Valence founder demos Spectre, an anti-recording device for the post-OpenAI-spy era, targeting enterprise meeting rooms

Speaker 3: How are you doing? Welcome back.

Speaker 13: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker 3: Thank you. Yes. Perfect time. Kick it off with an...

Speaker 2: Behind this?

Speaker 3: Is this a marketing...

Speaker 2: Because the whole scheme seems so silly. It's like you're covering it up with toilet paper, using using your employer's product to try to do research on how to do the crime. It was very silly.

Speaker 13: Yeah. I mean, it it is very silly and I mean, in many ways, can totally understand the skepticism from people. Yeah. I would say... But that's exactly the point as well because actually, that's a chip that is super simple and easy to get. We actually have originally tested some of these. This is the baseline chip for this, So, that's the point with AI. Anyone these days can really become an expert at something that they don't know and they can just build this. So in many ways, it was exactly what we have been preaching for a while. Yeah. And seeing that come up here is, of course, very concerning. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I don't... I mean,

Speaker 3: Yeah. We... Please reintroduce the cases. Re reintroduce the company and the product. And, yeah, should I get one of these to block my LG TV at home?

Speaker 13: Great question. So the Valens builds for devices that prevent unauthorized audio recordings, in particular Spectre prevents microphones from recording use, so we have been developing this technology. It's based on innovations in both hardware and also physics, as well as we're building our own in house models with AI to make sure that we can specialise exactly in this area. So I would say it is the perfect time to think about how can you protect your physical security because we are really moving from a digital security based cybersecurity time into also a physical one with middleware bands, with TVs making innovation also content recognition, you know, all of these things, there's a lot that's coming up. But the OpenAI case in particular shows that AI recorders and recorders overall are going to be very cheaply accessible for anyone. So if you care about your privacy, if you care about keeping your conversations where they're being held, this product is for you. We also have another product that's called Calypta, which prevents AI transcription during online meetings. But that's a bit separate on this issue.

Speaker 3: Okay. I signed up for Calypta for the beta. I put my email down. That's not shipping yet. But you can order the Spectre one today. Preorder. When is it shipping? Take me through the the the process of actually building, manufacturing, distributing these.

Speaker 13: Definitely. So we have been developing Spectre, so it is still in r and d phase to make sure it really works as well as it can. So the preorders are more so to secure your spot. We're hoping to ship it early next year, And there are also demos that we are planning to release up until the end of this year to showcase our progress on the technology. So I would say that is the general understanding of Spectre.

Speaker 2: And recording devices, what's happening on the spyware side? I've... There's... There was people talking about how some of these devices can be, you know, significantly smaller than than a penny, like, you know, something that you would never notice. Right? I think what was interesting Yeah. About this, case that that came out yesterday is just like, it it was not necessarily very sophisticated hardware. It was, you know, they were trying to cover it up with toilet paper, but it feels like there's... We now have... Humans have the capability to, you know, capture information in a form factor that that... And much smaller than ever before.

Speaker 13: Yes. So that is especially that's why we're focusing on a lot of R and D, and we're actually looking for enterprise partners to make sure that we can specifically protect against these cases, because they're very particular, they're usually in meeting rooms, so there's a very normal design that we can go through to make sure that it's for meeting rooms. We can do more than just putting one device in there, so we are looking right now into mesh capabilities for room level protection instead of just on the go protection, which is what Spectre one was originally. But now the question for enterprises is how do we protect entire rooms? So we're looking to partner with people up on that front as well.

Speaker 3: That makes a ton of sense. Yeah. The the the Spectre One device, I'm looking at the landing page. It it it seems like it's maybe the size of a donut or maybe a little bit bigger. It's not like key chain size. So it's a it's a commitment. But I feel like if I wear this around a necklace, everyone will get the idea don't spy on me. It could be kind of a fashion statement, I suppose.

Speaker 13: That is very true.

Speaker 3: Are are is miniaturization on the road map? I imagine that this could shrink down. Also on the cost side, $1,200 feels a little high for something like this. But what's been the response? What's the road map to get to something that's more just like everyday consumer friendly?

Speaker 13: Definitely. So when it comes to, for example, business rooms Yeah. Positioning multiple in there, that would allow us to shrink down the form factor a little bit. For consumers, we're also looking to shrink it down. It is the size of a speaker approximately. Main problem is, you know, we are using compute on these devices so everything can run locally. So that's why the price point is at that level because we are running our own models on it in order to make sure that everything stays secure and private on the device as well. But we are working on this and it is in the pipeline. It's just good things take time, so we are working through it.

Speaker 3: Interesting. Is the device able to detect if recording is happening or does it matter? Like, if I'm in the forest and there's no electronics around me at all, will it still be scrambling and and and blocking? Or does it turn on proactively when it knows, hey, those Metairie bands are on and they're listening?

Speaker 13: So right now, it's doing it regardless of whether something is recording or not as long as it detects there's a

Speaker 9: device that can record. Got it.

Speaker 3: Okay. So, it's it's hearing like Bluetooth.

Speaker 2: I don't know if you'll have time this holiday season, but next holiday season, if you could release a Christmas themed device that sort of...

Speaker 3: That might do it. I think if you're just constantly rattling the jingle bells, it's gonna throw off a lot of the AI recording. That's the low tech solution.

Speaker 2: Put you in the Christmas.

Speaker 3: Really loud actually.

Speaker 2: Put you in the Christmas spirit.

Speaker 3: Yes. That might

Speaker 2: be... Really glad you're doing this work. Yeah. Thank you for... More important than ever.

Speaker 3: Yes. Congratulations on the progress. Good luck with the next product revisions and have a great day. We'll talk soon.

Speaker 13: Sounds great. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3: Goodbye. Cheers.

Speaker 2: Well. Well, folks. Thanks, Urschel. What a good run. It's been a great run all over the place today. Yeah. From Erwan to mathematics to

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: D valence.

Speaker 3: Yeah. We did go all over the place. Very fun. Any breaking news in the timeline, Tyler? Anything you do? No? You good? The only thing that I saw that we got to talk about first, we got to go back to alcohol. But this is a crazy stat. Today, Leonard Heim, former guest of the show, says, Global spending on alcohol is still larger than AI infrastructure spending this year. $1,700,000,000,000 spent on alcohol, $1,500,000,000,000 spent on AI infrastructure. So if we all band together and start teetotaling, we got another leg up.

Speaker 2: That's right.

Speaker 3: We got another leg up.

Speaker 2: That's right.

Speaker 3: We might have to do it. No. Really really puts in perspective. I I had no idea that the alcohol market was so huge but it in fact is. It's bigger than AI and Yeah. Yeah. It really is. We'll see how it goes. Well, there's what? Seventy one days till Christmas? How How many days until Christmas we got? Let's count it down. We got plenty of stuff going on. Here we go. Merry Christmas. Okay.

Speaker 4: Rolling flashback.

Speaker 3: Was We've got five stars on Apple Podcast.