Hello everyone, welcome to Options with Doug. Streaming live daily on Bookmap Discord and the Bookmap YouTube channel at 1.30pm Eastern Time. Before I get started, I need to go through the Disclosures. General Disclosure. I'll book map limited materials, information, and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific, investment advice, nor recommendations. Risk disclosure. Trading futures, equities, and options involve substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Here's my contact information. The best way to get in touch with me is through Discord. My name on Discord is Doug P. Also on Bookmap Discord, there's an options-Doug chat channel that is a great place to post questions, comments, and content related to the topics of my presentation and the topics of the channel that I'll go through in just a moment. I'm also on X, formerly known as Twitter. My name there is at Doug Plus. The focus of my presentation today and the focus of the options-Doug chat channel in Discord is options, order flow, the impact of options markets on stocks and futures, and the influence of market maker hedging flow on price action. I have a two-step process of trading in the first is planning and I use positional analysis. I look at how traders and market makers are positioned in the options market and how those positions change from day to day to develop a thesis regarding the expected trading range and volatility for the day as well as the directional bias. The second step in my process is execution. I look at real-time order flow on Bookmap and real-time market maker hedging flow on SpotGamma Hero to confirm my thesis and for setups for entries and exits. When I talk about setups today, I will be talking about an underlying asset and setups can be taken any number of ways. For example, the S&B 500 setups can be taken with the S futures, Smy shares, Smy options, Sbx options, or even ES options. And if there's a particular circumstance where one would be work better than the other, I'll be sure to point that out. Questions and comments are welcome and I will be watching both the options-jug chat channel and Discord as well as the chat and YouTube for your questions and comments. Please feel free to post and I'll do my best to answer your questions. Give me just a moment. I need to adjust the resolution on my YouTube stream. Just a reminder, I am streaming in 1080p on YouTube. I needed to adjust my screen to stream at 1080p. It was a little bit lower resolution. So if you're having any difficulty with resolution on YouTube, you can adjust that to 1080p. And hello Don, welcome. Glad you're here. All right, here's my agenda for today, Wednesday December 6th. First of all, I want to go over news items, economic data, and events for today as well as the rest of the week. Then I'll go through my positional analysis. Then I'll review some setups from this morning and then I'll take a look at the live market. And when I get to the live market, if anyone has any stocks they want me to take a look at, please let me know and I'll be glad to do that. All right, so let's start with news items, economic data and events. So there were a couple of economic data reports this morning. Excuse me, there were a couple of economic data reports this morning. First of all, the ADP employment change data came out at 8.15 a.m. Eastern time. And let's just take a look at the SMB 500. So that was at 8.15. And then at 8.30, there was also some additional data, labor cost. So the ADP report came out less than expected, less than previous. And then at 8.30 a.m. Eastern time, labor cost also lower than expected, lower than previous. So the ADP employment report, again, lower than expected, lower than previous labor cost, also lower than expected, lower than previous. The initial reaction was bullish. And that changed pretty much right at the cash open. And the SMB 500 has been trending down ever since then. And notice this is the reaction to the 8.30 a.m. Eastern time data. All right, for the rest of the week, the jobs report comes out at 8.30 a.m. Eastern time on Friday. 8.30 a.m. Eastern time Friday, the monthly jobs report normally comes out at the first Friday of the month. It was pushed back a week, so it'll be this Friday. And then at 10 a.m., Michigan Consumer Sentiment. And so it's been a pretty light week for economic data, and that we'll pick up next week pretty substantially with CPI data, the FOMC meeting, and also the large December options expiration. And I'll cover more about that next on Monday. All right, so that's news. Now let's take a look at positional analysis. I want to start with the SMB 500. This is the ES Futures and Book Map. Before I take a closer look at this chart, I want to take a look at a larger timeframe. So I'm going to go to SPX. This is a 30-day one-hour chart for SPX. First of all, I want to point out the key turning points on this chart. This is the October 30th. This is the day the rally began, the current rally. On the Friday before, traders were loading up on puts, concerned about weekend risk. And then on Monday, price increased, implied volatility dropped. Market makers could buy back short futures. They sell futures when traders buy puts. They sell the puts. They sell futures. And the market rallied that continued leading to a huge IV collapse, put-vanna rally, periods of consolidation. And then this is the November 14th CPI report that came in much better than expected. And price continued to grind higher. Note that the market maker's position on the gamma curve began quite negative on this last day of October and then has shifted to positive gamma. And you can just tell that from the price action, slowing down more mean reverting price action, then let's zoom in on the last couple of weeks or so. And note, for the last couple of weeks, SPX has been consolidating in a very narrow range between around 4550 and 4600. So that's the range for the last couple of weeks in a positive gamma environment, leading to more trend days and mean reverting price action. And ex Lucero says, screen looks great. Thank you for adjusting. You're welcome. All right, let's take a look at some levels on this chart. First of all, the dash purple lines are showing the lower and upper weekly expected move. And that's updated once a week. That's based on the options market. I update that over the weekend. And SPX is trading within that range but toward the lower weekly expected move. Then the dash blue lines are showing the lower and upper daily expected move. That's also based on the options market that changes once a day. I update that every day. Today, the expected move for SPX was around plus or minus 21 points. SPX tested the upper daily expected move. We'll see that in just a minute. And has been trending lower ever since then. All right, the dark red lines are showing the spot gamma levels. These are proprietary spot gamma levels provided to spot gamma subscribers for a variety of platforms. I'm going to point out the key daily levels. First of all, here's the put wall. At 4,400, that's the strike where the largest net negative gamma that can be expected to act to support. Then above that is the 4,550 level. That's the absolute gamma strike. That's the strike with the largest absolute negative and positive gamma. So that's where most of the gamma weighted open interest is concentrated. And above that is the volatility trigger at 4,570, and then a spot gamma's proprietary volatility flip level. Below that level, market makers position on the gamma curve is negative. In a negative gamma environment, market makers have to trade with price to hedge their delta exposure, and that tends to enhance or increase volatility. On the other hand, above that level, market makers position on the gamma curve is positive. In a positive gamma environment, market makers have to trade against price to hedge their delta exposure, and that tends to subdue or decrease volatility. Note that at the beginning of the day, for SPX, market makers position on the gamma curve was positive, and now SPX is trading below the volatility trigger, potentially shifting more negative if that move lower continues. And then finally, the call wall is at 4,600. That's a strike with a large net positive gamma that can be expected to act as resistance. So those are the key daily levels. Potential ceiling at 4,600. Potential floor 4,400. And that would be quite a move down to 4,400, given that, I guess, really the recent consolidation to get to 4,400 SPX would have to get through 4,550 and 4,500 as well, substantial gamma levels. All right, let's take a closer look at a shorter time frame to see the levels that are in play for today. So this is SPX. This is about three and a half days worth of data. The reason I'm showing more data, I want to show the, first of all, the test of the 4,600 call wall. That was last Friday. And that was the level that acted as resistance. And SPX has traded lower ever since then. And today, this is the cash open today right here. And note the resistance at the upper daily expected move. And then price continues to trend lower, making a series of lower highs. And here's that 4,570 volatility trigger. After price moves lower, acting as resistance. All right, let's take a look at book map now. So in book map, I have my own cloud notes. So I can show SPX levels. There's the volatility trigger. That's the SPX 4,570 volatility trigger. Note there is a difference in price between ES and SPX. And it changes a little bit every day. I post all the index relationships that I use for my charts every day in discord. And today I'm using ES minus SPX equals 6. So the SPX 4,570 level is shown at ES 4576. So I have SPX levels on my chart, adjusted to the correct index relationship. Here's this 4576 level noted as resistance in the spot gamma M founders note. Also the 4590 level also acting as resistance. Then I have SPI levels on this chart. Here's the SPI 4560 gamma level. And it looks like ES is also approaching its lower weekly expected move. All right, so near no real clear support and resistance levels. Note that ES did reverse lower right at the cash open. Right around this 4590 resistance level as well as the upper daily expected move. Looks like that most likely will be the high of the day. And the support level, the lower the days, I guess really yet to be determined. All right, for shifts and levels, just minor shifts and levels for the SP500. Both the SPX and SPI volatility trigger shifted higher. Again for SPX and SPI volatility trigger shifted higher. Otherwise put walls, call walls, absolute gamma strikes all remain unchanged from yesterday. So just minor shifts and levels for the SP500. All right, let's take a look at NASDAQ now. Oops, I realized I just did not hit return when I posted my index relationships and discord this morning. So there they are in discord. Finally, sorry about that. It's been a busy morning, busy day. All right, here's NASDAQ. And let's take a look first of all at QQQ. So we can isolate the QQQ levels and play for today. This is a one day chart for QQQ, one day, one minute chart. And note around this 390 large gamma one level near the high of the day more or less is resistance. Price moves sharply lower at the open cash open shown in the dark shaded area. Making a series of lower highs. Couple of tests to VWAP there that blue dotted line. Now potentially finding support at the volatility trigger also the zero gamma level at 386. So those are the levels I'm playing for today for QQQ. Let's take a look at NDX. Zoom in on this. This is the 16,000 large gamma one level that has been in play off and on for the last few weeks. Price opened up just below that level. Also moved lower just like the QQQ series of lower highs. And here testing the combo level that was also shown on the QQQ chart as well as the call wall absolute gamma strike at 15,825. So the range today for NDX 16,000 on the upside and the 15,825 call wall absolute gamma strike on the downside. Or let's take a look at NQ futures and book map. So just like the ESP500 ES futures I have my own cloud notes so I can show NDX levels. There's the 16,000 level just below that the QQQ 390 level. And then here's the 15,825 absolute gamma strike call wall. So I have QQQ levels on this chart, NDX levels. And this is how I look at the both the ESP500 and NASDAQ in terms for the ESP500 in terms of SPI and SPX levels and for NQ in terms of QQQ and NDX levels. So again here's the the high of the day the 16,390 level and potentially the QQQ 386 level as well as the 15,825 level acting as support. And Timmy Timothy says very smooth delivery. Thanks for all the updates. You're very welcome. And can I look at Tesla? I will definitely look at Tesla today. It's on my list of stocks that I want to take a look at. Alright so that is the levels and play for the ESP500 and NASDAQ. Let's take a look at gamma notional to see how market makers were positioned on the gamma curve at the beginning of the day. This is what I'm going to look at. This information is available in the Spot Gamma AM founders note updated once daily. This is gamma notional market makers position on the gamma curve for the ESP500, NASDAQ and Rosso 2000. Note all these numbers are positive. So for an index Spot Gamma assumes that traders are short calls market makers are long calls in a positive gamma environment and they have to trade against price to hedge their delta exposure. So again all these numbers are positive and the shifts up and down the levels were mixed. SPX Gamma notional up a little bit from yesterday and for SPI down a little bit. So at 155 Gamma notional for SPI is pretty much neutral. And then for NASDAQ both the numbers shifted higher but still pretty close to neutral. And then for the Rosso 2000 the numbers shifted slightly lower but still positive. So overall the takeaway here is gamma notional for today at the beginning of the day is still positive for all these for the ESP500, NASDAQ and Rosso 2000. So let's take a look at the Vanna model to get a graphical representation of what that means. This is SPX the Vanna model. This chart is showing market makers delta notional on the vertical axis, spot price for SPX on the horizontal axis. There are two curves on this chart. The first the light gray curve shows how market makers delta notional may change with changes in price only. And then the purple curve shows how market makers delta notional may change with changes in price and applied volatility. And that change in delta notional with a change in applied volatility is the Vanna effect. And note there's a pretty substantial Vanna effect. If price drops implied volatility increases this indicates that market makers will have to much more aggressively sell futures. Hedge their delta exposure as price drops and implied volatility increases. All right let's take a look at some prices now. Right now SPX still very slightly positive for the day trading right around 4568. Somewhere right around here where I'm holding my holding my mouse pointer. So this is near the bottom of the curve. So this is showing if market makers delta notional if market maker if price increases market makers delta notional increase. They want to remain delta neutral so they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure. On the other hand if price drops implied volatility increases market makers delta notional will increase. And they will have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure. So whenever traders buy or sell puts and calls in spy SPX in this case market makers hedge that with futures ES futures. They always want to remain delta neutral. All right so that's SPX. Again at the bottom of the curve SPX not showing much of a vana headwind or tailwind. Pretty typical of a positive gamma environment. Let's check it. Check spy. Spy trading right around 456 also close to the bottom of the curve. This is showing if price starts to drop implied volatility increases market makers will have to start selling futures. And note this v-shaped curve is very typical of a positive gamma environment. Let's take a look at QQQ. QQQ slightly negative for the day creating right around 387. Also pretty close to the bottom curve slightly on this portion of the curve that slopes up to the left. So same situation if price continues to drop market makers will need to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure. So in the case of QQQ they will need to sell in Q futures. Let's take a look at some setups. So the first thing that I want to take a look at is options trades and market maker hedging activity. Alright let me check for questions. Timothy you're welcome and good afternoon. VHU welcome glad you're here and I will talk about NVIDIA as well. Let me make a note of that and we'll take a look at AMD as well. Soda Rossi indicates that AMD is presenting information advancing AI they're introducing a new AI chip today. So we'll take a look at AMD as well. Alright so let's start with the S&E 500. This is the hero signal. This is spot gamma. This hero signal is available to spot gamma subscribers. Hero stands for hedging impact real time options. Everything that we've looked at so far other than book map has been based on static data that's updated once a day. So the levels that I've talked about the VANA model this is all based on gamma weighted open interest. Spot gamma takes open interest data from the OCC applies their algorithms comes up with the levels and the information that I use in my planning process. So that's all static data updated once a day and then this is real time data. Again hedging impact real time options. This is showing price for SPX with a white line. Then the purple line is the hero signal. That's showing options trades and market maker hedging activity for a combined signal for trades in SPX, SPY, XSP and ES futures. All into one combined signal. A falling purple line indicates traders are taking negative delta positions. Let's zoom in on this chart. This is the cash open right here 9.30 a.m. eastern time. And note from the open hero is trending lower making a series of lower highs. Sorry. Let's take a look at puts and calls to see exactly what traders were doing today. The orange line is showing calls a falling orange line indicates traders have been selling calls and then a falling blue line indicates traders are buying puts. So really the clear signal this morning was this falling blue line which was really driving price helping to drive price lower. So when traders buy puts market maker sell the puts they have to sell futures ES futures to hedge their delta exposure. Let's go take a look at book map. Go back to ES. Here's the reversal at the cash open. Always look for a potential reversal at the upper day they expected move. That's exactly what happened. Let me just check the time here. So this is the cash open right here right at this where I'm holding my mouse pointer and an immediate reaction move lower. Some consolidation at the 458 level spy 458 note large traders were selling this move higher with iceberg orders. That's shown by this falling light blue line. The numbers are not significant. Actually this one is right here 3,170 contracts that is 22 execution. So on this I'm zoom pretty far out so that those executions are consolidated into one number there. So actually I was wrong initially there is some pretty large size. 1,148 contracts. So large traders selling that move higher with iceberg orders they used to hide their size. So that's definitely a clue to look for is large traders selling strength. And then again price reverses lower right at the cash open. The volume dots are showing market buy minus sell green dots indicate more buyers than sellers. And magenta dots indicate more sellers than buyers. And notice large traders continue to sell with iceberg orders. Also sell stop orders helping to fuel the move lower. That's shown by the falling yellow line and then also cumulative volume delta really starts to drop just after 11 a.m. Note iceberg orders stop orders cumulative volume delta all negative very bearish day. And we know that traders were options traders were selling calls and buying puts all indicating a move lower. And yes making a series of lower highs up until about one o'clock or so. Maybe maybe finding support it looks like a lot of buyers coming in. First of all around 1130 that shown by this liquidity in the heat map shows a history of the limit orders in the order book. And then a lot of buyers are coming in starting around one o'clock shown by these deep red bands providing potential support. A lot of buyers there. All right so definitely a pretty clear short set up this morning. All the clues were here in book map as well as the hero signal. Let's go back and take a look at hero again separate outputs and calls. So it now looks like traders may be starting to buy calls and they have stopped buying puts maybe starting to sell puts. So right now it looks like the orange line of the blue line are moving in the same direction. So that is a pretty strong directional signal. So traders are starting to buy calls and sell puts. All right let's take a look at one other signal. This is the magnificent seven combined signal. Pretty choppy today. It provided a lot more clarity yesterday and let me go back. This is a combined signal also showing options trades and market maker hedging activity. And these stocks known as the magnificent seven that's Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla and Net for the Day. Notional value is negative although not very large that's minus 82.65 million. All right let's go back to book map. So again short set up from the cash open multiple pullback entries. Entries at VWAP also 458. Some consolidation entry point at 576 and then at 4570. Let's take a look at NASDAQ now and then we'll get the stocks. So just looking at book map here. Potential resistance at 16,390. And then a sharp move lower at the cash open. Aggressive sellers start to come in. Cumulative volume delta for the first few hours pretty choppy. That's shown by this dark blue line in the sub chart. That's cumulative volume delta. But just like SME 500, large traders selling the move with iceberg orders. They continue to do that. Also sell stop orders feel helping to feel the move lower. And then finally kill me to volume delta also moving down multiple tests of VWAP here. Good entry points for short. All right let's go back to hero. We'll take a look at hero form. Actually let's just look at this set up for the morning. Really setting up a short at starting around 9.45. Heroes started making a series of lower highs. Price was moving level and then started to move lower 10 a.m. Another retest 10.15. Much more clear yesterday. And let's go take a look at the NASDAQ signal. Also choppy for the up until about 12.45. Gamma notional was trending positive still positive for the day. Gamma delta notional I'm sorry. Delta notional for the NASDAQ still positive for the day but now trending down. All right let's take a look at some stocks. So the first thing I want to take a look at is Amazon. So stocks were really a much easier read today. This is often the case. This is Amazon. Traders taking negative delta positions. Note the very timely flow alert. They came in maybe five minutes after the open. That signifies significant options activity. Let's see what traders are doing. So they're selling calls and buying puts. That's shown by the following orange line, the following blue line. Let's go take a look at book map. Look at Amazon. Sharp drop in the morning as traders were taking negative delta positions. And looks like Amazon finding some support at the 145 level. Note all the liquidity at that level. Again the heat map showing a history of orders in the order book. This is pretty typical for a stock. These orders come in just a couple of moments after the cash open. And they typically stay in the order book until they're filled. Note the traders front running the liquidity at 145. It looks like from this chart that Amazon price never actually made it all the way down to 145. So traders taking negative delta positions in Amazon. Let's go back to Hero. So when traders take negative delta positions in a stock, when they sell calls and buy puts, market makers take the opposite side of those trades and they have to sell stock to hedge their delta exposure. So a pretty clear read here for Amazon. Next, Netflix. I'll go through my list and then we'll take a look at Nvidia and AMD. Netflix next. Bearish day here in Netflix. Again, pretty timely flow alerts indicating significant options activity. Helping to alert you to a potential short. Here's the 450 put wall key gamma strike. Looks like that level is acting as support consolidation level. Let's see what traders are doing. So up until about 1145, they were selling calls and buying puts. Note both the blue line and the orange line moving in the same direction. Very powerful directional signal. Then about 1130, they start selling puts. And note where they did that at the put wall. At 450, they stop buying puts, start selling puts. And then just maybe 15 minutes later, they take the foot off the gas. They stop selling calls. Now price is consolidating. And this is just the kind of the opposite mirror image of a bullish pattern that occurs quite frequently. The big move occurs in the morning. Anywhere between 11 and 12 or so, options traders take their foot off the gas. Price consolidates or moves in the opposite direction. So this is a good point to either sell puts like traders are doing, sell a put spread or buy a call spread. And I much prefer the opposite way of buying a put spread or selling a call spread when price increases because skew is typically on your side. But anyway, this is one case where an options trade might have an advantage. Again, just taking a bullish spread trade. Alright, let's go take a look at BookMap. Let's go to Netflix. Very bearish setup in the morning. A few pullback entries. Here's the 450 put wall key gamma strike. Price does move lower and then comes back and is consolidating around that level. Alright, let's take a look at Tesla. Pretty choppy day in here in Tesla. This morning traders were taking bullish positions in Tesla. Let's take a look at HeroSea and what options traders have been doing. So traders were buying calls up until about 1245. Shown by the rising orange line. Oops, sorry about that. I thought this issue had been resolved. Alright, so when we separate outputs and calls, this gives a little bit more clarity. So traders net were buying calls up into about 1245. They take their foot off the gas and price moves lower during this time, not doing much with puts. And then they start buying puts. So starting right around 1245, both the orange line and blue line are moving in the same direction. Very powerful directional signal and Tesla's responding moving lower. Let's go take a look at BookMap. And here is where, let me zoom in just a little bit. Here's that sharp reversal at 1245. So you can see at the same time as traders started taking negative delta positions selling calls and buying puts. Aggressive sellers came in and started moving Tesla lower. Alright, let's take a look at NVIDIA. Then we'll get to AMD. So NVIDIA, just kind of the opposite of yesterday. NVIDIA was rallying yesterday and just the opposite today. Let's take a look at, and I posted a setup for NVIDIA yesterday evening. Posted that in Discord and on YouTube. I'm aiming on Twitter, X. Let's go take a look at Hero. Go to NVIDIA, separate outputs and calls. So really it has been call sellers driving price today in NVIDIA. That's shown by the following orange line. Note the notional value here for calls minus 123.5 million versus puts. They are buying puts minus 20.2. So call buyers call sellers much more aggressive driving price in NVIDIA today. Alright, let's take a look at AMD. So as Sodorasi points out, AMD did have an event today. I don't know if that's still going on or not. Let's take a look at AMD. Alright, so far the day today, AMD like everything else is moving lower. Just kind of the opposite of yesterday. So that might have been like a one day event is traders coming in and buying the Mag7 socks. Pretty choppy hero signal. Let's see if separating outputs and calls helps. Not too much. So traders are selling calls and selling puts. So they're really just selling volatility in AMD. Sorry about that. And interesting divergence around one o'clock. Traders start selling puts more aggressively. They also start selling calls. Let's go back to the total signal. Let's go take a look at book map. Alright, so not a very positive reaction to AMD's announcement today. AMD making a series of lower highs all day. And hello Floyd's garage. Welcome, glad you're here. Ryan asked about Neo. Alright, I don't have Neo in book map, but we can take a look at Neo in Hero. It should be there. Let's see what options traders are doing. Alright, so Neo moved up past its call wall at eight today. Maybe up just a little bit above eight. And now as options traders have taken their foot off the gas right around 1045-11, price is moving lower as they start taking negative delta positions. Now back below the call wall that's shown by this line right there. Alright, Ryan, there you go. There's Neo. Anyone else have any stocks they want me to take a look at? Now's the time. I'll be glad to do that. Otherwise we'll go back to the ESP 500. And you're welcome, Ryan. So the hero signal, still making a series of lower highs. So net for the day, traders continue to take negative delta positions, although that is leveling off somewhat. Let's go take a look at book map. Go back to the ESP 500. So ES is still above all this liquidity in the order book that remains in the order book. All those limit buy orders right around 462-465. Also right at the spy 455 absolute gamma strike. Today the 10-year yield continues to move lower. I've got the 10-year futures at 4.119. Let's check VIX. VIX also lower for the day. So kind of interesting. We can take a look at that. Here's the last couple of days for VIX. VIX down at 12.76. Let's take a look at the 10-year. This is the yield for the 10-year treasury notes. Also continues to move lower. Should be a tailwind for stocks. Also lower on the day. All right. So Tarazze says IM might have been bearish with options today. We'll take a look at that. And so sorry I've been butchering your name. I hope I'm closer to getting it right. All right. Let's take a look at hero for IWM. All right. So negative sharp move higher in the morning. Options traders start stop taking positive delta positions. Start taking negative delta positions. And IWM moves lower. Let's see what they're doing. So in IWM traders are currently selling calls. They net for the day selling calls and buying puts. Notional value for the blue line and the orange line both negative. And interesting this sharp drop here. These vertical lines indicating large block orders. Typically institutional orders. Large tranches of calls being sold. Let's check the mag 7. Still also negative for the day. Check the NASDAQ signal. Trending down but still positive for the day. Let's go back to book map. Remember gamma notional is still positive. In a positive gamma environment not looking for large trending days. So it looks like this 15,825 maybe holding as support. All right. Ryan wants to take a look at zoom. Let's take a look at zoom. I don't have that a book map. We can take a look in hero here. So actually bullish day here in hero. The notional value pretty small. But traders are taking positive delta positions. It looks like some kind of large order just came in right around 230. And zoom trading above its call wall at 70. That's also the key gamma strike. Let's go back one final look at the SP 500. All right. So still in consolidation mode. All right. Ryan glad your calls are looking good. All right everyone. I want to thank you for watching. I got a little bit of a late start a couple of minutes late. So I'm went a little bit over today. So I need to wrap it up today. I want to thank everyone for watching. Thank you very much, especially on YouTube and discord for your questions and comments. And I will see you tomorrow. Thanks again. Bye.


Try it. It tastes pretty good We're on 2% got back to the Airbnb Sushi Connor made it down here Worked out a little bit just hit some snatches while I was at Barbara's gate. Nothing crazy Today's kind of a chill day. We're gonna go to a market later find some food But 7 a.m. Workout tomorrow with mr. Barkhwan and mr. Max tuning is gonna be a long day Here's your tour of the Airbnb I didn't know how small it was you can't really tell when you're online, you know bathrooms decent you just see pictures Bathrooms a decent size. It's actually pretty nice Can't complain. I'm no I'm a pretty low-key guy, so I don't really care No, are you dying camera?  We got one percent.   You don't know that song. Yeah, bro. That's your national song. No, I'm not national. I think it's an actual Don't cry for me Argentina Hey comment below if you guys know what that's from They know dude. If one of you guys know we'll give you some Reebok gear Downtown LA pretty cool a pool. That's what peeping Conner's gonna be looking at all night a lady swimming freeway Pretty dope view See you guys at the market because this battery is dying because Conner came unprepared Went to Central Market. It's a super dope The homie bark Juan and the homie Saro showed me It's just like a kind of indoor-outdoor kind of open-walled market with tons of different food Sadly every time I've gone. It's near closing. So only 10% of it's open, but We tried a Mexican burrito last time and this time we just got Mexican just a bunch of meat and rice So I'm gonna show you guys that and we're gonna call it a night tomorrow morning early as we work out I think we'd be at the gym at seven to trim a part 630 lucky Jack coffee Early chug this coffee shower Barbara Brigade we're on the way story time So for some reason when all there's a car behind you getting lost Sorry, man. We're vlogging when we travel for some reason We just come across things that kind of give you the hmm type face. So story time in Houston, Texas hanging out with mr. Candido. We're outside shooting That interview that hopefully you guys enjoyed and Someone comes kind of running out kind of quick kind of you know young youngest 20 kid.  Like I'm really getting into film Cinematography and photography. I was all cool man. Like yeah, we kind of do YouTube or whatever Introduce myself. Hey, man. My name is Mike. This is Johnny and this is Connor Cool cool cool. Yeah, I just started taking up videos and pictures. I've been doing it for this gym I do Instagram very cool man. Like that's kind of what we do. You know, we do some fitness stuff We do some lifestyle stuff. We do some vlogging And we're just getting into cameras too like as you guys know Connor does all these dope videos for you And he's only been doing it about a year and he's all self-taught and same with me I don't know what the hell I'm doing with any of this besides the lifting part I don't know what I'm doing YouTube wise And so we're like, yeah, man cool cool cool cool. He's all right Like he's like, oh, well, I'll be sure to check out your guys channels.  I'd love to meet any of you But give me the eyebrow, you know, so then we're down here in LA.  Oh, I gotta do the address Dude, we're vlogging or we're on our way to barbell. That's why I want to give you guys story time.  We'll put all that in blah blah blah Sign up I got this just this little law for me and Connor that you guys saw here in LA downtown LA because it's kind of close to Bart's office and also Barbara Brigade and all the food and stuff in downtown. So You sign up you email the guy I don't know if you guys have used Airbnb You just kind of email and then it has you send a message why you're here like what you're doing So I just said oh like shooting some content and a little bit of work A little bit of fun will be me and my buddy because they want to know who's gonna be in the place And I emailed it to a name a Richard So then depending on the place I think some places have lock boxes. So you they give you a code and then the keys in there kind of like a real estate agent This one the guy met me. So he just messages me or text me through Airbnb and says hey Let me know when you want to check in. I'll be around. So he's been super cool super helpful His wife showed me around blah blah blah cool cool cool this guy's pants are down Did LA cool so then Connor showed up one day after and so we had to get a parking pass because he brought his car And the guy met us super fast super quick really nice showed us where to park And he hopped out the car to give us the access key to the parking lot And then on the corner of my eye or my ear. I hear him introduce himself to Connor I was like, oh, hey, this my buddy Connor. He's staying with me or whatever. He's like, hey, man Nice to meet you Eric Five minutes before that he called me on the phone and said hey Mike, it's Richard So this guy's in a crisis this guy's confused. I'm confused. Maybe it was his twin brother six o'clock in the morning Seven o'clock in the morning. We're late. That's right. Bart will yell at me time to lift It's got him Chris Papillon. Oh gee. I think he was benching like 770 and I wasn't ready So students mentioned 770 in a shirt. I wasn't ready. I'm 23 first meet ever. I'm spotting I didn't know what to do. I didn't know to do. I'm like kind of here kind of here Because then the shirt you see in it like people just miss miss miss miss 775 pound just Yeah Bench in three cameras three dudes one barbell three cameras three camera men three wannabe powerlifters I think Bart's got a five by three three fifteen Mr. Deadlift brah is Two weeks out from this me.     I know what you mean I Competition wise best numbers in competition is a 600 pound deadlift a 291 bench and a 467 squat. I won't wait I actually competed last time in 181 now.  So we try to do is kind of an angle here Take our trap shrug out of it and all we'll do is just use our medial deltoid But then you're fucking textbook and smoke it Three is that shows like I've known for a long time super strong super smart guy and also I think it's important to kind of try different things So I've got some coaching on some previous how to meet and I've done well with them But I think just because you do well doesn't mean you couldn't do better And I'm just I'm a big advocate of like changing it up with the gym and always kind of keep it interesting to kind of Keep me motivated to go to the gym. I don't want to follow the same style of a thing for 10 years I get bored Been good so far. It's been different like training less a lot more like heavy doubles and triples that I'm used to I Sister I never wanted Up to the right three years three years ago That's uh, I always give credit to Nick right for like putting me out there. Yeah And he's always he's always makes jokes about like that straight in the name. Yeah, he's like I didn't put you on I just needed like you're like you were able to make it.  I think I've told you guys the story, but Back in the golden days.  I think the Google was just invented around that age Yeah, you know her to the Google the Google machine you ask it a question and answers it So we're talking I don't know 2000 probably 2000 Maybe 90 98 99 I started getting into cars and then for some reason I fell in love with E36 BMWs So seventh grade sixth grade Started to just look around the world and figure out how to make some fucking money And then me and my friend noticed that at our school.  We're seventh graders We're trying to put listen dope music.  We're like well screw that 700 bucks like bro, we're gonna be rich So we're like here we go. So for our birthdays And for Christmas we asked for like DJ gear So we ended up DJing since seventh grade up until I was probably about 20 I Ended up with turntables and getting into it a little bit. I wasn't a master by any means We got our own speakers. We got our own laser lights. We did everything we started doing high school dances local dances We did a bunch of weddings We did about everything like almost once a month and we started to make cash That same friend as soon as we got our license and like sophomore year and a freshman year high school what we began to do is Solicit my dad's office and his dad's office and what we do is we would drive together and pick up people's cars Bring it back to my house full detail them and charge them like whatever 80 bucks So we do a couple cars a day every single day during the week start to cash up and All of this was because I wanted to Buy a BMW long story short. I sold it But I still love BMWs. I'm watching this little documentary. It's called respect your elders on E30s Don't mind. Oh, we won't come over in the back. Oh Sleep tight don't let the bug wet spite and if they do count to two And I'll wake you up in the morning Please tell me your mom told you that Love you guys


Coming up on DTNS, Comcast makes a smart move into smart TVs. Facebook joins the pile on against Apple's App Store. And why more than just Amazon stores may lose cashiers. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, August 28th, 2020 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. From Studio Denver, I'm Shannon Morse. Drawing the top tech stories from a rainy Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Len Peralta. And on the show's producer, Roger Chang. Yeah, man, the rain just kind of blew right in. It's crazy. There's a lot of lightning and stuff. Weather on the 8th, the Daily Tech News Show. We were just talking about keeping birds as pets on Good Day Internet. If you'd like some of our advice, apparently ducks. Very good choice, according to Shannon. Get that wider show, Good Day Internet, patreon.com, slash DTNS to get it. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Epic Games send emails to Android users noting that they can still play the new season of the new Epic Games app for Android. They can access it through Fortnite.com slash Android or from the Samsung Galaxy Store. Epic says, however, Fortnite users who already own the game on Google Play can continue to play the current game. But because season three Battle Pass wrapped up on August 27th, that was Thursday of this week, players can't progress further. The Battle Lab, Duos and Limited Time game modes are also a no-go for Google Play users at this time. Apple's App Store is currently promoting PUBG Mobile, which is a Fortnite competitor. The same day, Apple is set to terminate the Epic Games developer associated with Fortnite. Now of note, PUBG Mobile is built with Epic's Unreal Engine. Apple told Epic that it would terminate Fortnite's developer account on Friday, August 28th today. After Epic added a direct payment option to Fortnite, which caused Apple to remove Fortnite from the App Store. Yeah, but don't forget, the judge told Apple they couldn't do that, so they're probably not going to do that to Unreal Engine, but they will keep Fortnite out of the App Store. Apple agreed to pay $9.75 million to settle a lawsuit regarding the PowerBeats 2 earbuds. The lawsuit alleged that the PowerBeats 2 originally released in 2014 were falsely advertised as sweat and water resistant and built to endure, but failed to hold their charge after minimal use. Customers who purchased the device before August 7th have until November 20th to submit a claim for payment with a maximum theoretical payment of $189 per proof of purchase. That's bigger than the usual. In the legal filing of the settlement, Apple did not admit to wrongdoing, saying the settlement was cheaper than going to trial. Google introduced Google Assistant Snapchat back in 2018, which shows mobile users items like appointments, reminders, and commute times on a single screen. Snapchat will now include tasks, push notifications for birthdays, and suggestions for podcasts, restaurants, and recipes. Snapchat will also learn users' routines and surface information based on time of day, like commute times, weather at the top in the morning. Snapchat can also now be activated by voice by saying, show me my day. Twitter announced it will hide tweets that feature copy and pasted text without any modifications from the source tweet. Twitter updated its censorship policy to include, quote, copy pasta, which means text that was duplicated from the original post and then shared. In a tweet, the company said that it may limit the visibility of tweets that it believes are behaving as copy pasta. Delicious, delicious copy pasta. All right, let's talk a little bit about putting cameras underneath the display. Oh, let's. So remember a couple of weeks back here on this very show we talked about the ZTE-25G coming September 1st with the under-display camera. We were wondering at the time how that would affect image quality. Is it gonna make it murky? Is it gonna be fine? How's it gonna work? Xiaomi has some answers and says that it uses a self-developed pixel arrangement that lets light pass through the gap area of sub-pixels. So in other words, the area above the camera sensor would have the same pixel density as the rest of the screen just in a slightly different arrangement. So you wouldn't have that dim spot that you might see on some under-display cameras that you may have seen in the past. The sensor is designed to hide more components under the sub-pixels, meaning that more light will get under the sensor as well. However, the company also said it updated its imaging algorithm so that the camera itself can provide the same image quality as conventional selfie cameras because it still won't get all the light. It would if it wasn't under the display. Xiaomi will launch a phone that uses its under-display camera technology in 2021. So yeah, I mean, this is the company kind of saying, don't worry about it, we got this. Yeah, we'll see how good it is when they actually launch it, but this makes sense to me, which is that I suppose the display in that area might look slightly different, because otherwise you'd just have the entire display in that arrangement. So they're like, well, this may not be the best arrangement for the perfect resolution, but you likely won't notice it. You certainly won't notice it as much as if we took pixels away. And it's like a screen door, if you think of it that way. They're moving pixels around so that there are some gaps, and the light will come through the display, through those gaps in the pixels. It's so small that you won't notice it. The pixels won't be removed. They'll be the same number. So the resolution will roughly be the same, and then they move some stuff around underneath so that the light's actually getting to the sensor and not being blocked by some element of the camera or wasted that way. That all makes perfect sense to me. Curious if it's gonna work out in reality. I, maybe I have a very unpopular opinion here, but I really don't worry about how aesthetically pleasing a notch is or is not on the front of a display. And this is after reviewing several different smartphones and comparing display options. So am I the only one here thinking like, yes, it's aesthetically pleasing to have it under the display, but I would rather them focus on the aperture of a lens and the wide angle of a selfie camera, which I'm still not super happy with the options that are available on the market. I would rather them focus on that than focus on technology that puts the camera under a display when I just don't really care about it that much. I mean, Shannon, I'm with you on this one. I really like, I've always been like, it's a tiny little notch. Give me the best camera, do it well. That's all I care about. I really don't, I will never look at that little portion at the top or bottom of my phone and be annoyed about that. But I know a lot of people do care. Well, I don't really care about the notch that much. It doesn't bother me when I have a phone with a notch. I love the idea of a display that doesn't have it. That sounds cool, but I'm not upset about it. I mean, I don't know, notch haters, maybe you need to explain yourselves. Why are you doing this? Well, I appreciate you both confirming my opinion on under-display cameras. So Facebook is suing a company called Moby Burn, which their parent company is called OakSmart Technologies and its founder, Fati Haltas. So Facebook found the company was paying apps to install an SDK, and that SDK would use the digital key assigned to the app for login and use it to collect information about the app's users' Facebook account, like their name, locale, time zone, email address, Facebook ID, gender, all this without permission. Facebook disabled Moby Burn's apps and they requested an audit, but Moby Burn denied it had collected any Facebook data. Now Facebook also issued a cease and desist for the same reason to a company called One Audience, which it is also suing in court. I think this is a good sign for Facebook. Five years ago, Facebook would have seen something like this, held up its hands or shrugged metaphorically speaking and said like, oh gosh, that's horrible. I mean, that's not our business. They shouldn't be doing that, but it's not our fault that people break the terms. We just set the terms and when we catch them, then we'll punish them. Here Facebook proactively is going out and trying to do audits to say like, we need to figure out what you're doing here to determine if it's okay. And they're pretty sure this is not okay and what they're describing definitely sounds like it's not okay. And if Moby Burn's saying, no, we don't collect that data, then the way to prove that is the audit, right? Right, exactly. And this is not the first time that Facebook is saying, hey, we're going to audit developers. This has been a part of their new policies for quite some time. So we have seen this, but this is the first time that we're seeing them actually go out and sue a company because they're denying this access. Facebook has made a ton of updates and this is one of the very, very rare occasions where I will say that I think Facebook is doing the right thing here where they're proactively going after these third party developers and making sure that your data is more secure and is not as accessible as it used to be before Cambridge Analytica was a thing. So I'm happy that they're doing this and I hope that it kind of gives some future acknowledgement to other third party developers that may have thought that this would be okay to do so in the fact that Facebook is now actively pursuing these. Yeah, I see some shouting Freud in our chat room about like, oh, Facebook's doing someone else for stealing data, that's ironic. You would rather have them doing that than not, right? What Facebook got in trouble for was not them stealing your data, it was letting others use their platform to steal data. So this is good, don't punish Facebook for this one. It doesn't excuse anything else they've done, but I think this is one where we say, okay, yes, this is the right thing to do for sure. Facebook also in the news for telling Reuters that Apple rejected a version of its app from the App Store that included a banner that told users that Apple would receive 30% of the sales from its new paid online events feature. Now you may think, well, that sounds kind of catty, why would they call that out? But you have to consider that the events feature lets small businesses host things like workout sessions, cooking classes, things that they can't do in person necessarily, make some money online, and here's the key, Facebook does not keep any part of that payment. The users get all the money, the small business, gets all the money that the participants of the event get unless they're doing it through the App Store. If the user of the cooking class is paying through the Facebook app on iOS, then Apple takes 30% out of that. So it all would go to the business unless it's through iOS. Now, Facebook said Apple cited an App Store rule against publishing irrelevant information, including information about Apple or the development process in an app. Facebook said that it asked Apple to waive the 30% fee so that business owners could keep all the money, but Apple declined. Facebook ultimately removed the message in order to get the update published on the App Store so they didn't pull an Epic and do a lawsuit or get blocked. But that means that businesses will get more money from Android users than iOS users. The thing that bugs me about this is the fact that Apple cited this rule and called it irrelevant when small businesses are going to want to know why, for example, if it's supposed to be a $10 ticket, they're only getting $7 if it's a 30% cut.   But when I do think about third party that folks who are trying to build a business and use Facebook's platform to do that for whatever reason it may be and the fact that this does hurt them through no fault of their own, there is something to this. I mean, whether or not Apple can work with Facebook on something is very irrelevant, irrelevant to use that term again, these folks who are like, I don't know, I mean, okay, do we try to build our business on the Google Play Store a little bit more and that kind of thing? So I do see why folks are up in arms about this. Otherwise, it all feels very, that giants fighting with giants. Yeah, I wonder if Facebook couldn't make the argument that this is just a payment transfer like PayPal. If I send you money on PayPal, Apple doesn't take 30% of that, right? Even though it's an in-app payment, because they're like, oh no, this is a payment system that wouldn't make sense. Like Apple's rules, they're trying to keep them simple, I get that, and they want the rules to apply to everybody and I think that's good. But there are exceptions to the rules that you need to acknowledge. And I think this is one of them where Facebook's like, look, you're just taking money out of small businesses' hands. This isn't about a small business that put an app in the app store and you're trying to recover the cost of making the app store. This is a small business trying to do something and we're trying to help them and now you're taking 30% of that. And I don't know, I mean, I don't know, maybe Apple disagrees, maybe you disagree with me and say, no, that's still using the app store. So you gotta take that 30%, tough luck, small businesses. But I don't think Apple really wants to be taking this money, to be honest. It's just like, well, these are our rules and it's blindly pulled. It's a principle thing, yeah. And it's getting messy. Well, Protocol reports that Comcast, an entirely different company, is pursuing plans to offer its X1 set-top box operating system to smart TV makers. The X1 powers the company's Xfinity cable boxes as well as a Roku-like streaming box, which is called Flex. Now Cox Cable already uses some X1 hardware and software and Charter says that it's also negotiating a license as well. X1 is not just for cable service though, it also runs third-party applications like Netflix and YouTube. But to get on smart TVs, Comcast would have to win out over Roku, Amazon's Fire TV OS, and Android TV as well from Google. Some makers like LG and Samsung even have their own smart TV OSes. That sounds like a... License this out too. Sounds like a hard competitive market to get into for Comcast. Yeah, and just to clear up any confusion, this isn't Comcast trying to put their cable service in your television, okay? I could see where you might think that. This is Comcast saying, we've got a Roku-like interface, right? Where you don't have to buy anything from us to use it. We'd like to have television makers use that operating system. Yes, we use it to provide our cable service. T.S. Cox and Charter use it to provide their cable systems. But it doesn't have to be used for cable. You could have it on a smart TV and just provide the apps like Netflix, et cetera. And I think that's incredibly smart of Comcast to try to monetize that, to say, look, we know cable subscriptions are going away, but we've developed this technology to take advantage of streaming and we're good at it. Maybe we can make some money off that. Maybe we can get, you know, Vizio or somebody to license that operating system. But like you said, Shannon, it's a tough market to crack into, even if you're Comcast, because there is a lot of competition out there. Samsung's got a Tizen OS that they want to license out. LG just uses web OS themselves. And you've got Fire TV and Roku and Android TV. It does surprise me, though, that smart TV operating systems are a vibrant marketplace. I kind of thought that set-top boxes would make that less useful, but it appears that it isn't. Although don't count out all the people who are like, okay, we're ready to cut the cords. And Comcast is a brand that we know. And, you know, we might be buying a new TV and that would be, you know, like that actually- We have the X1 cable box. Oh, this TV uses the same interface with familiar with that, yeah. We don't understand all that other start-up-y stuff. Let's go with a name brand that we know. I'm not saying that Comcast has a home run here, but I think that that is what the company is banking on, that enough people will be like, okay, we're ready to go into the next level of, you know, enjoying entertainment and we're going to stick with the brand that we know. Yeah, tens of millions of people familiar with the X1 brand. So as somebody who is a current Roku user, I feel like the only way I would consider this is if they also had deals with HBO Max, for example, because that's currently not available on the Roku and that's been a problem getting them to come to some kind of agreement. So Comcast may have a better foothold when it comes to making some kind of licensing agreements with all of these streaming services. So they might have a market there, but I guess we'll have to see. And for people who hate Comcast, you won't be seeing the Comcast branding, I bet, just the X1 branding. So maybe- Yeah. I don't know. Folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, be sure to subscribe to dailytechheadlines.com. See that's Ben Fox Rubin wrote up a great report on MasterCard announcing a platform called Shop Anywhere in partnership with the Cell Robotics to let shoppers walk out of stores without having to go through a cashier. Sound familiar? Tests of the platform included a Duncan store that let people check in at a kiosk and then go get their donuts and have somebody make them their coffee and then just walk out. No registers involved. Pilots of the program are coming to a Duncan in Southern California, a Circle K gas station convenience store in Arizona and an unnamed location run by a stadium operator Delaware North. So it would be one of those in the stadium stores that you'd be able to walk in and out of is what it sounds like. MasterCard is also working with White Castle on a cash-free drive-through idea. It piloted with Sonic last year. So this is something that MasterCard has been doing a lot of development on. Shop Anywhere can be retrofitted into existing stores. So you don't have to build a new store and it works in more types of retail outlets than Amazon Go's similar technology. They both use cameras and sensors, but MasterCard seems and excels seems to be a little bit more adaptable. The platform joins the 25 Amazon Go stores, Apple Store where you can use your phone, Sam's Club in Dallas, all offering cashierless options, as well as platforms being developed by Zippin and Standard Cognition. In fact, Standard Cognition also working with Circle K on an Arizona store, on a store in Phoenix. So this sounds like we are going to see this happen. This is going to be the trend is that eventually you'll have the ability to just walk in, grab your stuff and walk out in various stores by either checking in on a kiosk or having the right phone app or something like that. I love this idea mainly because I've gotten to experience that Amazon Go store in San Francisco and it was just so easy. The convenience was simple, although they still had people there. So I know a lot of people are concerned about, you know, cashiers losing their jobs, but Amazon Go stores even, they still had people outside educating users on how to access the store, how to download the app, et cetera, et cetera. So there was still a place for employees in these stores. And I feel like even coming into now with the pandemic, cashier-less type of conveniences like these are going to become more of a norm even after the pandemic is over because it is so much faster. It's such a pleasing experience. It's so less stressful and it's a lot better for privacy too because nobody's going to see what you're checking out with as well. So there's a lot of reasons. Except for Mastercard, I guess. Yeah, except for Mastercard. I'm sure that they will have some kind of partnership where they can see exactly what you're ordering and the store will know exactly what you are checking out with, of course. And that makes sense from an inventory base, but when it comes to like having another person being able to see, like as you're checking out, you know, if you're buying certain things that could be somewhat embarrassing. So it would be nice to have that privacy, especially as well. Yeah, if I buy, you know, two large boxes of KitKats, I don't want Sarah to know that when she's checking me out. If I am going to Dunkin' Donuts, I would love to have the cashier list based registers so they don't see me buy pumpkin spice lattes every single day. Well, and listen, we are in a situation in these trying times of ours where I think we've all been at a supermarket being like, whoa, the lines are extremely long and you gotta be six feet apart. And you know, maybe you could do like a self-checkout kind of thing, but you can't do that. With everything that you buy, for example, if you buy alcohol, somebody has to, you know, check your ID type thing. So there's a little bit of, there's still some friction there, but there is the, I think more than ever, the idea of, oh, okay, even if I'm not like a tech person, I really want to go that way. I really want to have as much or as little human contact as possible for my safety and those around me. And so you're starting to get people on board with this whole thing. And listen, I don't want anybody to lose their jobs, but as you said, Shannon, at these stores that are cashier-less, you still have people stocking shelves and making sure that customers are happy and not confused. And there are jobs at this point. So I think- And nowadays, even, oh, sorry for interrupting. And nowadays, even with the pandemic, like you have employees that need to make sure their social distancing requirements and they're wiping down counters and wiping down anything that people are touching. So there's definitely still a place for employees even in these kind of cashier-less bases. Yeah, it does seem like these stores don't employ fewer people. I may be wrong and you may be right to be skeptical out there, but it seems like, you know, most cashiers don't only do the cashier, they're usually having to run the register, at least when I was in retail. And that was a long time ago. You hated having to run the register because you're like, ah, it's taking me away from my job, right? I have to stand here now and not do all of the other things that I have to get done every day. And so providing extra customer service can increase sales. So it makes sense that like running the register isn't necessarily a very productive thing. It's a necessary thing. And if you can take the human out of it, you can actually use humans to do more productive things than that. And I think that's proving true in these systems. So I'm not as worried about people losing their jobs in the cashier list. And it does have some benefits, which we've mentioned, like not having to touch stuff because you just walk out, you know? You don't have to touch a terminal. And just being more convenient in general. Yeah. Now I know that another argument about these kind of stores is, especially with MasterCard doing a partnership is the fact that not everybody has credit cards accessible to them. A lot of people still use cash myself, including quite often, but you can do contactless cash payments still. And you see that even in grocery stores with their self-checkout kiosks. So that's still entirely a possibility, even if Microsoft is partnering with these companies, they can still have these cash checkout systems for folks that don't have credit cards. Yeah. Amazon added a cash payment after they took some criticism of like, hey, what about people who are unbanked? You're cutting out poorer people from being able to use your store. And Amazon added a cash option where you can go and be able to use cash even at the Amazon Go stores. So that's something that needs to be addressed, but I think it's addressable there for either MasterCard or Amazon or any of these other systems. And hopefully they do. I wonder if that would add to some privacy if you pay with cash instead of checking out with a credit card. Well, that's another question, right? It's like, okay, can I pay with cash and also have you not track all my purchases? Yes, exactly. Good question. Well, if you have ideas about how that would go, you can join our conversation in our Discord, which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com slash dtns. Let's check out the mail bag. Oh, let's. Adam and San Diego had a really good, great one, said, wanted to point out on the heels of you talking about that LG mask, that LG was touting to help keep people safe. Adam says, he was getting all the publicity, but a very popular Kickstarter that I happen to participate in, just out of sheer curiosity, I have no association with the company, just curious. The campaign has since ended, so they've moved over to an Indiegogo for regular pre-orders. This one essentially does all the things that LG won is promising, except they're much closer to production and have made COVID protection claims as well. You can see FAQ to learn more about that. They were originally asking for $100,000, wound up getting funded over $3 million. So we'll be interesting to see how this one turns out. Yeah, I don't know how to feel about, I mean, Indiegogo, right? Like anybody could put something up, but this is a real company. I actually dug into it. They don't have a ton of experience. The folks who are running it have worked, you know, one or two other jobs. It's not a huge company with big names necessarily attached to it, but they seem legitimate. They are SGS lab tested, not FDA approved. So it's this thing where they're like, this is definitely not just pulling the roll over your eyes or anything, but there's some assurance you get when LG makes the thing, you're like, okay, they'll definitely make the thing and they'll probably follow the rules because they're a big company and they don't want that kind of blowback. This one seems a little more risky, but it's not entirely, you know, it didn't set off all my Spidey sense. So interesting to see that and it's nice to see smaller companies getting in and coming up with these kinds of things. Shannon, I know you were excited by this idea. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I used to live in California and we had the wildfires and now being in Colorado. So even if, you know, our pandemic ends and people don't necessarily have to wear masks all the time, it's still something that I would invest in just from the sense of keeping, you know, my senses healthy. So I love the idea of this and this is something that I would absolutely back just from a health perspective. Yeah, I want a few more tests to make sure that this doesn't have any unintended consequences myself, but I like the idea, I like the idea.  Let's check in with Len Peralta, who has been illustrating today's show. Len, what have you drawn for us today?  I think they could actually come up with something that they could sell that would be very different and this is, behold, the no-do donut, which is the future fruit stuff for a cashless society, I think, you know, it's your plain old donut. You're just not paying the normal way, right?  You're not paying the dough for it. I get it. Exactly. Yes, so it sort of sounds healthy, but it really is about the cashless society. Exactly, exactly. And you can still get the regular donuts if you want to pay cash. It's just if you want to pay and just walk out, you get the no-do donut right there. So... Is this like what you would find in a Star Trek replicator? Yeah, I think so. It could be. It could be. And I think, you know, Shannon, I think you make a little tiny cameo in this as well there as does Tiny Mantis in the image. Yes, so this image is right now available at my online store at lennpropstore.com. Also at my Patreon, patreon.com, slash Len, which I should mention you can now pay, you know, be a patron for the entire year and save, I think it's 30% or something. Anyway, check it out and check out this image, please. It's also contact-free. You don't have to come near Len to do it. You don't have to come near, and I highly recommend you don't come anywhere near. That's all. Len, great work as always. Also thanks to Shannon Morse for being with us today. Shannon, I know you're very busy and let folks know where they can keep up with all the things that you do. Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me, of course. YouTube.com slash Shannon Morse is the best place to go for everything that I'm doing. I'm on my way to 30K, so anybody that subscribes is super helping my own full-time job. And one video you might be interested in is I just did a whole tutorial about setting up Plex on a Synology Network Attach Storage server, and it works flawlessly. I'm so excited about this thing. So I was really happy to be able to do that tutorial and share it with folks. And don't forget to subscribe on our social media too for Daily Tech News Show. Twitter.com slash Daily Tech News SH is where you can find us on Twitter. And then we're also on Instagram, instagram.com slash D-T-N-S-PIX-P-I-X. And if you share your photos, I will be more than happy to share them on our social media. Yeah, please send us the photos if you got a tiny Mantis classic shirt that you wanna wear. And you can remember Shannon runs our social media accounts because it's Daily Tech News SH, just like in Shannon. That's how you can remember it. There you go. Hey, folks, also back us on our Patreon. Patreon.com slash D-T-N-S. If you're listening to this with ads, you don't have to. You can be listening to it on an RSS feed made just for you and delivered into your ears. Go check that and other perks out at Patreon.com slash D-T-N-S. If you have feedback for us, we would love to hear it. Our email address is feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com. Send your burning questions or comments there. We're also live Monday through Friday at 4 or 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 UTC. And you can find out more at DailyTechNewsShow.com slash live. We'll be back on Monday. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Hope you have enjoyed this program.


I'm going to go back on Doug's first question here. I suppose it's been kicked to me. This is one of the things that I think the intended nationally determined contributions are extremely important. I've been going around the world talking about, and you could talk about the economics of these clean energy systems and the fact that they're better and more economic, but they are a little bit less straightforward. You haven't tried them before. And there is, if you're walking into South Africa or Malawi or Mozambique or Ghana, and we've done this a number of times prior to COP, and you talk about clean energy systems, this kind of transition, and you get the response, well, why should we do this? And it was a complicated response. And now, it's a very, very simple response. Often, when you go in and have an INDC, they've said what they want to do. And when you go in, and so in a way, this has really helpfully linked the global with the local because they have already stated what their desires are. So in terms of my own facilitation as an advisor talking to these people, it's much easier to say, well, you know, I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm merely advising you on how you could go about achieving the goals you've set for yourself. And that's a watershed change that we've had over the last eight months to be able to actually say that when you go into a country, and it just makes life a lot easier and moves things into the system. I don't know if anybody has other comments on that. Oh, it's maybe a little bit, oh, that's on. Okay, so when I heard your statement about the complexity of local, global, actually what I was thinking about was on my topic of smart grid. So normally would you think about the system is on the distribution side, so local systems? And what you see happening is that in new urban areas, there's more and more interest for doing it right from the start. So put solar panels up on the buildings, put combined heat and powers into the ground, install heat networks, just doing it right from the start. And I think that's a big shift towards local systems because I have these green field projects and the possibility to go for investments which are long-term sustainable. And therefore for both green field projects and for projects which are in developing countries, I believe this interest for these local solutions is really there. So, yeah, and then the push from top down maybe not that much needed for such projects but just a support from the local municipalities would be really required. I'd like to step in as, this is from an academic point of view because you said local versus let's say, and hierarchical approach. I think there is a gap in the sense that most of the environmental policies that we looked into are made at the national level but the investment decisions, that's on RMD expenditure decisions are made at the company level. I don't think there has been anything done on how national level policies impact investment decision making on clean energy or energy innovation at the company level. So there is a nice little paper, something called a hierarchical approach or a multi-level approach of national policies in impacting decision-making on R&D. So I think this is worth looking into on this side. Let me open it up to questions from the floor and then I've got more that we can add in. Barry Gill's Professor of Development Studies at University of Helsinki. Alexander Gershengron famously used the phrase, pardon the phrase, the advantages of backwardness and looking at technological and innovation history and the relationship to development history that therefore it could be seen as an opportunity that vast investments in the old generation of energy production distribution and so on, infrastructures doesn't exist in some places. Then if we say that if we link up this energy revolution which we need to a zero carbon system and we need it urgently, then the rural electrification arena around the world is an enormous opportunity. And that could combine micro generation using the new renewables, preferably only the new renewables with the new smart cred technology. The question therefore comes to development finance. The development finance mechanisms are the key. Planning mechanisms as well. But then that's the question I wanna ask you.  And whatever opportunities exist or strategies should exist or you know, how you think that can be moved forward looking at it more positively because potentially it could be a huge aspect contributing to an energy revolution around the planet and lowering, having low energy costs for the majority of the poor in the world as well and lowering all these other externality costs for them and for everyone else as well, right? So there seems to be a compelling argument that the finance should be available. So where is it? And how can we get it? I'm gonna go to you when we start. I mean, I'll start a comment and a conversation about it. So I mean, you're absolutely right on both fronts. One is the planning. So that how do you better inform planning and particularly planning that takes into account long-lived assets and the complexities of energy water development and zero carbon are getting toward low carbon. That's one. So that's data tools. It's also a lot of teaching capacity building because it tends to be that the decision makers within the planning complex and that's energy environment and finance, I would say those ministries typically tend to be slightly of older generation and therefore have grown up with a paradigm that they believe that centralized fossil fuel and or others is the answer because that's what they saw in their lifetime. And so in some sense it takes a little bit of a, I call it a generational nudge, maybe more than a nudge, maybe a kick to get them to embrace innovative solutions and new energy technologies. And or it takes really good, I call it modern data tools, visualization, realization capabilities and case studies and walking them around and showing them. It's like people don't believe that the sea ice is melting as fast as it is because they haven't seen it, right? And so do you show them a movie? Do you actually take them there? And sometimes they believe the movie, sometimes you just have to get them there themselves. That's one side. The second side is development finance. And here I'm gonna defer to Channing to talk a little bit more about this, but I'm gonna give you two perspectives on it. One is that the availability of money is not the issue. I have a lot of conversations and relationships with folks inside the investment community. And there is an enormous amount of money waiting to be put to use for the right return. The question is, is for the right return at the right risk? And there's the real, I guess, gap for development finance to play, which is particularly for developing countries and for economics, is development finance should, in my opinion, play a risk reduction, high leverage role, not its traditional, quote unquote, role that it started out with 20 or 30 or 40 or maybe more years ago, which was actually to pay for things. And that mode and that model has proven grossly inadequate for the last, at least 20 years or 30 years that I've been involved in development work with energy-related pieces. And then the third piece of that is that the technical assistance that needs to go with development finance needs to really work with the governments to put the enabling investment environment in place to allow the private sector money to come in. And as long as the private sector money feels as though they've got risk-adjusted returns that are appropriately penciled out, they will bring money into those countries at the right scale. It's rare that you'll find good institutional investors investing in anything sub $100 million or more at a chunk. And therefore, you have to think about what the scale is on that front. Those are my initial reactions, but we'll turn to you all. So yeah, I really, I agree, I think Doug has made some really good points. I think that we've both targeted the advantages of backwardness and this is one of the few things. One of the things just about making changes, the proliferation of cell phones in developing countries is an enormously helpful thing because you can really talk about leapfrogging in a really tangible way, right? And so when you talk about moving to energy systems you can talk about what has happened in your phone system. I work a lot in Mozambique. And now, I mean, for a long time, Maputo had much better cell phone service than the United States. And it's now penetrating into the rural areas. I think what Doug says is entirely correct in that, either the technologies in terms of, say, for distributed generation and renewable areas, they're either right there or they're coming at us very, very fast, right? So, and it's a bit like what Cheryl was talking about. We now have to, this falls now on this audience. In a way, the engineers have done, they've done their bit, right? In a sense, the technologies are there. Now we need the institutional mechanisms and environments to get them out into the, and get them to actually work. And this is, so I think as Cheryl was saying and Doug emphasized, if you just simply go and you have financing, you just plunk a panel down somewhere, that might not work. We need to pilot and work with systems that are gonna make for proper repayment of these systems. And that will bring the finance along with it. If they're gonna get a return, then there's quite a bit of finance there. There is serious public role for de-risking, what my French colleague always says, of these investments. The other problem with or issue with renewable investments is it's very high sort of fixed cost and pretty low marginal cost, which makes the finance aspect very, very important. But I think there's two things that are clear. One is almost surely not going to mobilize the kind of public flows that would be required to make all of these investments. And that's, the second is what I was saying is there is quite a lot of private capital that's out there that could do it if the institutional setup is correct, which is why I think it comes back to what we're trying to do. That's why we're doing the book and it's why we're partnering with NREL and working on this at wide. No, I agree with Doug and I just wanna pick up on what Channing said that with development finance, case in point Bangladesh, a poster child of climate change impacts, I think the finance is more or less there. The government of Bangladesh has already spent $500 million of its own money and is sitting on a pile of other allocation, but the problem in a country like Bangladesh is spending the money. In a country like Bangladesh, now it has become more difficult to get the funds, to spend the money than to get the funds. And again, this is where Channing just said that it's the institutional capacity, the governance quality that has to be improved for private investors to come in and fill up whatever gap if there is a gap in a country like Bangladesh. Yeah, and maybe just a little different perspective here is instead of just looking from the institutional side that has to be fixed or finance that comes from the government side, there is also an example in India of the company Rural Spark, which is actually just a for-profit organization, company that is providing solar panels to local consumers and by subscription consumers pay a monthly payment for this panel. And so using a mobile phone, which everybody has at that moment, they just activate the panel and they have to keep paying it and in that way actually there is just a private organization involved with the supply of electricity. So I think there can be new business models, which we don't even think of yet that should really go into these rural areas as well. Good question. Yeah, up here, if you would, thanks. All right, thank you. I have some experience I wanted to share. So before COP 21, the major issue was reducing emissions and others, but African countries came out, I mean, they brought in an argument because most of the countries were experiencing really intense power outages. So they put forward a proposal to link the two. So it was more energy climate nezzas. And they argued that, okay, of course, we are open to adopting renewable technologies and increasing investments in renewable energy, but we need the light. So it was more of a policy priority, whereas the, I mean, globally, we want to transition to a clean energy path. They also wanted to see light in their homes or to make sure there is power, at least to make sure most of the vital economic sectors are functioning well.  So I mean, one, I listened to a former president of Nigeria, Uba Sanjo saying, I mean, what is solar? If Mozambique has coal, Mozambique should go ahead and use the coal to give itself power. If Ghana has oil, just use the oil to power yourself. I mean, because he said, I mean, the implementation of renewable technology takes time. That was his argument. So for me, it's basically that we come down to this reality that these governments need more power than you would think of that they need renewable energy, which will reduce emissions. I mean, the African countries argue anyway that we contribute minus South Africa, South Southern Africa contribute less than 5% of global emissions. So for them, what they really want to do is to make sure there's light at every home, so there's light to power factories and industries. And second, there was also, I mean, on the issue of finance and looking at, I mean, African countries, basically, I mean, there are two issues. First is that there is this lack of, I mean, priority, our political way to invest in energy. So apparently on current levels, African countries together, South Southern Africa, they invest about $80 billion annually in the energy sector, which is 0.4% of their GDP combined. So apparently it's really less if you look at the energy investments. I mean, that really also testify or attest to the fact that they have really intense power outages and then power shortages. And then there was also one issue about the fact that even of the amount they invests, there are some inefficiencies and these inefficiencies are linked to political patronage and then linked to misinvestment. They just invest in maintenance and maintaining all the facilities rather than investing in more of the energy facilities. So it costs African countries almost $80 billion annually and you can talk of Tanzania, I mean, two years ago where the energy utility provider, I mean, was stuck in this scandal where, I mean, billions of dollars were missing from the account offshore. So these are, I mean, some of the issues we show. So finance is first, how much are they investing? And then second, how much of the investments are going in the wrong pockets? And that, I think, should be considered in these discussions. Go to the institutional governance issues. But let me just respond initially and then you guys can chime in. So first, I'm relatively sure that one can build, in fact, I'm 100% sure that one could build 500 megawatts of wind and solar 10 times faster than a coal plant, 10 times faster. If you commissioned it, got a contract signed, typically that would be built in less than one year from literally rough ground into final. So the pace issue is actually a benefit to renewables. The resource issue, if I can calculate off the top of my head, the renewable resources in the countries you just mentioned, they have more than adequate renewable resource that provide power at European consumption demand to every person in those countries just based upon renewable resources. And so you could leave all of the carbon in the ground and have a complete renewable energy system in a shorter period of time than extracting the carbon. To your third point, which is, in fact, it's the institutional arrangements which are the largest barrier to achieving that kind of a future. And your example of missing money, things like that, the tax structures and things like that are in fact, probably one of the largest components, particularly in those countries, but many others. But now I'll turn to my co-panelist to add some comments. I mean, I think this is what I was speaking about in terms of less straightforward, right? I mean, I work in Mozambique all the time, right? And so it's really easy to think about sticking a coal plant at the mouth of the mine in Tet and running a wire to the power pool, to the power pool net network. And there's gonna be fossil fuel use in Africa and you're gonna build stuff. So there is a matter of balance. I mean, this isn't gonna happen right away. But there are alternatives. The first thing to think about is, I think what Doug mentioned, I mean, to do that scale power plant in Tet is that's a complicated proposition. It's gonna take a long time to build that power plant, right? And you're gonna have to build the wires to bring it down. And you need the water. And you need the water. And so there's just that set of issues right there. And then what are you gonna, you want to join probably, there's sort of political issues that kick in right away. South Africa already has a pretty ambitious INDC. South Africa is in the middle of sort of reducing, trying to reduce it's supposed to peak in 2030.  They're not gonna buy Muslim beacon coal-fired power. And so you're gonna kick yourself out of the power pool. If we continue to get innovation at the pace that we're getting, you do have the possibility, and this would be unfortunate, of building a power plant, running it for, you're taking a long time to get it done, running it for a few years, and then having it essentially be obsolete. It's not, I'm not saying, this is, it's less straightforward. It's not as easy to think about, and in part because of the models that we have fairly clearly in our minds. But what's becoming increasingly clear is that the alternatives are just plain better in a large number of circumstances, and actually very close at this point. I think that the delay issue is really large, and just with the pace of technical advance, and this is really, you know, work with the Treasury in South Africa, and one of the most potent arguments I think we bring against a really big nuclear build is why are you locking yourself into one particular very large power source when there's so much stuff that's going on, it's already marginal at best, and maybe that's plus you're not gonna see that power for seven years under the best of circumstances. Whereas in developing countries, this issue of, we have the issue of with renewables, it becomes, it gets to be night every day, right? And so we don't generate that power. It's not windy everywhere. We have to balance that system. But you also have the larger scale balance. This is the root of African lack of power. I think fundamentally is the 20 years from the 80s and into the 90s when African didn't grow at all.  But with the, you know, we're now, here we are 11 years later, that's how long it takes to do these things under the traditional system. And power is a big constraint. So, you know, there's the system variability that's going on at an hourly or minute level, but there's also the matter of balancing, you know, your sort of aggregate ability to supply, you know, lumpy way with your demand. And in a developing country setting, your demands are really difficult to predict.  Most African countries could either, you know, what's the range? Well, we could grow by 7% a year for 10 years, in which case, you know, we've now doubled in size, or actually, you know, we could do rather poorly. These are, this is a big range and the ability to modularly add is very important in that setup. And actually, frankly, most of the models that I've used don't take into account very well that aspect, I would say. True. Another question, comment, we've got one in the front. And then, then we're gonna go to a coffee break. Yeah, we're gonna go to a coffee break.   I'm from Africa, West Africa, Guinea. My aunt and cousin in the rural, remote rural area are using cellular phone. And my question is, is it because the innovation is not really ready? Sometime ago, the telephone line was very crucial step to develop in the rural area. Today we have a cellular phone, mobile phone that solve a lot of problem. My concern at this step, can we say that we didn't get strong enough technology to make affordable all these electricity and power issue? If I took in my country, there is a lot of river, there is a lot of potential, sun is always there, but we are still facing these crucial need of electricity. If I run a lab in my lab, I need electricity. That was a shock for me when I returned to my country. I would like to invest in the lab, laboratory too, but there is no electricity. That is a very crucial thing. Is maybe the innovation is not ready or is something who is... We are not reaching the good target. Do you want to start? Do you want me to... Cheryl? Well, so I'll do the crisp answer, which is that today distributed technologies, I guess you're gonna ask about distributed technologies, but also hybrid systems. So they could be mini-grid systems for villages. They could be based upon with a school and a health clinic and maybe producing water and purifying water, et cetera. So it's a bit bigger than just a household. Are technically viable, and there are multiple business models available like Cheryl talked about, et cetera, utilizing cell phone services for payments, et cetera. They tend to be much less expensive than the current energy that's purchased by rural households today, which tends to be kerosene and batteries, tend to also be much healthier, but they're more expensive than comparing against, I call it the traditional grid-provided electricity. So there's still more movement to go in terms of getting distributed generation to be as cost-effective as grid-based power. Again, agnostic of or ignoring the subsidies and the public health impacts and climate change impacts. So it's a little bit of an unfair comparison, but it's a lot closer than it was. And I think the interesting piece in your comparison against cell phones is, they're now seven or eight billion cell phones in the world. I think it's more than one-to-one, right? Yeah, something close to that. Yeah, maybe it's a little, maybe it's five. But anyways, I mean, they have proliferated across the globe with an enormous economy of scale. And if you compare the economy of scale growth of phones to the economy of scale growth of photovoltaics, photovoltaics are not very far behind and they're on a similar growth path. And so don't be surprised to see more and more cost-effective solutions even in the near-term future. But I'll turn to these guys. I just, I wanted to, do you want to add there? No, thank you all for coming. I wanted to add one point on complexities between local and global, which we talk about in the book and I think is important is just looking further forward. I think that what we say is this bottom-up approach has been extremely effective for getting going. There are now a bunch of things on the table and there's a lot of things happening and the fact that I thought Doug would mention that he didn't mention is more than half of new installed capacity globally for 2014 and 2015 was renewable, right? It was, and billions and billions are being invested by private parties. So this is not, we're not sort of just kind of talking in the abstract or we're talking about more than half of capacity that's going in. A lot more needs to be done. But at this point, partly it's easy and maybe technology will sort of smooth the path, maybe if you go very fast. But right now, we're gonna need monitoring kind of, we're gonna need sort of know what other countries are doing. We don't want energy, we want energy intensive industries to move to areas with high sort of low clean energy potential, not to areas where coal is cheap. And so this kind of dealing with the global issue is complex and isn't really handled within Paris. And so as we look at going to a new, a deeper agreement to achieve the kinds of emission reductions that Doug was talking about, getting down to very low levels around mid century, we're gonna encounter a further set of complexities between global and local than this agreement has come to address at this point. So thank you all for coming. I think we've managed to keep, well we started a bit late and we're finishing roughly right on time. So thank you for coming and we'll look forward to the next. Thanks.


Hi, I'm Martin Dugiamis, the founder and director of the Moodle project and our widely used open source Moodle learning platform. I'm proud to announce our latest release, Moodle 2.6, which is the culmination of over six months work from our core team at Moodle HQ and a huge number of contributors from around the world. This release contains hundreds of improvements and fixes that address requests from the community. But the major ones fall into two basic categories. Usability improvements that improve how Moodle functions from a user point of view and performance improvements that allow Moodle to run faster and better in a wider range of software environments. Our usability improvements include things like improved responsive behavior for all types of devices, clean new course editing interfaces, a new way for teachers to annotate their students' work that everyone will find familiar, improved course management, a more user friendly text editor, additional name fields, a new course format that lets you make a course out of any single activity, support for non-gregorian calendars and much more. On the performance side of things, administrators will find new options for handling sessions using backends like Memcache D, full support for PHP Opcache, faster admin menus, improvements on Microsoft SQL and Maria databases, and many more improvements all over the place. For more details on these, see our other videos or browse the Moodle 2.6 release notes. We're hard at work now on some big new features for Moodle 2.7 due in May next year. But in the meantime, enjoy 2.6 and we'll see you on Moodle.org. Thank you. Bye.