Transferring Broadband and Data Through Light Part 2 - Special Guest: OptiPulse COO Mathis Shinnick

Alexander McCaig (00:07):

Okay. Back for a part two of Optipulse. So, Mathis, please share. What do you see the future of Optipulse looking like, for you guys specifically?

Mathis (00:17):

Well, we see it as something in which the world is connected with. Our technology enabling and complimenting others. The future of Optipulse has a couple of pieces to it. One is the financial future, the employment future, and then the benefit that, that brings. Let me go back to the Wefunder campaign, the crowdfunding campaign that we did.

Alexander McCaig (00:41):

Yeah.

Mathis (00:41):

It's on pause right now. We want to get a couple of things organized for the next launch, round two. When we got the investment coming in, and people aren't familiar with it, the crowdfunding round allows non-accredited investors. So it's grassroots. Everyone on the street can get involved, and we set our minimum at $100. So, you can do $100. You can do $10,000. You could do however much you want to do, within the limits in terms of your wealth and the way the SEC calculates all that stuff.

Mathis (01:14):

So Wefunder runs all that for us. What we had to do was just put out the message about what we're trying to do. For the future, it was very encouraging, because most of those investors, in their comments, were saying that they wanted to help get this into their community.

Alexander McCaig (01:32):

Okay.

Mathis (01:33):

That's an important distinction, because it wasn't, "We like the return potential." That's not the only thing they said. Sometimes they didn't even say that. They said, "We see this as a technology that will advance the world, benefit to mankind, and in our community, we need this. We're disconnected. We are underserved." All of those components that go with it. So, the future of Optipulse is to get this technology into those communities. We're going to do it in every which way we can. It could be with partners. It could be with us making the technology into products ourselves. It could be licensing it out, such that others do it for us. But one of the things we're going to be very careful about is, in all of that, that, that individual who's put that $100 in, that wants it for the community, gets it, and they get it at a reasonable price. In fact, at a much cheaper price, with uploads and downloads of 500 megabits, a gigabit, and they can get it now.

Mathis (02:39):

So, we're very excited about that component to it. The technology itself is a platform technology. So, these amazing little chips that John created, and you follow through his mind, as he thinks through these ideas, we're looking at data center efficiency. So, the ability to take out a number of the optical switches that are in data centers that takes away power consumption, takes out heat, reduces the environmental that you need. So, that's one simple instance of where we believe we can make a difference. We just need to roll that through into medical devices. Infrared is a health benefit wavelength.

Alexander McCaig (03:22):

Right.

Mathis (03:22):

We haven't even touched on that. We haven't touched on... One thing that these devices do, is they pulse at a different duty cycle, their LIDAR, like ranging and detecting, right?

Alexander McCaig (03:36):

Yep.

Mathis (03:38):

That LIDAR is supposed to be going into automotive, autonomous automobiles right now. [crosstalk 00:03:44] vehicles.

Alexander McCaig (03:44):

So, you're saying this will be helpful for Teslas?

Mathis (03:46):

Yes. Well, not just Teslas, it'll be helpful for everybody, because you can have these sensors sitting up on poles and they're sensing and communicating.

Alexander McCaig (03:57):

Just like lining highways or something like that?

Mathis (03:59):

Yeah. Lining highways, corners. So, a car can't see around something. There's a vehicle in front, the car isn't seeing it, because whatever system that car has, has been blanked out, whited out. So, all of a sudden, there's a warning, because another sensor is saying to that oncoming vehicle, "There's something in front of you. There's something in front of you." The technology is there for that to happen. It's engineering it into those products, it's then testing them, is going through the reliability, the quality assurance, all the things that are necessary. So, we're still a couple years away from these things, but that's all possible.

Jason Rigby (04:41):

What about IOT devices? For instance, gas lines, pipelines. I'm thinking, if you could shoot a...

Alexander McCaig (04:47):

What do you think about that?

Mathis (04:50):

Oh, yeah. We would love to have the resources in our firm, being the people that can take on projects like that. Southeastern New Mexico, we have an investor or two down there. Oil field services are very interested in trying to put our technology at the wellhead and then tracking pipelines as well.

Alexander McCaig (05:11):

Right.

Mathis (05:11):

Being able to accumulate that data as it comes down to some central hub and reducing the need to go out to the wellheads as often, because you can collect that data. And lightweight, small size, low costs, low power consumption, ideal for drones. So, you put this up on a drone, the drone flies around collecting data.

Alexander McCaig (05:31):

So, essentially, I just have this thing on the ground pointed up, and as the drone flies over, captures the data, and I just keep flying?

Mathis (05:38):

Exactly.

Alexander McCaig (05:39):

Interesting.

Mathis (05:39):

And you spread the beam out from what's on the ground, or you could even transmit it from the drone back down to ground. So, you got these two beams that are overlapping and the drone hits that connect point, flies through it, and then passes on 10 gigabits a second, even 25 gigabits a second, if we can get the electronics there. You're moving massive amounts of data. Now, do you need that at every wellhead? Maybe not.

Alexander McCaig (06:06):

But what about the ones that produce the most?

Mathis (06:07):

Exactly.

Alexander McCaig (06:08):

Right.

Mathis (06:08):

Exactly. And then collect that data instantaneously. So, gas leaks on these pipelines, they fly drones over and look for the plumes.

Alexander McCaig (06:19):

So, it could have been leaking for a bit?

Mathis (06:21):

If it's leaking through the top, you can't see it, unless you put a sensor through that. So, we could put sensors all along the pipeline, very inexpensive sensor, just a chain of them, talking to each other, up and down the whole pipeline, sensing and communicating.

Alexander McCaig (06:39):

So, this technology is really applicable for military, business, government and individual human beings and their collective areas, wherever they might be, where they lack certain resources?

Mathis (06:50):

Looking at the map, yeah.

Alexander McCaig (06:52):

I'm always looking at the map. It helps me think.

Jason Rigby (06:55):

Like rural areas. I think that would be... Like punching the granite. How hard would that be? You know what I mean?

Alexander McCaig (07:01):

Well, I've seen you try it.

Jason Rigby (07:02):

Yeah. But, like you said, it could be anywhere from 30 to 80,000, and I imagine certain areas like cities or extremely rural areas. This would be a product, I think, that would be...

Mathis (07:16):

That's where we're working within the state right now. Senator Padilla and other senators and representatives have been at the forefront of broadband. Broadband has become such a big need and identified now. It's always been a need, but because of the pandemic and people flooding networks and driving to a Starbucks or McDonald's to get connectivity. It's right in the face of everyone right now. We've got money coming into the state and across the country. It's not just New Mexico. It's rural Mississippi. It's Arkansas. It's the whole Washington state.

Alexander McCaig (07:54):

Been there, been there. They need it.

Mathis (07:56):

Oh yeah. So, at the price points that we're at... And we don't think that Optipulse is the only solution, but it adds and compliments all the other technologies that are being put to work there. In places where you've got 4G already installed, you increase the back [inaudible 00:08:15] you increase that pipeline, and those 4G devices pump a lot more data through.

Alexander McCaig (08:19):

Sure.

Mathis (08:19):

So, you can upgrade a community almost immediately with something like that.

Alexander McCaig (08:23):

That's amazing.

Mathis (08:24):

So yeah, the rural connectivity-

Jason Rigby (08:25):

A fail-safe system too, I would think.

Alexander McCaig (08:26):

I would use it, most definitely, as fail-safe too.

Jason Rigby (08:29):

Yeah.

Mathis (08:30):

Yes, exactly. Well, if you think about it, in a sense of looking at the big seven-

Alexander McCaig (08:34):

That's what I'm talking about. You said it, I didn't. He said big seven.

Mathis (08:37):

The big seven. Well, if you think through those... Economic development, think what that means. What is economic development? Well, it's bringing jobs, right? It's educating those that are going to perform the jobs and it's advancing their careers, and it's keeping them healthy. So, [inaudible 00:08:56] and medicine involved in something like that. Must keep them educated. You got to be able to train them more.

Alexander McCaig (09:01):

Right.

Mathis (09:01):

So, you just add economic development into this and you expand the ability to reach people, you start to equalize, closing the digital divide. It's also beginning to equalize these gaps that we have in the ability for people to access careers in health and wellness.

Alexander McCaig (09:18):

So equalization in the sense of opportunity, not socialism?

Mathis (09:21):

Opportunity, exactly. Although-

Alexander McCaig (09:23):

Yeah, because people think, "Equalization. We have economic equalization." It's not about just everybody gets paid the same, everything's just flat out.

Mathis (09:31):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (09:31):

No, we just want to make sure that there's equal opportunity for everybody.

Mathis (09:35):

Yes. That's exactly right.

Alexander McCaig (09:36):

Okay.

Mathis (09:36):

That's exactly right. And we believe that, with equal opportunity in terms of equal access, that you're going to bring a lot more people into the dialogue.

Alexander McCaig (09:44):

Sure.

Mathis (09:44):

So you're not going to have it as polarized. A good part of utilizing the connectivity we have right now is the education about what it means to have the responsibility, to be putting things on the internet.

Alexander McCaig (09:55):

Correct.

Mathis (09:57):

And the education to be able to sift through stuff and understand what's real and not real. We won't go down that path.

Alexander McCaig (10:05):

You don't want to? We do that all the time on here.

Mathis (10:09):

Educational access, climate stability. Cambridge University in England did a study. In fact, they have a website now, which tracks the assumed amount of data passed through because of blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and then they equate that to how much energy is being used by these miners to solve the proof of work.

Alexander McCaig (10:38):

Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.

Mathis (10:42):

Exactly. They do proof of work and there's other things like proof of stake, proof of delegated stake, but proof of work is, I guess, the big gorilla in the room in terms of power consumption.

Alexander McCaig (10:57):

Yeah, because you have this thing called terawatt-hours that come in. First of all, you got to... Doing the proof work is one thing, I got it on the computer, but then, to send it out for everybody else, to come around and say, "Yeah. That in fact did happen." It's a mess.

Mathis (11:13):

Exactly. So, you've done all that computing power, creating heat, using electricity, not only to run those server farms, but also to keep them cooled. You've got these heat dams, where you've got to move air through everything.

Alexander McCaig (11:30):

Right.

Mathis (11:31):

If you start pulling out all the wiring and using light, beams across the ceiling, there's a very high power in light, beams across the ceiling, it's probably not going to be [inaudible 00:11:41]. It's going to be invisible.

Alexander McCaig (11:42):

Right.

Mathis (11:43):

It's going to be the ability to carry hundreds of gigabits of data, and drop those down into racks.

Alexander McCaig (11:52):

Wait a minute. Are you telling me that all the Bitcoin miners, Ethereum, all those guys out there should be using Optipulse?

Mathis (11:58):

Well, what we're saying is the data farms, the server farms, where those machines are cranking, should be coming to us and saying, "Hey, how can we reduce our costs? How can we reduce our footprint?"

Alexander McCaig (12:12):

Well, if they should be, well, then we got to get that word out there. Right?

Jason Rigby (12:15):

How many data centers are there in the world?

Alexander McCaig (12:18):

More that you can ever even imagine. It's incredible.

Mathis (12:23):

One of the things that we've been doing, and John is investigating this, as am I, right here in our own state, some of these data centers that we've got that are focused, part of New Mexico Tech Council, and there's places, all over the world, like this, where you've got technology minded people that are also green, trying to figure out how to reduce that power consumption and make it more affordable. We're one of the answers, as far as the data centers are concerned, to make that happen.

Alexander McCaig (12:55):

That's incredible.

Mathis (12:59):

Optipulse is to make things like this happen.

Alexander McCaig (13:02):

I love that. So, in terms of making things happen, then. How do individuals find you? Are you guys online? Do you have a website? Tell me a little bit how someone would access the resources to learn more about you and your product and service.

Mathis (13:15):

Sure. Well, we have a website, optipulse.com.

Alexander McCaig (13:17):

Okay. How do you spell Optipulse?

Mathis (13:19):

O-P-T-I-P-U-L-S-E.

Alexander McCaig (13:21):

We'll throw it in the show notes.

Mathis (13:23):

Optipulse. We sometimes get called Optipoint, Optibis, but-

Alexander McCaig (13:32):

You should buy all those domain names. Anytime someone screws it up... I'm trying to buy turtle as much as I can.

Mathis (13:40):

Green turtle.

Alexander McCaig (13:41):

Yeah.

Mathis (13:43):

So, you can find this there and also look for us on Wefunder. We still have a site there. You have to search for Optipulse to get to us.

Alexander McCaig (13:52):

Okay.

Mathis (13:52):

We're going to launch that off again, here, in probably three weeks or four weeks.

Alexander McCaig (13:57):

Congrats.

Mathis (13:57):

Oh yeah. It's great. It is great. It's the ability to reach out to all those people across the world and we've got investors across the world. So this is an opportunity to put a little bit of money in to help advance this. We've been thinking about the blockchain as a tool for us in our own operational management, but also as a tool in terms of using digital currencies, in order to reach another share of the capital market, to put the funding in place in communities where they say... In Indonesia, a community says, "Let's go after this." They're looking around, they're trying to figure out how to do it. Well, if we great access through Fiat and through digital currency, it just opens up more opportunity for that community to put a stake in the ground and say, "Bring it here. We want to help you bring it here. Here's how we're going to do it."

Alexander McCaig (14:57):

We're doing that right now, so we totally understand.

Mathis (14:59):

See, this is it. This is where this is a wonderful event, because now I get to talk about TARTLE. He's been waiting for me, folks, to bring it up.

Alexander McCaig (15:10):

Yeah. Please say something about it. Say something about it.

Mathis (15:14):

Phenomenal opportunity for people to take control and to manage it in a way that benefits both sides of the equation.

Alexander McCaig (15:22):

Thank you.

Mathis (15:23):

We believe that, as a part of that connectivity infrastructure that gives even more people access at an affordable, cheaper price than now, that by providing that connectivity, we're providing more control of their own future, because they control the data. Someone else isn't playing them off against whatever marketing vision they have. They're saying, "I want to be a part of this and here's my data. If you want to take it, take it."

Alexander McCaig (15:53):

Correct.

Mathis (15:53):

I think TARTLE is an incredible, incredible product. What I see is one helping the other.

Alexander McCaig (16:04):

Symbiotic.

Mathis (16:05):

Symbiotic.

Alexander McCaig (16:07):

Thank you for saying all those kinds of words. We have Suzanne Simard. Is that what her name is?

Mathis (16:12):

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Alexander McCaig (16:13):

She's coming on soon to talk about how forests interact. How they speak to one another. The whole thing is symbiotic.

Mathis (16:20):

It is.

Alexander McCaig (16:20):

And they've been around a hell of a lot longer than us humans have.

Mathis (16:23):

Oh yeah.

Jason Rigby (16:24):

Their networking is [crosstalk 00:16:25].

Mathis (16:25):

Their networking is...

Jason Rigby (16:27):

Trees can talk to each other. They've already proven this.

Alexander McCaig (16:29):

The mycorrhiza and the rest of the fungi that sits underneath, under the humus. Oh, I'm on top of this, right? But that's what-

Mathis (16:37):

I need to grab humus.com as well.

Alexander McCaig (16:40):

Yes, you do.

Mathis (16:42):

Because that's the infrastructure.

Alexander McCaig (16:44):

Yeah. Optipulse will be rebranded to humus. That's going to be the global infrastructure.

Mathis (16:49):

The global [crosstalk 00:16:51].

Jason Rigby (16:51):

All we need to do is just pulse slide into that, and then from there we can talk to... We're talking to trees.

Alexander McCaig (16:55):

We pulse slide into fungi, we're talking to everything. You know what I mean?

Mathis (16:59):

Cameron got there before us, right?

Jason Rigby (17:01):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (17:02):

James Cameron?

Mathis (17:02):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (17:03):

Yeah, I know. He tends to be on top of it. Well, listen, I think you are helping design a future that takes Sci-Fi and makes it reality. I'm really happy with what Optipulse is doing. I hope something symbiotic between both of our companies can happen in the future.

Mathis (17:18):

Well, the more demand there is for data, the more our technology is relevant and the more our technology can move data, the faster, simpler and more advanced people can be with their own data. So, it's extremely well connected.

Alexander McCaig (17:32):

I don't disagree with that one bit.

Mathis (17:34):

It helps that we both look at the globe, think of it that way, and we both look at the big seven.

Alexander McCaig (17:42):

Yeah. Shivers down my spine when I hear that. Well, listen, Mathis, this has been fantastic. Thank you again for coming on. Jason, do you have any final questions? Anything?

Jason Rigby (17:52):

No, I'm just super excited. I love hearing... That's why I didn't want to hear it until the podcast, because I had heard the technology, but this can revolutionize the world.

Alexander McCaig (18:01):

That's all we want. We want a bunch of revolutions happening at the same time.

Mathis (18:05):

The photonic revolution. I like that.

Alexander McCaig (18:07):

Well, we got to get a T-shirt, photonic revolution.

Mathis (18:12):

I got the T-shirt's out there.

Alexander McCaig (18:12):

Oh, that's fantastic.

Jason Rigby (18:13):

Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (18:14):

All right. Well listen, Matt, I really appreciate it.

Mathis (18:16):

Pleasure. Thanks guys.

Speaker 4 (18:25):

Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast, with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future and the source data defines the path. What's your data worth?