Speaker 1: Tech guy Rich to Morrow every Tuesday.
Speaker 2: He's heard on rich on Tech Saturday from eleven am
Speaker 2: to two pm. Every day he's on KTLA as their
Speaker 2: tech reporter Instagram, at rich on Tech website, rich on
Speaker 2: Tech dot tv. Rich dur Veener Schnitzel is it's a
Speaker 2: fast food joint. That is, and Neil can pipe in
Speaker 2: on this one has a reputation.
Speaker 1: Of being the lowest of the low end.
Speaker 2: Of national chains with let's just say, not the highest
Speaker 2: quality stuff. I like it when I go in and
Speaker 2: have I don't know, seven chili hot dogs for a dollar,
Speaker 2: and it's questionable as to their quality, although I love it. Okay,
Speaker 2: enough of that, let's talk about what's going on. Oh no, now,
Speaker 2: you're pretty fit, I know that, and you exercise and
Speaker 2: you look good. Your trim going to deer v Stinsel.
Speaker 2: You put on twenty pounds in one afternoon.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: What's happening at Derviner Snitzil though, is they're using AI
Speaker 2: and that I haven't seen at fast food establishments.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so they're using AI in the drive through. They
Speaker 4: partnered with a company called Presto, which you know already
Speaker 4: when you go to a fast food place. I don't
Speaker 4: know if you've noticed this, but it starts with one
Speaker 4: voice and then it goes to another. It'll be like, hey,
Speaker 4: welcome to the fast food place. May we suggest a
Speaker 4: doubly beef burrito? And you're like, no, I don't want that,
Speaker 4: and the person like, okay, well what would you like now?
Speaker 3: And you're just like, wait, what changed?
Speaker 4: So they're using like a recording at the beginning and
Speaker 4: then the real person after that.
Speaker 3: Now they're switching completely.
Speaker 4: To AI at a lot of these places, or they're
Speaker 4: trying it because that voice not only can understand what
Speaker 4: you're saying in natural language, this has come a long way,
Speaker 4: it can also upsell you. So wiener Stenzel says, already
Speaker 4: in a test with an all beef hot dog up cell,
Speaker 4: they saw a five increase in total sales. So the
Speaker 4: system can recommend things based on what you are purchasing,
Speaker 4: and also the time of day and what's trending on
Speaker 4: the menu.
Speaker 2: You know, I've always wondered these fast food establishments where
Speaker 2: you drive through and I always ask where's the clown
Speaker 2: and they don't know what the hell I'm talking about?
Speaker 2: Or I wanted deposit some money and they have no
Speaker 2: idea what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: But it's always it sounds like, what do I want
Speaker 1: to double burglar?
Speaker 3: You know, why do they have.
Speaker 2: Such crap speakers that you can't understand a word they're saying.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I really don't, I truly do not understand.
Speaker 3: My kids and I will joke.
Speaker 4: We went to this one fast food place and I
Speaker 4: kid you not bill every single thing we said, the
Speaker 4: person said the opposite, completely random thing.
Speaker 3: I'd like a.
Speaker 4: Double cheeseburger and they said a chocolate milkshake. And we're like,
Speaker 4: we're looking around like thinking we were on a reality show.
Speaker 4: It was so bad, and I think it might have
Speaker 4: been the person last day. They were just having a joke.
Speaker 4: But look these are They're all over the place, and
Speaker 4: I think this is why people end up liking in
Speaker 4: and out because the person comes up to your car
Speaker 4: and they actually speak to you as a human.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I was at an in and out Burger yesterday and
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened. The guys outside and they're on
Speaker 2: their little tablet. It's like almost like a cigarette girl.
Speaker 2: Remember it was in the nightclubs where they.
Speaker 1: All trap around and it's.
Speaker 2: Really kind of wild. By the way, am I allowed
Speaker 2: to say cigarette girls? Is I considered sexist? I guess so,
Speaker 2: And it was You're right if they.
Speaker 4: Give out free smokes.
Speaker 3: Yes you could.
Speaker 4: At some places you would get free cigarettes. I mean,
Speaker 4: I know this is such a horrible conversation in the
Speaker 4: year twenty twenty five, but yes, you used to go
Speaker 4: to a bar and like literally people give you free
Speaker 4: cigarettes just to get you started on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great stuff.
Speaker 2: So is number one you're saying it's working five percent
Speaker 2: increase in sales in terms of upsell, and they're very
Speaker 2: good because a good server in a restaurant can upsell
Speaker 2: a customer like crazy. I know, when there's someone good, Hey,
Speaker 2: you want to try our desserts or you know, our
Speaker 2: signature French fries.
Speaker 1: You don't want to miss those As a.
Speaker 2: Side, how about something for the table that you can
Speaker 2: all share and that a lot of times you go yeah,
Speaker 2: especially if they're described as this scrumptious signature disc that
Speaker 2: they've got in some kind of crazy ass award, which
Speaker 2: of course is not true.
Speaker 4: But I'm a yemist, and but add data to the
Speaker 4: mix bill, and I think that's what the key here
Speaker 4: is for these big companies is like, yes, if you
Speaker 4: had a well trained server over the years, of course
Speaker 4: they can upsell you. But now layer on that additional
Speaker 4: data that the company knows if someone orders a large
Speaker 4: fries and two hot dogs, that nine times out of
Speaker 4: ten they also want a diet coke or whatever that
Speaker 4: the company or the data tells them that this is
Speaker 4: what happens on a daily basis. And so for that
Speaker 4: system to say, oh, would you also like to add
Speaker 4: that dessert that they know when people order this combination
Speaker 4: of food, they typically order that as well. So that
Speaker 4: I think is the holy grail of why these systems
Speaker 4: and by the way, of course, the human touch, which
Speaker 4: the element of reduced labor cost is always appealing to
Speaker 4: these companies, especially with fast food. If you've noticed if
Speaker 4: you go into fast food places now, even when you
Speaker 4: walk in, nine times out of ten you are ordering
Speaker 4: at a screen. Even if you walk into the store, right,
Speaker 4: they have replaced a lot of the humans behind the desk.
Speaker 4: Right by the way, Wiener Schnitzel is not the only
Speaker 4: company trying this. McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's. They're all giving
Speaker 4: this a.
Speaker 2: Try, and the voice themselves, I'm assuming they have figured
Speaker 2: out the best voice to in fact convince people to upgrade,
Speaker 2: as opposed to I've been places, and you have been
Speaker 2: places that the person taking the order sounds like in
Speaker 2: a rocky sheep herder that just came to the United States.
Speaker 1: Okay, by the way.
Speaker 3: I get a level further, Bill, real quick.
Speaker 4: They also know that when you drive up, if they
Speaker 4: use facial recognition, they may use a different voice depending
Speaker 4: on what you look like.
Speaker 3: You male, female kind of thing. Yeah, and can you
Speaker 3: imagine if there was a lot going on here.
Speaker 2: If you've been if you've been there before, Hi, Rich,
Speaker 2: welcome back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I know kid.
Speaker 4: How did that seventeen pounder double triple cheeseburger?
Speaker 3: How did your doctor like that one?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: For sure?
Speaker 2: All right, Rich, You went to Cedars and you saw
Speaker 2: a micro surgery robot. Now a few years ago, I
Speaker 2: went to Cedars and I was introduced to the Da
Speaker 2: Vinci robot.
Speaker 1: Sort of, it wasn't really a robot.
Speaker 2: Mean you doctor still did what he did, and I
Speaker 2: actually got to play with it. And so tell me
Speaker 2: about your technology or the technology that you saw.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so great. Yes, the da Vinci has been around
Speaker 4: for a long time. I think it's been like fifteen
Speaker 4: maybe fifteen years, twenty years. Maybe it's been done many
Speaker 4: many surgeries. It's been incredible for doctors. This is sort
Speaker 4: of the advancement to that. It's a different company, but
Speaker 4: still Italian roots. I don't know why all these robotic
Speaker 4: surgery systems come from Italy, but this is called Somani.
Speaker 4: And what this is, the main difference is is while
Speaker 4: Da Vinci, the surgeon's hands are inside the machine sort
Speaker 4: of moving things around with the robot assistance, this the
Speaker 4: doctor sits kind of off in a chair away from
Speaker 4: the surgery and is just manipulating controllers that then control
Speaker 4: these robotic devices. So it's almost like a it's like
Speaker 4: a different approach versus being right on the robot versus
Speaker 4: kind of being off to the side. And so the
Speaker 4: big deal about this thing, it's pretty impressive, is that
Speaker 4: it can.
Speaker 3: Perform micro surgeries.
Speaker 4: We're talking surgeries on blood vessels thinner than a human hair.
Speaker 4: It can do that with extreme accuracy because it magnifies
Speaker 4: the surgical area and eliminates the hand tremors that are
Speaker 4: present in any hand, right, whether you're surgeon or not.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I love what.
Speaker 2: I'm about to do to you, because I never ever
Speaker 2: get the opportunity.
Speaker 1: To correct you.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, the Da Vinci robot does exactly that.
Speaker 2: The surgeon is sitting in a device and he has
Speaker 2: these hand controls and it goes into its arthroscopic surgery
Speaker 2: and he goes into the body or the device.
Speaker 1: It magnifies and it stops.
Speaker 2: The tremors because and it's I mean, it's really specific
Speaker 2: and does a hell of a job. So the only
Speaker 2: thing that I didn't see is the micro surgery part
Speaker 2: about the Da Vinci did not go that far where
Speaker 2: it was blood vessel level. But it's Yeah, the doctor
Speaker 2: who showed me he had a regular arthoscopic surgery where
Speaker 2: you have what looks like a foosball poll where you're
Speaker 2: you know, you're playing with it. And he had a
Speaker 2: dead chicken where I supposed to live chicken, and he
Speaker 2: had just chicken you by at the grocery store.
Speaker 1: And I was trying to sew up a cut.
Speaker 2: They made with the legitimate or the traditional foosball type.
Speaker 1: Of surgery, the arthroscopic surgery couldn't do it, couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: They threw me in a Da Vinci Easiest Pie.
Speaker 2: So that technology is getting better and by the way,
Speaker 2: the doctor can be anywhere in the world. It just
Speaker 2: so happened that the doctor was in the same room,
Speaker 2: but it was all done. I think that one was hardwired,
Speaker 2: but it can be done on the internet.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty pretty amazing technology.
Speaker 3: So I just thought I correct, and.
Speaker 4: This stuff is is incredible for the future. So they
Speaker 4: are very very ambitious about what they think can be
Speaker 4: done in the future. And they were talking like procedures
Speaker 4: that have never been imagined before, like an eye transplant
Speaker 4: would be possible because of these new micro surgeries with this,
Speaker 4: with this new robot. And by the way, at Cedars,
Speaker 4: the reason I was there, they performed the first ever
Speaker 4: FDA approved robotic headed next microsurgery in the US, so
Speaker 4: that was a pretty big deal. And they're doing this,
Speaker 4: you know, for head and neck cancer. I mean it's
Speaker 4: really incredible. That is incredible, and and the fatigue side
Speaker 4: of it, I know the doctors were kind of not
Speaker 4: you know, they mostly were promoting the patient kind of advantages,
Speaker 4: but for the doctor, the fact that you are sitting
Speaker 4: in a chair comfortably, and sometimes these surgeries can.
Speaker 3: Go twelve hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's another benefit to this is that you're just
Speaker 4: manipulating these tiny hand controllers versus being looking inside a machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the specificity and the control.
Speaker 2: I wish it had been around when I underwent my circumcision,
Speaker 2: and it would have been far, far better.
Speaker 1: Okay, Hey, go.
Speaker 3: Ahead, I'm not going to make the micro surgery joke
Speaker 3: to there.
Speaker 1: Oh that's actually very funny.
Speaker 3: That is actually very well right into that bill.
Speaker 1: Yes, I certainly do.
Speaker 2: Hey, there are Apple stores out there all over the place.
Speaker 2: There's a new store in Santa Monica, but it's a
Speaker 2: Google store. I didn't even know Google hand stores.
Speaker 3: Well, they don't have many.
Speaker 4: This is their sixth retail location, obviously, the first in
Speaker 4: southern California. Their first was up I believe it was
Speaker 4: their first up in Mountain View. And they've got him
Speaker 4: in Mountain View, New York, Boston, Chicago, and the next
Speaker 4: one's going to be in Austin. So slow but steady.
Speaker 4: I mean, Apple has over five hundred stores. Obviously Google
Speaker 4: taking a much slower approach, but.
Speaker 3: The idea is kind of the same.
Speaker 4: You can go in there, get help, buy stuff like
Speaker 4: the pixel smartphones, all their wearables, and of course get
Speaker 4: screen repairs and all that kind of stuff on site.
Speaker 4: But I will tell you, Bill, what I think is
Speaker 4: interesting about this store. Not only is it is it
Speaker 4: really beautiful in Santa Monica at the Third Street Promenade,
Speaker 4: which they're trying to revitalize. I was there over the
Speaker 4: weekend and they had I can't believe this, Barnes and
Speaker 4: Noble went back in. Remember they used to have that
Speaker 4: giant Barnes and Noble there. Well, they came out and
Speaker 4: now they put a new one in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hated it when a shutting down. It's a
Speaker 2: great place to hang out. That's one of my favorite places.
Speaker 2: Rich As always thank you on a Tuesday. I we'll
Speaker 2: catch you this weekend Saturday, eleven am to two pm.
Speaker 3: Have a good one, all right, Bill,