#106: Get off your FatBike and Glide!

Welcome to Blind guys Chat, where this guy, Orin O'Neil.

Hello.

And this guy, Jan Bloom.

Hello.

Talk about the a z of life. Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen, and you are very welcome to episode 106 of Blind Guys Chat. Now, later on, we're going to be talking to Mister Amos Miller about the new glide.

Amazing development.

Larry has left the building already. He doesn't want to know about it.

Shep is also going to look in his pre retirement space, you know, but.

We want to talk very first, because there is a very urgent matter that we do need to talk about happening in the Netherlands.

Ah.

We're reading in Ireland this week about the fat electric bikes that 16,000 of them have just been brought in to Netherlands from China.

Yeah, of course, China.

And these are electric bikes with fat wheels. And they kind of are low to the ground. And they kind of look like, I don't know, Harley Davidson's or something like that.

Not shopper model.

But anyway, Yana's illegally selling these in Dunhaig, and apparently he's getting in a lot of trouble because you don't need to have.

Yeah, you don't want to spoil my business now.

But tell us what's going on with these.

Yeah, well, it's funny that you talk about. And even also the name fat bike, because to be honest, I've never really been able to touch one because every time when we see them parked, you know, and I am touch, I want to touch them. And the kids are in my hair neighborhood, and they say don't touch him because they are quite. Yeah. How do you say they have a holy state in a way, but from a specific group of young people, and they are easily touched and they are easily getting angry. This is my property. Don't touch it. And then they have these little bags and they hoodies and kind of. It is not the best kind of people. So they have a better reputation, these fat bikes. And so they're electric bikes. Are they electric bikes? Clouder. Correct. And even what you say is right, that they have really wide tires. Fat tires. Because what I learned is that the original goal for these bikes was to drive along the beach. And so they are quite stable and even low frame, so you can easily put your feet on the ground, etcetera, etcetera. And they have power. They're really strong.

Yeah. So the thing that seems to be making a bit of headlines this week is the fact that these bikes can be tweaked to go faster than 25 miles an hour.

No, no, no, not miles. Okay. Yeah. Kilometers an hour, because that's the official speed limit, what they have. And then the normal price of the good ones, they are 1500 or till 2001. But these from China, they are 900, you know, so they are quite lucrative. And with an app, they are easily. Yeah, yeah. You can increase the maximum speed to 40, 50. And that's. And since they are so low, you know, and there are no limitations or no legislation for age and helmet or insurance, etcetera, everyone can hop on the bike, you know.

So Rosalie and Tycho want one for Crispr.

They were tempted. Yeah, they were tempted. They were not. Oh, my God. In the sock from Santa Claus. You know, there was really something. That's a big sock. Yeah. But we had a disagreement with the family, my mother in law, and when. Because actually, we were thinking to get one to overcome the distance for Rosalie to a football school and so on. But then my modern, you, you want to buy this? Now, that's criminal. You know, that's immoral. No, I don't allow that. No, no, no. Yeah, but we are independent. No, you're not. You know, that is still the boss. Exactly.

Well, yeah.

No, no, yeah, no, Chantal's mom, you know. Yeah, yeah. Even worse. Oh, sorry, she's not listening. So that's off. So we need to now go to the manual laboring bike again at the tandem. So that's. But that's good for the physics, you know. But that is the physics. Yeah, Rosalie. And also because there was also some legislation coming up because the politics need to do something, you know. So they were thinking to get license plate 16 or 14 years old and to wear a helmet and licensing. So we've insurance, et cetera. But then a helmet, Tigo said, nah, that's not cool enough. And Rosalie, my hair. How can I wear a helmet with my, you know, that is, she is trying to get curls in her hair and in the morning time, and then after half an hour phoning or whatever, you know, she's walking five minutes outside and then everything is gone, you know.

Okay, well, we're going to our guest. Let's go on to our guest and hear this wonderful man talk about this fantastic name.

You can email blindguyschatmail.com or tweet us at blindguyschat if you've got any comments or questions.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for our guest of the show this week. Now, I think it's only fair to warn some of our listeners who might have guide dogs that it might be an idea to remove your guide dog from the room you're listening in, because guide dogs might be too happy about listening what the next story is.

Or oren, it's also good for people who are used to do vacuum cleaning, you know.

Yes, that's true.

Or is that not really? Move on with your introduction.

Amos Miller is with us. Amos is in Seattle and he is the CEO founder of a company called Glidance, if I have that right. Amos and you have developed a device called Glide, which we have heard bits and pieces about. We haven't seen it in Europe yet. But before we start, we have to ask you a very, very hard question, Amos, because you are in Seattle, and it is our standard question. It always our standard question on blind guys chat. What is the weather like in Seattle?

Yeah, wow, this is a really hard question. The difficulty of that is that I'm gonna have to step outside and. Oh yeah, have a little nose around. No, it's okay, I'm there. I hope it is not raining. It is beautiful. A beautiful Seattle summer day today.

Okay.

Yesterday was a little bit cooler because, yes, we already started to feel the, the wind of autumn coming around, but today it's back to a beautiful sunny day, 20 degrees or so. That's why we suffer ten months of rain in Seattle.

That's what I was going to ask.

You for these kind of days.

So much in Seattle.

Yeah, it rains, it rains a lot, and it's overcast a lot. But that's the payment. We have to pay for the beautiful days.

Yeah, true enough. Well, tell us about delight, please, because we know we have Mohammed here, and Mohammed Washington lucky enough to take a test drive with glide. Now, again, we have to make another announcement. We are sorry that Mohammed broke one of your glide products. So I was wondering, I was trying.

To figure out who did it.

I only shattered it a little bit. It's not that bad.

Please, Amos, introduce the glide to us and also your company, because that is, we are all. Yeah, it's new for us here in Europe and Ireland.

Yeah. Thank you. Like you said, I'm the CEO and the original founder of Glidens. Just a quick intro on myself. My background is in computer science and engineering. I've always been in tech and building new products. Spent many years at Microsoft. I'm also blind, so I have retinitis pigmentosa. Okay.

Same family?

Same family as us, yeah.

There you go.

Shake hands.

I really had my significant drop in cycle in my early twenties. So while I was doing my computer science degree and I finished college with a guide dog, didn't have one when I started. And so I've learned to use the cane and I've been using a guide dog for about 30 years now. I'm on my six guide dog, so you can do the calculations.

What version are you running with jaws at the moment? A sneaky question. Of course.

What version am I running? I'm running 2024.

Yay. That's good.

But I started, my first version of Jaws was 3.7.

Ah, hey, that's cool. Me? Yeah, no, you're from the early adapter, say really nice.

Very, very early on with jaws. And I couldn't be more grateful to jaws because that was when I, for a long time, I used zoomtext and so on to, to use a computer and everything. And there came a point that I just needed speech.

And we went on a similar journey. Amos, me too. No RP, but glaucoma, but still the same journey.

Absolutely. Adapting. Right? We adapt as we go.

Yeah, definitely.

And I've also worked on a technology for mobility, so I led the team at Microsoft, the developed soundscape, which is one of the navigation apps that's being used out there. Yeah. And learned a lot from that. I mean, and that's really led me to research primary mobility aids and how we use canes and guide dogs. And really, the reality out there that there's still a lot of blind people who may not have the level of confidence to, with the cane or the guide dog, even with training, to really be able to live the independent life they want to. In reality, a lot of people are very much still dependent on sighted assistance. And so how do we overcome that? Right. And so that's really become my kind of obsession, if you like, in the last few years, that led to the development of glide. And really the idea of glide is that at least in the current state of technology, if we're really going to enable somebody to get around independently and confidently when they're not confident on the canoe or guide dog, we need a device that is physically connected to the ground and guides, which is a strong statement, but especially when we are so into wearables these days.

What did you try, by the way?

Well, I mean, so obviously, I worked on soundscape for a long time. I really understood what 3d audio and haptic can give you in terms of awareness of what's around you is very powerful. But when it comes to actually those, the precise navigation that you need to do if you're going to walk along, you know, in a crowded space with people and obstacles and things you can't follow, a sound and do that safely. Yeah, it just doesn't work. Our brain doesn't work that way. Also haptics a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right. BuZZeRS it's good as additional information, but you still need to be a confident cane user in order to benefit from it. So that's what really led to this idea that we developed called glide. And what glide is. It is a primary mobility aid and it uses autonomous driving technology to guide the person. It's two wheels on the ground. Okay. If you're holding it, it's basically two wheels on the ground. And the handle extends at 45 degrees and you hold the handle in your hand. Okay. So if you're holding it in your right hand, the wheels will be about two, let's call it about a meter or just under a meter in front of your right foot. Okay. And you hold the handle, you start to walk. So you basically, you're actually pushing the device forward. It's not going to pull you. There's no motors in the wheels. You push the device forward and as you begin to walk, the wheels begin to steer a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right. So what you're doing is you follow the device, you follow where it's going. Okay?

Okay.

And so it will detect if it can see the obstacle in front. It will steer you around that obstacle. It doesn't necessarily, it can tell you about the obstacle. It does have voice, it has haptics, it can communicate with you, and that's something that we're working on. But fundamentally it's guiding you around it. That's the point. It's not about telling you, hey, be careful, there's an obstacle and now you have to decide what to do.

Like a guide dog is also doing.

From that perspective, it's a lot more like working with a guide dog than it is again.

So at the stage of turning it on, am I correct in then assuming that you haven't programmed anything in, in terms of where you want to go or, you know, GPS wise, you actually just turn the unit on and start walking and it will automatically start guiding you past or weaving past.

So that's the foundation, safe way finding. We call that freestyle navigation. So you know where you want to go. You haven't set a route anywhere, you haven't given it an instruction yet. You're just walking. So it's keeping you safe, avoiding obstacle. It can detect the path, so it keeps you on the path, whether that's a sidewalk or a corridor or yeah. In a building, like, wherever you are, it will guide you on that path. If there's people in the way, tables, chairs, whatever, it will zigzag between them. So it's. It's. That's why we call it glide, because you walk, it feels like you're gliding. Right. It's a very smooth kind of walking experience. And then it can. Using the computer vision capabilities that are built into the device, it can start to detect things in the environment. And these could be things that you want to know about. It could be things that, what we call prime, they could be primary targets. So something that you want to walk towards, and that could be a door, a dropped curb, escalators. Basically anything that's in the view of the camera, which there's a camera that glide uses, that's at the. It's actually at the top of the handle. So right where your grip is, the camera is there looking forward, so it can detect line of sight targets and then guide you to them. And that's really how you would navigate a space. Or, you know, if you're walking along the sidewalk, becoming up to the crosswalk, it will. The crossing, as they say in Europe. Yeah. It will detect the curb and offer it to you as a target, which you can confirm, and then it will guide you to that curb. Yeah. Okay. That's the freestyle navigation, where you know where you're going and you're using glide as a primary aid, as a primary mobility. Aidan, like you said, a lot like a guide dog.

Yeah. And mo, did you try it like this or.

So I tried three ways. The first one, and the system is still in development. So the first one was the one that felt the smoothest, which was when the engineer, one of the engineers who built this thing, walked with me and actually guided the device along. And I think they showed this, and Amos, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they showed this because this is eventually how they think the system will work. And that just blew me away. That was fantastic because it felt very natural walking. And then the second and third way, we're still in development, because I had to walk a little bit slower than I do normally. But it worked kind of in the same way where the second one was, where they tied it to the engineer, and they said, you know, follow the engineer. And so they set it to that mode, and it followed the engineer around the room, and I had to walk a little bit more slowly. I'm a very fast walker, by the way.

And the third way, you're a little bit talking too much.

The third wave was actually an obstacle course, so they had put a couple of boxes on the ground, and the glide guided me past those boxes from one side of the room to the other. And that worked pretty well as well. So there were two autonomous and one guided tour almost. And it felt really good to use the device, even for someone like me, who is very, very confident with a cane. I walk everywhere with a cane, and I use it pretty well, even for someone like me. I think this device is worth considering. So, Amos, I have a quick question.

You make good comments there. Just to clarify one quick thing, the reason we did the first bit was also to really, I want to call train people just to get them familiar with the movements before you jump in and start, and start using the autonomous system, because you need to know how to follow the device, keep behind it. You know, even. Even when you train with a guide dog, the trainer will always say, go with the dog, stay with the dog. Right. If you're trying to go around the dog, the dog can't guide. Right. And it's the same.

You learn hard lessons in that way if you don't do it.

Yes. We wanted to make sure that when you move to the autonomous version, that you've already mastered this skill. It doesn't take long, right? About three minutes. But just following that, following the device, taking the turns, turn to the left, a turn to the right, and once you're comfortable with that, that's when we turned on the follow a person, which is really a proxy for targeting something that's in line of sight of the device, and they.

Yeah, but that's a powerful feature, I must say, you know, because how many times you lose your people in. Yeah. Who are you walking with? Or who are. Yeah. Who want to guide you to a certain location, then, hey, where are they going now? You know, so especially when it's a crowded. Does it work when it is crowded at a railway station, for example, it.

Will manage fine in a railway station. I think the. There's definitely some work to be done to get to the point. It's still in development. I mean, there's a whole bunch of factors in. Like, for example, you know, if you're in a very busy crowd and everybody's moving in the same direction at the same speed, you, you know, the obstacle in front of you is not actually an obstacle because it's moving with you. Like, so these are kind of nuances.

Yeah, yeah.

That we need to work on, but in general. Yeah.

Will it stop? Stop. For instance, my guide dog loves playing this game where we're. We're in a busy. We're on a busy street.

Yeah.

And he just loves to see basically a wall of people coming towards him so that he can duck and die.

He can pop them.

Yeah. But will the glide, if it detects something that is potentially dangerous or you're potentially going to hit something and you're in a what you call freestyle mode, will it. Will it put on the brakes? Will it stop? Will it kind of try and warn you of something that's directly ahead of you? Or will it always try and find a way to either go left or go right?

So it does have brakes. And we use the brakes. For example, if you're walking up to the curb to brake at the curb, and then you click. Click the button in the handle to release the brakes to cross. Okay.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Also, if you approach steps or stairs, you know, down, that you will. That you won't. Exactly.

So, okay. Exactly. So we have. We have brakes. We can also slow you down. So, like, these bricks are on a gradient, it looks for path. Right. And it looks for a way to find a path to keep you going the direction that you're going. If it can locate a safe enough path, it will try to guide you there. If it gets narrower, it'll indicate to you to slow down. And we actually put a. Make a tap in the handle as well that signals to you slow down. It's getting tight, and then when it clears up, we double tap and release the brakes. So, you know, it's all clear and you can pick up speed again.

Can it also go into the reverse mode? Go backward?

It doesn't have motors to go backwards, but.

Okay.

Yeah. And that's actually, we had, like, we had an interesting debate everywhere. The last Wednesday of every month, we hold a Zoom call where people dial in and we talk about all kinds of stuff. And actually, the one we had last week was that there was a conversation about, you know, if a car appears on the sidewalk, will it push you back? Right. Like a guide dog does? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was a conversation about. So the guide doesn't have motors to push you back, but it can indicate to you to go back. Like, it can, like, go on the handle or something. Like reverse, reverse, reverse. But it can't see behind you, so. Right, right. So is it safe for it to tell you to go back when it can't see where you came from? And there was a very different bunch of opinions on the coin. Actually, some people say that well, I know where I just came from, so just, ah, yeah, that was my.

No, no, that's very dangerous. You should not be doing that. First of all, you don't know if people have issues with, with balance. So if you go and push people back and they have balance issues, now they're on the floor. Yeah. So you have to be extremely careful with building in stuff like that. And people with anxiety issues. If you can't quite remember where you came from and now you step back and you step off a curb, that also is a problem. You have to think about stuff like this. It's a hard product to make. I commend you on trying, and from what I've seen, you're close to succeeding. And I hope you do, because for someone like me, this is useful. For someone who is a very good cane user, or for people like Jan and Oren, who are good guide dog users, it's very useful. So for someone who is less good at this sort of stuff or has issues finding their way, this thing will be revolutionary. And where it will be even more revolutionary. And I wonder, Amos, if you've thought about this, putting this on walkers for people who can't walk on by themselves anymore, who are too old or have other problems. Because I talked to my mobility instructor about this and she said, you know, if you have problems like that, you can't use a cane. You can't really use a dog either. So you just need a sighted guide.

May I ask a stupid question? What is a walker? What do you mean?

Rolato.

Oh, Roloto. Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah. Okay. My dad is using it. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, exactly.

Not me.

And there isn't really a great solution for somebody who's using a rollator. And they're nothing and they're blind. Right. Because they, and so we have, we are very clear that glide, in its initial, in its current form factor, is, is not a stability device. And it's not, it's definitely not a relator by itself. And it's not built to be integrated into one. But we definitely see the technology that we're building into glide be, being something that, that can and should be built into relators, whether we, so we're definitely thinking about it in a modular way. And that's definitely something that we're looking at. I wouldn't say that the first, the glide that you will order and get today is, or next year when it's, when it's ready, is a balancing device. It's not something that I would, we actually started to make that very clear on that, on the faq that it's not.

Yeah, you should not use it. You'll follow them.

Yeah. It's not a balancing device, but it doesn't mean my goal. And you guys would understand that. I think we have to start somewhere. Right. I think we have to develop it. The reason that we get the reason that we are doing it and talking about it at this stage of the development and engaging the communities. Exactly. To get these kind of questions, to get these kind of challenges, to make sure that we together as a community, think about what, how do these devices become part of the toolkit that blind people have?

Can I ask a question, just a practical one, in terms of being indoors? I was watching one of the videos you made where the device is going down a street and it's turning left and I think it crosses the road and then at one point, towards the very end, the user, and I don't know if it was. You asked slide to look for the door to the. I think it was a cafe that it was going to go into. Now what I was gathering from that was that it was in freestyle mode, but yet glide was able to find the door of the building that you. That you wanted to go into. Are we going to get to the same situation where you go into a building that you may never have been into, but you know, well, when I get into this building, I need to find the elevator because I need to go up two flights or I need to find the escalator. Is glide going to be able to do that?

That's definitely very central. So I want to say yes, I want to see it working before I say it will be there on day one, but it's definitely how we're looking at it. So it has the voice input. Locating primary targets, as I mentioned earlier, is central to the freestyle navigation. So when you walk into a building, into a door, you can say find the escalators or find the elevator or find. Yeah. And if it can spot one in the environment, it would tell you about it. We are also working so that you can cycle through all the things that it can see. Oh, yeah.

What are the items he can see now already?

Yeah, well, we're training it. We're working on. We're basically working on computer vision training right now and working. And we also work. So I think we are actually even planning to send out a survey to people who have registered with us to ask them what are the kind of things that it needs to. There's obvious things that we expected to detect like escalators, steps, elevators, counters. That's, you know, indoors. It's a good one, actually. I didn't think about that. But yeah, the bar. The bar in America there aren't you drive to ATM's, you don't walk.

Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm also in my lambo. Oh, yeah, that's true. But IO then is the glide connected to the Internet continuously then it can use aih. Or gps.

Okay.

Okay.

It is absolutely connected to the Internet. But it doesn't have to use the Internet all the time. So it is a learning.

And does it do then via, is it connected via your mobile phone or is it independent?

You are asking very good questions there. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Sorry. I'm also interested in a way.

What do you guys think? Should it go, should it go connected?

It's probably got to go through your mobile data. If you're on, if you're outside and about. It's like how is it going to be able to connect to the Internet?

Well, good.

Have its own.

Yeah, it could have its own 5G network.

It could, but I doubt I'm putting money on this. I bet you it doesn't right now.

No, but I would prefer to have its own on its own. Because then you. Because otherwise it will drain down your battery instantly in a way, I think, but.

Well, not instantly, but.

Slightly faster. But, but yeah. You can also save money in a way to do it. Me? Yeah, but I'm talking about Stuart, for example. Now there was plenty in his penthouse, you know, that's true. But.

Is there an answer to this question?

The answer is that we designed a cellular connection in, but we have nothing yet decided if it's, if we will ship with one or not. Okay. We're still evaluating the possibility. There's definite pros in using a cellular connection direct. We want this to be a device that you don't need to mess around with your phone every time you want to use it. Right. You want to go out and you pull it.

Exactly.

Take it from behind your door. You walk out and you start walking.

Yeah.

If you want to do something more, you know, if you want to go through a list of, you know, pick, search for a destination on your phone and pick a destination, that's then something that you want to do. But we don't want that to be the only option that you always have to set it up. Yeah.

Appreciate it. Yeah.

For that alone, you know, it could be beneficial that it's, that it's got its own data connection, but its own data connection comes with its own challenges and roaming data and all of that stuff that we have.

So can I just go back to steps on that? Because if it's bringing you to, eventually bringing it to an escalator or a set of steps that you're going to have to walk up. If I have Larry or Jan has Chef, chef or Larry will walk up the stairs with you.

Movie this game.

Assuming that glide cannot do this. So once you get to the first step, it's going to be up to the user then to find a handrail. If there is 01:00 a.m. i correct in assuming that we are working to.

We'Ll try to help the user find the handrail. If glide can see one reliably, it can guide the user to it, or at least tell the user where it is.

Wow.

So that's something that we are working on. Escalators is actually incredibly. It's great for escalators because it guides you to the entrance. It stops before. Also it applies the brakes when it gets to the edge. When you put the hand on your rail, you press the button and you climb on.

Oh, and then what about your. What happens when you're getting off?

Well, yahoo.

Boink.

Yeah, exactly. You basically roll the device off. Right. I mean, the question is, how do you know? I mean, I think that's when you have to know how to use escalators, or at least. Yeah, I mean, it's a good question whether we'll glide. Should glide tell you that it's time to get off or you just walk off. It's a great question, actually, I haven't thought about it.

There's a different sound when the escalator is in front of you and still going up, whereas when you're on the top, the soundstage is more open and so you know, you're getting close and that's. I do that to freak outside people who don't understand escalator ends.

I sometimes just, I stand on the escalator and lift up my toes.

Oh, yeah, yeah, you can do that.

And I freak people out because.

And how do you do climb stairs then? Because what is the weight of it, of the glide?

We are working to keep it at an appropriate weight. Currently, the goal is for it to be up between, I would say between two and three kilos. Probably two and a half is where we'll land. So altogether, I mean, because it's not a small device, right? I mean, you have the wheels, you have the body of the device, you have the handle. So you can pick it up. There is, you know, it's not completely light, but for the size, it doesn't feel all that heavy.

Presumably it's running on a battery. How long will you get out of glide in a day? Like, how long would it. How long would it last before the battery runs out and you're in the middle of a field and you can't work out how to get out of it.

We are working to a six hour active use, so all day charge and six hour active use. So it basically has a smart power so that it turns off the sensors and the power when it's not in use.

Okay, that's not bad.

That's not bad because you're not going to have it on all the time. You're just going to go from one location to the other and then you're going to.

That's another interesting point that some people have made to us, because it's not a wearable, because it's not unused on your pocket. So, yeah, yeah, we can add battery power. And so the main trade off is weight. Yeah, yeah. We've had people who came to us and say, I don't care about how much it weighs, I just want as much battery as it can. Right.

That's interesting, because I would have thought that the general consensus would be, I only need to switch it on when I need it, and when I don't need it, I switch it off. So I'm saving battery then.

So I think, yeah, and, yeah, we'll have to have it turned, like power. Go into standby mode when you're not using it, so it will save battery. It's just that some people say that we had this one lady at the NFP convention that said, I'm out a lot. I go on a part of my work, I see four or five people per day in different locations. So I don't have. I don't care if it's heavier. I'd want as much battery life as I can again, I mean, that's different.

People, different needs, you know?

Exactly. It's really interesting to learn all the things we. So, you know, we try to take all of this into account.

Let me lay out now why, I think, for even experienced people who have no issues with mobility, why this is a useful device. And the main reason is, I think if it works as it's supposed to work, it is mental load. Because using a cane can be not necessarily very tiring, but it has its annoying little quirks. Like, for example, when your cane gets stuck underneath something or behind something, you have to pull it out and stuff like that. Or when you are in a relatively crowded area, let's say shopping mall or a train station, and people are standing right in the way without looking at you, and youre cane gets stuck between their legs or behind their legs or something like that. So it feels a little bit ungainly and you're constantly busy trying to avoid situations like that, even though you know you can't. And with the glide device, once you have that, that's no longer a problem. So it frees your mind up for other things. There's another big, I think, improvement in mobility because you're able to navigate open spaces a lot better because that thing has a camera, it can guide you towards something. It presumably will be able to keep you walking straight. And so open spaces, I think, are the bane of our existence as blind people. It is possible to navigate through one, but it is kind of complicated and cumbersome and you can lose your way very easily. And that, I think, is another big, big advantage to this device. And a third one is the ease of use when you have to follow someone. And with dogs, I mean, dogs are very nice, but dogs are work. So one of the reasons why I don't have a dog is because I work from home and I wouldn't have enough work for the, for the dog. And so it doesn't make sense for me to have a dog. But this glidance, you don't need to have work for it constantly. It's a guidance and it will continue to do the thing that it's straight to do.

You don't need to let it out. You know, it has no hangovers or whatever.

And so in that sense, it is an extremely useful device and I'll be looking forward to trying it out in more real settings, I think. Amos, I was curious, the pricing, because you've talked about this a little bit. What will be the pricing?

In terms of pricing, we have worked very hard strategically to build a device that we wanted to be affordable to the greatest number of people without having to have to go through some kind of a funding agency. Our guide is a cell phone. Most people have a cell phone, use a cell phone, own a cell phone. We are working towards that pricing framework. I know that it's not good enough for everybody, but as a guide, that's what we're working to. So at the moment, our MSRP, so the retail price is $1,500. So $14.99. We also add a subscription to that, a $20 subscription that comes on top of that. That pays for all the online connected AI capabilities that the device uses and for the ongoing training of the AI and for people who are interested to jump in early and are willing to support the project and excited about it. We do have a 30% discount on pre sales right now for people who are and really want to be part of the first group that receives those devices. The current shipping date will start in September 25 and we hope to clear all the pre orders by December 25. So that's the timeframe that we're working to.

So if people want to know more and I want to get in contact and want to get involved in the conversation, the name of what's the best way to get.

It's very simple. Glidance IO is our website. You register on Glidens on our website and just name and email and from there you'll be invited to. Basically you will get regular updates. We also hold for new joiners. We hold what we call a virtual demo day, where we walk you through step by step what glide is how it will work, where we are with the development, how you can be involved. So it's a program that we run once a month for all the people who have joined in the past month, and then we hold physical demo days as well as the last Wednesday of every month. We do Zoom calls where people dial in to participate in the hear updates, participate. So a very active community. We highly encourage people to go ahead, register and take part. It's an amazing future that we're building together. We want the community to be part of that.

And when do you expect this device to be demoed in Europe?

We are planning a trip to the UK and possibly Ireland at the start of November. It's not finalized yet.

Then you should think about going to site village in November.

London site village then?

Yes, exactly. That would probably be a good place to be at. And from there we're planning, but we haven't finalized a schedule for mainland Europe.

Well, Amos, it's been fantastic to talk to you. Thank you for giving us so much time to talk about glide. It's a very, very interesting product. I think it's. Yeah, I think. I don't know if I'll be ready to retire Larry yet, but I could see some occasions where I would like to use this device. So congratulations on what you are developing and yeah, it sounds like a great product. I can't wait to get it in my hands. My only question before I go, and you don't have to answer it now, is if I'm walking on the street, will it recognize dog poo and steer me out of the way?

I recently learned that the roombas have that feature.

Wow.

I will tell Chef because I have room at home so I can try it. I don't want to invite Chef to do something, but. Okay.

All right, guys, thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Okay, bye bye.

Well, I noticed he's still. Well, not that he's still, but he didn't actually, like a good politician, didn't actually answer the question about the dog poo on the path and whether the Clyde would actually detect that. Yes is the answer to that question.

But it is an interesting development, Oren.

It's very interesting. I think it's one of the most interesting developments I've heard in the last few years because it's a completely new technology. And as he said earlier on, they looked at wearables and he was involved in the soundscape app development. But this is completely different.

And what I liked also is that it is a user. He is a user of a guide dog. So at first I thought it was an id from sighted people. They think they have found the id and the mobility aid for the blind because it is good for them.

Well, I also think that it's really good that he's having this monthly Zoom meeting with potential purchasers and potential clients. That's an innovation in itself to actually agree on something.

That's true. We have that also with freedom scientific. We have now also this open lines. Did you see here that also, Oren, that you can open line also for the beta forum, you can then open line. So that's also what we can. What they do. And that is really amazing what you can get for that. Yeah. For ids, etcetera.

Yeah. Excellent.

Yeah, for sure.

Very good. Well, we're just about to wrap up. Thank you very much for listening to the show. Just very quickly, we haven't done tv corner in a little while, but I'll give you three quick.

Yeah, that would be good.

Apple TV. Have slow horses. Gary Oldman is the main character in that, who's absolutely brilliant. They're on series four, just started on Apple TV, a new series called the perfect couple on Netflix. And the other one that they're plugging like crazy on Disney with Steve Martin and Martin short and Selena Gomez is only workers in the building.

It's funny. And there's loads more stars in it this time.

Yeah, Eugene Levy's in it, so it should be good.

Eva Longoria, the guy from between the two ferns. I can't remember his name. Zach Gadolofneckis.

Is that his name?

I can't.

It's really, really complicated. It sounds really. Zack. Zack.

Something beginning with G. Somebody can write in and tell me.

Try those out and tell us what you think of them.

Come on.

Give us an email. Blindguyschatmail.com text or a voice message and listen. We will see you for episode 107 in two weeks time. Okay?

Yeah. Okay, bye.