Digitized | Spotlight
00:10:26 · Michael Cho, Winnie
[00:10:26] S2: Yeah, I mean, to double tap, but it's basically still back to this point I was trying to make earlier, which is diversity. Diversity is not just in the environments where you collect this data, should also be diversity in terms of the robotic types right, humanoids or saurobots or drones. It turns out even if you are gathering data from these very different robotic types, actually you can do a more generalized model that can potentially work across all hybrid robots. [00:10:54] S1: Yeah. [00:10:57] S2: Yeah. And BitRobot is set up in a way that allows that flexibility and and, know [00:11:02] S1: Very interesting. Today, I think I read that anyone can kinda contribute to subnet one, which is, like, basically a Pokemon style go sidewalk where we gather real world human... Real world urban data and then subnet five. What has been the response so far? And maybe you can tell folks a little bit more about the two of those.
00:11:02 · Winnie, Michael Cho
[00:11:02] S1: Very interesting. Today, I think I read that anyone can kinda contribute to subnet one, which is, like, basically a Pokemon style go sidewalk where we gather real world human... Real world urban data and then subnet five. What has been the response so far? And maybe you can tell folks a little bit more about the two of those. [00:11:22] S2: Yeah. I can talk about the first one. So because I've been doing the longest and cyber robot. So it is actually quite a fun game. It just... Yeah. Like you say, it's it's very much like Pokemon GO in the real world. So the idea is, like, the cyber robot is literally like an RC car with four gs basically. So what that means is that you can be, let's say, sitting in your home while controlling a robot either around your neighborhood or even halfway across the world because these things are just running, you know, through the Internet. And that makes it super fun because, you know, it it happens in the real world. You're collecting some virtual items, you know, on the back. But, yeah, this happens in the real world. So I think it makes... Yeah. I I find it, like, I still find it really fun to to drive. You know, I don't drive it as often as I when I first started out. I've been to many cities that I would probably would never get a chance to go to. I remember the most memorable one I tried was, it was super hot one day in Singapore and then I was driving at this robot that we have in Sweden. Was snow everywhere, magical, it was so magical, but it's probably a very ordinary place like [00:12:33] S1: you
00:12:33 · Winnie, Michael Cho
[00:12:33] S1: you [00:12:33] S2: know the suites are probably just used to snow everywhere. I was like sweating in Singapore but it was. So that... Yeah. I think that aspect is And [00:12:44] S1: And how do people access it? Is it just kind of a platform, a portal, app, website? Walk us through what that looks like. [00:12:53] S2: Yeah, from the gamer perspective is right, just think of it like a cloud based game. Like you assess it on the browser, you don't need to download any app, just log in. Yep. And then just drive. So what you see is the front camera, the back camera. [00:13:09] S1: Yeah. That's [00:13:09] S2: awesome. Link it up with your game controller, you start driving. Yeah. [00:13:12] S1: And, like, how has the response been so far from, you know, the community and folks who have been kind of playing around with it and kind of helping you guys contribute and gather data?
00:13:24 · Michael Cho
[00:13:24] S2: Yeah. I would say there are few distinct... Very different different distinct groups there who are very interested in what we're building. So you have one group who are just gamers who who who just treat it like a pure game. I kind of think of it myself mostly falling into that group. You know? I... I'm wrestling with the... Because I really love the game. And then you have folks who are interested in the hardware. So these are the hardware makers who look at it as a as a as a hackable thing, you know, that that you can do. I can also say we're open sourcing the hardware very very very efficient. So so you have that group as well. And then you have the researchers. So researchers look at it as, again, like a very cheap, affordable data collection device that can be used to other data that they will then use to train the model. And so we have a lot of, I'll say, world class researchers doing urban application, like, you know, model building, that kind of thing, who are very involved on the platform. So you have these kind of different distinct groups. And, of course, you have the the top people who look at it as a potential deep in thing. Yeah. I mean, right now, we don't have the token as a lot live yet. So I I think it's it's quite interesting to to get all these different people getting involved for these different reasons and... But I I think it's it's... Yeah. It's it's quite cool. Maybe maybe, Amanda, you guys talk about about the Seesaw app as well. Think that one is quite cool as well. Very different from the Sour Robot.
00:14:49 · Amanda, Winnie
[00:14:49] S0: Yeah, definitely. So, Seesaw is focused on egocentric video and capturing this via iPhone. It's a subnet that was launched a month ago by Virtuals. And essentially, they've gotten like a ton of demand so far. I think almost 300,000 tasks have been submitted. And these are tasks like, you know, unload the dishwasher, fold laundry. So the response has been, really strong from the community. Who's submitting these tasks? So any anyone can download this iPhone app. So you just need an iPhone. So people around the world are some are submitting these tasks. [00:15:25] S1: And I guess, like, what is virtuals? I'm curious, like, their involvement in kind of helping launch a subnet. What is, like, kind of their thesis or their strategy there? I hadn't known they were doing this. That's very cool to hear. [00:15:37] S0: Yeah. So I think for... So FrodoBots Labs, which is essentially the development studio of BitRobot, started off as building the sidewalk robot game, which we call the subnet one EarthRover. And so so Michael and his team are creating a bunch of subnets and helping launch, other subnets within the ecosystem. But the idea here is like, we want to be bigger than just ourselves. Right? And so we want to attract ecosystem teams, either robotics startups and manufacturers, startups to also launch subnets. And so virtuals is one of those teams.
00:15:37 · Amanda, Winnie
[00:15:37] S0: Yeah. So I think for... So FrodoBots Labs, which is essentially the development studio of BitRobot, started off as building the sidewalk robot game, which we call the subnet one EarthRover. And so so Michael and his team are creating a bunch of subnets and helping launch, other subnets within the ecosystem. But the idea here is like, we want to be bigger than just ourselves. Right? And so we want to attract ecosystem teams, either robotics startups and manufacturers, startups to also launch subnets. And so virtuals is one of those teams. [00:16:15] S1: Love that. Cool. And I think for the past few years, I also read that you guys have been organizing this, Earth Rover challenge, which is a real world urban navigation competition with researchers from, like, Google DeepMind, Meta, and a lot of academia folks. Maybe tell us a little bit more about what that is, what led you to start this competition, and what have been some of the learnings and research and stuff to come out of it.