>> announcer: "press: here" is sponsored by barracuda network with storage solution that simplify i.t. >> and this week, facebook takes a step in virtual reality. >> and flicker. >> and can don mccaskill do what others couldn't. and maker fair returns to san mateo. we'll get a preview with gale doubtery. and from the japanese smart news and michael from the associated press. this week on "press: here." good morning. i'm scott mcgrew. on weekend mornings you'll find

me at a breakfast place called jack holders. it is a nice place and family owned. i bring up this random fact to illustrate a point. imagine for a minute your favorite family diner just bought mcdonald's, that is how i felt when i found out smug mug, a small family owned company just bought flicker, the photo sharing website. that is like the corner diner buying mcdonalds. this is a rarity in silicon valley run by a family and i first ran into the farther and son who ran the company in 2004 and smug mug headquarters was a small apartment. it is a news report i did from 15 years ago. >> and we thought it was very important that your photos be front and center and big and beautiful and see all of the details. >> this is smug mug headquarters, in mountain view. run by a father and son, they have made their dotcom fortune creating and selling an online book store.

now they think they have another winner with smug mug. >> you saw don mccaskill with his dad, 2004 and he was ceo then and is ceo now and ceo of flicker joined by smart news and michael of a.p. i don't know whey was feeling in -- in 2004 that i didn't like -- cats. truthfully, i still don't like cats. but you say it is not a dog-infested office. >> bigger office and a lot of dogs. >> okay. you bought flicker. >> we did. how did that even dock -- even >> it is a great question. it is a conversation that started and happened on and off over a couple of years. we've been big fans. they're a great photography community and we've been big fans for a long, long time and it seems like flicker was existing outside of yahoo and a sweet spot in terms of what they want their business to do. and one thing led to another -- >> so you just call on the

phone? hi, is this flicker. >> not exactly, no. the conversation is more with yahoo and oath than with flicker. but eventually, yeah, we stepped into the team and now we're going to make history. >> what are you going to do with it? >> we don't have a big grand master plan just yet, i just want to learn about it. we've built smug mug over 15 years listening to customers and so now i have a huge new set of customers that i need to be listening to and building great things for. >> you talked about not putting the businesses together initially. how will that work? will you be double ceo. >> yes. i'm ceo of both. but but we've had the team so they understand running the place and my job is to learn from there and figure out what

we can do better. but it is an amazing product and community unlike any other community out there and so i think -- smug mug and flickr -- we need to see what makes each product great and figure that out before we think about building bridges, let alone combining them. combining them doesn't seem like a natural fit. >> you've always run a close-knit business. one of your biggest challenges maintaining your corporate culture that you have, the small business and bringing in all of the new people. how do you go about doing that? >> culture is a big part of what makes smug mug, smug mug. but it is strong and runs deep by now and we think we found a group of people that really resonate with our different approach to business and in silicon valley and photo sharing. and in the team -- >> is that because the flickr

was never part of yahoo. are they their own team. >> they have often felt independent i think. >> independent and to michael's point which is an excellent question, you have this -- not everyone who works at smug mug is literally in your family. but a fair amount of people are literally in your family at smug mug. so you have this family-run business in which it would be easier to be an outsider. i wasn't here 14 years ago, i'm from a different team and not even -- my last name isn't mccaskill. you might feel like an outsider once they start to mix together. >> i certainly hope that isn't the case. we do employ a bunch of people with the last name mccaskill, five or six people, but smug mug has more than 130 employees and they all love working with us and i love working with them. so we're excited to bring the flickr folks and they are excited to. >> people make a choice as to which service they want to use

and be a part of. i know the business model between flickr and mug smug is different, but what makes a customer a user choose one over the other. >> great question. flickr is -- their center of gravity is around the photography community. so really big on community. really big on helping you find great photos, helping people find your great photos and -- interacting with and that is something mug mug doesn't have nearly as near of a presence on. but smug mug is about great display of photos and keeping them safe and if you want to, let people buy them and print them from your photos. we have a ton of professional photographers that run their business through smug mug and those things aren't in the flickr center of gravity. so if you are a photographer and passionate, now you have two great choices and some people are choosing both. >> and i know smug mug prides

itself on protecting privacy of users. do you see the privacy scandal at facebook as an opportunity to persuade more people to foet photos with you, use your service more than, say, facebook or instagram? >> we have a 15-year history of caring about our customers, they're photos and their privacy so we give our customers lot of control over who gets to see their photos and in what context and all of that sort of stuff. that is not going to change. we were surprised that so many people were willing to put photos on services that didn't have that sort of customer alignment. but facebook's business model isn't really customer focused. they enable advertisers and things like that -- smug mug focus for 15 years has been customer. our business and our customers, since they pay a subscription fee have always been aligned. >> speaking of problems, you are inheriting -- anybody buying a piece of yahoo, you are picking up the hacks and is there any

problem with owning something that used to be part of yahoo. >> that is a good question. i don't think so. we -- i guess we'll find out. [ laughter ] >> as you get on the phone to the lawyer, we hadn't thought about that. >> you're probably going to tell me how much you paid for flickr. >> no. sorry. >> i'm fascinating by buying things for what i presume are a large amount of money. where did the money come from? did you need outside -- or investors and i know you're making millions. did you go to the bank and say we'd like to withdraw our bazillion dollars. >> well i won't go into details but i could tell you smug mug still owns itself and it is still in control of its destiny and super aligned with customers rather than -- >> if i wanted to, coy imagi-- i imagine you had a briefcase full of cash. >> you could imagine that. i'll imagine that, too. why don't we both imagine that

together. >> don mccaskill. if you are interested in photography, i have been a smug mug fan for years. now the ceo of flickr as well. thankz for being with us. >> thanks for having me. facebook wants to be topped in virtual reality when "press: here" continues. getting what yo?

the legal requirement for certain dealerships. our consumer investigator finds out - if they follow the law. and of course - coverage of breaking news as you start your day. see you monday! )today in the bay ) - 4:30 to . >> welcome back to "press: here." this is an oculus go.

it went on sale a couple of days ago and it is made by facebook and a virtual reality headset. it is hardly the first, but it may be the one that people actually buy. is facebook's vice president of v.r. ugoh barra. >> oculus is our first stand-alone, all in one vr headset which means you don't connect to a phone or a pc. it is light weight and portable and easy to bring with you anywhere. and at $199, we're making vr more approachable and accessible than it has ever been. >> peter rubin is an expert on vr and called the go-to authority on the intersection of popular culture and virtual reality. i got that from the inside jacket of the blurb on his new book, he may very well have written that himself. the book is "future presence, how virtual reality is changing human connection and intimacy and the limits of ordinary

life." i played with. this i like it very much. but your review in wired was i believe it's dope. >> i'm not going to claim that i wrote that particular headline. but that absolutely explains my feelings -- yeah. >> what make this is dope. >> what is remarkable about it, like barra said in the clip, this is the first of many i should point out this year but the first in the new category of vr headset known as a stand-alone. in the past you had to drop a mobile phone and depend on its sensors or displays which weren't built for vr or tether it to a thousand dollar pc and then you have wires and basically tethered to this thing like a matrix baby in a meat sack and this frees people up. and certainly there have been wireless add-ones that allow people to use pc headset wirelessly but with cost for

$200 for a casual experience for people not only put it on and turn it on and get going, but take it off and hand it to someone so they could flip it on just as easily. that is what makes this such a great >> i'm interested in the smartphones as wreaking havoc with the social interactions. what will happen when we're all wearing these isolating -- sitting around wearing isolating headsets, if it bmz -- if it becomes a mass phenomenon. >> you are only isolated if you are in the headset, which is the point of the book i wrote. the idea is over the past couple of years of consumer vr we've started using virtual reality to share experiences with other people inside of this virtual environment and that has unlocked this incredible host of social dynamics and patterns and so the hand wringing done about a technology being a form of escape and just by ourselves and isolate, there is a road in which you can imagine that is vr but not being built in vr.

you can look to the main announcements from earlier this week at facebook developer conference, not only did they announce the go was going on sale but also gave a little more flesh to the three new ventures. one is oculus rooms which allows you to hang out with people and play games and watch tv together. o ock oculus tv and then venues which would bring thousands of people into a space to watch a live event. >> his question reminded me of the movie "ready player one" where everyone was isolated in real life but all doing something together in virtual life. what did you think of the movie as far as demonstrating perhaps the future of virtual reality? >> well i like the movie a little bit more than the book. but it is also a very, very narrow selection of what that virtual universe gains -- >> it is a very gaming centric version and oasis which is the

meta-verse in ready player one is much larger than that but the story takes place in this gaming threat. and games were of course the first thing that really started making money in vr. so people think of it as a gaming technology. but it is just already transformative of education and therapy and engineering and other fields. social is a thing -- as a term to just mean things we do together. and this is a thing that is getting an unbelievable amount of traction among users and i think people who are creating experiences in this world is taking note of that. >> vr has been around for a while. did it evolve and -- and has it evolved as quickly's thought it would. >> in some ways it evolved quickly. and in ready player one, that takes place in 2045 and watching -- reading it in 2011 when the book came out it seems like a far off fantastic. and watching the movie by steven

spielberg in 2018, the headset wearing in 2045 and what we could do in 2045, we're not there yet but we've come so much closer to that ideal already in the first six years of the reem urgence. >> but when vr became something that people -- and you had a cover story about it in "wired", it is like 3-d printer and everybody said they'll own one and nobody has one. >> and some people do -- >> but vr you thought the same thing. clearly this will ramp up and then it didn't. why is that. >> well it did in a certain way and in complete adherence to what is known as the gartner hype cycle in which expectations gets inflated and then the device comes out and then the disillusionment and then you hear vr is dead and we told you and then it climbs out. >> is this the device that will do it because it is easy to use and relatively inexpensive.

>> it feels like the zau-- the amazon kindle moment when the e-book came together. >> that is right. if it is not the "go", it the category that will tip vr into mainstream. some have called this the iphone of vr, where you had a number of predecessors but none came together and made it easy. but there is still one step to happen before it becomes a magical zee vice and oculus presented santa cruz that does everything the "go" does but move in third dim earningal space. >> are you saying that the one i got yesterday is going absolute. >> as good as you could get for # -- $200. >> when i would watch star track the next generation and they had a hollow deck and you could be

anything you want to be and i wonder why anyone would leave the deck. you could do anything you wanted. is there a future in which these get so good that why would i want to have real life when i can do -- i could be muscular and amusing and surround by women in a pool and -- i could be on vacation every day. >> yeah. >> this is -- i get this question as you could probably imagine quite a lot. and what i have been saying is for the foreseeable future, real life will always be better and that is for a very specific reason and that is smell and taste. what you can't have with vr, you can have incredible visual and audio and better tactile feedback but you don't get that sense memory, the smell of the sea water in the air or the way it feels on your skin or the warmth of your sun on your face, if you start building simulations and illusions of

that into vr, you are giving people something that is of simulation of real life and that is when the hollow deck feels real. >> so if that isn't the biggest concern, the biggest concern about vr. what is your biggest concern. >> the two biggest concerns that i have right now and i should point out this is the dawn of reeling heads -- >> tell me your biggest concern. >> behavior on one side and fraud on the other. >> fraud? >> meaning make news -- >> no, i get it. >> peter ruin's new book is call for vr. and if it is may. if you haven't been, it is awesome. a preview when "press: here" returns.

>> announcer: "press: here" is available as a podcast on itunes. welcome back to "press: here." president trump said it is very important that america return to the factory roots, creating things. and america after all was built on the back of the steel and the car industry. but americans don't make stuff like we used to. and by stuff -- to buy stuff we go to costco and watch people pushing the big carts around. there are exceptions. a core group of inventors and tinkers and crafters who call themselves makers, people who know tools an work with hands and they gather once a year in san mateo, california, for a celebration called maker fair

and dale is their god, the founder of make affair and make mgz. you've been on the program. i've been to the affair. describe it to a person who just has never been there. >> well, i tend to just start at it is fun. and you see things you don't see together. robots but also textiles and metal art and -- steam powered engines. so it is really broad in this conception of what technology is and what people do and what they love to do. >> i'm curious, what happens to the creations after the fair? for instance, what happens to this fire spewing pirate ship. >> it probably goes into a warehouse and burning man and back out -- >> some of these are cycled through different performances. >> this is like burning man without going to a remote nevada desert. >> some people said party man

for families. >> and what are the personality characteristics of a maker. >> i think this is the whole thing that we used to call it -- [ inaudible ] i have an idea and i want to try to make that thing. and to make it better and then share it with other people and talk about it. sometimes in some ways it is hobbies but they evolve into product and companies -- >> and there are so many things -- so many tools available. i was joking about 3-d printers but before but that case it is useful and 3-d print erds and scanners and things regular people could use that people would never have had access to. those kind of tools. >> that is what i've trying to get people to understand. it is easier to make things today than ever. the capital involved is a lot less and the tools are better. partially because software has made things a lot simpler from the average person to do. to use a # d printer.

>> have some of these things ever become mass market products. >> i wouldn't say completely. a 3-d printing came close to that and as a previous guest mentioned, i think it was overhyped. but what is typical is now it is kind of normal. i mean, a library will have a 3-d printer and it is just -- that is one of the things you have in a library now. and so it is not like -- we're not as giddy about it as we were five or six years ago. >> you publish a magazine called "make" there are projects from build a airplane to knitting to -- have you found yourself competing with youtube on that because so much on youtube is sort of hey, here is how to do that. >> that is how kids learn today. and i don't know if it is competition so much. i think -- one of the areas that we have at make a fair, probably the youtube-ers, that create

this diy content which is one of the most popular genres on youtube but i think of it as affirmation that people are really interested in this how-to content and learning how to do things and seeing what other people can do. >> you mentioned kids. given the fact that today's kids are so technology literate, are you seeing more of a willingness to embark on these kind of projects with the other generations. >> before i answer, there is sort of a distinction between being a user and maker and as it applies to vr and everything. are you creating in that medium or just consuming. and this is my obsession. and i think make affair design encourages you to see yourself as a creator and learn these tools and make things. and so -- kids i think from the beginning of make fair kind of lit up by this and seeing the people -- largely in the

beginning are adults but now increasingly more kids are there as makers. we have over 50 schools apply to -- to bring groups of kids to maker fair this year. and that is a big change. it shows you how this is really spread out into influencing education. >> one of my favorite video clips is president obama had a science fair in the white house in which he's operating a marshmallow with a kid. and that is a good example of makers and excited little kids. >> absolutely. >> it was -- it was 2014. and the current administration isn't as aware of what is going on here or they have other problems. but you mentioned this in the manufacturing piece and i think there is something here that is -- on an economic level of not just manufacturing in the old sense, but how do we innovate and how do more people innovate. if you are only getting

innovators from stanford and berkeley, you'll tap out. and even countries like china, there is a really kind of democracy of this process and sometimes it will happen through education and sometimes not. >> dale daugherty head of make a fair and "make" magazine in san mateo california. >> may 18th through 20th. >> it is not something you drop by. you have to plan for this. this is a major, major event but well worth the dime. dale doubtery. thank you. "press: here" will be back. ?

the legal requirement for certain dealerships. our consumer investigator finds out - if they follow the law. and of course - coverage of breaking news as you start your day. see you monday! )today in the bay ) - 4:30 to . >> announcer: "press: here" is available as a podcast on itunes. >> that is our show for this week. thank you to our guests and thank you for making us part of your sunday morning.

damian trujillo: hello, and welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo, and today, the living legend chuy gomez is here in our studio. plus, "the house on mango street" on your "comunidad del valle." male announcer: nbc bay area presents "comunidad del valle" with damian trujillo. damian: we begin today with perhaps the youngest diplomat ever in the history of the world. with me is the cónsul por un día sponsored by the mexican consulate. sophie ruiz mcginty is a mexican consul general for a day here in san jose, and her dad raymundo is kind enough to join us here also on the show. welcome to the show. sophie mcginty: hi. damian: congratulations. sophie: thank you. damian: we do have some pictures because it's been a busy week for you. tell us everywhere you've been. here you are doing a radio interview it looks like it. sophie: yeah. damian: and then there you are at san jose city hall with the mayor and council member magdalena carrasco receiving some sort of commendation.