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Dianna Reiss: You may think you're looking

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through a window at a dolphin spinning playfully,

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but what you're actually looking through

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is a two-way mirror at a dolphin

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looking at itself spinning playfully.

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This is a dolphin that is self-aware.

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This dolphin has self-awareness.

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It's a young dolphin named Bailey.

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I've been very interested in understanding the nature

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of the intelligence of dolphins for the past 30 years.

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How do we explore intelligence in this animal

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that's so different from us,

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and what I've used is a very simple research tool,

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a mirror, and we've gained great information,

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reflections of these animal minds.

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Dolphins are the only animals, the only non-human animals,

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to show mirror self-recognition.

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We used to think this was a uniquely human ability,

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but we learned that the great apes, our closest relatives,

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also show this ability.

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Then we showed it in dolphins,

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and then later in elephants.

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We did this work in my lab with the dolphins and elephants,

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and it's been recently shown in the magpie.

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Now, it's interesting, because we've embraced

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this Darwinian view of a continuity in physical evolution,

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this physical continuity.

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But we've been much more reticent, much slower

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at recognizing this continuity in cognition,

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in emotion, in consciousness in other animals.

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Other animals are conscious.

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They're emotional. They're aware.

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There have been multitudes of studies with many species

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over the years that have given us exquisite evidence

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for thinking and consciousness in other animals,

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other animals that are quite different than we are in form.

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We are not alone.

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We are not alone in these abilities.

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And I hope, and one of my biggest dreams,

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is that, with our growing awareness

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about the consciousness of others

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and our relationship with the rest of the animal world,

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that we'll give them the respect and protection

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that they deserve.

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So that's a wish I'm throwing out here for everybody,

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and I hope I can really engage you in this idea.

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Now, I want to return to dolphins,

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because these are the animals that I feel like

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I've been working up closely and personal with

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for over 30 years.

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And these are real personalities.

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They are not persons, but they're personalities

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in every sense of the word.

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And you can't get more alien than the dolphin.

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They are very different from us in body form.

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They're radically different. They come from a radically different environment.

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In fact, we're separated by 95 million years

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of divergent evolution.

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Look at this body.

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And in every sense of making a pun here,

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these are true non-terrestrials.

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I wondered how we might interface with these animals.

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In the 1980s, I developed an underwater keyboard.

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This was a custom-made touch-screen keyboard.

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What I wanted to do was give the dolphins choice and control.

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These are big brains, highly social animals,

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and I thought, well, if we give them choice and control,

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if they can hit a symbol on this keyboard,

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and by the way it was interfaced by fiberoptic cables

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from Hewlett Packard with an Apple II computer.

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This seems prehistoric now,

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but this was where we were with technology.

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So the dolphins could hit a key, a symbol,

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they heard a computer-generated whistle,

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and they got an object or activity.

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Now here's a little video.

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This is Delphi and Pan, and you're going to see Delphi

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hitting a key, he hears a computer-generated whistle,

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and gets a ball, so they can actually ask for things they want.

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What was remarkable is, they explored this keyboard

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on their own. There was no intervention on our part.

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They explored the keyboard. They played around with it.

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They figured out how it worked.

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And they started to quickly imitate the sounds

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they were hearing on the keyboard.

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They imitated on their own.

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Beyond that, though, they started learning

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associations between the symbols, the sounds,

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and the objects.

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What we saw was self-organized learning,

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and now I'm imagining, what can we do

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with new technologies?

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How can we create interfaces, new windows into

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the minds of animals, with the technologies that exist today?

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So I was thinking about this, and then, one day,

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I got a call from Peter.

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Peter Gabriel: I make noises for a living.

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On a good day, it's music,

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and I want to talk a little bit about

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the most amazing music-making experience I ever had.

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I'm a farm boy. I grew up surrounded by animals,

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and I would look in these eyes and wonder

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what was going on there?

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So as an adult, when I started to read about

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the amazing breakthroughs with Penny Patterson and Koko,

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with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Kanzi, Panbanisha,

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Irene Pepperberg, Alex the Parrot,

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I got all excited.

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What was amazing to me also

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was they seemed a lot more adept

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at getting a handle on our language

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than we were on getting a handle on theirs.

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I work with a lot of musicians from around the world,

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and often we don't have any common language at all,

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but we sit down behind our instruments,

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and suddenly there's a way for us to connect and emote.

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So I started cold-calling, and eventually got through

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to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh,

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and she invited me down.

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I went down, and the bonobos

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had had access to percussion instruments,

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musical toys, but never before to a keyboard.

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At first they did what infants do,

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just bashed it with their fists,

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and then I asked, through Sue,

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if Panbanisha could try with one finger only.

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(Music)

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Sue Savage-Rumbaugh: Can you play a grooming song?

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I want to hear a grooming song.

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Play a real quiet grooming song.

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PG: So groom was the subject of the piece.

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(Music)

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So I'm just behind, jamming,

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yeah, this is what we started with.

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Sue's encouraging her to continue a little more.

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(Music)

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She discovers a note she likes,

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finds the octave.

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She'd never sat at the keyboard before.

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Nice triplets.

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SST: You did very good. That was very good.

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PG: She hit good.

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(Applause)

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So that night, we began to dream,

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and we thought, perhaps the most amazing tool

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that man's created is the internet,

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and what would happen if we could somehow

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find new interfaces,

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visual-audio interfaces that would allow

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these remarkable sentient beings

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that we share the planet with access,

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and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh got excited about that,

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called her friend Steve Woodruff,

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and we began hustling all sorts of people

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whose work related or was inspiring,

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which led us to Diana,

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and led us to Neil.

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Neil Gershenfeld: Thanks, Peter.
PG: Thank you.

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(Applause)

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NG: So Peter approached me.

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I lost it when I saw that clip.

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He approached me with a vision of doing these things

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not for people, for animals.

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And then I was struck in this history of the internet.

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This is what the internet looked like when it was born

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and you can call that the internet

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of middle-aged white men,

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mostly middle-aged white men.

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Vint Cerf: (Laughs)

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(Laughter)

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NG: Speaking as one.

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Then, when I first came to TED,

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which was where I met Peter, I showed this.

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This is a one dollar web server,

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and at the time that was radical.

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And the possibility of making a web serve for a dollar

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grew into what became known as the internet of things,

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which is literally an industry now with tremendous implications

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for health care, energy efficiency.

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And we were happy with ourselves.

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And then, when Peter showed me that,

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I realized we had missed something,

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which is the rest of the planet.

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So we started up this interspecies internet project.

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Now we started talking with TED

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about how you bring dolphins and great apes and elephants

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to TED, and we realized that wouldn't work.

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So we're going to bring you to them.

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So if we could switch to the audio from this computer,

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we've been videoconferencing with cognitive animals,

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and we're going to have each of them

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just briefly introduce them.

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And so if we could also have this up, great.

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So the first site were going to meet

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is Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, with orangutans.

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In the daytime they live outside. It's nighttime there now.

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So can you please go ahead?

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Terri Cox: Hi, I'm Terri Cox

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with the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas,

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and with me I have [name inaudible] and Mei,

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two of our Bornean orangutans.

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During the day, they have a beautiful, large outdoor habitat,

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and at night, they come into this habitat,

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into their night quarters,

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where they can have a climate-controlled

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and secure environment to sleep in.

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We participate in the Apps for Apes Program,

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orangutan outreach, and we use iPads

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to help stimulate and enrich the animals,

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and also help raise awareness

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for these critically endangered animals.

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And they share 97 percent of our DNA

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and are incredibly intelligent,

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so it's so exciting to think of all the opportunities

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that we have via technology and the internet

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to really enrich their lives and open up their world.

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We're really excited about the possibility

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of an interspecies internet,

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and K.J. has been enjoying the conference very much.

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NG: That's great. When we were rehearsing last night,

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he had fun watching the elephants.

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Next user group are the dolphins are the National Aquarium.

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Please go ahead.

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Allison Ginsburg: Good evening.

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Well, my name is Allison Ginsburg,

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and we're live in Baltimore at the National Aquarium.

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Joining me are three of our eight Atlantic bottlenose dolphins:

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20-year old Chesapeake, who was our first dolphin born here,

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her four-year old daughter Bailey,

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and her half-sister, 11-year old Maya.

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Now, here at the National Aquarium

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we are committed to excellence in animal care,

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to research, and to conservation.

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The dolphins are pretty intrigued as to what's going on here tonight.

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They're not really used to having cameras here

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at eight o'clock at night.

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In addition, we are very committed to doing

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different types of research.

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As Diana mentioned, our animals are involved

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in many different research studies.

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NG: Those are for you.

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Okay, that's great, thank you.

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And the third user group, in Thailand,

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is Think Elephant. Go ahead, Josh.

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Josh Pyke: Hi, my name is Josh Pyke,

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and I'm with Think Elephants International,

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and we're here in the Golden Triangle of Thailand

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with the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation elephants.

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And we have 26 elephants here,

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and our research is focused on the evolution of intelligence with elephants,

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but our foundation Think Elephants is focused

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on bringing elephants into classrooms around the world

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virtually like this and showing people

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how incredible these animals are.

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So we're able to bring the camera right up to the elephant,

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put food into the elephant's mouth,

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show people what's going on inside their mouths,

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and show everyone around the world

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how incredible these animals really are.

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NG: Okay, that's great. Thanks Josh.

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And once again, we've been building great relationships

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among them just since we've been rehearsing.

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So at that point, if we can go back to the other computer,

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we were starting to think about how you integrate

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the rest of the biomass of the planet into the internet,

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and we went to the best possible person

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I can think of, which is Vint Cerf,

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who is one of the founders who gave us the internet.

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Vint?

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VC: Thank you, Neil.

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(Applause)

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A long time ago in a galaxy — oops, wrong script.

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Forty years ago, Bob Kahn and I

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did the design of the internet.

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Thirty years ago, we turned it on.

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Just last year, we turned on the production internet.

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You've been using the experimental version

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for the last 30 years.

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The production version, it uses IP version 6.

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It has 3.4 times 10 to the 38th possible terminations.

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That's a number that only the Congress can appreciate.

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But it leads to what is coming next.

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When Bob and I did this design,

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we thought we were building a system to connect computers together.

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What we very quickly discovered

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is that this was a system for connecting people together.

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And what you've seen tonight

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tells you that we should not restrict this network

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to one species,

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that these other intelligent, sentient species

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should be part of the system too.

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This is the system, as it looks today, by the way,

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this is what the internet looks like to a computer

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that's trying to figure out where the traffic

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is supposed to go.

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This is generated by a program

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that's looking at the connectivity of the internet,

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and how all the various networks are connected together.

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There are about 400,000 networks, interconnected,

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run independently by 400,000 different operating agencies,

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and the only reason this works

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is that they all use the same standard TCP/IP protocols.

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Well, you know where this is headed.

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The internet of things tell us

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that a lot of computer-enabled appliances and devices

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are going to become part of this system too:

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appliances that you use around the house,

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that you use in your office,

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that you carry around with yourself or in the car.

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That's the internet of things that's coming.

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Now, what's important about what these people are doing

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is that they're beginning to learn

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how to communicate with species

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that are not us

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but share a common sensory environment.

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We're beginning to explore what it means

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to communicate with something

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that isn't just another person.

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Well, you can see what's coming next.

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All kinds of possible sentient beings

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may be interconnected through this system,

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and I can't wait to see these experiments unfold.

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What happens after that?

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Well, let's see.

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There are machines that need to talk to machines

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and that we need to talk to, and so as time goes on,

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we're going to have to learn

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how to communicate with computers

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and how to get computers to communicate with us

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in the way that we're accustomed to,

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not with keyboards, not with mice,

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but with speech and gestures

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and all the natural human language that we're accustomed to.

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So we'll need something like C3PO

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to become a translator between ourselves

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and some of the other machines we live with.

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Now, there is a project that's underway

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called the Interplanetary Internet.

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It's an operation between Earth and Mars.

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It's operating on the International Space Station.

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It's part of the spacecraft that's in orbit around the sun

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that's rendezvoused with two planets.

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So the interplanetary system is on its way,

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but there's a last project

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which the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,

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which funded the original ARPANET,

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funded the internet, funded the interplanetary architecture,

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is now funding a project to design a spacecraft

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to get to the nearest star in a hundred year's time.

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What that means is that what we're learning

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with these interactions with other species

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will teach us, ultimately,

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how we might interact with an alien from another world.

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I can hardly wait.

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(Applause)

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Moderator: So first of all, thank you,

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and I would like to acknowledge that four people

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who could talk to us for full four days

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actually managed to stay to four minutes each,

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and we thank you for that.

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So I have so many questions,

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but maybe a few practical things that the audience might want to know.

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You're launching this idea here at TED —
PG: Today.

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Moderator: — today, this is the first time you're talking about it.

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Tell me a little bit about where you're going to take the idea.

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What's next?

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PG: I think we want to engage as many people

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here as possible in helping us

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think of smart interfaces that will make all this possible.

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NG: And just mechanically,

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there's a five-at-one C3 and web infrastructure

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and all of that, but it's not quite ready to turn on,

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so we'll roll that out and contact us

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if you want the information on it.

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The idea is this will be much like the internet functions

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as a network of networks,

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which is Vint's core contribution,

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this will be a wrapper around all of these initiatives,

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that are wonderful individually, to link them globally.

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Moderator: Right, and do you have a web address

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that we might look for yet?

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NG: Shortly.
Moderator: Shortly. We will come back to you on that.

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And very quickly, just to clarify.

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Some people might have looked at the video that you showed

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and thought, well, that's just a webcam.

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What's special about it?

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If you could talk for just a moment

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about how you want to go past that?

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NG: So this is scalable video infrastructure,

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not for a few to a few but many to many,

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so that it scales to symmetrical video sharing

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and content sharing across these sites around the planet.

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So there's a lot of back-end signal processing,

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not for one to many, but for many to many.

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Moderator: Right, and then on a practical level,

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which technologies are you looking at first?

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I know you mentioned that a keyboard is a really key part of this.

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DR: We're trying to develop an interactive touchscreen for dolphins.

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This is sort of a continuation of some of the earlier work,

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and we just got our first seed money today towards that,

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so it's our first project.

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Moderator: Before the talk, even.
DR: Yeah.

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Moderator: Well done.

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All right, well thank you all so much for joining us.

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It's such a delight for having you on the stage.

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VC: Thank you.

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(Applause)