possible ourselves, but sometimes it gets too complicated. I can tell you these guys have invested sometimes 100, 200, $300 million into building those AI models. So it's difficult for naticks at this stage at least, to do it ourselves. But who knows? In four or five years, I think the game will be different.
Data Ownership
Yeah, I think we've seen a lot of that as well. And in fact, it was kind of funny. We don't really build any of our own models, but I had a couple of these crypto AI companies and projects reach out to me at demo, and they would show up and say, hey, you have all this data. Can we help you train? And I was like, well, one, we're not in the business of making models. And two, I actually don't have any data. The users have all their own data. And so, you know, we at demo, like, the way we're set up is the users have their individual data. They can share it with a company that wants to train AI, they can share it with, you know, any of these folks that are building models if they want to, and if those folks want to compensate them or whatever.
Deep Data Considerations
And I think, you know, I spoke to a company yesterday that we're now starting to also see. Coming back to the deep end topic, more cross deepen consideration. If you're doing something around electric vehicles, well, you probably want some data from demo. You probably want some ability to train models on visual data, camera data. You might want some grid data from a company like daylight or star power, some of these others. And it really becomes much more interesting to build now that I almost think of Deepin as like, how are we building a, the best, most verified, the most trusted picture of the real world and all of the stuff that's around it. And people are starting to realize that's an incredibly powerful asset to create this real world picture. And there's no limit to the value you can extract from that asset once it's created and verified.
Digital Twin Concept
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more, actually, it's this digital twin, or replicate of the word that you're trying to create and kind of enable this interaction between also the digital twin versions of these devices. It's quite interesting and what you guys are doing, but very good. We actually, I had some points. I wanted to discuss this general deepen topic with you, and we did that. But look, we also made this AMA because of the launch of your new flagship product. So tell me more about it. I mean, this is, I think, your third product, if I'm not wrong. It came true. And evolution. What is very interesting for me is, for example, like, regarding the functionalities and the price point of this.
Product Development Insights
You know, you guys started with something that was very high end, and then you created something that is more scalable and it's more affordable, and then this seems something in between. So, man, curious to hear from you. And why did you guys came up to build LTR one? So you're right. We started with the Autopi, which is a great device, and in particular to raspberry PI. It gave us a lot of customization, a lot of flexibility in the firmware, but it was a little expensive, it's a little bit bulky, and there's obd. Two devices have been around for years. And years and years. So there are much smaller and smaller models. We made the Macaron collaborated with some great partners on that.
Innovative Devices and Market Needs
The fact that we left out LTE connectivity in favor of using the helium network was, in our mind, it was really innovative because there really haven't been widely available LoRaWAN hardware devices for vehicles. In the past, were able to bring down costs. So most of those devices, we average, they're sending an average of about $0.35 worth of data per month, which, compared to LTE costs, is a fraction of what most LTE devices say now. It's a lot less data. So depending on the application that you have, if you only need to keep track of your car, if you don't need real time data, if you can put up with some connectivity loss, because the helium network is not completely pervasive everywhere, it's a really great device, it's a really cheap option.
Cost-Effectiveness
For $100, you get three years connectivity. But as we think about scaling and as we aim to bring Deemo to the world, there are just in the US, 300 million cars on the roads, and about 280 million of those are older vehicles that have no native connectivity. So there's millions and millions of cars that need some form of device that gets plugged in order to stream data. The company we worked with is out of Lithuania. They're a company called Reptila. They've been manufacturing vehicle devices and fleet service fleet interfaces for the last two decades. They have a highly scalable manufacturing process. They can make devices, tens of thousands of devices in four weeks time.
Global Market Expansion
And not only is the hardware really built to scale, and it's a just much more capable device, but as a partner, they're, you know, they're global. They can help us scale as well. So they're actually going to help us. And this device will help us open up new countries and new markets. We will aim to be in Latin America early next year, we'll aim to be in our first countries in Asia early next year. And all of the users that are using the r1 are just going to have a much more seamless experience, much better data experience, and in general, just have a much more reliable and dependable demo experience.
Product Versatility
Very cool. So it's more expensive than the previous device because it has LTE connectivity, but help me out here. How come you could reduce the price compared to Autopi? Was it just because it's a newer technology or is it because you guys did something different? Yeah, I mean, the main reduction in cost there is of course, using specialized boards, the autopi is built off the Raspberry PI. It's a little overbuilt, frankly. Of course, one cool thing about the Autopi that will continue to exist in our ecosystem, and we still have some autopis and many people have them. It is a very interesting concept to push applications down to the device itself.
Edge Computing Use Cases
The Raspberry PI is effectively an edge computer that's in the cardinal. In the next couple of years, we will open up the ability for developers to run applications at the edge. One developer that we worked with for a little bit, he was using his Autopi and it never really made it past the test phase, but he was using his autopy to create voice activation in his car so he could actually tell the car, hey, roll down the windows, and it would, you know, the autopilot would actually send the command and roll down the windows in his car. That comes with really sensitive considerations like security.
Security Considerations
How are you making sure that everything is properly, data is properly managed, that I can't send a command to your car? And it's just stuff that we've kind of pushed further out in the roadmap. The new devices are not going to be quite as capable when it comes to the edge compute that they can handle, they can buffer some data, they can send it later. They have some of those capabilities, but they're not going to be running fully fledged applications on their own. That is something that we will come back to in the future as part of demo. But it's just something that is a little bit overkill for what people need today.
Innovation and Evolution
Okay, understood. Understood. Yeah. I mean, look, also, the first device I think was designed, what, two, three years ago? And, you know, and always in hardware designs. If Apple and Samsung are every year coming up with a new device just because the tech stack improves, right. Even with edge computers and chips and so on, they're getting smaller, more efficient. So, you know, it's very normal for a hardware to evolve and also based on the learnings that you guys have, right? We're never perfect in my opinion.
Building on Lessons Learned
We were also kind of startups, right? So. And this deep end model has never been launched before, if you be frank. Right? So there's always learnings that we all do. It's the same story with us. Again, such a pity that I cannot share yet our new product, but same story. We also learned a lot of lessons during our last one and a half, two years post launch of our product. That's why we started to build, you know, the second product, which is different and a lot of different projects are same story from what I see.
Evolving Technology
Yeah, you know, you learn more, the tech stack evolves. And I think one of the most interesting things is you start to really hone in on the trade offs that help you achieve product market fit. You know, from our perspective, we realized, you know, we still believe, as I said, in the vision of edge compute, that this, you know, the autopi can offer. That's going to be a very important part of people's vehicle experience. And the software that runs in vehicles is how can you modularize that compute?
Connected Car Experience
But for the average driver today, they don't really need that. And, you know, the connected car experience is still so nascent for most people that, you know, we're like, in a point where we need applications like email to show people, you know, the very basics of what a connected car can do before we're having them, you know, set up their own servers and I running, you know, building their own apps. But we are going to continue to see kind of a faster and faster pace of evolution in the connected car world. And of course, you know, we'll actually probably ship our fourth device, another partner.
Future Developments
It'll be fairly similar to this device that's coming out with some other changes, but we have more partners that are interested in shipping devices. We'll probably ship our fourth one early next year. So we're also picking up the pace at which we can update hardware. Cool. So actually, bridging this to, let's say, from hardware to smartphones, I know you guys are tapping recently, not recently, but recently. You're pushing this Tesla, let's say integration is possible.
Tesla Integration
And correct me if I'm wrong, but you have quite a lot of your users already being Tesla users smartphone, if I'm not wrong guy, I saw a number around 20%, and this is a quite high number. And the fact that you have, you know, 20, 30,000 Tesla vehicles connected to you, I just want to know, like, you know, what's your strategy? They're also connecting into the edge computer because Tesla is the biggest edge computer out there on two wheels, in my opinion. So I want to see, like, how you guys see it, how you're, you know, where is TeSLA in this whole GAme for you guys whole ecosystem?
Tesla's Innovative Approach
TeSla is a super interesting player. So I think the thing that they've done in the software and in the connectivity space is they were the first to really open up their APIs. And their APIs had been open some, I would call it semi open. They semi opened them. A bunch of other engineers reverse engineered parts of it. And Tesla didn't really stop people for a few years. They said, hey, our APIs are open. In the last year, they started to formalize that developer program and they created the ability for developers to go and create a relationship.
Innovative Data Sharing
It's not widely open. We were in a pretty small cohort that was able to get this kind of a partnership with them. And so their openness of their APIs is really pretty novel in the vehicle space. They're pushing other car makers to think about that. Another really interesting thing that they've done, totally different from what any other automaker is doing, is they are allowing the car itself to send this data to demo. Most automakers data goes from the car to, let's say, Ford servers.
Direct Data Connections
And then if you're using a software connection with demo, you're actually connecting from within the demo app. You're connecting to the Ford server. In the case of Tesla, you're connecting directly to the car, which is a pretty amazing innovation on their part. And really it's more decentralized. Of course, you're skipping this centralized server we believe you're not quite able to run. You can send some commands, you can lock, unlock the Tesla and these things from the APIs.
Compute Opportunities
We believe that eventually this will look more and more just like running computation. And these cars are effectively compute that can be monetized. And those applications, whether it's an AI that lives in the car, it can be downloaded to the vehicle, might be multiple agents that help you with different tasks like maintenance or games and things like that. But ultimately, this is a huge opportunity for automakers to really capitalize on the promise of what connected cars can be, which is a computer on wheels.
Vision for the Future
And so it's a step. Certainly even the Tesla relationship that we have is early, and there's a lot more that can come out of it. But it's a step towards this vision of every car being a computer that can run applications, connect applications, can handle federated learning. Like the sky's the limit on what the car can do. Yeah, I totally agree. Let me actually.
Data Sharing Concerns
So I have a very interesting take on this because people ask me as well, when we talk with guys, and they're like, wouldn't Tesla at some point stop sharing data? Why would they share it with demo or whatnot? And I say, look, you don't realize what Tesla is doing. They're creating the iPhones of cars, right? And if you remember, before iPhone, we had, you know, a few, let's say, phone manufacturers like Ericsson, and then each one of these Nokia, and then each one of these guys were building their own apps, right?
Transforming the Market
So it was very much like siloed and there was no, like, Apple Store or developer portal and things like that. So what Apple did with app store, they said, okay, we have this device. We're going to open the door towards the developer. You can access the sensors, you can access the data that this device is generating to create applications. And suddenly it's a little bit counterintuitive at that point, you know, for a lot of these guys, because they were like, okay, we're losing part of the pie.
The Effect of Openness
But what actually ended up happening was that the utility of this phone that they created was so much higher that nobody wanted touch Enochia or Ericsson. And this is exactly, I mean, naval had a tweet and he wrote, you know, basically Tesla and Google are going to be the iPhone and. Yeah, basically the iPhones of cars. Right. So I totally see the same way. I think what Tesla is doing different is that they want the cars to be a platform rather than just a simple device.
Future Competitiveness
Yeah. And once you're a platform, your utility is just not comparable with. With these cars that are not platforms. So it's just kind of, the other guys are either going to die or they have to catch up. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of people talk the whole, like, Google, Apple trying to get into cars thing comes up all the time. And very important point to make for those in the audience. We're not talking about CarPlay android auto, and those things are relevant, like.
Infotainment vs. Internal Systems
But generally speaking, the infotainment system, that screen where you know, put on your music and have your maps, that screen is actually walled off from the computers that are deeper in the car. So that screen is the infotainment system. Automakers have gone back and forth with Apple and Google about whether you can have Carplay, whether you can't. Pretty much everyone wants Carplay. Even some of the automakers are taking it out.
Google and Apple in the Infotainment System
But more importantly, Google and Apple are happy to be in the infotainment system. They have had their eyes on the deeper computers in the car for a decade, and they have said, well, look, we can bring the operating system. We can help power this. That has been the goal of Google and Apple is to get in there. And whether or not they eventually do, I think, is almost irrelevant because Google and Apple both have the mentality that, and they look at Apple, their success is driven by the App store. It's not driven by the Apple apps. It's not Apple music that most people get an iPhone for. They're using Spotify or others. It's not the utilities, the alarm clock and these other things. And so this concept of bringing an app store to the car is what connected vehicles are going to be all about. And it's just a whole lot of jockeying amongst all these technology partners that are trying to figure out how do we make that happen.
BlackBerry's Evolution in Vehicle Operating Systems
Interestingly, one of those dinosaur phone companies that failed at the phone world, BlackBerry is now one of the major players in vehicle operating systems. BlackBerry is actually deeper into the car than Google or Apple are today. And they pivoted once they lost the phone battle. They said, well, what's the next biggest connected device that we can go get? And it's cars. And so that's been their business for a while. And I think we can play. What makes demo unique is that we can play with any level of depth that those providers go after. And very importantly, we can bring all these older vehicles online. So by bringing and connecting all of these older vehicles, we're sort of creating the pool and creating the proof points that say, hey, look, this demo operating system that we have and this infrastructure can work with, you know, whether it's BlackBerry or Google or Apple or Ford or GM, whoever, we can play nice with everyone.
The Role of Cars in the Future
And, you know, you saying this, actually, I think smartphone has been my number one choice in deepen. I think the second best choice in deepen to tap into existing infrastructure, I think what borderless calls it commodity hardware would be cars. In my opinion. That's the direction that we are going. For you guys, it's the, know, sensors of the car, for us explicitly is the cameras of the car, which we can do a lot with it. And, you know, you can do a lot of other things. You can provide in vehicle services. You can provide other, let's say, data enabled services, not even for the drivers, but like us, you know, we're doing mapping and, you know, new services for the autonomous driving and things like that. So, yeah, I think I'm bullish on cars right after smartphones if you ask me.
Connectivity and User Experiences
And that's why BlackBerry did the same thing as you said. You know, they, I mean, they haven't bullish, I guess, earlier than me. And I actually think there's going to be continued deeper and deeper. Like connectivity, not even connectivity, but like the experiences that you have in your car, in your phone are going to get more and more intertwined. You know, Camera data is a very interesting one to think about. That wherever, like, you know, your car has some cameras and plays an important role in autonomous driving and things like that. And, you know, there's going to come a time, not too distant future where, like, you're going to want that camera access on your phone as well. And, you know, whether that's to, you know, typical dash cam kinds of use cases for security purposes or just analytics, like, you're going to have a very deep connection to your car through your phone.
The Importance of Real-Time Data
And that's, you know, especially for younger generations, it's going to be natural to them that their entire phone experience or their entire car experience is really driven through the apps they use on their phone and the connection of those apps to their vehicle. Yeah, I mean, look, for us, for example, it's a 360 camera that the car has, or most of the new cars have. And to build that hardware for us, let's say, for the applications that we are having, it's going to cost north of $2,000 to just build a 360 good camera. Then here it comes. It's already in a car, and we can tap into that hopefully in the future. It's a jackpot. And from many other different aspects, too. That's why I think up until now, I have been saying smartphone is the killer device for deepen. And I think my next device would be that vehicles are the killer device for deepen.
Future of Vehicle Data Integration
It's going to maybe take a few years for the APIs to be fully open. The way that I see that you agreed with me, I think other auto companies, they're going to get bullied by Tesla to do this because they cannot compete with them if they don't. And the way that I see it is that in three to five years, they have to do it just because Tesla did it. Otherwise, they can, they have to go bankrupt. And that's where deepen comes in, because, you know, it's going to be. It's going to be very interesting for us because we can tap into all of those devices and monetize them in various different ways and we know how to do it. Yeah, I think how, you know, one question and, you know, how are you guys building the data union?
Understanding the Data Union Framework
You know, are you guys using infrastructure that is created? Are you kind of doing that on your own? You know, how are. How are the customers tapping into this? What do you mean by the data union? Just for me to get, like, how. Is the data being pooled? And I suppose, like, is there, you know, are you creating various groups of data out of the Natics data set of different, like, hey, well, this is a geography, geographically categorized set. Yeah, yeah, we actually have a dashboard right now. It's also going to go live very soon and then another one for the customers. So we're basically categorizing the data based on location and based on the type of the, what we call map attributes that we have, you know, generated basically via the camera.
Categorizing Data for User Access
So it's the traffic sign, it's other mobility objects, it's, you know, trees, you know, all different kinds of, let's say, map attributes that we're collecting. And when somebody is interested, they can search by location or they can search by map attributes to get to where they want. So you can say that I want all of the traffic signs, let's say stop signs in New York and define a region and then get all of the data there. And you can also define the time period, because in mapping the time that the data or the freshness of the data is very important. So you can say, I want all of the signs that are in the past detected in the past one week or two or three weeks. And then the system also smartly basically calculates or basically provides if there was a new sign that is detected or a sign that was detected, and then a couple of times it was not detected by another car passing by.
Precision in Mapping Data Attributes
So we add map attributes, but we also remove map attributes from our database. So, yeah, this is kind of how we’re doing it, but, yeah, we’re doing it ourselves. I think this is very hard for us to outsource at the moment. So we’re doing it ourselves. How come? Oh, how come? Just interested in kind of, again, this demand side and how it's coming together. You know, we've been, we've actually been talking with some data union companies. There's a handful out there that are trying to build some of the, I guess, infrastructure to make these unions, these data unions possible.
Building a Data Marketplace
And I've had some. At the end of the day, it all comes down whenever you're building a data marketplace, there's so many data marketplaces, and I think many teams, at least, that I've seen, have tried to build very generic marketplaces. We can host any kind of data and find any kind of buyer. You guys are the opposite. It's a very specific kind of data, and, you know exactly the kinds of buyers that are out there. And that's kind of always my gripe with some of the data businesses is they try to go too generic. And so we've worked with some, we're working with some now that are interested in setting up data unions on top of demo.
Empowering Developers through Data
Again, this concept that like, look, we will work with some developers on our own at demo, but we can also empower others to go, you know, take a subset of our data and bring that to a market that they know better than we do. And we're just getting some of those stood up. And I think that's going to help just increase the utility of the data overall and then the value of the asset. No, I think that's actually very smart. And you're right. I think by nature our business is a little bit more targeted in terms of the type of data that we deal with.
Quality Enhancement of User Experiences
So it's easy. We have like 2030 list of map attributes that we need to extract. And these are super interesting. We're doing some of them and we're in the process of extracting more of these kind of data points, but very similar to you guys. We're also using part of the data to improve certain user experiences for our own users. Like navigation is basically something we launched recently, and it's using the data of the network, for example, for the live traffic and the routing algorithm that is enabled by the live traffic layer. So we're actually injecting that data back into the system and improving the quality of service for the user.
Granular Use Cases and Learning Curves
But we are also working on granular use cases. But yeah, for us, I'd be very honest with you, it's also a learning curve. As I said, there is a list of 30 map attributes that we can extract from the road whenever a camera is passing by. So, and it's different for different jurisdictions, they have different pain points, right? Especially verse turned versus, let's say, less developed countries. When it comes to extracting these informations, it's very different. So we are also trying to work with these guys to find out like what information to extract, because we do everything on the edge at the moment, so we need to, we cannot do everything at the same time, we need to kind of select, and it's also unnecessary to capture imagery because the base levels of the maps are already in a very good stand with something like open street map and different venues.
Focus on Dynamic Layers
So we are really focusing on the dynamic layer. And on the dynamic layer there is a lot of different, let's say, needs in different regions. So very similar to you guys. Also, we're going very much region by region and we're kind of identifying how does each region work, what kind of data we need to collect, and a bunch of other things that is tied to, I don't know, emission and other factors. Amazing. Well, I think that we maybe wanted some AMA time.
Opening Up for Community Interaction
Is that right? Exactly. So the next is AmA albus. Maybe you can ask questions of the community. Of course, of course. Thanks guys, appreciate the discussion. Was amazing to hear. But yeah, let's give the community a bit of chance to ask their own questions too. So we have actually just a few pregathered ones. And then if time allows, again, I'll give you guys the mic for anyone who wants to ask their own questions. So going with the first one, Alex, I think this is directed to you. What was the reason for naming your newest device the demo LTE R one, and not keeping actually Macron in the name, like Macaron 2.0 or V two? Because to his opinion, it does look like an upgraded macaron.
Device Naming Conventions
Yeah. You know, these OBd two devices are, they all look pretty similar. And I mentioned a fourth device that's probably coming early next year, also going to be similar shape and size. Of course, we wanted just something that was a little bit more, a little simpler, to be honest. Macron is it was model. It was named after a type of cookie. And you know, a hardware engineer was kind of just inspired one day by this cookie and we called it that. And I don't even know how well that name translates into some languages. And so we decided to keep things very simple, kind of create a more standardized, maybe it's a little boring, but I don't think so, you know, a more standardized nomenclature for these devices.
Future Device Names and Market Positioning
So R one, nice and simple. And we'll have an x one in the not too distant future. Nice. Awesome. Okay, so that's like a freshened up new name, right? Going into at least the next set of hardware. Yeah, it's good. Well, okay, going into the second one, I think this goes to you again. So there's, I believe it's a new user. So he's asking what kind of ROI in terms of months can a frequent driver anticipate when using the new device? So the LTE R one.
Understanding ROI from New Devices
Yeah. So unlike mapping dpins, demo doesn't care how much you drive, because the goal of demo is to build up a complete picture of the health of the car over a long period of time. We incentivize length of connection so people build up a streak over time that rewards you more and more of the pool based on how long you've been connected. So that's what we incentivize. I think that the. I don't honestly pay that close attention to the rewards. And the way that we have things set up is the more people that join a smaller everyone's rewards get cut down a little bit because the pool stays the same. I think it's a couple of months at this point, probably like four or five months for an ROI on these devices.
Factors Affecting ROI and Marketplace Opportunities
Obviously that can go up and down with token price as well. And because we have opportunities in the marketplace for a new user who gets a device, keeps it plugged in for several months, and then let's say you book maintenance or you use some of the other partners in the marketplace, we have these exclusive deals that kind of boost the value you can get out of it, you can make a referral, all these sorts of things. So there's always more ways to earn. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That makes total sense. I mean, of course, I mean, in a few more months, since it's very new, right? I think you just launched it like a week or two weeks ago.
Anticipating Future Returns
A few more months, people will have a better idea of in terms of like concrete rois as well. But yeah. All right, going to the third one. This is going to both you guys. So will we see an integration with natics and demo at some point? I mean, I'm guessing besides co marketing efforts, the marketplace integrations, maybe something more. Alex, maybe I can take this first because I do have some. So for us, what is interesting right now is getting more of the car's behavior when driving.
Integration and Collaboration Initiatives
And this has been very interesting for us. So I still have something that I will discuss with Alex. But, you know, this information can be extracted from the OBD and we're going to use it for really interesting applications where we have demand. So yes, expect a real integration beyond just co marketing efforts. But yeah, it might take a few more months for us to do it. But definitely, I mean, that's why I was also very excited to have Alex here because I think in the next six months we're going to see more collaborations than even in the last six months.
Community Expectations for Future Collaborations
We have talked about this. What the community should know is that we have been already talking about this for a while and, you know, it's just a matter of finding the right timing, you know, demo side. We've been working in Rs, APIs and RSDK. You know, we've had to get a lot of pieces ready for that.
Building Towards the Future
So it's kind of a matter of just like building towards one another. And eventually we go from, you know, the Venn diagrams come in overlap enough that it. It happened. So I think that this is certainly something that will happen in the future. And it's already been something we've been discussing for a while. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it goes. I mean, I can tell people a couple of things, Alex, that we have also discussed. We jumped on multiple calls, even with Afghani and a couple of other people from our team.
Data and Authenticity Mechanics
You know, demo can be a very good extra validator in terms of authenticity of the user's behavior and the data, because it's hardware based. So we have a lot of mechanisms in place for smartphone that avoids farming and anti cheating. But still, hardware is, you have a chip insight that can sign messages, cryptographic approach and it's a different story. So this has been one of the things. And now we're also looking into grabbing, really car data to basically increase the value of the data that a camera generates, for me, to put it very simply. So I think once you have the car behavior data together with the imagery, it can actually feed into a lot of autonomous driving applications which would.
Combining Data for Greater Value
Yeah, let's say individually they're not worth that much, but when you combine them together, it solves the real pain point which people at the end of the day are paying a lot of money for. Yeah. Amazing, right? That's quite exciting to hear and I think everyone's looking forward to that. We'll keep the new developments, obviously, as soon as something goes on, we'll announce all of that. But yeah, going. I think there's one last question on the pregathered ones. What is the current roadmap for natics? It goes the same for demo as well.
Upcoming Roadmaps and Changes
Any big game changing events coming? I think you guys touched a little bit of point both, but maybe very shortly you can go and speak about your roadmap. Ali, you want to go first? Yeah, sure. So from our side, as I said, were working on a new product which we're going to launch. And for the past few months, as we have been very heavily working on the demand side of the story, so things are actually coming to fusion to the point that we can present them and it's going to be a lot of good news in the next few months. But yes.
Launching New Products and Customer Engagement
So we're actually signing off the first customers for the data of smartphones, the mapping data of the smartphones and this new product, which I'm very much interested, we did it a little bit different because we already have some experience and let's say the critical mass is less required. We are lining up actually customers from day one of shipping the product. So yeah, it's going to be very interesting. That's what we have been working on for the past few months. It has been a little bit of radio silence from our side just because we have been heads down building right after token launch.
Challenges of Token Launch
Token launch is a very noisy, I would say, event for every project. If you ask me, it actually is something that I don't wish for anyone in the industry. You know, it's very difficult and then it just defocuses the founders, in my opinion. It's part of the job. And then, you know, the fact that we have a crypto, I think, Alex, you can confirm that it makes the whole business model more potent. Right. That's why we can build the network much faster. But it's a double edged word, in my opinion.
Focus on Core Development
So now that we have the baby out and both baby and the mother are in a good condition, then, you know, time to focus on what actually matters, which is what we have been doing for the past few months. Yeah, we've been focused on what amounts to one really big project, but has two individual outcomes. So one thing we realized both in the supply side but also in the demand side as went and worked with developers, is that the, and this is no surprise, the crypto user experience, creating wallets and logins and things like that a year ago, just not good enough.
Upgrades in User Experience
So we've spent pretty much the last six months building an entirely new, what we call global account model. And these smart accounts, it's account abstraction. These smart accounts are going to be embedded into the demo mobile app. So it's going to become much easier for people to onboard their cars. It will become, you know, we're taking away the whole wallet creation step. The wallet gets created, it just happens in the background with a pass key. But if you have been one of those people who said, who loves demo, wants to introduce your friends and family to it, but said, hey, they will never understand this crypto piece, the crypto almost completely fades to the background.
Integrating Global Accounts
The rewards are still there, but the whole wallet experience is in the background. Now, the global accounts, part of this means that we are actually also providing this infrastructure, this ability to leverage these accounts, this account abstraction, we're giving that to other developers too. So as we work with demand side partners, they will become unblocked, basically, some of our customers unblocked to be able to implement demo into their apps, provide vehicle connections, provide new services, and start consuming the demo data. So it's been a huge, huge upgrade.
Testing and Upcoming Features
We're going to be spending the rest of October testing that, and we'll ship the mobile app upgrade at the end of October, and then we're shipping these global accounts in November so that we can start onboarding partners. That's awesome. Really nice to hear. All right, thank you both, guys. Without spending too much time, I'm going into some of the other questions that we've received. There's a lot, actually, but I'll just use one or two. And I see William as well, as requested. So right after this question, William, I'll give you access to your mic.
