How a Tech Powerhouse Was Born in the Middle of the Atlantic

there's part of me that thinks ice lenders might not be the brightest of people I mean look at this place it's mostly made up of barren volcanic rock the belches pushing the foul smell of sulfur throughout the countryside animals and plants have avoided this cold hard land and so too should have humans but as we all know humans are a stupid yet wonderfully determined species we often live where we're not welcome over the last hundred years I cylinders found a way not just to survive but to thrive they became some of the world's best fishermen they invented their ways out of problems and they even found a way to turn their love of sagas elvish folklore and storytelling into massive businesses this is a place where the land and a never-ending battle with nature has had a profound influence on the country's technology travel with me as we head from Reykjavik to the Icelandic Coast slice some fish with algorithms and warp into an entirely different universe to explore Eve one of the most amazing video games ever created all on this episode of hello world Silicon Valley may be home to some of the biggest tech giants in the world but it's being challenged like never before crazy tech geniuses have popped up all over the planet making things that will blow your mind my name is Ashley Vance I'm an author and journalist and I'm on a quest to find the most innovative tech creations and meet the beautiful freaks behind them hello world a hundred years ago Iceland lumbered along is one of the poorest countries in Europe then during the Second World War it's fishermen took great risks sailing through minefields dodging warships and submarines to feed the continent rich is poured in in the country industrialized and modernized within a couple of decades I've traveled to the fishing village of grynn Davich on the country's southwest shore to see just how far Iceland's fishing industry has come boats arrive here every morning packed full of cod and redfish and then get transported to nearby processing plates inside one of these plants sits the most advanced fish slicing gear on the planet it's a machine made by the Icelandic tech giant morale and it uses algorithms to carve up the fillets then end up on your plate we're gonna head into the factory floor where they've got a couple of the new morale machines it's people and machines working side by side and I'm sure it's gonna smell pretty foul I prepped for the mechanized river of death with good Borg she's a mechanical engineer turned operations guru who has spent the last few months overseeing the installation of these machines this is the Machine Ferrari a fish slicer meet the Flexi cut first it x-rays the fish to spot bones and then a water jet slices the fish with great precision dozens of programs run on the machine to slice the fish just as customers want if Tony Stark wanted to make fish tanks this would be his machine what's the key technology behind that machine to be able to see the fillet and craft it each time and every time the same when you're doing the x-ray what is the software doing yeah calculating exactly how to cut because you are towing fish on the water jet so you need to be very accurate and at 50 fish per minute how quickly is it making that decision we have less than a second to work take a picture estimate and cut there's everybody worried that the machines are gonna come take their jobs yeah that this are usually a warrior when you have technology replacing manual work we say we are actually creating technological Joplin's that the reality is the humans will find it tough to compete with these kinds of machines perhaps with a bit of luck a human touch will be required for the fishy leftovers the morale hopes to process next there's a lot to gain still I think we haven't even started to explore the value of byproducts of the seafood ice lenders as if a wholesome fish diet wasn't enough they go about their daily lives secure in the knowledge that 100% of their country's energy is renewable partly thanks to this stuff Iceland has turned its volcanoes into allies tapping geothermal pockets to eat homes and water using hydroelectric dams for electricity this energy self-sufficiency is key to Iceland's prosperity now Iceland hopes to export its green energy smarts some clever engineers have created a funky rugged wind turbine it'll be used in Iceland to power isolated summer homes and remote industrial equipment and to bring green energy to rural areas overseas run outside of the highway about 20 miles outside of Reykjavik you can see this little guy spinning around all day powering telecommunications equipment back in downtown reykjavik there's smaller versions of this sitting on top of a bus stop they're powering a Wi-Fi base station and advertising board and a smartphone recharging station in an industrial suburb on the edge of reykjavik the company called Icewind has set up shop in an abandoned coal power plant to build these turbines by hand it's run by thor the company's business chief and see thor a former nuclear engineer this type of turbine is called the sovereign use vertical axis wind turbine in case you missed it that would be a savonius vertical access wind turbine for all you turbine noobs out there technically it's an old technology I mean it dates back to the Persian Empire or something we have taken this base design and kind of brought it to the modern age with modern materials carbon fiber or stainless steel we've made it really really strong we have engineered and cut the blades so that the turbine never goes on over spin and we just done the system so it's really really simple and therefore we can keep the price down but it also can take really really harsh weather and weather is a serious problem this is what can happen to a conventional wind turbine when excessive wind speeds hit in Iceland windmills can last for about three years before the weather does the min the shape of the ice wind turbines allows them to function in low wind and to stop from spinning out of control and high wind and beyond that they just look cool people when they look at it they don't realize what it is they just think it's a sculpture or something they're not thinking about this as an ugly energy production twice so mister is putting more emphasis on the design itself how it looks all the curves and stuff like that I swing has trials running throughout this country and expects to begin selling its turbines worldwide later this year Thor is anxious to test out Iceland's ingenuity on a bigger stage we've been isolated for a long time and I think we're fought for a long time for several different things this is just part of the fighting inventing new things and going you lazy but at least for now Iceland still depends heavily on geothermal power sorry Thor's these types of power plants are so prevalent that Iceland turned one of them into its biggest tourist attraction an hour's drive south of Reykjavik brings you to the Blue Lagoon a man-made giant hot tub smack in the middle of a lava field fed by mineral rich wastewater that starts 2,000 metres below the earth's surface and then gets processed by a nearby power station and fed into the lagoon feels like you're swimming in the middle of volcano it's a surreal experience like taking a bath on another planet gets a float in this warm water even when it's freezing cold outside there's a swim up bar where you can get a beer and if you want that all-natural power plant glow you can pay an exorbitant fee for some silica silica mask and cold beer giant hot tub it's perfect the last part of the ritual is getting out of the cold getting into a nice clean rub but we're gonna have to do this again cuz I can't find the armhole heat exhaustion kicking in I called it a day leaving others to soak up this places geothermal goodness next up I ditched my intercom for a straight shot of adrenaline Oh courtesy of some Icelandic adventurers with tech infused trucks like truck ballet you remember that volcano that erupted in 2010 the one with the name no one could pronounce well it was a blessing in disguise for the country that eruption gave Iceland some serious brand recognition with tourists Iceland's tourism industry is growing 30% per year with 1.5 million people visiting in 2015 this boom of tourists has helped the country climb out of the economic ruin caused by the 2008 financial crisis the thing is tourists suck but there's an easy way to avoid them just hitch a ride with these guys this is Arctic trucks a one-of-a-kind body shop based in rake of it that converts trucks into super trucks that can take on just about anything I want to show you this room with the tires this operation is the brainchild of Emil grim Seth so this will have 46 inch tires is quite big 46 inch tires okay so you have to extend the body it's a foot a foot and a half app Emil and his crew ripped the trucks apart stretch them hardened the underbody and axles then they put on these massive tires which can be deflated quickly for better traction on the snow if you want to hunt some elves or see all of the natural splendors that Iceland has to offer Emile and his crew will work up a trip and take you on one hell of an adventure oh yeah I'm a Texan slash California and who's not done much snow driving Jeff any tips for me before we go ah yeah you're staying on the snow okay we're done miles miles miles miles miles laughs yeah like Chuck ballet this must be it it's like on Mars or something I mean without the snow I guess joyriding up at the brown I've got a little boy the hang-up about after shredding the snow and smiling until my face cramped we emerged at the edge of a volcano the snow and sky seemed to merge into one producing a view unlike anything else I've ever seen and what do you do when you find yourself at the spot that separates heaven from earth you throw some burgers on the grill say this about Vikings they tailgate like pros who knew after spending 15 hours with the lads it was time to push on and keep getting weird the truth of the matter is that unlike most people I didn't visit Iceland to take in the countryside or find the first puffin of the season all of that stuff was the garnish on my trip no I came here for urban chaos drunken joy and an explosion of raw emotion I came here for the cultural phenomenon known as Eve FanFest buckle up because things are about to get weird nerds thousands of them make an annual pilgrimage to Reykjavik to celebrate EVE Online a massive multiplayer online game that takes place in outer space for three days the gamers come together dress up like their favorite characters shop from an endless supply of swag we should buy one of these and get a sneak peek what's on the horizon there's also a massive live tournament to decide who will become one of the main rulers of the EVE universe where we shall coronate our new leader and the losers shall ritually sacrifice themselves it's not going to last for much longer head trading blow for blow here in the final last night can goes down walk the halls here and you'll quickly find yourself face to face with a wide variety of geek species how many hours would you play a day I'm logged into Eve probably six hours a day seven days a week if I don't have other plans we're logging in at least two or three times a week and joining police and telling people it never stops and if you miss a day then you're gonna have to make it up the next day some people are the nicest people you've ever met a rootless like thugs and bandits at its most basic level EVE Online is a war game set in space people build their characters from scratch hop in ships like this band together by the thousands to form armies and fight battles that can take months even years you've got its start back in 2003 and today it's evolved into a vast universe nearly as rich and complex as the real world with a completely developed political system and social hierarchy there's a complex economy too based on billions of transactions and lots of manual labor all the ships all the ammunition all the parts of all the pieces that go on your ship the drones the guns all of that was built by someone and since there's a lot of things in EVE it's huge before players can zoom off to battle they must spend weeks mining materials to build ships and weapons this Titan is one of the largest class ships it can take six weeks to make and is over 8.5 miles long coalition's spend years obtaining their space gear and they can lose it all with one bad decision what's the lowest feeling you've ever had lowest feeling I've ever had was losing my own type there's nothing like losing about six thousand real-world dollars in virtual equipment you know in in you know in the blink of an eye most games of this type split people up into groups of a couple thousand players and give everyone missions to accomplish not Eve from the outset it's been a game where all of the players inhabit a single universe and they collectively decide how the game should be played this makes Eve a neverending story a spectacular communal experience so all four hundred thousand some odd people who play this game we are playing together you get to know the same people and there we have space celebrities we have space politicians if people know who they are if you're a hero or villain and Eve half a million people know your name know your reputation and will either try to take you down or follow you you know as a result of that what's your status lots of games offer people an escape but none more so than you the Placid become great warriors the shy turn into socialites Eve is about becoming something bigger or at least different than what you are in real life there will be consequences hi alright okay my name is Charles white I play Mac singularity on EVE Online and the creature I am wearing is an in-game item okay and it's called a FET oh okay what's your role in the game well because I'm an older guy I just started game giving advice on on the comms and the players promoted me to the position of hope of EVE Online so I became the space Pope I give blessings I've done two weddings real world wedding I've blessed like six babies already our chain of command often goes the way that I believe most do you have Wolfpack 10 works as a mechanic by day when he logs on he becomes a fleet commander with hundreds of obedient soldiers ready to follow his orders I've personally led little over 700 some people who let thousands do you feel like you have two lives I don't feel like I had two lives I feel like I have one life that is very complicated I try not to separate what I do and Eve from a reality because it has an impact and at the same time I try not to let Eve become so real that I give up things and you know my regular day job and my life and seeing my real world friends for again it's easy to write off Eve players as obsessive online gaming nerds really easy but that would do a disservice to the depth of the game and the fan fest experience the bonds that are made and generated they become members of the kind of like an extended family I've been here four times and we see the same guys here like it's your buddy now because you've been flying with him for years and coming here honestly any time that I get to go out and just hang out with my nerd brethren it's it's been pretty fun do you think you'll play for the rest of your life probably I don't ever imagine not naive so there's enough of this game to keep you interested there so many things I don't know at this point if you ask me about wormhole space I have no idea how it works I know they exist I know I can go through wormholes but I never lived in there I've never even seen what you can do in there there's so much to eve such a big world bit harder when you're done spending a day hanging out with your fellow space warlords there's only one thing left to do pub crawl this is a tradition at fan fest starts at 9 o'clock ends at 5 see if I make it watching these gamers party with each other something I'll never forget but there's something so human and endearing about seeing people in their element feeling free to express themselves it's hard not to join in coming up I'll meet the people who concocted this amazing universe in a strange twist ablaze the utopian perfectly and find out what they plan to do with humans next respect the hell out of this game having met some of the Eve players you may have noticed a trend the game tends to attract smart passionate often devious people managing these people is hard sort of like herding deranged cats that have been doing lots of drugs for 13 years this management burden has been the job of CCP games the Icelandic game studio that invented Eve since Eve has few rules CCP has had to work hand in hand with the players to shape the game and introduce new stuff to buy in new places to go some of the key input from both sides arrives at fan fest we're important things like wormhole Terrans would get debate are you concerned about how hard it is for us to worm roll wormholes at this point do you feel like it's about the right balance the depth of this two-way relationship is unique in the gaming industry welcome to e5 phase 2016 one of the key people who shape the vision of Eve the ccp's longtime CEO Hilmar patterson Nomar is something of a philosopher when it comes to Iceland science fiction and the role that Eve may play in nothing less than the evolution of the human species why does it make so much sense that this game started in Iceland when you're a kid in Iceland you develop a clear sense that the country is here to kill you and if you don't pay attention you're just gonna die we have volcanoes and blizzards and avalanches and God knows what you really have to band together against the elements you started out from humble beginnings three young computer savvy ice lenders raised the money to build Eve by selling a board game called header schpeel or the danger game in English which ended up being a smash hit funds in hand they left from the dining room table to the Stars building a beautiful and iconic interpretation of life in space as Hilmar sees it Eve might now provide a roadmap for an interstellar society we very much think about the game as a construct to inspire the manifest destiny of mankind which is to grow beyond this planet so we cannot look at Eve online the closest thing you have today to live in space so and we believe by giving hundreds of thousands and millions of people that experience and that dream we will bring closer to us the desire and drive to make it actually concretely happen CCP has just released a new game called Valkyrie it's a pure blow em up high action space war game built for the virtual reality headsets just coming to market investors have recently poured money into CCP betting that it will figure out how to merge the best parts of Eve and Valkyrie and create the first meaningful virtual social network where do you see all this technology heading what we wanted to do with Valkyrie was to do something very more immersive something like immediately impactful on your kind of emotional state take down that Charlotte shop all right Eve does that differently because it's more slow-paced and methodical there's more to your brain than to your heart and ultimately the dream is to can immerse these two concepts Gilmartin in vetti's but this guy did he's Rainier Hardison one of the three co-creators of the game he explained the origins of Eve to me near a monument located beside the Reykjavik marina it was built to honor the Eve players with their gamer handles each tin to the base all during fan fest people come to find their names and pay homage to the game people feel very passionate about this and the strange thing about it when you when you log into it it doesn't feel like you're playing again it feels like you're logging into a real world and these people feel it too big and the reason is because it's it's really about human you know it's about humans interacting it's about human emotion and you know whatever makes it human why do you think we will get all that at their jobs and then come and work another job and seek to feel that at home after I would say it's kind of a you know it's in a strange twisted way it's a it's an utopian perfectly but it's riddled with warrants drivin and everything but everyone can you know aspire to be something big at the very end of fan fest the eve players and CCP employees celebrate with a raucous party at the Harper concert hall it's one final booze and heavy metal infused time together before they go home and return to the doldrums of regular life there's a lyrical quality to so much about this place to the way people weave stories into their daily lives to the way in which they seem to celebrate suffering and to the way in which they approach technology and fold it into their culture this country is a testament to the triumph of the human will and to the power of imagination it's the kind of place where the surroundings beg you to get lost in your thoughts and then smile deep down in your soul up next on hello world I'm off to another alien landscape the Mojave Desert where a freedom seeking breed of wild inventors have created a playground to push just about every type of vehicle from cars to spaceships to their lives

Channel: Bloomberg Originals

Views: 213,123

Keywords: News, bloomberg, wall street, business news, Atlantic, iceland, wind power, wind turbine, IceWind, Arctic Trucks, atv, Eve Online, eve, gaming, ashlee vance, elon musk

Id: n8ZRTJQAcjU

Length: 30min 53sec (1853 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2016