 From Las Vegas, expecting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE, covering InterConnect 2016. Brought to you by IBM. Now your host, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are live in Las Vegas for IBM InterConnect. This is Silicon Angles theCUBE, our flagship program, where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, the founder of Silicon, I'm John McCose, Dave Vellante, founder of Wikibon.com Research. And our next guest is Rene Berkstead, Group Product Manager, smart wearables at Ebson. Welcome to theCUBE, we've got a golf club here. Sports data, the theme of the morning. We've had Cycling on, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you very much for having me, appreciate it. I need all the help I can get on golf. Dave does too, we always play once a year, pretty much, Dave, actually Dave's- I really need help, John's good, John's good, good swing. So talk about what you guys are doing with wearables. Obviously, sports is a big deal. We're seeing it across the board, from fan experience, managing clubs, how athletes are using technology and data, wearables, an ideal use case. And Neil was on the show a couple of hours ago and he was really talking about what the Olympic athletes have access to. And so what Ebson is doing, first of all, we are the same company as the one that makes the printers and the projectors. And we have a division that makes sensors and those are motion sensors, GPS sensors, and then also heart rate monitoring from the wrist. So high-end sensors and really what the growth in smartphones and tablets allows us to take those sensors and then transmit that data over Bluetooth. So the devices that measure can be really small and we can get all kinds of great insight for the amateur athlete. The elite guys have had access to this stuff for a really long time. But this gives us the opportunity to bring this high-tech, detailed, accurate sensing technology to the masses. And as you said, golf is a really hard game. And one of the things about golf that's most frustrating is we all have three golf swings. We have the golf swing we actually have. We have the golf swing that we think we have and then we have the golf swing that we want. And if you can't get those first two in alignment, there's no way you're going to get to the golf swing that you want. And so what the... Unless it's a practice swing. Yeah, it's always perfect, right? That's my best shot from the range. The practice swing is always perfect, but there's no stress. So I think that's why you see guys like Bob at Don't Even Take Practice Swings. Just let it fly. And there's also we learned the mental approach to the whole high-end athletes. And Neil was pointing out the whole psychology and golf is the ultimate psychology killer because once you get on a downward slope in terms of mindset, you really go to hell in a handbass and quickly with golf. So you're trying to line those swings here. Yeah, so here's the device. It's very small and lightweight. It goes on the bottom of the grip. It sits here and again, measures the swing, transmits it to your iPad or your iPhone or your Android device. And then... And that's called the M Tracer, right? Yeah, called the M Tracer. And then we have our app and all of the data is transmitted into the app and you get an incredible amount of data. We've got your entire swing path so you can see one of the major flaws of golfers as they come over the top. So we see the full path of the club to see if they're on plane. We also get all of the things that are happening through the impact zone. So face angle, club path, attack angle. We get tempo. We get how the golfer's generating speed. So for guys who are into improving their golf swing, we've got the full picture of what's happening. Typically, people are working on one or two things. And so those would be revealed in the app to show you how you're doing and how you're progressing. So if I take a practice swing right now, would that come out on your tablet? We had a long discussion before you got it. Greg, don't let us. I think your producer might have a heart attack, but yeah. So we actually were at a thought leadership session this morning, hitting golf balls into the crowd at the MGM arena. So that was a lot of fun. So John and I golfed last, actually, no, we had an offsite meeting. But anyway, so we did a little round. And John's got a really beautiful swing. And I said to him, John, how did you get such a good swing? And he's a hockey player. We were talking off camera how hockey translates. But he basically said, I taught myself, right? You just sort of, and you really understood the different angles. I, on the other hand, I can't visualize things so how would I use this to improve my game? That's a great example of how some people have a, just a connection to how their body moves. And some people have less of that. And usually as we get older, we lose that because we're not playing games and sports as often. And so what the instructors who are using this, the PGA instructors who are using this, they find that it's very difficult to communicate to their students a lot of times. They may use video, but video doesn't provide the detail metrics. They may use words for some people that are very verbal. But to be able to show that someone's over-rotating the club in their backswing or something like that, it's another tool to show what's happening for the golfer. So to your point of connecting what's, I think is happening to what's actually happening, so then when you do it again and you make that connection and that helps you learn. Similar to video, watching yourself on video. So I would do this on the range or I would actually do it through a whole round. How are people using this to? Purely on the range. It is a practice tool. It's not meant to be used during a round. And it's, because it is one device, you can adjust what club you're using. So it'll work on everything from a driver to a lob wedge. And the, but you would take a few swings with it on the driving wedge. We wouldn't even say that you would take all your swings with it, but it'll store up to a few hundred swings in your smart device and then you can transmit those to the web and you store a few thousand swings on your account on the web. It's a great example, right? We've been talking about it all week of, trying to digitize a physical asset, transforming your business. Oh, where'd the idea come from? And what's the status of the product? I mean, is it selling now? What's it cost? Yeah, so really where it comes from Epson, Seiko Epson Corporation is Japanese company. We've made high-end motion sensors called IMUs, inertial measurement unit for a long time. And these devices are used in aerospace and construction and other really high-end applications. They're golf crazy in Japan. A lot of the high-end brands, Mizuno, Bridgestone all come from Japan. And so this is a great application of our motion sensing technology brought into sport. And again, the rise of these smart devices makes this possible because there's so much data. We're capturing a thousand samples per second. Because at 120 mile per hour swing speed, which I'm sure you have with your driver when you're coming through that ball, a thousand samples per second, you're still four or five inches between samples at 120 miles per hour. And so the amount of data and then leveraging the storage capabilities and the communication capabilities of the smart device make all of these things possible. I think there's gonna be an explosion in this sports area of being able to monitor the big challenge is figuring out how to communicate it in a way that the consumer can absorb it and then make it actionable. Respond. And so this is a product that's in the market today? It is in the market today. It's $250 available on epson.com slash golf or Amazon, some of the golf instruction sites like playbetter.com that sell training aids, places like that. I think my wheels are churning. So I got to ask the connect the dots question how does this translate like eSports? Because you could argue that this could be something that you could play in your house versus reality. Yeah, it's a great question. And Epson makes the projectors that are in most golf simulators that are in people's houses as well. And so I think that today it's designed for outdoor use or hitting into a net, connecting that into some kind of gamification is just unnatural. I think the first place we'll go is more instruction oriented and giving people a little bit of advice. And then, but the gamification of it in this application or in others and other sports is pretty obvious. Next extension. So how does IBM fit into all this? Because we obviously have the cloud. Are they using the cloud? Are they uploading it? How is this all connected? So the reason we're here at this convention is because of mobile first. And we're using that in the development of our app. So again, the complexity of the app trying to come out with iOS, Android at the same time and doing that with iterative additions to the app and functionality and all of those things. That's where we've teamed up with IBM. And actually that connection is in Japan where all of our development is done. And so use the mobile first app as a front end. That's where all the payload for all the stats and the swing data comes in. That's the software system that we're using for the development of the M Tracer app that's available in the app store and Google Play. So what's been some of the feedback from the golfers? Is that really my swing? My swing speed is much faster than that. We had one guy say, I have to buy this for my teenage son because it's gonna stop arguments. Because he'll actually believe me when I help him with his golf game. So again, it's just that. The feedback is the opportunity to see what's really happening. My, I have a friend who's a scratch golfer. He gives me golf lessons at dinner because I pull out my phone and say, hey, here's my latest driver swing. What am I doing? And he's like, oh, it looks like you need to make this adjustment. So that's really the interesting thing is that- He can look at the data and he makes an assessment based on the data. Absolutely. He says to me, it looks like you're flaring your right elbow at the top. And I said, well, of course, that feels great to me. So you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to tuck your right elbow. So we're at dinner and I've got my swing thought for the next time I'm out on the driving range and a really proven tip. That's not just a random thing. That was a good tip. This is a nice example. First of all, golf spades, leisure sport. And we all know that they have fun doing a little golf ball here, absent on it. But it brings up the whole IoT conversation from work to play. Now you mentioned healthcare, other sensors. I'm sure all this is going on in other industries as well. What does this mean for that? You guys in those markets? What's all connected? Yeah, so we're in the running market. So we make a GPS running watch. In fact, one of our athletes finished second in the Olympic trials in Los Angeles last Saturday. So he'll be going to Rio for his fourth Olympics. His name's Med Keflesgi and he wears our GPS running watch. I think the challenge we face is the amount of information and translating that into meaningful insight so that an athlete can action that at the level they want to. So if it's a Fitbit flex and it's counting steps and that's what you want to action, that's great. If you're trying to qualify for the Olympic trials in the marathon, that's probably not going to help you. You need a little bit more detail. So the key thing is not bombarding people with too much, but meeting them where they are so they can, if they choose to, move up the ladder and get more detail or stick with what's working for them. So obviously golf is a good place to start because of big sport, a lot of market, right, big market. Does this apply to other sportsmen? You were a tennis player. Could I take the same M-Tracer and pop it on my tennis racket? No. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. So I think it's a natural extension. Any sport where there's high participation and where motion, you know, you brought up tennis, think of the adult sports where adults take lessons. No one's taking basketball lessons. No one's taking football lessons, but they are taking golf lessons and they are taking tennis lessons. And for some reason, those are sports where adults continue to actually believe they can get better and will spend the money on it. So from a pure market analysis standpoint, golf and tennis are two great examples of places where adults will spend money. What about a cube swag, right? Give away one of these to every single cube guest that's a golfer, sponsored by Epson. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha. You in? Ha ha ha ha. Yeah, yeah, we'll take the club between the two. I want to hit the pitching pot from the stage and jam. Question I have for you is interesting because now I bring it up the IoT thing again. And so it says, okay, if golf's going to have the data, how does that translate into a technology business for you guys? Because one of the things that Wikibon research team has been putting out there is some of the best technology companies won't be technology companies. They'll use technology, they'll have SaaS, SaaS was a service, we're a platform as a service. You're using IBM, obviously with the cloud and the mobile first. You guys are now a technology company, you are, but yet you're not IBM. So you're leveraging IBM to do that. So a great example of that, anyone with an application, if you will, this case sensor, there's some tech involved, can just bolt on, take us through that narrative and that experience with IBM. Well, I think for Epson in particular, our core competency is hardware. And that may not be sexy in this day and age, but we do really well in making printers. We do really well making projectors. We also make robots, we're a hardware company. And so knowing that, we also partner really well because our printers have to work with Apple, they have to work with Microsoft, they have to work with a huge suite of PCs. And so we're good at that. That's one of our core competencies is being a hardware device that partners with other people. So we're looking at spaces where there's a software company called EduFi that does coaching software. So it's a natural plug-in for us to work with EduFi on our hardware so that they're not going to do sensors. They're Silicon Valley social software company. So that's again a perfect combination of what we do really well and what they do really well to really provide a great service to the customer. And I'm assuming you play golf. I do. So this is part of your job. Yes. Some cool courses you've played lately. You can share what's your last score. What's your handicap? So it's, I don't have kids so I get to play. I don't have kids and I live in Southern California. So I get to play. So I'm mid single digits. And so I think I've got a golf trip coming up to Florida. I get to go play Streamsong, which is a hot new resort destination out there. So I'm really excited about that. And so it's a, but I do, I'm fortunate enough that I do get to play a fair amount, but there's a very familiar saying in the golf industry that go to work in the golf industry and you will play less golf than you've ever played in your life because now it's work. Have you played in Japan? On top of a building? I haven't played in Japan yet. Hitting it to a net? Yeah. So I'm hoping next, next trip I think we'll get. All right, Randy, what's the coolest thing you've seen here at the show? The coolest thing I've seen here at the show, I think the gentleman that runs a music festival in Denmark was speaking at the thought leadership session and he was using IBM Tech to show heat maps around where people go during their eight day music festival and how they have to use that to manage things for not only selling concessions, but also safety and knowing where people will be at different times during the show. I just thought that was a great use of the technology, not only about commerce, but also safety and other applications. And I thought that was just a really neat visual. That beacon, the beaconing thing. Yeah, right, it's all coming out of people smart. Anybody who downloads the app, they know where they are so they can help manage traffic flow. What's the vibe of the show here? If you can share for the folks watching out there, what's the vibe of IBM Interconnect this year? It's a little intimidating to a guy like me who's coming from the sports side of things. This is a lot of really smart people talking about the things that run the world, basically. I mean, I get the sense that there isn't a device that we use that isn't touched by people at this convention this week. And really, not only today, but also the devices that we're gonna be using for the future as well. So I think the vibe is pretty interesting to me in terms of it being really about the guts of running the things that we use every day. Rainier Berstead, Group Product Manager, smart wearables and absins. Thanks for joining on theCUBE. It's this trip here in Vegas. And if you like theCUBE, check out Cube Madness. Starts March 15th. It's our annual kind of goof on the NCAA. We have our own Cube guests that can be nominated and they go up against each other in bracket rounds. Who gets the most tweets and votes? Look for Cube Madness on SiliconANGLE.tv. Rainier, thanks for joining on theCUBE. Certainly the sports data, big, big, hot area. Really innovating, showing the power of data. Thanks for joining us. This is Cube, we'll be right back more with Las Vegas. Interconnect 2016 from IBM's big cloud show here. This is theCUBE, we'll be right back.