Coming up on DTNS video chats for lockdown dates, the danger of link previews, and the UK sets its phones free. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, October 27th, 2020 in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Shane. And joining us today, we're very happy to have UK associate editor at the Mac Observer, Charlotte Henry back on the show. Hey Charlotte, how's it going? Hey, thanks so much for having me back. Missed you guys. I know. But nothing big has happened since we last hung out. No, no. Just a real dead pool of news. Bit of a real quiet year. But we have some interesting things today, finally. Yeah, thank goodness there's some news today that we can really get our teeth into. We were actually just talking a little bit about the iPhone 12 and cases and that sort of thing on Good Day Internet. If you want to get that wider conversation, become a member, patreon.com. slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. AMD has confirmed it will buy Zilinx in a $35 billion all-stock deal. Zilinx makes programmable processors for data centers and competes with Altera, which Intel bought back in 2015. AMD's purchase of Zilinx is expected to close by the end of 2021. Hey, Zoom launched its end-to-end encryption, finally. It's in technical preview for 30 days. You can get it if you're on a Mac, PC, iOS and Android or using a Zoom room. It does not work on the Zoom web client, on third-party clients, or if you're phoning in. And some features don't work with end-to-end encryption on. We talked about that before. Cloud recording, live transcription, polling, meeting reactions, joining before a host. You can't have end-to-end encryption on if you want to use those. And there's also a maximum of 200 participants if you're using end-to-end. Free users have to verify a phone number before using end-to-end encryption on Zoom, but they can get it. Remember, there was talk that free users wouldn't get it. They are gonna get it. You just have to verify your phone number. Ubisoft will rename its subscription gaming service from UPlay Plus to Ubisoft Plus and has added cross-platform availability as well. Ubisoft Plus still costs $14.99 per month, but some games will be accessible on Google Stadia and also Amazon Luna as well as your PC. This is separate from a Stadia Pro subscription or forthcoming Ubisoft channel on Luna Plus. But Ubisoft promises cross-platform progression as well and launches for all UPlay Plus subscribers on November 10th. Qualcomm announced an upgrade to its chip platform they use in Wi-Fi mesh routers. The immersive home platform as it's named uses Wi-Fi 6 and 6E. We have an episode of Know a Little More about those if you wanna find out what they are. They give you better capacity, faster speed, Qualcomm saying latency less than three milliseconds and Qualcomm says it operates cooler. Qualcomm says manufacturers that use immersive home platform should be able to make smaller, cheaper mesh routers. Wyze launched the third version of its flagship camera, the Wyze Cam V3. It's now IP65 rated for outdoor use, has sensors for color night vision and offers a 360 degree field of view at 15 frames per second at night and 20 during the day. They've also added an 80 decibel siren and the Wyze Cam V3 costs $20 and in-person detection requires the $2 a month cam plus service. You accidentally said 360 degree field of view. Instead of 130, sorry. I guess I just, I was just like, what's 130? Looks all the way around. Sorry about that, yeah, sorry Wyze. I didn't wanna promise something we can't deliver. Wyze didn't want those support calls. Hey, let's talk a little more about Tinder. Let's do it. Tinder has expanded its face to face video chat feature to all users. So the feature launched earlier this year as a test and lets people video chat without exchanging any personal information because that's important when you're meeting somebody for the first time. If two people match, they're chatting and then they can each toggle on the video feature but neither will know if the other has done so until they both have then the video would be engaged. After agreeing to the rules of video chat, Tinder will begin chatting to check that your video was on and you're facing the camera before beginning the chat and meeting your potential batch. Everything about this fills me with horror. Well, so it's funny Charlotte because Tom and I were talking about before the show and I was like, you know, I'm kind of like the unmarried person on the show. So, you know, I probably know a little bit more about dating apps than everybody else but I kind of like this. I mean, in a pandemic, sure. You may actually end up meeting somebody online and not hanging out with them in person for much longer than you would have normally but it also gives you a good idea of what someone is like beyond text before you were to go to a coffee shop, you know and socially distance outside and see them in person. Yeah, no, I get why it's happening now but so like as a single person, I'm kind of, I hate dating apps anyway. The concept fills me with horror anyway. I know I'm wrong, but that's just how it is. No, you're not wrong, I mean, wrong with horror. But it's like the idea that you would then end up you know, having some, this toggling thing whether it's like, oh, now the person also wants a video and suddenly the video comes on just and also this can only end badly, can't it? Like, I think we all know how this ends, Sarah. Well, but I mean, okay.  Yeah, I mean, it's not full, we haven't gotten full chat really late. Right, exactly. You're right, and that is obviously for so, so many reasons a good thing. And I suspect the truth is, kind of realize that basically people are going, oh, right, we can't meet in person and so why don't we just like load up Zoom or Skype or FaceTime and they go, well, we can make this our thing and you don't ever have to leave our app. And I suspect that is where this has come from. That doesn't mean it doesn't, the concept doesn't give me a panic attack. Fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, there's definitely, there's gonna be some complications as there always are with these types of apps, but yeah, it does make sense that they would wanna build it into their own platform. For sure. It's complicated. How about this? Imagine Facebook launched a new feature where any user could edit pages describing information about the US election and its candidates.  You would imagine it would descend into chaos pretty rapidly, everybody would be upset about them doing that. But if you haven't noticed, what I'm describing is actually Wikipedia. And Wikipedia has not descended into chaos, at least not yet. Part of that is a result of a 20 year culture of developing standards around volunteer editors and not having to chase ad dollars, but it also has taken preventative measures for years. Wikipedia has identified certain articles that are targets of vandalism and given them more protections. They have lots of different tools in their toolbox to do that. Wired reports that all US elections and large numbers of involved people and organizations related to them have been added to Wikipedia's watch list where Wikipedia administrators will monitor to see if they're being targeted for some kind of vandalism or propaganda effort. Wikipedia also added what it calls extended confirmed protection to its 2020 United States presidential election page. If you wanna make edits on that page, you have to be a user that's been registered with Wikipedia for at least 30 days and made a minimum of 500 accepted edits to the site. So somebody can't just turn on Wikipedia today and start messing with that page. A Wikipedia editor told Wired that election results will likely be sourced from one reputable outlet once they're available, something like the Associated Press, and an experienced administrator will be the only one able to enter the final result of the election on Wikipedia. So they take these things in a case-by-case basis, but they're able to provide a wide-open editing with the ability to sort of monitor and see what's going on. The Wired article talks about how they just sort of slow things down. When somebody wants to make a controversial edit, they talk about it for a long time in the moderator pages, and it just makes it less of a target for people who wanna quickly spread misinformation. It's much better for those people if they go to social media where there isn't this sort of control on it. But I mean, I heard you say, oh, Charlotte, when I mentioned Wikipedia, you would think that Wikipedia would be rife with this kind of abuse because anybody can make an edit, but they've got a good system for this. It's so fascinating. When years ago, when Wikipedia started, it was like frowned on, wasn't it to use it as a legitimate research tool? Oh, you read it on Wikipedia, did you ha ha ha? But actually, I mean, you guys must have met people who've acted as worked as editors and volunteered as editors on there. I've composed a couple of people. They take it so seriously. They take it really seriously, and it's fascinating. Obviously, last year, I had a book published on fake news and did a lot of research into this kind of area. And actually, the thing that flagged up was not Wikipedia. That wasn't where the problem was. Yeah, and I think there's some things we could learn from that, right? From studying why that is. I mean, I've got my own ideas of maybe what it is, but I think looking at it could help us solve these other problems by saying, well, wait a minute, this exists in 2020 right now and is not suffering the problems. What can we learn from that? So it's fascinating. What you described is basically an old-fashioned newsroom. Oh, someone comes with some information, some more experienced people help you verify that information. Oh, and then when you verified it, it gets published. Yeah. Sounds like journalism to me. And it's a different purpose, obviously. Wikipedia isn't a social network. They aren't funded by advertising, as I said, which I think is a big difference here, but I still think the idea of how they moderate, like you said, it's kind of a time-honored thing that they're replicating here with learning from things we already know. And also I think the big difference is it's not driven by clicks and likes.  It's a different, very different system. Yeah, I mean, Facebook historically has launched lots of features where people go, well, that doesn't work well. And the company says, ah, we've learned a lot. So if you were replicating the Wikipedia model, okay, we've seen that this has worked well in the past, but yes, two different pieces. Yeah. And Wikipedia is not perfect. Don't get us wrong. We're not trying to say call them a saint, but they do some things well. Moving on, T-Mobile will launch its streaming service, T-Vision. Get it? TV, T-Vision. For T-Mobile postpaid customers starting on November 1st, T-Vision comes in three separate tiers. For $40 a month, you get the major networks, both broadcast and cable. For $50 a month, it's a plus tier, which adds more sports channels. For $60 a month, you get NFL Red Zone as well. These plans include 100 hours of cloud DVR and up to three concurrent streams. A $10 add-on called Vibe adds 30 channels from AMC, Discovery and Viacom with two concurrent streams and DVR access for an extra $5. Is there a nickel in diving you a little bit, but you have a lot of options. You can also add channels from STARS, Showtime and Epic for additional fees. T-Vision will be available on Android, iOS, Android TV, Google TV, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV as well as on T-Mobile's own $50 T-Vision Hub Android TV streaming device. Now, this is only for T-Mobile subscribers for now, but they do say they intend to bring it to other people eventually. I think it's just a way for them to slow the rollout, make sure they've got it all technically working and all that. The most interesting thing to me was that $10 Vibe add-on which we called it an add-on, but you can actually just subscribe to Vibe without subscribing to the rest of T-Vision which is similar to Filo. Filo has AMC, Discovery and Viacom channels for a certain amount of months. So I think it's interesting how they're packaging this up to be able to make different deals with different networks that have different requirements like we only want to allow two concurrent streams like all right, well, you'll be on this Vibe tier and everything else can be over here and sports people, all your stuff is here so the people who don't want sports don't have to pay for anything beyond ESPN and FS1 which is in the base package. It's an interesting way of packaging this stuff. Yeah, there's a couple of other things I chuck in there as well with my watching Apple hat-on. You can get Apple TV Plus free for a year. If you do the live TV Plus or the live zone package you'll get TV Plus free for a year with that. Plus they're actually giving you a way to get a TV 4K, an Apple TV 4K, one of the actual physical boxes for $99. So that's $80 off. You get a rebate via a virtual prepaid Mastercard basically and you can get the Apple TV 4K box as well. So as you say, they're making deals with all sorts of different people. It's interesting Apple wanted to be part of this. But that's it, I don't know what I'll have access to this in the UK, but the way they presented it is kind of taking on, they described it as taking on the cableopoly, which is kind of interesting. And again, trying to cut the cord in so many different ways even though you, as you say, you have to have a T-Mobile contract. But it's again giving another pretty good price option because the thing that always costs people and the thing particularly here in the UK but I imagine in the US as well that keeps people with old fashioned cable companies is sport. I know you have slightly different options but basically you can't even now watch, for example, Premier League Soccer, you can't watch that in the UK without some kind of cable subscription. And I know lots of sports work to say when the US even those places where they have like NFL game pass and then we'll be at bat. There's still regional blackouts, aren't there, where it's on cable so you don't get everything. And this seems to do at least a large part with the sport problem as well, which I think is pretty impressive. Well, thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit, you can submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. Research published Monday by two app developers shows that link previews, like you see in Instagram or Slack, other messaging apps where you put in a link and then it doesn't just show the link, it shows the headline and little description of the webpage. Sometimes you get a picture off the page. Those don't always behave well. To get the preview, the app has to visit the link and download at least part of the thing that the link is pointing to. And if not properly configured, that action could lead to private materials being exposed to the company. I mean, if you link to something in Dropbox, like your tax records, that could be stored indefinitely on the apps if it's taking the file, putting it on its own server, creating the preview and then delivering the preview. It can also lead to downloading malware if you, because it's loading a page without doing all the security vetting that a browser would do. Facebook and Instagram download the entire linked file no matter what it is.  They then create the preview and execute JavaScript without security vetting. That's where the malware could come in. LinkedIn does the same, though it does cap its download at 50 megabytes. After 50 megabytes, it stops because it figures it's got all it needs to make the preview. Discord, Google Hangouts, Slack, Line, Twitter, and Zoom cap the file between 15 and 50 megabytes. And Line looks like it sends its linked file to its own server outside of end-to-end encryption, which would mean that if you're using a link in preview, you're not getting end-to-end encryption on that link anymore. The good behavior comes from iMessage, Reddit, Signal, Threema, TikTok, Viber, WeChat, and WhatsApp that do not copy the file at all. They just take what they need to generate the preview and then they put that out there. And in fact, Signal, Threema, TikTok, and WeChat even give you the option to turn off link preview and say, I don't even want that at all. They did not analyze Telegram, interestingly, in this. Sorry, Allison, but yeah, I don't know how Telegram handles this, but it looks like something that I don't think a lot of us would have thought of is when you're just pasting a link in, in a lot of these cases, it's as if you're visiting the link in a less secure browser. I think you've hit the nail on the head where you say a lot of us don't think about it. That's exactly, when I see a link come up, in fact, often you think, oh, that's safer. Well, because I haven't even clicked on it. I haven't even gone to the page. And I think what, the way you talk this through or illustrate is actually how important it is for all of us from, perhaps more savvy users like us, we'd like to think, us three would like to think of ourselves as, to everyday users who look at, use these things. We all need to be a lot more aware of these issues because it wouldn't occur to have occurred to me before reading this, the report and the R's technical story that actually the link could be a bigger preview than, the preview could be the bigger issue than the link itself.  It's fine. I can't get malware.  I wouldn't kick on a random link. But the preview is, you explained could be enough. And I think it's an interesting element that we haven't yet thought of. And I suspect, as ever, the hackers are one step ahead and the people who want to inject malware are one step ahead and conscious of this vulnerability and looking to exploit it. Yeah. I mean, with a little bit more awareness and knowing that certain companies actually aren't, copying the entire file while generating the preview means that other companies could also do that as well. And if you are at all uncomfortable with how certain companies are doing this, which sounds like you should be, then there are other options and the company should be, you know, held their feet to the fire. Yeah, absolutely. The UK's Offcom announced a mobile network, announced that mobile networks in general will not be allowed to sell locked phones after December of 2021. So O2, Sky, 3 and Virgin already sell unlocked handsets only. Offcom is also requiring communications be provided in accessible formats like Braille by December of next year as well. Charlotte, you probably have some thoughts about this. Yeah. I'm really pleased about this because I've been with the same cell provider for ever since I first got a phone. A large part of the reason being, one, I don't want the initial outlay on an unlocked device and two, can I really be bothered to change provider and go through all of that? And as the Offcom stuff said, they make it difficult. Like the process can be delayed. You can suddenly find you don't have a phone for 24, 48 hours, your lines got down as they all take a long time to transfer. And so this seems a very good way of counteracting all of that. I think they've probably given everyone a reasonable time to get on board. It's well over a year to everyone get their house in order. Yeah. I think it's a really positive step. I haven't seen too much kickback yet from the telecoms providers, although that may be coming. Because obviously what a lot of people do is you phone up your provider. I want the new iPhone with you how much does it cost per month? Some people will go to the Apple store, to the Samsung store and pick up the device outright. And that's a different thing. But most, if you go to say the Vodafone store, the three store, whatever, you get the phone on their network.  They don't tend to sell unlocked devices. And I think we may see more people taking out the option of unlocked devices, which has not been such a big, as far as I'm aware, not such a big feature. People do eventually go to Simony, but that might only be once their contract is run out. This obviously gives consumers a lot more flexibility. If you want to spend X amount of money outright, you now have more places where you can do that. And the networks have to make it life easy for you instead of making it as difficult as possible for you. Well, I've almost always gotten unlocked phones and it's always been like, well, you have to wait a little longer. You have to pay a little more because the original big advantage to a locked phone was for the carrier to say, well, we'll subsidize it. Your phone will only cost you $200 because you can't take it anywhere else, right? That's just not the way most of these plans work anymore.  You didn't get a subsidized phone that they're hoping to recoup back in the amount they charge you for your subscription. It's just added on top of the subscription. So you're paying for the phone. Why should it be locked anyway? And I could see some argument of like, well, until you pay it off, you're not necessarily owner of the phone yet. But really, I don't think too many people are trying to scam the companies by taking an unlocked phone and running to another provider with it. It's just not worth it. Sneakily changing the SIM card. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know. And I suspect I'm not unique in the fact that I've stayed with my provider for a long, long time. People just are like, oh, I'm with them. I can't bother that. I'm getting a good deal because they give me some kind of loyalty bonus, fine. But this clearly gives a lot of users a lot more different options. It can be, you can pick it up in one store and get a better deal for the SIM plan in another place. And it gives users a lot more flexibility. And I think, actually, it will be quite a positive move for consumers in the UK. Yeah, it'll be nice. You won't even have to think about it. Right, it won't be a discussion, yeah. Well, at Apple's iPhone 12 event, the company made a big deal about how it was less prone to breaking and scratching and it was stronger than ever. So CNET put Apple's new ceramic shield on the iPhone 12 through some scratch and dropped tests. The glass on the 12 is flushed with the metal frame rather than curving up. Apple says that design change alone makes it twice as durable as its older models. Sounds good. Was only scratched by sandpaper, CNET says. The back of the phone though, which does not have a ceramic shield cracked when dropped from hip height. The front survived without a crack from drops as high as nine feet. It was interesting read because they kept talking about how they even at nine feet they were trying to get it to land face down on the ceramic shield so they could get a direct impact. And because the camera is a little bump on the back, like a cat always landing on its feet. It kept wanting to land on the back where you didn't have the ceramic shield and of course that cracks. Yeah, which, yeah, it's all gonna be a slight design flaw. My colleague, Thomas, I already did a really good breakdown of what ceramic shield is and what it means. So that's worth checking out if people wanna know a bit more. First of all, the idea of dropping your iPhone, we was saying on good morning internet even I, with the ceramic shield stuff was like, no, I'm still buying a case. I do not trust myself. And I think a lot of people will be like that. I think the combination of two is probably gonna help protect a lot of people but the idea of just like possibly dropping it and it's still, as you say, landing on the back or catching the corner just right so that it shats the screen shatters which I know ceramic shield is meant to prevent but stuff happens. I think people will still want a case but it is a major step forward ceramic shield. Like it is a big deal, the level, you know the science and the technology behind it and also the level of safety it clearly does have. When I was going through a lot of the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 reviews when they first came out last week I noticed all the reviews who'd been sent a phone to test by Apple were like, well, I wanted to test the ceramic shield but of course I didn't drop it deliberately but suddenly it dropped from like they were all consciously like, Apple had clearly told all the reviewers you do not drop this phone. This comes back to us as we sent it to you Behave but inevitably in life these things do happen and it seemed to hold up pretty well. I suspect in normal life, you know the kind of classic I would dropped it on my kitchen floor when I was walking around or, you know, those kinds of things I suspect it will do a pretty good job but as I say, I still wouldn't be confident enough not to have a bit of a case. Yeah. Well, I'm kind of the opposite of you Charlotte I, my iPhones over the years I like the way that they feel. Yeah. I don't want a case, I want it to be naked and it's all, you know as it was intended that said I cracked them all every single one of them I'm walking around with a very cracked iPhone right now which is on its last legs. So something like this is like, sure I should probably put in more precautions but if you don't, all of the stuff points to it being more sturdy than ever. I totally agree with you. Like I hate, I love the bit of time when the iPhone is kind of, as you say a bit naked and running around free as it's named to intended but I don't trust myself. Yeah. I think the ceramic shield looks like it is sturdier like all signs point to it including the CNET test. I don't plan to test it on the one I paid for myself. What? So let us know if you do and in the meantime, we'll check out the mailbag. Let's do it. Brian points us to a link from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It's a, it's an article titled computational gene study suggests new pathway for COVID-19 inflammatory response. Brian says it's amazing to see what we can do with the computational power of today's supercomputers also related. Brian finally made it to the top 10 folding at home team GDI and said he was looking around the interwebs researching COVID progress and found this article keep up the good work. Yeah. We have a very active folding at home channel in our discord and Jerry Heiselman was just pointing out this morning that we have over 3 billion points 159,722 work units completed in team GDI unfolding at home. So thanks everybody who's contributing to that. That's amazing. Having an effect out there in the world where we're seeing things turn out from supercomputers not necessarily directly from folding at home in this case but from this research. So that's good. Absolutely. Thanks, Brian. Thanks for the link and thanks to everybody who sends us feedback all the time if you'd like to join feedback at dailytechnewshow.com also thank you for all the cat photos. I've never been happier. Shout out to patrons at our master and grandmaster levels including Tony Glass, Jeffrey Zilx and Steve Ayadarola. Also extra special thanks to Charlotte Henry for being back with us today. Charlotte, let folks know where they can keep up with all of your work. So yeah, I'm over at the macobserver.com so head over there and check out all the stuff we do covering the world of Apple and beyond and I'm at Charlotte A Henry on the Twitters but don't send me cat photos. I don't trust cats puppies we can talk about. Oh, that sounds like a good GDI. Good day in that topic right there. Hey folks, if you want good day internet or an ad-free feed of Daily Tech News Show support us on Patreon. In fact, if you're listening to your Patreon RSS it's already ad-free. You get your own personal RSS feed supported directly by you. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash Patreon. We are live Monday through Friday for 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 UTC. If you can join us, we'd love to have you. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live and we'll be back tomorrow with Scott Johnson. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.


Hey everyone this is Dan. Are you tired of looking at your computer screen six and a half hours a day just to track how your stock portfolio is doing? How about if your computer can narrate the stock quotes for you and tell you whether the price of a certain stock is outside of the range that you have set? I found a way to get Microsoft Excel to do that for me. This is an example of what Excel can do. By adding some formulas in Excel, you can have Excel keep track of your entire stock portfolio and alert you verbally when the price of one of the stocks or the value of your entire portfolio drifted outside of a range that you defined. With Excel watching your stock portfolio, you can put on your headphones and be sitting on the patio enjoying the sun, reading a book, or watching a movie because you know that Excel would notify you when you need to be notified. Let's see how we can do that. First of all, let's open up a blank Excel workbook. I have a Microsoft 365 subscription. That's how I can make sure that I have the latest version of the Microsoft Excel software in my PC. We need to create a macro first to narrate the stock quotes. There are many ways to create a macro. The easiest way is probably just to start out by recording a macro and then modify the macro that's been recorded. So we want to click on the developer option here, and then we click on record macro. For the macro name, I want to name it narrate underscore stocks. For short tag key, let's say control Q. For description, I would say narrate stock quotes. Click OK. Well, actually previously I created a macro by the same name, so I'm just going to override it. All right. Now at this point, I have nothing on the spreadsheet yet because the recording already started, the recording process, I'm just going to go anywhere on a spreadsheet and type in some random characters, just to feed something to the macro recorder. Once I've done that, then I click on developer and then click on stop recording. Now we can go to macros. See this macro that we created? Click on edit. This is what the macro recorder created. It has the name of the macro, which is a narrate underscore stocks, some additional comments about the name, the description, narrate stock quotes, and then the keyboard shortcut, which is control Q. And then the rest is the recording of what we just did, which is to type in certain characters at cell G8 and H8 and I8. But we really don't need that for our purpose. I'm going to delete that. Now I'm going to put in the functions that we need to narrate the stock quotes. Without doing a lot of typing, I already created a code on a notepad on the side. I'm going to paste it in and then I'll explain it. The functions that we need is the range function, which put the cursor at a certain cell on a spreadsheet and then with the period and and then with the period and then activate. So we're activating that cell in this case C4 and then the range function again, referring to C4 again, period, speak. So we're telling Excel to speak the content of cell C4 and then we will also have Excel speak the content of C5. We're just going to demonstrate it with the contents in two cells, C4 and C5. And we're done. The macro of course ends with the end sub, which is required in the Microsoft macros. Once we've done this very simple program, we click the close button here on the upper right hand corner to close the macro editor. And we really don't need these characters anymore. Remember, the spreadsheet is going to speak C4 and C5, these two cells. And let's color them yellow so we can visually remind ourselves. In the meanwhile, we have to do some additional work in the spreadsheet. For example, if you want to narrate the stock quote for this ETF QQQ, QQQs, typing QQQ here next to it. So when you put in the letters QQQ in the cell and you click on data stock, the stock selector window will pop up on the right. And then it will tell you to select one of the stocks here related to the letters QQQ. And what we want is the InvestCo QQQ Trust1, which is an ETF. We click, select, here we go. And then to find the price for QQQ, the current price, as we click on this cell, which has a data type of stock, you see this little pop up icon here. You click on that and you can select different fields, the beta 52 week high, 52 week low, and so on and so forth. What we want to select is the price. As you click on that, the current price of QQQ now is shown in this cell here. So we have the stock symbol, we have the current price. And then to have Excel read or narrate the stock symbol and the current price, remember, it's going to narrate C4 and C5. So for C4, we want to have the stock symbol there. So we put in the equal E4, which is QQQ. And then for C5, we want to stop price, which is the numbering cell G4. So here we go. And we now want Excel to narrate the contents of C4 and C5. Let's test it out. We can go to developer, we can run the macro, go to developer, macro, and then since this is the one and only macro here, I just click on run. Here it is. Alternatively, remember, we assigned a shortcut key to the macro. So I'm going to just press control QQQ, $315 and 46 cents. Now that activated the macro and Excel narrated the stock price for us. If you like what you've seen so far, I'd like to encourage you to click the like, subscribe, and notification button that will enable you to receive notification when I post my next video. It will also encourage me to make more videos like this in the future. As usual, I'll very much welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Thank you very much. Let's continue. We have a lot of interesting stuff to cover. Now let's get a little fancier. First of all, I'm going to save this away in my 10 folder. Since there's a macro in the workbook, instead of saving the workbook in the regular Excel workbook format, we need to click on Excel macro enable workbook. That way, the macro can be saved. To save time, I've already done some programming. Let's open up another workbook that I already programmed and I'll explain the macros and the formulas in that workbook. We have the same spreadsheet like what we've done before except I added some additional instructions. It says on macro narrate stocks will narrate the words in cells C4 and C5 and press control Q to activate macro and then press escape to stop macro. Now to have Excel alert you when the stop price exceeds certain limits, or falls below certain limits, let's look at this particular spreadsheet. It looks very similar to the last one here. The name of the spreadsheet is limits. You can download this entire workbook with the link below this video. It's in Google Drive. We have C4 and C5 being narrated. However, here I'm putting in two different stock symbols. The first one is the SPY, the ETF, and then QQQ. And then the current price SPY is 406.07. QQQ is 309.81 and I'm here setting the low limit and high limit for both of them. And the low limit in this case I'm setting 404 for SPY and high limit 500. And of course 406.07 is right between the low and high limit. It's within range and that's why I don't need Excel to alert me about SPY because there's nothing wrong with SPY at this point. I work QQQ, the current price is 309.81 and I define the low limit as 300 and high limit is 303. QQQ is 309.81, which is higher than the high limit of 303. And that's why I want Excel to alert me by saying QQQ is more than high limit of 303. You might notice that here, let me label them in blue background. In the cell H2 and I2, these two cells, I'm putting in the text that I want Excel to narrate when the price of a certain stock is either below the low limit or above the high limit. I have the formula here behind cell C5 to say that if the price of QQQ here, which is an F5 is less than H5, which is a low limit, then you put the stock symbol QQQ together with this string is less than low limit of and then put in the low limit 300. I'm using the concatenation function of the M% sign. And likewise, if QQQ is greater than high limit, then put the string together and then narrate it. You can download this workbook from the link that I have below this video. It's storing Google Drive, so don't worry about doing a lot of typing. Once it's programmed, then we're ready. With this particular macro, I really haven't changed anything in a way of macro. Basically, I'm having Excel narrate cell C4 and C5, just like the first macro here, except I'm changing the content of C4 and C5 by putting some logic to identify whether a particular stock is outside of the range that I defined. Let me make this prettier by centering the limits here. Now we're ready. So I'm going to press Ctrl Q. QQQ is more than high limit of 303. Let's try again. Control Q. QQQ is more than high limit of 303. Or if the low limit for SPY, for example, is 407, then SPY is now below the low limit. So we are seeing the text showing up here. And then if we press Ctrl Q again, SPY is less than low limit of 407. QQQ is more than high limit of 303. Here it is. Both of them work. Let's go one step further because we do not want to be pressing Ctrl Q or Ctrl Z all day to get Excel to speak to us. And that's why I want to repeat the macro in the loop. So that brings us to this particular spreadsheet which is named Repeat. Everything looks the same like this previous one, the worksheet called Limits. Because it's a different macro, then I have to use a different shortcut key, which is Ctrl Z to activate the macro. And I'll show the macro later on. And here I also put in a variable, which is how many seconds for the repeat. In this case, I put in five. That means this macro will be repeated every five seconds. Again, I've set the limit here. And let's change the low limit of SPY to 407. So a message will show up here for SPY. It says it's lower than the lower limit. And QQQ, in this case, is higher than the high limit. And then if you look at the macro, it's called a name. It's called a repeat narrowing stocks. And here, actually, it's in the same macro editor, repeat narrowing stocks. I'm defining some variables with visual basic. You can copy this again from the Google Drive download. You can just download it and then run it and then modify it. I use the same activate and speak function. But after Excel has narrated cells C4 and C5, then I have Excel going to wait mode, depending on how many seconds I want it to wait. In this case, wait for five seconds. And then after five seconds is done, go back to the top, narrate again, wait for five seconds, go back to the top, narrate again. That's all there is. And hot key or shortcut key is Ctrl Z instead of Ctrl Q for this particular macro. So let's close the macro editor and hit Ctrl Z. Spy at 406.07 is less than low limit. QQQ at 309.81 is more than high limit. That's waiting for five seconds. Spy at 406.07 is less than low limit. QQQ at 309.81 is more than high limit. Rest for five seconds. Spy at 406.07 is less than low limit. QQQ at 309.81 is more than high limit. Yeah, let's press escape to hand the macro. I might as well put a note. If you make this spreadsheet even fancier by putting the number of shares you have on each stock, and then you can calculate the current value of your stock portfolio by multiplying the stock price by the number of shares, and then you can also define the range for the value of your stock portfolio. For example, if it gets above the upper limit by more than $1,000 or $2,000, whatever limit you want to define that you want Excel to alert you, or the flip side is that if it falls more than $2,000 or $3,000, then you can have Excel alert you as well. That really frees you up from looking at your computer screen all day. Once you have these Excel macros working, they are really doing to make your life better. However, I need to caution you that the stock quotes from Microsoft Excel sometimes can be 30 seconds to a minute late compared to the real-time stock quotes. Therefore, you need to be very careful, and you should always refer back to the stock quotes at your brokerage for making your buy or sell decisions. If you like what you've seen, I'd like to encourage you to click the like, subscribe, and notification button. Thank you for watching all the way to here. I'd like to remind you that I'm not a financial advisor. I share my stock trading strategies and analyses for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you want to buy or sell stocks, you should make your own decisions, and you should definitely consult with your financial advisors before you do so. This wraps up my video for now. I will chat with you again in the next few days. In the meanwhile, I'd like to wish you the very best of luck with your financial investments.


Live from Washington, D.C., it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Summit. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit here in Washington, D.C. It's the 10th annual AWS Public Sector Summit. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, John Furrier. We're joined by Adelaide O'Brien. She is Research Director, Government Digital Transformation Strategies at IDC Government Insights. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Adelaide. Thank you, Rebecca, for having me. It's, I'm pleased to be here today. So I want to just start, really, with just picking your brain about the topic of this conference, which is about modernization of government IT. What is the state of play? Where do you see things from where you sit? Well, as you know, the federal government right now has been under about a 10-year directive to go cloud first. And what we've seen is, a lot of agencies, not all, but some of them have struggled with that. And it hasn't really had the momentum or the velocity that as an analyst, I'd like to see. And so last year, the current federal CIOs is at Kent, put out a policy, and it was about actually moving to cloud smart. So it wasn't just to do cloud to be more efficient, to save some of that money, that about 75 billion that's spent on maintaining legacy equipment, but it was actually thinking about using cloud to be very, very agile, to help deliver better citizen services. And what's interesting is this whole concept of cloud smart is also very supportive of the IT Modernization Technology Act, as well as the report to the president on IT Modernization. So last year, we saw both executive and legislative support for agencies to move to cloud. So as you said, but it's still, from where you sit as an analyst, it still doesn't quite have the momentum and the velocity that you'd like to see. What do you see as the biggest obstacles? Well, and this was actually identified in cloud smart. And yesterday and today, I heard a lot of agencies talking about these three aspects. And I think AWS is a great place to help them. So one of the first is security. And we know when agencies were first asked to go to the cloud, security was the biggest barrier in their organization to cloud. And so I think it was the third AWS conference. It was actually in this building. And I know there's been 10, but I wasn't at the first two. And I can remember as an analyst, I was so pleased that Teresa had Roger Baker, the CIO of Health and Human Services on stage. And they were talking about getting FedRAM certification. And I think it was one of the first. And it was thrilling that such a large agency had invested so much time and money in working with AWS to get FedRAM certification. So to me, that was like an initial push and a start. So security is just so, so important. And now you've got so many different software providers working with AWS on security. And even today at one of the breakout sessions, the Census Bureau talked about, because the CIA moved to AWS and they put their most sensitive information in the cloud, they felt comfortable with putting the personally identifiable information in the cloud, i.e. our census data information. Yeah, if it's good enough for that kind of information, I can put my business information there too. Exactly. The first thing I want to get on the research side is competition of opportunities is old, what about old gar, Amazon always said old gar, the old way of doing things. They're pretty much in the new class dev ops. We've seen that on the enterprise side. Certainly startups, Indie Jazz, they use examples like Airbnb. You see those at conferences over the years. So look at the example of these cloud native companies. How does government now look at suppliers as partners? Because the big debate is, you pick the right cloud for the right workload. Workload should define cloud architecture. You can't just split clouds up amongst Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Oracle's of the world. The whole multi-vendor equation shifts in this new paradigm. How do you see that playing out? Yes, it does. But I also see, and what I've heard today over the last two days is, agencies are actually looking for a partner who can grow with them and learn with them. And I heard that over and over again. They want a cloud provider that has skin in the game and that actually helps them. And we've seen that. They also want a cloud provider that's innovative. And one of my concerns is I learned about how, everything's about scale today, right? And how Amazon now has, AWS has scaled up. So fast over the last couple of years and all the innovations that they're able to provide. And so the question is, how can you keep that culture alive? And it's kind of like that startup culture at AWS, right? How can you keep that alive? And I think Andy answered it today. And I wish I would have thought about the question and the way he talked about it. When you get big, you get conservative, right? Because you have too much to lose and too much is at stake. And as an analyst, I'm seeing AWS, not only is it growing fantastically, but it's innovating. And I think that's what gives you then this innovation. You don't have to be a Silicon Valley software company to innovate. And I think part of it comes from, I think Teresa said that 95% of AWS's roadmap is based upon what they hear from their customers. So that ear to the ground, knowing that the government, business, federal, state and local is so, so important. And this trend that's helping them to also is the move to SaaS with capabilities on digital using software as a service, business model. So again, it's all kind of timed up beautifully for these agencies that were slow to move in the past. This is an analyst. Yeah, so security is one of the things on CloudSmart. And I think that was one of the biggest barriers to momentum, but the other is acquisition. So there's three things about CloudSmart that agencies are to pay attention to. And I think what's really helped in the acquisition is the standardization and not only the FedRAMP certification, and AWS is helping cloud providers, softwares and service providers get FedRAMP certification. And this was announced at the conference last year of ATO and AWS, right? Because it's an arduous process. If you don't know what you're doing, it can cost you a lot of money and take a lot of time. So AWS is working with its partners and that's all good for the government sector, right? Because the more vendors that go through certification, the more they trust them and the more they can trust the integrity of their data in the cloud. So the acquisition is the second one, but the third one is the workforce. And I think Andy mentioned it today, a lot of the resistance and a lot of the inertia to cloud is not just the technology, it's training the workforce. And that is so, so important because it's not just an IT conversation any longer. Going to cloud is part of digital transformation, it's the foundation of it.  And they have to agree otherwise, if you're innovating, you've got islands of innovation and on the cloud, you can start to, yes, you can pilot, but you can start to really get scale there and transform your whole business. And it's all about serving citizens better and innovating to serve them better and automating your processes. That's so important as well. So how would you describe the workforce? I mean, when you think about the private sector workforce in terms of cloud computing versus the government, you tend to think one is more bureaucratic, there is obviously more red tape, maybe slower moving. What are you seeing, what are you hearing? Well, you know, at all levels of the workforce and especially in government, there's a big push now to automate everything. And you know, the government at all levels, federal, state and local realizes they're actually competing with the private sector for workforce. And so, you know, historically government would say, well what's the next skill and we better start preparing for that, right? What's coming down the pike and we need, and now it's like how do we prepare for people who will enter government and move in various different jobs and move in and out of government. And so when you think about that, that's a skill development and technology can help with that, but it's also a mindset of accepting the fact that people join government to serve and they might leave and come back. And so that's very important, but also in terms of cloud smart, the workforce has to be able to understand cloud and how to work with vendors. And it's not necessarily owning your own equipment, but it's trusting your vendors and trusting them with your business. And how do you provide these solutions to the line of business folks? And in a way, I've actually seen the IT department become much more, say, responsive to the line of business folks. And my advice to government executives, especially the IT folks, is always think of yourself as a service, right? Think of yourself as a service, that as a service to the line of business folks and help them understand what they need, how they accomplish their mission, maybe give them a short list of solutions to help them out, but really start tracking then what they're accomplishing. And that'll help fuel then your reinvestments, helping you know where to spend your money next and really just fuel this whole mission accomplishment. One of the things that we've been talking a lot about on theCUBE for years is the new role of the chief data officer in organizations. A lot of federal agencies are now also putting in their own chief data officers. Can you talk a little bit about what you've seen and how they're being used? Yeah, so there are chief data officers in the organizations. And again, that's one of those skills where government's going to compete with the private sector for them. And there's probably not enough to go around. And so it's a very precious commodity. And especially like in your research organizations, you've got chief data officers there. But in a lot of the other areas, especially in the civilian government, you may not be able to have your own chief data officer. You certainly have all the data, but you may not have someone like that. And that's where some of the things that I'm advising agencies to look for is who can help you then give you some of these big data and AI and ML solutions that your line of business folks can start to interface and work with. And maybe you have chief data officers set up the data fields initially, but that's where you've got to start to democratize AI and ML. And because you're never going to have enough chief data officers in any one organization to possibly comb through all of that data. And so that's again where technology can help. Great, well Adelaide, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. It's been a pleasure having you. It was great being here. Thank you so much. I'm Rebecca Knight for John Furrier. Stay tuned. We will have more of theCUBE's live coverage of AWS Public Sector Summit.


Everybody for a syrup in 2022 dynasty baseball hobby five box case number 55 left side serial numbers Let's do the random right now, and then we will open the box Good luck everybody Four and three seven times and once again, thanks everybody Patients for you know decided to push this one back to wait to get it filled it did take a while I think it was the right call, but just thank you for your patience on that. That's a seven or randomized seven times names one two three four five six And seven William L done a Viviana and number seven times one two three four five six and Seven four down to one William L for Zhang Han with five Felix with ten Simon s7 Jennifer L eight Viviana three Jason K2 Ammo nine William K with six and Viviana with one Results are getting posted right now. I'll give you a link so you can check them out I'll call out the hits as we go along as well I'll call out where the hits are going. I guess six series Star Wars down to 11 now again, 59 99 Per spot one in case auto per spot. All right, let's see. It's redemption Dynasty autograph patch card black parallel. That's not a one-of-one. That'll be random to everybody At the end and it is a Buster Posey Buster Posey redemption random to everybody the end is a not is not a one-of-one And per our rules ran into everybody blue jays cap here Bo Vlad II jr. Two of ten on the patch auto Nice car two-spot Jason K two-color patch out of Vlad jr. Mariner's cap Come on cow Raleigh big dumper Nine of ten on the rookie patch auto nine-spot MOD That's awesome, man. Great patch on that four colors Did I say three? I don't even know if I said a number but four color patch Big dumper. Let's see if we can make things. Awesome her Right, that's a word Braves cap Ozzy albies great patch on this one on the three-of-five patch auto three-spot Viviana Sick looking albies it's a four-color patch, too. That's one. It's a Dodger Dodger Freeman, maybe a Walker Bueller four of ten four spot going to William L William L four spots. All right, four different people hit there. Let's do the redemption Redemption random again. Everybody's in on this one. It's not a one-of-one Black parallel patch auto Buster Posey. Good luck. I'll be a very nice car either way still Five and two seven times whoever's up top gets the Buster one two three Four five six and seven Simon S. Congrats Simon Thanks again everybody for filling that one up. We're on to Star Wars


The Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallinn, and women groups in Nigeria are advocating for amendment of laws that discourage women political participation in the coming constitutional review across the country. Speaking in Abuja, they lamented the inadequate representation of women in politics despite the fact that Nigeria is a signatory to various treaties that encourage women's involvement in governance. The Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallinn, called on wives of state governors and stakeholders to engage more in the upcoming constitutional review to address this issue. As it stands, less than 5 percent of elected members are the National Assembly. The state assemblies, the figure is 4.43 percent and for ministerial appointments, it's just 16.2 percent. As a result, Nigeria runs 185 out of 188 countries in women's representation. It is our fervent hope that the outcome of this national public hearing will echo the demand of the nation for a Nigerian we want, a Nigeria which is more inclusive and represent 30. We are all aware that several positions have been represented through memorandum to the constitutional amendment committee, including the ones from the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and those of our partners being the WUBE political participation technical working group. The other civil society organizations, we are all in conformity with the Constitution Nigerian women want. It is time for an inclusive Nigerian constitution, the Constitution Nigerian women want. Period. We look forward to collaborating in creating awareness and advocating for affirmative action and especially the additional special seats for women. As we all coordinate and collaboratively move to the different zones for the public hearing, we want to deeply say that we- Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.