Episode 6 | Spatial Computing with Twin Matrix Technologies | Apple Vison Pro
Jay (00:01.39) Hi guys, welcome back to the TBH podcast. I'm your host Jay. Today we have a very special guest for you guys. We have Eric Liu, founder and CEO of Twin Matrix Technologies, a company kind of bridging the gap between web two and web three. So welcome Eric, really glad to have you here.
Eric Liu (TMT) (00:23.864) Thank you so much. So excited to be here. Thanks, Jay. Jay (00:26.894) Yeah, glad to have you here. Eric, can you start by telling us what is Twin Matrix and what are you guys trying to do? Eric Liu (TMT) (00:37.816) Sure.
So Twin Matrix, we do spatial digital twins. So what does that mean? So we digitize physical places so that it's not just a completely random virtual world. We create the virtual world that's tied to the physical location. So whether that's, for example, a zoo, a theme park, or even airports and critical infrastructure, that's really what we do in terms of the digital infrastructure to lay the foundations so that not only when it comes to operations for the physical place to have a better impact or more efficiency, but at the same time, we also allow consumers to experience in that as well. Jay (01:18.156) Okay, can you give us an example of like a
practical use case for something, whether that's a zoo or an airport or anything? Eric Liu (TMT) (01:26.232) Yeah, yeah, for sure. So one of our largest customers right now, it's actually in Singapore. It's called Changi Airport. So actually one of the top airports in the world.
And what's unique about that is that we created a whole digital infrastructure that includes mapping all of their terminals, as well as this major shopping center called Jewel. And when we actually map that to make sure that it's always the single source of truth. So that means it's always updated. So let's say. a new like Nike or Apple or some store comes in that changes in the physical world, it gets updated digitally as soon as possible. And as soon as it happens, not only does it allow the consumers to actually go, you know, take wayfinding, for example, trying to figure out where exactly that store is involved, we've always been in those shopping centers where you look at those maps.
But the biggest problem is that if it's not updated, then it's pretty much useless. So at the same time, as you're navigating, as you're trying to find the latest Nike store, for example, as you're walking towards that direction, you have your phone up, or very soon, you see in the background over here an Apple Vision Pro, anything that we wear on our faces, because the whole world of spatial computing is coming to life. And as soon as you're walking through that physical environment, you can see all sorts of different overlays. So for example, if.
You like shoes, for example, or maybe the latest shoe NFT drop that Nike or Adidas or somebody else is working with, and you're actually navigating to the store. There could be certain things set up within that shopping center that you can physically see the digital overlays of these drops. So it could be coupons, it could be NFTs, it could be really anything that incentivizes you to sort of walk around the physical world and to interact with it or even walk into it. to put it in your wallet. Jay (03:17.577) Okay, that kind of sounds like Pokemon Go
in the real world, a bit of augmented reality. Eric Liu (TMT) (03:23.832) Absolutely. And that's really the key thing that we're building right now, because without the digital infrastructure set up so that it can always mimic the real world, then it's really hard to say, you know what, we want to actually be absorbed in this virtual world. So if it's never updated or if it's not updated enough, then that's always problematic. Jay (03:44.039) Okay, okay. I was actually in that Singapore airport about one month ago and yeah, it's really big airport, easy to get lost.
Yeah, so there's obviously huge value if you have something in the digital world that's a live view that's always up to date of something in the physical world. But obviously that's a very tough challenge to accomplish, right? If I think of a parallel, Eric Liu (TMT) (03:54.104) Yes. Jay (04:13.799) maybe like self -driving cars, right? Like mapping all of the roads and the street signs, right? Or like Google Street View. That's like obviously a very tough challenge to bring that all from the physical world into the digital world.
How are you guys tackling that? Eric Liu (TMT) (04:31.512) Now that's a great question, Jay. So one of the key things with those major automotive companies is that they have to invest a lot of time and effort to actually have those cars or maybe a street team to go out and scan and keep it up to date. So what we've created is actually a whole platform that allows the airport or the actual physical operations teams to keep it updated. Because at the end of the day, we think about user generated content, right? And that's really the key thing.
If the airport's operating and it is, And they have all these different departments that are constantly updating the physical world, whether it's fixing a smart toilet or a smart bin or something like that. Why shouldn't they also update the digital version? So we created a lot of very easy to use tools so that they can literally just on their phone, just tap, tap, tap, and they keep it up to date. So we empower the entire airport or the zoo or the theme park to keep it up to date. And that also incentivizes them to keep it up to date as much as possible. So that's why we are starting to democratize a lot of the ways that a digital twin or spatial twin gets maintained.
Jay (05:39.75) Okay, can you walk us through maybe how the workflow or how it will look like from kind of the airport's point of view in terms of keeping things up to date? Like, yeah. Eric Liu (TMT) (05:51.768) Sure, so for example, let's say there's in the terminals, there's an oil spill or something, right? Why is you're walking? So a lot of the key things when it comes to digital technologies is that you see a lot of the robots going around. The biggest problem is that those robots don't actually know that there's an oil spill until they get very close to it. And sometimes they don't even know either.
So we created a platform that every single digital system links to and says, you know what, let's say, Let's say the facilities manager says, Hey, there's a, there's an oil spill or some type of issue in terminal two. And then they just mark it on a map, literally just geo fence. It's called geo fencing. And they say, don't go here.
Every other digital system that I reached from this platform will actually know and not to go there. So that's blocked off, including all of the robotics. So we've created something where it's, we call it a central or a single source of truth for all of the different digital departments, because.
As we know, this is the year of the robots. And with AI and all these crazy things coming down the board, it's just going to have an increasing number of robots to understand the physical world. And how do they actually know where to go or what the latest information is outside of their own purview? So that's why this is something where I think it's going to be game changing in terms of the digital infrastructure, the first type of digital infrastructure. that the companies and organizations maintain themselves.
And at the same time, the other thing that can impact a lot of consumers is that as we are still going out to the physical world, we still want to actually empower ourselves and collect things, right? We want to, from a Web3 perspective, how do we make it more enticing so that it's not just a Pokemon Go. It could be any type of Web3 technology or intellectual property. that is also tied to the real world as well as the brands themselves. Jay (07:50.82) And in terms of, I guess, updating the digital replica of what's in the physical world, do you foresee the consumers or the individual users contributing to that in the way that people on Waze, they would report, oh, there's a speed trap here. Eric Liu (TMT) (08:14.136) Absolutely.
Yeah. That was one of the original ideas that we had actually, because we worked a lot with smart cities. And the biggest problem with the smart city is that or any any city to begin with is that us as citizens, we feel like we're not really getting our tax dollars worth, right? It's just like, oh, why is there always a pothole over here? I'm driving over it. Or there's other issues. So now there's a there's a whole feedback loop, so that you can literally just use your phones, take a snapshot and say, hey, this is a problem sort of like Reddit.
in a way where you say, oh, there's so many problems, but it's finally focused on a specific area in the world. So now you can give that feedback loop back to the government and say, hey, you got to fix this or else, you know, there's hundreds of people that are reporting the same thing. So in order to actually have that loop, that digital system and digital infrastructure must be set up from a mapping perspective. And that's really what we've done. Jay (09:10.692) OK, awesome, awesome. That makes a ton of sense.
And as you've described it so far, it kind of sounds like you guys are just a tech company. So where do you see Web3 coming into the vision? Because when I hear you talk about it, just having this digital replica of something in the physical world is just valuable just on its own. So where do you see the synergies with Web3 in particular? Eric Liu (TMT) (09:41.56) I see it in many different ways. So for example, even here in Singapore, one of the biggest things is that as you're trying to go outside, right, let's take Pokemon Go as a huge example, because everybody understands that. Let's say that the country of Singapore wants to start putting in different locations of tourism spots. So whether that's a museum or whether, let's say this past Easter weekend, let's say, you know, there are digital Easter bunny was, spotted somewhere on the East Coast.
So a lot of the different ways to gamify things from a Web3 perspective. And by the way, my background also comes from gaming. If you heard of this game called Diablo, yeah, so I worked with the creators of Diablo. And another reason why I see a lot of the uniqueness of gamification can be done in the real world. So I also incentivize and have different types of gamified experiences and maybe even, you know, loot drops all over the country or city. So anyway, going back to that, how do we actually sort of bridge the web three? So once you actually have a living, breathing digital version that's always maintained, so it could be just a, we start small, it could be a little park where there's a lot of different digital activities going on that synchronize the physical world.
As soon as you're there, right, it could be the Easter bunny, it could be whoever. Let's say you start collecting things and it could be like I said NFTs because if you think about it in an FT Just a unique drop right from a from a Diablo type of way right the loot and all the loot is randomized so any type of NFT drop or any type of randomization can be directly tied to your personal wallet and let's say it could be a very rare or legendary version Well, that's something where everybody wants and it could be very hard to find So then you go on sort of an Easter hunt, an egg hunt, so to speak, to find that legendary loot. So I think that's one way to incentivize people to also interact with the physical world when it comes to Web3. But at the same time, I think the key thing and another reason why we're working with TBH is that how do we not only incentivize them when it comes to entertainment, but how do we see the sort of the pulling of sort of the Web2 money to Web3? Eric Liu (TMT) (12:02.924) Because that's always been sort of a problem.
So I think one of the key things is that what about digital real estate? So if you think about it, let's say you walk to a certain location, you have your own home that you're living in. If you digitize it and becomes sort of an NFT or becomes sort of a blockchained digital version, that in itself can be very valuable. And if let's say commercial real estate companies can start taking advantage of that and not only. tying the physical and the digital together, right? Just like how usually a lot of brands are starting to say, hey, I'll sell you this shoe, but else you get an empty.
So we tie that together. You get the digital version. But the digital version can actually be larger, so in the metaverse, right? So this is, or it could be directly accessible on your phone or the web. So you could sort of rotate around and say, hey, this is my smart apartment. It's cool that it's tied to the physical world.
But then, Here's another room that doesn't exist in the physical world. And this is where people will start putting some money in and say, you know what? This is prime real estate. This is, I don't know, this is the downtown area. I want to have a little bit more of this because in the physical world, everything's limited. But of course, in the digital one, it's not. Jay (13:19.165) That's really cool.
That's really cool. Can you expand a bit on your partnership with the binary holdings and where you see the synergies and the future vision in that? Eric Liu (TMT) (13:35.16) Sure, I think TBH is incredible and what they're doing is going to be game changing. And that's one of the reasons why we decided to also partner with them. They're also a major investor in our company because they see the long -term benefits of what we're doing.
Because everything, what we're trying to do from a TBH perspective is really the true digital ecosystem. Because an ecosystem means that it's not just NFTs, it's not just tokens. It needs to be the whole shebang, the whole nine yard. It needs to be fully ecosystem and encompassing.
And that's really the key thing where they see us as a huge value add, because we're starting to digitize many different places in the world, working with, like I mentioned earlier, with airports, with physical buildings, with zoos and theme parks. And once that actually is already operational, then... DBH can actually empower a lot of the other ecosystem partners from within their space to say, hey, what about some type of other benefit? It could be, let's say, it could be the exact token to be utilized in the ecosystem. Or it could be another value adder, for example, credit systems of that specific enterprise. So it's just like when I think of Apple. One of the key things is that once you buy something, right, if you buy an iPhone, it's great.
You know, it can work independently by itself, but it's more powerful with the different services. And because all of a sudden, then you have an Apple watch, then you have the AirPods, then you have all of these things that are connected. Everything is just easier to use and just feels greater. So that's why we see a large partnership and long -term potential working with TBH moving forward because of all the other, all the other.
companies that they're investing in as well as working together with. So again, that whole ecosystem is going to be critical to the success of a true Web2 to Web3 partnership and future. Jay (15:38.396) Hey, yes, that makes a lot of sense. And you see kind of the digital twin image being part of the backbone of that ecosystem, enabling a lot of these other products or services. Eric Liu (TMT) (15:48.024) Yes. Absolutely.
Yeah. That's a great word that you use backbone. It's exactly that, you know, just like when the internet first came to be where it was, everything was connected, right? From computer to computer, from university to university. In a way, now we have blockchain technology, right? In a way that is the core of web three. And now we're actually connecting the physical with a digital infrastructure. Because the biggest problem that because I've done this so many years is that if the digital version, of the physical world is not up to date, it becomes useless and it becomes, it's sort of entropy is over time, right? Nobody's going to use it because it's not synchronized.
So again, what you mentioned earlier or what you asked earlier is that if the enterprises and governments can just update it like that, right? And of course with AI very soon, just ask it, Hey, keep this updated or using computer vision, right? Using CCTV, keep it, keep things updated. That's going to change everything. Jay (16:45.338) Yeah, yeah, that would be a huge game changer. And in terms of bringing things from the physical world to the digital world, so another area where people talk about that a lot is real world assets and tokenization of something like a house title. Do you see that being related to Twin Matrix? Or do you see that as something, kind of like a separate area of bringing the physical into the digital? Eric Liu (TMT) (17:13.976) I do see that as very related because I think
it's similar to what I mentioned earlier when it comes to real estate as well. So let's say you own your house, the title of that. And that's something where instead of saying you transfer that title to somebody else one for one, you can actually fractionalize or tokenize that as well.
So it really any type of RWA, real world asset can be done similarly. So that's something that we're working with different partners trying to figure out. Well, real estate is just sort of one of the major ones. But then you can start thinking about other objects as well, right? It could be, it could be, let's say, something that you buy, a collectible, a true collectible in the real world. That's one of 100, but then you can actually tokenize that as well into thousands.
So everything these days, as long as there's a deed or some type of way to connect the physical with digital and it's proven, then that's something where a lot of the technologies we're building today will actually empower that future. Jay (18:15.959) And it sounds like you guys have done a ton of work in terms of enabling this, uploading the physical world into the digital. Where do you see, so that's kind of on the, I guess more enterprise side, or I'm not sure what the right word for it would be, but I'm thinking of like the Singapore airport, right? The more kind of enterprise customer, but you also have your actual like individual users who will ultimately.
interact either with your system or with a product or service that is kind of built on top of your system where your system serving as the backbone. Do you have a use case in mind, like a kind of a first use case for kind of onboarding those users or getting them excited to start using this digital twin image? Eric Liu (TMT) (19:02.488) Yeah, that's a great question. So because right now we're focused sort of on the business of business and enterprises, that's something where we are starting to spread out the digital infrastructure. But the thing is, as soon as we, for example, we have large swaths of area, whether it's Singapore or the US or it could be Europe, we're going to empower, let's say, different versions of the maps that we create for consumers. So then let's say we do a major partnership with a tourism board or even brands.
I mentioned Nike, I mentioned Adidas, it could be Apple, it could be really any brand. Because at that point, we've already digitized a lot of the mapping, we can bring in these ecosystem partners, these brand partners to also do spatial advertising. And that's really something that I see as a major deal moving forward.
So for example, I might have alluded to earlier is that let's say you're walking through a shopping mall, and because you're a loyalty program, chunging rewards, loyalty program and says you're really into shoes, it'll incentivize and know that it'll start putting different spatial advertising of Nike or Adidas specifically for you, right, as you're walking through that. Let me show you this. And because this is really the first device of its kind, right? The first device, Apple Vision Pro, that's called spatial computing. It's literally moving away from mobile.
So we have mobile over here, but this is called spatial computing. So in the future, probably in the next five to 10 years, which is actually really soon, you're going to be wearing this and you might not even have a cell phone with you anymore because everything can be done on here. Basically here. And as soon as this covers your eyes, it overlays digital information. So like I said, it could be just like Pokemon Go, it could be gamified versions, or it could be spatial advertising if you opt into it. Really what you care about is the digital layers and digital information that you care about, right? Maybe you say, well, today I'm feeling like shopping.
I want to go to a physical place, walk around, browse, hang out with my buddies. But if there's like a cool drop of something for... Eric Liu (TMT) (21:15.32) you know, a spatial coupon at Nike or Crocs
or whatever, I want to be able to grab it. I want to walk over there and put in my wallet. So I think there's going to be so many new different types of experiences. And again, this is the first device of its kind.
It's still bulky. You're not going to see people walking around with this thing in public, other than myself probably, but it's going to get lighter and cheaper and faster. And that's really the thing, right? That's really what happened with desktops to laptops to cell phones and as soon as that happens and that's going to happen very quickly that's going to change everything that's why we're really preparing for the inevitable future when all of the digital information can be overlaid depending on what you want to see. Jay (22:01.205) That's fascinating.
That's fascinating. And the spatial advertising is going to be something in the digital world that people, as they're walking around, they're going to be able to interact with. Is that correct? Eric Liu (TMT) (22:14.04) Exactly. Absolutely.
Yeah. And advertising can include, let's say just coupons that you walk into or could be free things that you collect or it could be time -living things. So this also will help the enterprises to say, you know what, if I put certain time -based drops in the specific area, then more people will go there.
I just like what happened with Pokemon Go. Jay (22:39.157) Yeah, makes complete sense. And could you talk? So you mentioned the term spatial computing, which a lot of people may not have heard that term before.
Could you kind of expand on what exactly that is for our audience? Eric Liu (TMT) (22:54.168) Yeah, sure. So spatial computing really, because this is literally a computer on your face. It's the first of its kind, right? Because this has a, you know, one of those chips that's as powerful as the MacBook Pros, which is incredible. And as soon as you put this on, it's doing all sorts of calculations, figuring out where your hands are, all the different gestures you do. So it's really just computing your entire surrounding, the whole spatiality of what it sees with its what, like 12 or 14 different sensors. And because it's processing all the information, it's also overlaying information.
So you've probably seen some of those videos of the Apple Vision Pro where literally you can not only watch TV now, not only this big, but you can watch 120 feet or meters. I mean, this is something massive. And to be honest, this is the best entertainment. device, consumption device I've ever used in my life.
It's literally the best movie experience I've ever had in my life. And that's saying something, right? Going to IMAX and all of that. It's just a different experience.
So moving away from sort of our phones where we're accessing the internet right now and you're watching something like this, right? It doesn't feel the same as if we're watching something that's literally 150 feet bigger than any IMAX. And you can be by yourself or very soon. with your friends inside of that sort of the metaverse area.
So it's really the first major device that's allowing us sort of the future of what is truly going to be a metaverse. Jay (24:26.613) OK. And you must have been thinking about this for, because the Apple Vision Pro came out relatively recently.
You must have been thinking about this for quite a long time before that. Could you tell us about, how did you start to have this vision of replicating everything in the digital world? Where did the inspiration and the genesis of Twin Matrix come from? Eric Liu (TMT) (24:53.368) Great question. So the biggest problem I have with these devices, right, is that I feel like we're tethered to it.
I feel like constantly we're getting notifications and all of these things and you got to check TikTok, LinkedIn, everything. And you just feel sort of a slave to technology. And what's unique about sort of the next generation of augmented reality or spatial computing is that you can sort of say, you know what? I don't really want to see these notifications. I want to move it to a specific area in my room.
And if I want to revisit it, it's up to me. Versus literally as soon as you look on your device, you have access to all of that and sort of takes your focus away. So over the years, I've been doing a lot of digital projects, right? Digitalization, digital twinning.
I've done gaming as well. And I've always knew that actually gamification of the real world would be actually very exciting because... Every single day we have to work, right? People have to work, there's jobs.
And I see a lot of people working like this and on spreadsheets that literally are all two dimensional. And that is boring. So, coming from the interactive and immersive technologies of gaming, why do people love to play games? Well, because it's fun, right? It's immersive. So why can't we have the same experiences during work? And that's something that I think is going to change a lot of the ways that we approach work. And then people actually want to get up in the day and say, you know what, today I have to finish X, Y, and Z. It's not going to be in spreadsheets anymore.
It's going to be more spatial. And they work in there and they have achievements. They say, oh, 10 out of 10 today. And then you're competing with your, uh, your fellow, uh, compadre or something.
Right. So a lot of these gamified experiences need to be in the real world to really incentivize people to do more. and to be more fun and be happier. So that's really my motivation for a lot of the digitalization that I do now. Jay (26:55.413) Interesting, interesting. That's awesome.
This is super exciting. And so for someone who's listening to this and thinking, okay, where can I see, where will I see this kind of happen? Or first, like you mentioned Singapore. Is that where you're concentrating kind of mapping everything and rolling things out? Or what's kind of like your global strategy in terms of where and when will this reach people in different parts of the world? Eric Liu (TMT) (27:20.664) Yeah, so Singapore is definitely going to be the international hub that we're going to focus on. However, we are in discussions with North America, the US, and Europe, Middle East, as well as in Hong Kong and eventually in China as well. So the goal is that it's hard to say we're going to expand globally immediately.
But as we're building the tools, the platform, et cetera, we're starting to productize. So we're no longer just doing one -on -one projects. We want to have that ecosystem as well as sort of the, essentially the app store to allow the, the, the, the airports or the zoos to actually say, you know what, this can be for any game developer, right? All of that information that we created can be for any game developer to gamify their entire maps. So as soon as we actually come up with that, it's going to be a lot faster to scale, to go to different enterprises and say, you know what, instead of.
you know, taking five or six months to integrate, now you can do it in less than a month. And that would be game changing. So that's really the key focus. So I'm hoping by the end of this year, you're going to see a lot more news coming out from us. And of course, with help from TBH, we're going to go as global as possible and as quickly as possible.
Jay (28:39.973) Awesome. And say I'm like an individual developer hearing about this technology and this platform, and I'm really excited and want to be able to use it. Are there plans to open this up to individual developers or third parties to kind of develop games or products or services on top of this digital twin information? And if so, kind of when or do you have a rough idea of when that might be available to people? Eric Liu (TMT) (29:01.858) Absolutely.
Eric Liu (TMT) (29:07.224) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's really the goal is that first we start at the lowest level so that we build all of the platform, the tools for the enterprises. And as we go up the layers, we're going to have an SDK, we're going to have APIs, right? Basically just program or talk speak to allow game developers to, to gamify different experiences in the real world.
So I anticipate probably we're going to focus more on that by the end of this year, if not early next year. So it's a step -by -step approach. Once we actually have that, it's going to be curated as well by the physical locations because since they own that physical spot anyway, they can actually say, you know what, for example, it's not going to be like Android where all of a sudden there's going to be 50 ,000 angry birds or maybe, you know, versions of angry birds that look like Mario or something. It's going to be very curated for the specific location. So if it's a zoo, they probably want to promote their animals, right? Or... the specific intellectual property of that physical location.
So step by step, once we have the tools out, as well as the platform, it's going to, I would say, gonna be very interesting to see what people develop on top of the physical world. Jay (30:23.714) Oh yeah, I'd be very interested to see what people create.
Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us, Eric. This has been super interesting. Is there anything else that you want to tell our viewers about Twin Matrix? And also, please let us know, please let us, excuse me, please let our viewers know where they can find out more information about Twin Matrix and you.
Eric Liu (TMT) (30:49.688) Sure. So you can always find me on LinkedIn. And at the same time, you can go to our website. Still sort of in stealth mode right now, because as we're preparing the platform, the tools, et cetera, there's really not much information. But at the same time, you can always shoot an email or maybe in the future I'll open a Discord as well to incentivize people to say, hey, these are the different areas where we're starting to focus. And let's say the airport is the first one to be released.
And then we're going to start releasing other areas. Or maybe once we actually start doing more mapping when it comes to a country, that's something that we'll release as well. So look forward to a lot more information coming out very soon. And keep up to date with TBH as well, because they're going to be doing a lot more PR focused on that.
Jay (31:39.361) Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, Eric. It's been a pleasure having you. And I'm very excited to see what the future brings for Twin Matrix.
Eric Liu (TMT) (31:48.408) Thank you so much for the interview, Jay. I really appreciate it and look forward to the future as well. Jay (31:54.336) It's been a pleasure, thank you.
Eric Liu (TMT) (31:56.344) Thanks.
2024-04-20 17:20
