This is the Daily Tech News Show for Wednesday, December 27th, 2023 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. Man, 2023 was a wild ride in tech news. Try to think back. Lawsuits, bank failures, antitrust investigations, AI, AI, even more AI. Some of it's even hard to remember now. So Joe put together a collection of our best conversations from 2023. Enjoy. I would all agree that the streaming world is going to look very different two years from now than it does right now, right? We're going to see a lot of change. The big thing that's going to spark a lot of it is Comcast coming out of the agreements they made when they bought NBC and Disney and Comcast resolving the ownership of Hulu. When those two things happen, and they'll happen in the very near to each other, I think in 2024, suddenly everybody's holding their breath for that, and then we'll see what the moves are. There'll be a race to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. There'll be a race to buy Paramount. Whether or not those companies want to sell or not, I kind of think they will, but there'll be consolidation for sure. And then we'll see what else happens when all that money starts sloshing around. Does Netflix buy? Does Netflix sell? Does Disney sell? Some people are starting to think Disney might finally sell to somebody else. There's no doubt that Bob Iger is brought back to make deals, right? You don't bring the greatest broker of all time back if he's not going to be. He's not there to just make sure that the office supplies get ordered. He's there to... He's really good at it. But yeah, that's not... Right. Yeah. But I think that there was an element of chafing with Chapic, and then there's the other side that is, if you were going to have Disney buy Netflix, or you were going to sell Disney to Apple, the biggest possible Brontosaurus deals that you can imagine of Iger's the man that would do it. When were we talking yesterday about owning a sports team? We were talking about bomber, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I said that... I thought it was... I found it. We're very close to owning. Well, not owning is at the right word. A partnership. There was a... So we talked... Who was it? Was it you, Roger? The products like sponsoring Little League? Oh yeah, because we were talking about products like, does Little League count?  We're not going to do this for every Little League team out there, but someone had the idea to send us like, hey, you can sponsor our team, so I think we're going to do it. It'll be on their uniforms. Oh, nice. Yeah. Are you going to start incorporating like baseball, slang? Like we bunted that headline or...? I mean, we kind of do that already naturally, so, yeah. Of all the baseball slang, we went ahead and bunted that story. Yeah. I mean... Way to step up to the plate with the metaphor there. That was good. Well, Tom Redd docked it out of the park with that. There you go. There you go. Yeah, you're getting there. That's it. Yeah, now you're throwing strikes. What do you think of this Buzzfeed thing? I feel like people have been overreacting to CNET. Not that there isn't some criticism there, but CNET, you know, used a bot to do basically what the AP and Bloomberg have been doing. They just didn't do it as well, whereas Buzzfeed is saying, no, we're going to use the good tool. We're going to use open AI, and we're going to use it in the thing that made Buzzfeed what it is today, which is quizzes, so that your quiz really does react to you. Yeah. Look, whenever I have the opportunity to speak to young journalists, the one thing that I tell them that I know they are not going to hear from other people is get, understand wherever you go, be it an internship or a job, find out how they make money, and then use your skills to be as close to that engine as you can. If you do that, then in a very chaotic world, you will almost assuredly be maximizing your ability to keep your job. These are businesses, and they are trying to stay afloat, and they are using your talents to do it. So when we look at AI, you have to understand what the low-hanging fruit is. And trust me, this is going to take out elements of the journalism world for which can be replicated easy enough by AI. If you are worried about chat GPT, then trust me, you're going to be really, really worried about what comes down the pike in the next two years. So as far as Buzzfeed goes, I think it makes sense for them to do it. The CNET example, and especially the fact that some of their AI-generated articles were sloppy, is another old lesson in journalism. Sloppy is sloppy. Like it was sloppy when it was a human, it's sloppy when it's AI. If you do not have a strong editorial staff, if you do not have a strong copy desk, then stuff is going to get through that shouldn't. AI is not magical, it is a tool. And the fact that it is being used at these outlets is not surprising, and anybody who wants to work at outlets, I believe should, especially if you're young, understand that this is just as important of a tool as LexisNexis was for research, as processors are for creating your copy, as CMS programs are for distributing it around your organization. Learn to write prompts. Well, you may be tired of hearing about chat GPT, sorry in advance. So CNBC says that Google is testing a chat GPT-like tool called Apprentice Bard. Microsoft is working to incorporate GPT-4 into Bing Search. Chat GPT is also now available in Microsoft Word, thanks to a third-party add-on from Creative Data Studios called Ghostwriter. Microsoft launched the team's premium that uses GPT-3 for intelligent recap, which automatically generates notes, tasks, highlights of meetings. Chat GPT-plus is now available for $20 per month. Reuters reported Wednesday that Chat GPT reached an estimated 100 million active users last month. I forget these questions all the time. When's the next big tech innovation going to hit? When are we going to get that next iPhone moment? Why haven't we had anything new in technology in so long? You might have your answer here. There's no doubt that based on how people have understood Chat GPT, and if you even look at the conversations that are happening now with Chat GPT, the price of the product, whether or not it's biased in how you train the model, these are secondary conversations that you can only really have once you've found utility in this technology. People saying, I don't understand what you'd use this for. That doesn't mean anything to me. People saying, I think it's overhyped. Sure, it's flashy, but people won't stick around and keep using it. That doesn't mean much to me. What means something to me is, are there a lot of different uses? And what kinds of fears has it evoked? Because if it evokes fears, that usually means it's really good at something to get that kind of fear evoked. I think this has all the hallmarks of something that is used in a multiple variety of ways, and it's misunderstood. USC associate professor of computer science Jonathan May wrote on the conversation, Chat GP doesn't try to write sentences that are true. It tries to write sentences that are plausible.  It's danger isn't that it's going to replace book reports that stop people from thinking because it's not good at that, at least not yet. Maybe a future version will be and then we'll deal with that. What it's good at is constructing sentences and giving you first drafts and doing things that we haven't even figured out how to do with it yet. When Google panics about Chat GPT and I thought it was, it was, it has been below them in my opinion to poo poo open AI as this small startup and we actually care about truth. The last time that they had an existential threat, I called it the big blue wave was Facebook. We are not back in the 2010s. We are in a different world when it comes to this ad market. If Chat GPT materially reduces our reliance on the way that we think about search and or Bing becomes a more primed competitor, I find that the first one is more likely than the second one, but a combination of the two would do the same thing. Then Google is in trouble. I don't think it's going out of anything catastrophic, but can Google get yahooed? Maybe. That's why I could ask Chat GPT make a generic list of Dr. Pepper alternative names because those are always my favorite store brand cherry coas store brand vanilla soda store brand caffeine free cherry store brand it's taking our jobs time can I drink instead of Dr. Pepper, but that will taste like Dr. Pepper. If you're looking for a drink that tastes similar to Dr. Pepper, but without the caffeine or high sugar content, you could try some of these alternatives, Dr. Pepper flavored seltzer water, Dr. Pepper flavored sparkling water, Dr. Pepper flavored unsweetened iced tea, Dr. Pepper flavored syrup mixed with sparkling water. Did you get Chat GPT like 1.2 Tom, are you on a deprecated model? Wow. Yeah. Thank you, Roger Chang for compiling these computers have been feature plot points in many movies since the 1950s, but only a few computers have become so well known that their names are part of the pop culture canon. The following quiz is designed to test your knowledge of famous movie computers. Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Arthur C. Clark's 2001 space Odyssey is regarded as one of the computers who said who said what I heard something. I said how not complete how 9000 how 9000 paint nice correct correct all right in the 1983 techno thriller war games David Lightman a Seattle high school student by math played by Matthew Broderick hacks into norad super computer responsible for automating the launch of nuclear missiles. What is the name of the super computer that nearly causes World War three?  All right. But they call it something proprietary for the yeah, it probably was a cray. I think you're actually right about that Allison, but it had a name. It's right. What about my tongue? Douglas. No. Douglas the calm. No. I'll give you a hint. Like Burger King. You could have a your way. You could have this your way. I'm cheating. Whopper is what the chat room is saying quarter pounder whopper W. O. P. R. Yes, of course. In the movie The Terminator a killer robot is sent back in time to stop the birth of a future human resistance leader from being born.  The matrix helped define how people refer to artificial reality that's been presented as real in the movie. What is the name of the computer program that designed and created the matrix virtual reality world? I should know that red pill ring. You all forgot the rule immediately. Do you really? You were done answering. We're saying we don't know. Oh, Sarah doesn't know Sarah. What is your guess? Red pill. No, he just wants to push the button. I don't know. I don't know. The chat room says it's the architect. It's called John Wick. Oh, it's the architect. Oh, Kapla John. In the 2013 movie from Spike Jonze, in the movie 2013 Spike Jonze movie her a professional letter writer Theodore Twombly played by Joaquin Phoenix falls in love. Let me just say your name. Sarah. Sarah. Yes. Scarlett Johansson. No. That is wrong. I never mind. Keep going. Keep talking. Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an AI powered voice assistant voiced by Scarlett Johansson. What is does the AI voice assistant name itself? Oh, God. Sarah. Yes. Sarah. No. No. Was it her? Really? No, that's not. I'm sorry. Wrong. You said her. Wrong. Yes. I know, but I thought they were trying to tell me off. You said it in the question. I'm like, oh, it's her. No, you're right. You're right. That's the name of the movie. That's the name of the movie. And I don't know what it is. Oh, I know. Wait, Len. Is it Sam? Yes. It is. It's Samantha actually. Samantha. Sam for short. The 1982 Disney cult movie Tron explores an anthropomorphized look at a struggle between good and evil inside a computer mainframe. Tron is the name of the protagonist that is tasked with defeating the Big Bad program that runs the mainframe. What is the name of that program in the movie Tron that runs the mainframe computer that Tron must defeat? Darn it. Oh, man. I know that movie, too. I don't know it either. Proton. Allison. Proton. Allison. Wrong. You're wrong. Oh. Oh. Sarah. Sarah. Go ahead. Electron. Len. Len. Flynn. Wrong. Flynn was one of the inventors. Allison. Neutrino. Wrong. Neutrino. Master control program. Yes. MCP. In the movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, what is the name of the supercomputer that is built to calculate the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything? Ah, so I was close, but I don't know that computer's name. 42 was the answer. Sarah. Keep her saying Earth. Sorry. But you're sorry, Sarah. Smart Computer. Wrong. Len. Len. Boosted toot. Wrong. So close. All right.  Go ahead. For deep thought. Oh. Oh. Hey, you know what? Take a village, I suppose. There you go. Fine, we collectively know the answer. We collectively know the answer. She's taking the credit. She's encompassing all of us in the crowd. Have you all heard of Silicon Valley Bank? Yeah. Tell me more. You have now. I'm going to call it SVB for short is the bank for about half the U.S. tech sector. Very roughly speaking. SVB made conservative investments. I think that's misunderstood. These were too conservative. That's the problem. If interest rates rise, funding starts to decrease. Revenue might also start to decrease. And if that happens, those deposits get smaller. What SVB ran into is that those rising interest rates meant that they had to take a loss on those long-term investments that they had. The plan was to make take the money from the stock sale, cover the loss from selling the bonds, and invest some of that money in short-term securities with a higher payout. Except announcing a stock sale made some people assume things were worse than they seemed. That caused the stock price to drop. That meant you couldn't get people interested in buying the stock. That made people even more worried as the stock price dropped. And investors, including Peter Teal's Founders Fund, Union Square Ventures, and Co2 management started advising clients to pull their deposits. That stock sale collapsed. They couldn't sell the stock. And as you found out Friday, within a day, the state of California had stepped in to take over the bank and hand it over to the FDIC. That's where we were Friday. A lack of trust within the Silicon Valley community played a part here with the run on the bank. Why do you think we saw this? The more you talk about crypto and the more you talk about decentralized finance as an alternative and the more you try to say the existing financial system is corrupt or untrustworthy or they loan out more than they have in hand. Which some of those things are true. You can pretty easily start to chip away at a fundamental trust in a bank. And then when you have that combined with just the Twitter brain thing, it's pretty easy to trigger a run. Maybe arguably way, way too easy. I think the system is suffering from a macroeconomic shock about how fast interest rates have risen. But that was not a surprise to anybody. So to have bought 10-year bonds that in some cases had a less than 2% yield without putting into place any financial mechanisms to hedge against an interest rate rise was definitely banking malpractice. I think this is one of the other big surprises actually was that the community and high profile members of the community did not come out with messaging to rally around Silicon Valley Bank faster and louder. You would think that they would rally and the impact of losing this bank and losing access to those kinds of like specific sector tailored services, which by the way, if they exist out of their banks or they exist on Friday, they don't today, is going to be a massive, it's going to have a huge impact. There is like a naked, sweaty panic that you can smell from LA coming from Silicon Valley right now in terms of like the economy. So a lot of things are going to freeze up. We do have a forest that's very, very overgrown because of this like zero rate environment. There are a lot of things that exist now that wouldn't exist in a tougher economic environment and a lot of that's going to get burned out faster than people expected. But if you have a good idea and a great business plan and product market fit, I think you're still going to get funded, but it's going to be a lot harder. Open AI released GPT for today. Google can't catch a break. They had the whole thing with Bing and AI last month. Today they're like, this time we've got it. Microsoft's things later this week. We're going to put out all our AI news and open AI is like, Hey, we've got the next model of GPT GPT for if you're like, Okay, with GPT for it's one better. What's better about it? It can accept text and images as inputs. So for example, it could write a caption if you give it an image or you could give it an image and say, please describe what's in the image. They threw it against the uniform bar exam. So chat GPT was in the 10th percentile on the bar exam. This is not good. This is not a lawyer you want. Chat GPT for scored 90th percentile in the biology Olympia. Chat GPT was 31st. Chat GPT for with vision was in the 99th percentile. Wow. This won't visually appear that different because it's going to sound just as authoritative behind the scenes. It actually might be right more often. Your mileage still may vary. You shouldn't rely it. I think that's why Altman's coming out thing. Don't think this thing is perfect. Don't rely on it. You still need to fact check it, but it should be better. Overall jobs will be newly created because of this. It's always the short term that where the problem is, right? Are you going to be like accountants and make it through just fine and even have more jobs? So you're going to be like factory workers where your job just doesn't exist. Go train for another one because they exist. And that's what you have to look out for. AI whispering your future career. AI whispering. I have a friend who's a prompt engineer. It's a and that's going to be a job that is already a job.  If okay, no humans are being harmed, right? You're just culturing out of cells. You could you could donate your own cell.  Is that what you're asking?  I would. You would? I don't feel like, yeah, like if people aren't harmed. No, it's hard, right? If it the taste is what's assumed it's all consensual. Like I don't really like lamb because, you know, in the venison category, it's a little too gamey for me. Do I like human? Don't know. Never tried. I don't know. Yeah. But what if it is tasty and no one dies? You never cooked a little bit of yourself, I suppose. No, I have not. Haven't done that. I would need to. There's so much about it that just goes against our basic humanity because we're just, you know, we don't approve of this and we never have. And there's also disease reasons and all this other stuff. There's a deep instinctual resistance to it. Yeah, and I feel that. But at the same time, I feel like I wouldn't sit down and go, all right, let's dig in. But I do think I would say, well, let me taste it. This is 100 percent a no for me, guys.  Yeah, you're you're the opposite. Absolutely no on the extreme way. But I love it. Like because it gives you the willies or because there's some sort of deeper. Like like, but it's not, you don't hurt anybody. It's the elephant answer. We develop a taste for lab grown human. Suddenly people are going to want free range human. And that's a dark path. We're walking. No, not necessarily because we've only had lab grown human. Like I don't want humans on the range. You say that now. But I want that lab human. What if you really, really like it?  But if I really like it, then I don't need to like go back to the old way of doing it. How tender Scott looks. You go out there. You say, hey, Scott, let's go camping. And the next thing you know, you're hunting Scott for sport. And listen, you know, I know you've had lab grown, but if you ever had free range, like it's amazing. Yeah, man. Who's going to say have you ever had free range? Like, no, that's not what we do. Someone's going to say that. It's only a matter of time. You're not thinking like a billionaire, Sarah. That's the thing to remember. You got to think like a billionaire. What if it was like a home kit? You order a kit and it just says like, yeah, just you scrape off some skin cells. Not even going to hurt. And then, you know, in a week, you've got a lovely burger patty. But if someone goes like human, I might say.  Oh, we really need Chris Ashley and Rod Simmons on this. Maybe a little maybe a little coleslaw on there. I don't know. That's always the conversation, too, is forget whether it's human. Let's assume it's not vegetarians, vegans, ok to eat lab grown vegetarians. I feel like vegans have a case to be like, no, you're still exploiting the animal to get the cells in the first place, you know, draw the line just vegetarians. Vegetarians, if they're doing it for health, might still not want to eat it because it's got cholesterol or whatever. But if vegetarians doing it for anti animal cruelty might be like, well, it's not cruel to the animal. Right. They barely know. But in the case of human meat, you let's say we're eating Tom meat, big, big, big steak Tom steaks. OK, you you did consent to that, though. Your genetic material was taken from you, but we're correct. And let's say that vegans can only eat human meat if it is if it is consensual or if we elevate the intelligence of the cows with chat GPT so that they can then consult. And that's being friendly. Do there was that way. That's how we should do it. Make the cow smarter. This is it. Yeah. The Douglas Adams did this 40 years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. It's the restaurant at the end of the universe. Yeah. The study estimated that 45% of people in the US, older than 50, play video games at least once a month. That's 52.4 million people, which is, I think, a lot. I think this sort of stuff is going to run out of runway pretty quick. And the reason I say that is when you say 50 and older, you're often talking about 80s and 90s kids who were the first big generations to have this cultural phenomenon in their lives in such a major way. We were the ones going to software, et cetera, and waiting for the launch of the PlayStation 1. And we were the ones waiting for all of that. And we're the ones that are really into ecosystems like Steam and Xbox and PlayStation and everything else. I feel like this kind of questioning 10 years from now is going to be pointless, because the 40-year-olds are playing even more than we did. Well, yeah, it's going to be about who's playing the brain implant game. Yeah, right, right. We are less than a year or two away from giving AI a film script and then watching that film the same day. Production costs are going to go to zero. Within five years, great-looking films will be made this way. Within 20 years, almost all films will be made this way. Maybe I'm having some of their early heartache. I don't want to see these weird things yet.  And I'm a little nervous about this kind of prediction, but he may not be wrong. And it hurts him as bad as it would hurt anybody, right? He's a writer. Conveniently let the writers still be there. Yeah, that's right. But you know what? I guess you could argue like, oh, you won't give the AI a film script. You'll do a prompt to get the AI to write the film script, because we're close to that already. So you won't even need to give it a script. I wonder if non-AI movies become a genre. Oh, that's interesting. That seems likely. Ooh, yeah. Maybe that's what it does. You buy AI templates for the types of movies you want. I want a World War II movie, and so it will pull all the assets and all the data you would need. Oh, yeah, plot on demand. That reminds me of the worry that digital tools were going to get rid of big studio label music. They didn't. We now have a much broader, wider base of music available, because more people can easily make it. But you still have Taylor Swift. You still have BTS. You still have Morgan Wallin, because you need the labels, because most people don't want to sort through everything else. They want someone to curate it and be like, oh, yeah, the label says this is good. Great, I'm going to listen to that. If I don't feel like there's enough Mad Max Fury Road follow-up, and I do feel that way, I would love it if I could accurately depict the kinds of movies that George Miller would make in the wake of the success of Fury Road and just do sequel after sequel after sequel, and do it in a way that's 100% what I want. That feels so far away to me, but maybe he was 100% right, and it's closer than I think, and I can have that experience then, but we're still trying to make fingers look right. So I don't know. Burge posted an article just a few minutes ago that many of the Reddit communities that did go dark in solidarity say they will be going dark indefinitely. There's a lot of power in the mods on Reddit. That's right, exactly. Which is why it is successful in a way that Facebook and Twitter are not at moderating, because you have the niche communities each set their own standards that are appropriate. That is a lesson learned in the 90s on bulletin boards and forums that Twitter and Facebook didn't learn from and tried to make it be like one set of moderation for everyone, and that to me has always been one of the biggest challenges for those big open platforms. Reddit avoided that, but to your point, when you give moderators that much power, that means they've got power that they are now exercising. It's kind of amazing that Reddit is still around. It's been sold. It's been spun back out. It's been made independent. It's had a huge CEO controversy. It's survived through a lot. Maybe that's what Huffman's thinking is like, oh, this is not the worst we've ever seen, because he kind of says that in that memo. He's like, we've been through a lot of worse things before. We'll make it through this one. Roger has been in a war with coyotes on his street. Oh, no. You've been talking about this a lot. They come and party on his lawn at night and wake him up and eat all of his lawn stuff.  No, no. They don't eat the garbage. So it turns out they have a den like a block over, according to one of the neighbors. They're not paying rent for it, though. If this pedestrian that I talked to the other night when I was chasing a couple of coyotes away from his path because of a spider trying to walk home, he said, yeah, I saw one of the ladies in that house over there, like an old lady throwing them food, like chicken bones. It's tempting to feed them too because, yeah, they seem cute and stuff. And then it's like, but no. And they're very often skinny.  Not one of them. They look like dogs, so. Not one of them is skinny anymore. We would sometimes see them, depending on where we were. And I mean, I don't think I ever saw six at once, but they would not mess with us, but probably because they were just like, no. Too big. Too much effort to take that dog. I mean, I wasn't intimidating, but I think they weren't that hungry yet. My dog would look at them like, who are these dogs without no leash? Where are their people? Because he didn't know, you know, and they would just sort of look at us like, not today. And there have been a couple of times, one has just run up straight behind me, like brushed me on the hand and like you wouldn't notice until they like ran right by you. Wow, what are they doing on your lawn? Like they're just hanging out. Eating the chicken bones at the neighbor left. Yeah. They just sit there. They literally just sit. It's like a living room. And then the younger... They love you, Roger. Just admit it. The younger ones were shooting at my lawn sprinkler and they've been chewing up the drip lines. And then they've been also tearing out the grass from the lawn because they're bored because they obviously aren't working for the meal.   Me at chain is 15. Sam Altman, out as CEO of OpenAI. In a statement, the company said that following a board review, he was deemed not consistently candid in his communications. CTO Mirat Muradi will become interim CEO. A lot of things happened in the roughly two and a half working days before a holiday weekend. Over at OpenAI, you may have heard it in the news. Sam Altman is returning as OpenAI CEO. He will not take a position at Microsoft, which was announced on Sunday, after all, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Microsoft supports Altman's return to OpenAI. But Altman does not retain his previous board seat. The Beatles have done final songs quite a bit in their career, but this one might be the one. Let's enter Peter Jackson. You know, that Hobbit kid. Using machine learning to eliminate noise from recordings of Beatles video in order to create the get back documentary, the software was used to separate John Lennon's vocals and then use it to build a new track. Is this the final last song from the Beatles? I think with AI, it could be maybe the first of many to be on the list. Is it the last of the Beatles or the last of the human Beatles? I would very much recommend 12 minute mini documentary about putting this together. Really, really well done. The documentary takes a lot of pains to make it clear that everybody's happy about this. Everybody would have loved it. John would have loved it. The Beatles were a very technologically forward band when they were operating, which is all true. So they want people to not be mad that there's a new Beatles song. But I think it's great. I think it rules. Let's also point out the AI part of this was not creating any voices. The machine learning part was to separate out John Lennon playing the piano in his New York apartment and him singing. Yeah, it's a good example of how to use these kinds of tools. So you could argue, if you want to be a real pedantic, that yes, parts of John Lennon's vocals had to have been created because when you separated out from the piano and the line noise and the room echo, it wouldn't have all of John's. And yes, the algorithm does fill in the gaps and make it sound normal. But that's all it's doing. It's no different than when you delete that half naked person in the back of your beach photo and it just fills it in with sand and blue. It's just really good at it. It's able to do it in a way that you don't notice. So it's the perfect way that machine learning does add things, but only adds things you want, not synthesizes it. They didn't say, hey, pretend you're John. Imagine you're John Lennon sitting in a studio and then created from whole cloth. They said, take what's here, pull it out, fill in whatever's missing so that it sounds good. And it works. Yeah, what I just don't want people to take away from this is the idea that they trained a model on John Lennon's voice. Yeah, there's no simulated John out there. And then by the end, at the very end of the song, he says, and Walmart Black Friday deals begin on Wednesday. Like there's not anything created like that. I'm a fan of the Utah Jazz. I wonder if this is a great example of the line that I'm not saying we'll never cross, but we're not going to cross for a lot longer than people think between machine generated content and human content. What made the Beatles special was that collaboration between John and George and Paul and Ringo in the room where they would bounce ideas off each other. That is not something that just, I've trained it on all the Beatles music, now simulate some Beatles music. It'll give you Beatles sounding music. But it won't have that. It won't have the new thing that happened because they were collaborating off it. Something that, yeah, they didn't really have this time because George and John aren't with us anymore, but Paul knew what that was. And there was some in the history from 95 and even before that Paul could simulate in a way that an algorithm could. Oh my God, that was a fun ride back through the year. But that's it for this episode. Thanks to everyone who supported us throughout 2023 at patreon.com slash DTNS. Now don't forget, there's no live shows this week, but we will be back to live shows on our 10th anniversary, January 2nd, and back to our normal schedule, Monday through Friday for 30 p.m. Eastern 2100 UTC at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. However, this week our holiday programming continues with our 2023 Tech Predictions Results Show tomorrow. See how we did. Talk to you then.


Proudly we hail from New York City where the American stage begins. Here is another program with a cast of outstanding players. Public service time has been made available by the station to bring you this story as proudly we hail the United States Army. Our story is entitled Portrait with a Future. This is one of those stories that certainly proves it's a small world. When an American GI on duty in England sees a portrait that looks a great deal like himself and, well, that would give the story away. Our first act curtain will rise in just a moment, but first, young man, here's news about an important opportunity for you. Right now the United States Army, the senior service of our armed forces, has an urgent need for qualified technicians to operate and service the complex equipment that science has brought into being. The need is vital, and you can be trained in such interesting career fields as radio, electronics, radar, photography, meteorology, mechanics, and many, many others. Yes, indeed. Here's your chance to acquire a skill that will be of value to your country and help you later in civilian life, too. For full details, visit the recruiting sergeant at your nearest recruiting station today. And now your army presents the proudly we hail production, Portrait with a Future. A lonely boy and a lonely old man, one American, the other British. These are the two most important characters in our play. Without the United States Army, they would never have met. And without Chaplain Gerald Wilkes, they would never have followed this meeting to its natural conclusion. Excuse me, Chaplain. Of course, Corporal. Come in. May I speak to you for a few minutes, sir? My door is always open. What's your name? Anderson, sir. Corporal Richard Green Anderson. Well, close the door, Corporal, and make yourself comfortable. Thank you, sir. Relax, son. You look about as wound up as a watch spring. I guess I am, Chaplain. Something happened to me yesterday that's got me tied up in knots. Do you want to tell me about it? Well, that's why I'm here, sir. But now that I am, it isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. How about a cup of coffee? It's my one vice. I keep a hot plate here in the office. Coffee would be wonderful. Sugar? Cream? A little of both, please, sir. You're very polite. Your parents have brought you up very well. What's my parents, sir? They're both dead. I was brought up in an orphanage. No relations at all? No, sir. Here's your coffee, son. Oh, thank you, sir. Now, do you think you can tell me whatever it is that's bothering you? I'll try, but it may sound a little peculiar. Well, that's possible, but I doubt it. Over the years, I've found that very few people's problems are peculiar or funny. If a problem is on someone's mind, it's a serious one. Yes, sir. Then go on. I'm not going to laugh at you. Well, sir, you see, I've never had a family. My parents died when I was seven. Since they had no relatives, I was placed in an orphanage. Any brothers or sisters? No, sir. I see. Excuse my interruption. Well, the orphanage wasn't so bad, you see. There were lots of other kids around. I was never alone. But when I finished training school there, they got me a job and told me I was on my own. What kind of a job did they get you? Well, I was trained to be a mechanic, sir. I seemed to have a knack with motors. They got me a good job in a garage. And then you were on your own? That's right, sir. That's when my trouble started. You see, all of a sudden, I was alone. During the day, there were plenty of people around, and everything was fine. But at night, when I went to my room, I was alone for the first time in my life. Then I realized that I was alone in the world, that I had no one to love and no one who loved me. That sounds silly, doesn't it? No, son. It doesn't sound silly. After a couple of months, I couldn't stand it. Got so I went home at all just to all night movies. I knew I was going to be drafted soon, so I thought, why not enlist now? You'll make friends in the Army. You'll belong to something. So that's what I did. Sounds like a smart idea. Yeah, worked out, too. The Army's all right as far as I'm concerned, but... But what? I'm still different from most of the other guys. They have roots outside of the Army. They get letters and packages from home. They write home to family, to their girls. The Army's only a part of their lives. It's all of mine. I'm happier in the Army than I've ever been in my life, but I still feel lonely at times. Didn't you have a girl back home? Not really, sir. I met a few girls after I got out of the orphanage. I had a couple of dates, but I was only out a couple of months before I enlisted. What about the orphanage? Couldn't you write to them? Sure, but... What's the use of kidding myself? I'm just one out of thousands. They can't be family to everyone. So I'd... It's a funny thing. Once you're away from something for a while, you seem to lose your ties. Except when it comes to your family. And you can't adjust to the fact that you don't have one. Is that it? Why? I think I have adjusted as much as I can. But you can't stop your mind from thinking. You can't force your heart to stop dreaming. No, I don't think you can. So you feel alone? Yes, sir. Except for Sally, I just don't have any roots. Sally? You haven't mentioned her before? No, I guess I haven't. It's funny, too, because she means so much to me. Is she an English girl you met over here? No, sir. She's a member of the WAC station here. And are you two very close? We're planning on being married in two months, sir. I see. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. Still a butt? Yeah, I'm afraid so, sir. You see, last weekend we both had a pass and decided to go sightseeing around here. On Sunday after church, we went to visit Greenlee Hall.  The Duke of Greenlee has thrown the house open to tourists at 50 cents a head. And we were taking the tour, walking around. This was the main banquet room in the days when nights were bold. Gosh, Dick, I can hear the armor clanking, can't you? The corridor on your right is lined with family portraits. Not very good ones at that. We'll pass over them for now and go on to the study. I don't want to pass over them. Neither do I. Let's hang back and lose the tour so we can look at them. That guide's been pretty much of a bore anyhow. The old paneling you see in the study was added to the house in the 16th century. At that time it was thought that all studies should be dimly lit and have a very serious mean. They're gone. Come on. I want to see those second-rate ancestors.  I don't know who she was. It tells on this little plaque. It's Amelia, Fifth Duchess of Greenlee. Oh, look at this one. Is he a monster? Oh, he's not exactly a monster, but he certainly isn't handsome. Can you marry me if I look like him? Not even if you were a duke. Oh, I love you, Sally. I'm very lucky that you love me too. Oh, no. I'm the lucky one because I found you a trap jar. I beg your pardon. Oh, what? I didn't mean to, but I was... Well, it's our fault. We just couldn't help it. You see, we're in love and we're going to be married in two months. Oh, please don't apologize. I'm afraid it's better than to walk around in felt slippers on visitors' day. You're not the first young couple that's stolen a kiss in the halls of Greenlee. Well, I'm afraid it isn't very proper, though. I don't know. Perhaps it'll warm the place up a bit. It's always confounded cold in here. Well, I don't think we noticed. Just think of all the history that was made in this drafty corridor. True, but history never took the place of central heating. But I must go. Excuse me. You don't think the duke would mind our looking at these pictures, do you? I'm positive he wouldn't. The thing that puzzles him is why people bother. Well, cheerio. Good bye, sir. What do you think we ought to leave now? Let's look at the rest of the pictures first. All right. Hey, don't go so fast. Hey, it's for horses. Oh, Dick. Dick, come here. What's the matter, honey? Look. At what? At the face in this picture. What? Good lord, it does. It's weird. Without that little beard, the man in the picture and you could be twins. Alfred, second son of the eighth Duke of Greenly. Oh, it's just a coincidence. Maybe. But that man we met in here before. Why, in this half light, I thought you looked a little like him. Of course, he was older. Sally, you're imagining. I could be, but your mother's maiden name was Greenly. Why, they're almost the same. It would be like a dream come true, but it's impossible. Why impossible?  Oh, Dick, you've wanted a family, roots a home for so long. Why don't you try and find out? I'd give my right arm if it were true.  Talk to someone, see someone. I couldn't face it. I'm afraid. Afraid of what? What couldn't you face? One simple word. No. Sunday, chaplain. I haven't been able to sleep. I've hardly eaten. I just think about it. Races through my mind over and over again.  But, son, how can I be of assistance? Help me, chaplain. Sunday I started out for the place ten times, and ten times I stopped and came back. Would it help if I spoke to the Duke? Would you say? If you could just take the first little step for me, I'll tell you everything about myself, my parents, everything. But I just can't get myself to go and ask. Go outside for a few minutes and wait, son. I'll make a call. If his grace the Duke will see me, I'll want every fact you have about your mother. I'll have to know where you were born, exactly what you remember telling you about her mother and father, everything. Oh, I'll do what I can, sir. Dear father, thy will be done. Operator, I'd like to make an outside call, but I don't know the number. Chaplain Wilkes, yes. Oh, Greenlee Hall. It's about ten miles north of the camp. I don't know what town. Yes, you can call me back. You are listening to the proudly-we-hail production of Portrait with a Future. We'll return to our story in just a moment. Young man, if you're interested in continuing your education, here's important news for you. The senior service of our armed forces, your United States Army, currently needs qualified technicians to operate and maintain the many kinds of equipment that science has brought into being. And right now, men are being trained in wonderful fields like radio, radar, meteorology, mechanics, photography, and others. And this training is given by the finest technical training schools in the world. Yes, here's an excellent opportunity for you young men with intelligence and ambition. Your opportunity to start a career for yourself, not only for now, but for when you get back into civilian life. For full details, visit your nearest recruiting office today. You are listening to Proudly We Hail, and now we present the second act of Portrait with a Future. Most of us are blessed with a family and friends, so perhaps we never realize how alone we would be without them. Even Chaplain Wilkes cannot feel the deep loneliness of Corporal Richard Green Anderson. Tim, his capacity as Chaplain, because someone has come to him for help. He's doing all he can, and then a little more. You wanted to see me, Chaplain? Private Robertson? Yes, sir. Please come in, sit down. I wanted to talk to you about Corporal Anderson. I understand you two are planning on being married and... Well, there's nothing wrong, is there? He's not in any trouble, if that's what you mean. But yesterday he came in to see me on a personal problem of which I think you are aware, and ask for my help. Now, before I can help him, I need to find out more about him.  Well, he has confided in me, if that's what you mean. He asked me to break in on someone's life to ask very personal questions and possibly revive family skeletons. I don't mind doing it if he's really sincere, if his need is great enough.  Yes, chaplain, I do. And his need is very great. I noticed him first at the service club. He'd sit with a group of fellows, and then one of them would say he had to write a letter. One by one they'd all drift away to write to their families and their girls.  After I got to know him, I found out that there are only two words that he's never heard in all his life. Two words that he wants to hear more than life itself. And they are welcome home. I see. I keep telling him that after we're married, my family will be his family. And he says it's not the same thing. Well, he's right, I suppose. But they'll love him. I don't see how anyone can help loving him. He'll lead their love too. Now, there's just one more thing. Saturday, when you were at Greenlee Hall, did you really notice the resemblance between Dick and the picture first? Or did he notice it and talk you into it? Well, what did Dick say? What do you say? I noticed it first, Chaplain, and I called him over. He wasn't even near it at the time, and that's the truth. I believe it is, Sally. Do you believe this is possible? Yes, I do. Then I say to myself, maybe it's because I want it to be true. I think Dick's a very lucky boy. Thank you, Chaplain. But I think I'm the lucky one. Are you seeing him tonight? Of course. I have an appointment to see his grace, the Duke, tomorrow. I don't know whether to tell Dick about it or not. Dick knows I called him, so perhaps you had better tell him. In any case, ask Dick to come to see me tomorrow afternoon. Oh, I will, Chaplain, and thank you.  Yes, sir? I'm Chaplain Wilkes. I have a 10 o'clock appointment with his grace. Oh, yes, sir. Come right this way, please. Chaplain Wilkes. Oh, Chaplain Wilkes, so kind of you to come. That'll be all, Clive. Yes, your grace. Do let's sit close to the fire, Chaplain. This house is blasted cold this time of year. Thank you. That's the reason I allow these confounded tours. With the extra money I'm going to put in central heating. That's one thing you Americans have that we English need badly. On the other hand, we might learn something from you about how to build houses that last a thousand years. What? Oh, quite. Yes, quite. Now, Chaplain, as to the reason for your visit, you can imagine that your news came as quite a shock. I admit it all sounds like a plot from a movie, but young Anderson and I think it may just possibly be true. And I'm an old man, Chaplain, and quite alone in the world. I'm the last to the greenlies.  That's good to hear, Your Grace. There's still a bit of money in this house. Should an heir appear, however, I want to be sure that he really is related. He'll come into it all someday. I understand. All my family is dead, almost all my friends are gone. I sit in this old house day after day with no one, but Clive and the cook. I must admit it would be nice to have a young person around the house when our downed cases are just what can we do? I mean, where can we make inquiries and all that sort of thing? Well, Your Grace, I've started already. I've asked the Red Cross to check with the orphanage where the young man was brought up. And then they're checking on his mother through whom the two of you would be related if you were at all. The mother? Yes. You see, her maiden name was Green. Green. Incidentally, which portrait was it that the boy resembled so strikingly? The one of Alfred, second son of the eighth Duke of Greenley. Really? My Uncle Alfred? Yeah. Strange. And yet how possible? Why does that make it so possible, Your Grace? Because in his youth, Alfred and his father fought constantly. And once after a particularly bitter quarrel, Alfred left the house and never came back. The family received just one note from him after that, saying that he'd gone to America and that they'd never hear from him again. And did they? Never. When Alfred's older brother died, childless, and he was in line to become the ninth Duke, they began a search for him in America, but to no avail. It was then that my father inherited the title. I see. I wonder why they never located him. Well, one reason that occurred to them then and seems even more possible now is that he changed his name. Of course. From Greenley to Green. Exactly. If this young man of yours is related to me, he must be Alfred's grandson. Amazing. Not only a family, but a title too. Now, just a minute, Captain. Let's not count our foxes before they're caught. This is still a supposition. We have no proofs yet, and proof is what we need. Now, you're doing all you can on your end. If you'll give me all the facts at your command, I'll start on this end. It should only take a few days at most to check birth certificates and all that, but we must be sure.  Good. Then let's get to it. Believe it or not, Chaplain, I'm as anxious as you are to find out that it's true. That's what happened yesterday, Sally. They're checking. All we can do is sit it out. On pins and needles, you might add. Oh, I'm worse than that. Oh, Sally, I've been praying every minute. All night long, I lie in my bed and I can think of just one thing. Then I say to myself, just a day or two more, maybe, and the suspense will all be over. Dick, what will you do if it isn't true? Isn't true? But it must be. It's got to be. No, it doesn't. Your mother could have been just plain miss Green with no relation at all to the Greenleys. You're right. But I don't know what I'd do. You've got to promise me something. What? If it isn't true, you've got to go on. Never lose hope.  I'll always love you, Sally. No matter what. Is that a promise? Oh, with all my heart, I promise. Well, chaplain, as you Americans say, I'm as jumpy as popcorn over a fire. I'm not exactly calm myself, your grace. Still no word, eh? I'm expecting the final information any hour now. That's good. You know, I've been thinking how wonderful it will be for me if it is true to have that young man here. There'll be young footsteps in the house again. Perhaps even children running up and down these corridors. I wouldn't count on that, your grace. Why not? He likes the army. He's planning to make it his career. Yes, I see. Then I'll still be alone after all. No, you won't, your grace. Not really. Remember those little miracles that men have made that we were talking about a few moments ago? Oh, you mean the telephone and the wireless? Yes, those two, but mainly the airplane. They'll come to see you every year, and I'm sure you're not too old to get on a plane yourself to visit them. Too old for flying? Of course I'm not. Well, then. Oh, you're right. Perhaps having all that youth around all the time might be too much for a grumpy old man like me. Excuse me, your grace, but there's a telephone call for chaplain Wilkes. Oh, thank you, Clive. This must be the answer we've been waiting for, chaplain. I imagine it is. You... you wish us luck, chaplain?  I'm praying for you both. Corporal Richard Green Anderson, I have an appointment with his... with his grace, the Duke. Oh, yes, Corporal Anderson, you're expected. Will you follow me, please? Corporal Richard Green Anderson of the United States Army, your grace. Thank you, Clive. That'll be all. Yes, your grace. I don't think I'm going to be very good at this after all, Corporal. I... I had a little speech plan, but I... I... I don't know what to say myself, your grace. Your grace?  Our investigation has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the grandson of the man who should have been the ninth Duke of Greenley, my Uncle Alfred, the man whose portrait you resemble so closely. No, indeed not your grace. I'm your cousin Charles. Yes, your grace. I mean... cousin Charles. Cousin Richard, out of all the things that I was going to say, I can remember only this, and I say it from the bottom of my heart. Cousin Richard, welcome home. The U.S. Army needs men, men who take a special pride in being part of a man's army. If you're a high school graduate, you can join now at AfterBasicTraining apply for assignment to any army school for the finest technical training. Now, if you qualify for the school you select and come within the quota, you'll be assigned to it, but however you choose to serve. It's service that means a special pride, the sense of a job well done in a man's army. Young men between the ages of 18 and 34, men who look to the future, are now choosing the United States Army. Visit your nearest recruiting station today and grow with the world's greatest army and the opportunities it offers you. This has been another program on Proudly We Hail, presented transcribed in cooperation with this station. Proudly We Hail is produced by the Recruiting Publicity Center for the United States Army Recruiting Service. This is Mark Hamilton speaking, inviting you to tune in this station next week for another interesting story on Proudly We Hail.


My name is Stone Atwene and my company is EverSend and we basically do cross-border money transfer. I will start by telling you the issue really with money transfer is that it's terribly expensive, it's inconvenient, and it's sneaky. They don't tell you all the money that you pay when you're moving money. The African market has not been disrupted at all. One of the things we hear very often when you present a business like this is that's a saturated market. Not very true. The UK government with the UK aid recently did a research that shows that 90% of money leaving the UK going to Africa is still being done with a brick-and-mortar money transfer agent. So the challenge really is that 90% of a business is not done yet. So this is what we're trying to do and what we've done is that we've built a mobile application that you can use to send money, also exchange currencies, and we're adding things like travel insurance into the mobile application and payment of other bills like water, tuition, and things like that, but we are focusing on the African market. So we have three things that we do. We send money from the rest of the world to Africa. That's our business right now, but we are focusing now on two intra-Africa money transfers within Africa and money leaving the continent to the rest of the world because nobody is doing that. If you want to move money now, it's either a bank that is going to charge you 50, 60, 70 dollars or money transfer companies like MoneyGram or Western Union. The market, I'm not going to go into detail here, but it's a huge market. Into Africa is 40 billion. That's what everybody is focusing on, but from Africa is 12 billion and within Africa is slightly more than 12 billion and nobody is playing in this market. So that's our game right now. Revenue channels, right now we charge transaction fees and commission from foreign exchange and also we get some commission from billers, so people we collect payments for, but we think the market is going into a situation where you get commission from referrals for your customers and also we intend to do premium accounts subscription. So we're going to change that a little later. We think that's where the market is going. For transfers into Africa so far, we've moved about 2.6 million. The revenue seems a bit high as a percentage because we were really expensive in the beginning. So every saving we make, we put that, we give that to our customers. We've done 19,000 transfers. That's it. Thank you so much, Stone. That was great. That's my team. Myself and David were based in Paris and the rest of the team is in your band. I'm sorry. We move on to the jury. Same rules for everyone. Okay. Awesome. So I work 500 startups and we're obsessed with early stage growth, so my question is in that vein. Who are your early customers? Very, very narrow focus. Your first 1,000 customers, who are they and why are they desperate for you? All right. So I'm going to answer the question in two short ways. One, the business we've been doing so far is people sending money from Europe into Africa, but that's our focus is changing. So now our new customer is somebody sending money either for business or personal use within Africa. So let's say from Nigeria to Ghana or from Kenya to Uganda or somebody sending money from Africa to the rest of the world. So we are focusing on the African sender who has no option at this point. But that's a huge, huge volume within that volume of just say Nigeria to Ghana. The first thousand people, what are they going to look like and why are they going to pick you? All right. So this is, we've already seen this. So this is people who are moving money for personal reasons. So I want to help out a friend of mine in another country. I know this guy needs money. I need to move $100, $200 small volume transactions. That's where we can play very well. So small volume transactions within Africa. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Good. I still have some challenges positioning this, but representing angels. So just what do you need for that to continue and enter? What kind of investment are you looking for? Okay. So we haven't really gone through the numbers very well to figure the exact number, but we know for sure that we're going to be raising anywhere between $500,000 and $750,000. Okay. And where are you mainly located? Just to, is it more, you're doing it from Africa or you're based still, you're, where's your home base? Now our focus is going to be from Africa to the rest of the world and within Africa. It doesn't make a big difference as long as you figured who the sender is, where they send is easy because we have these partnerships already with companies say in the UK that can help us distribute money to 30 countries. But the company, technically? The company technically is headquartered in Paris. Paris. Thank you. Yeah, but we are all right. So one of the reasons why transferring money into Africa is expensive is because there's the last mile sort of network where you need to get it to bricks and mortar stores and to the individuals. I know you're flipping that around and you're going out of Africa now. Is it, is the money going into bank accounts? Is it going to individuals as cash? What's the usage for out of Africa? It's going to, into multiple channels. So it's going into bank accounts. It's going into mobile money in markets that have mobile money. So for example, we're already testing Uganda, Kenya, mobile money to mobile money because M-Pesa doesn't talk to empty and mobile money. You can't send money across borders like that. But so it's going to be multiple channels. Banking, bank accounts, mobile money. All right. Good. One, one more question. So the solution you showed the smartphone solutions. Is it mainly for smartphone? Is an app the main product? So again, it's very easy for us to do other channels. So some of the other channels we're doing are USSD. So you can use your $10 phone to do this. And also chat boards like on Facebook and web apps. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Stone from Eversend. That was great.


I'm delighted to have the pleasure this morning of talking to Mr. Kofi Anand, former Secretary General of the United Nations, and now one of the world's most prominent youth activists. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Anand. Thank you very much. Welcome to the studio. You know, the first time you and I met was back in Tunis for the press conference at the World Summit on the Information Society. Whereas you and Secretary General, you presided over the launch of the famous $100 laptop that was developed by Nicholas Negroponte and his team. That was really a groundbreaking device, wasn't it? It was designed specifically as a learning aid for children and was a completely different way of looking at computers. Do you think this was the first time we really understood the power of technology to transform lives and particularly the lives of young people? Yeah, I think Negroponte managed to shift our mindsets that laptops can be fun, can be used by children. It doesn't have to be complicated and one should not see it as something done only for business people or for researchers. And in fact, at the time when he announced the $100 laptop, many other governments were saying we would do it at $200, $250. And so it was quite a revolution. And it did open the eyes of people and also reinforced the possibilities that schools and educational institutions can have for computers. Since then we've really seen technology take off in ways that we couldn't have imagined even just eight years ago. And we know that young people are by far the most enthusiastic adopters of these new devices. Do you think we're doing enough to leverage the power of technology to drive global development, especially among the young? We've done a lot, but we can do more. I see it on my continent what computers have done for development, whether in areas of agriculture or given information to fishermen for them to know that the weather would be bad. In the Lake Victoria area, for example, about 5,000 fishermen lost their lives because they would take out to fish without knowing the weather. Now you can share information. Farmers are using it to share information on prices, on production. And young people are using it to exchange information and for their studies. And in fact, when you look at electronic education, lots of students and young people who would not have access to the University of Education now can join in through online teaching. Later today the Kofi Annan Foundation will be launching an initiative called Kofi Annan Dialogues Live. Could you tell us a little bit more about this? What does it entail and what does it hope to achieve? Basically, I want to engage young people. I want to find out what's on their mind, what their concerns are, and I want to share some of my experience with them. We, in my generation or at the leadership level, claim we do a lot for the young, but we never consult them. It's quite remarkable, actually, if you think about it. If you need a legal opinion, you go to a lawyer. If you need an accountant, you get one. But when we are talking about youth, we don't talk to them. No, it's amazing how many youth conferences we have with no young people present. This is it. And really this is to give them the chance to speak up, to share their ideas, to take responsibility and begin to lead. And I keep reminding them that you don't have to be old to lead. This is their world. They are going to inherit the future and they should begin getting engaged and taking responsibility now. And so I hope this dialogue will not only encourage them to exchange ideas, but also put forward the concerns as they see them and what changes they think we can bring about. What theme will you be addressing in the first dialogue later today? We'll be discussing youth and leadership. And I think that's an important topic for them. Later on we will tackle other issues, whether it's elections or environmental degradation. So it will be a series. Here in Geneva this week, ITU is hosting the WISIS Forum event and among other things that we'll be looking along with other UN agencies that the WISIS Plus 10 Reviews are 10 years on from the First World Summit on the Information Society. Do you think we're working hard enough and perhaps more importantly, effectively enough to extend connectivity to underserved communities, especially the next generation? I think we've made quite a lot of progress, but there are regions where we need to do more, where some of the young people are not connected and they are often the most vulnerable and the most exposed. I mean, another project that I've been quite involved in is the elimination of polio. And when you talk of vaccination of all children, the children who are left out are the ones who are on the margins, where there's no information, where there's no connectivity. And in fact Bill Gates, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are so quite engaged in this. So with the new approach and the new effort to end polio, we are using technology, mapping GPS systems to map, to find out where these people are and how one can reach them. So there are also creative ways that one is using to reach them, but I think we can do more and we should continue pressing ahead. That's been actually one of the world's great success stories. We're almost there, aren't we, in terms of polio eradication? Absolutely. I heard also during the WISIS Forum event this week that the Korean manufacturers are now looking at a $50 smartphone, which they think could be the tipping point for a lot of developing countries in enabling broadband, mobile broadband. That would really help and make a difference. I mean, on my own continent, it's been amazing how people have embraced this new technology. In almost every village, you see them. Even though they don't have electricity, they find some means of charging them is quite remarkable. Finally, do you have a message that you'd like to share with young people? Why should they join the online dialogue initiative? I think today we live in an interconnected world. And what happens in one country has an impact on others. And we should really be aware of what's happening around us beyond our own community and beyond our own countries. And the young people today are, I think, much better connected than any generation before them. And I keep telling them that, yes, they need to take action. They need to take action locally, but they should think globally because of the interconnectedness and the impact of one action, one's action on others. And I am pleased to say that the young people I know have embraced this approach in an unimaginable way. And I travel around. And they share with me similar information, similar reactions to situations. And some are incredibly aware. They have lots of information, but we need to work with them to have the judgment and the maturity to use that information effectively. Kofi Annan, thank you very much for joining us. Best of luck with the start of the global dialogue series. And we hope to chat with you again on the occasion of ITU's Global Youth Summit in September this year. I hope when we meet in 10 years time to look at the BSIS 20 years on, you will have some exciting things to share with me. I hope so too.


Good afternoon and welcome to CMC Markets and this month's non-farm payrolls webinar on Friday the 6th of October My name is Michael Houston, and I will be taking you through the numbers and And obviously the disclaimers as well. I was scheduled to be joined by my colleague in Toronto Collins is in scan fortunately He's a he's no longer available To to attend and help me out with respect to This webinar, so you'll just have the pleasure of my company Please feel free at any time to ask me questions over the chat facility just Just reply to the message that I've that I've just just sent over Be more than happy to answer any questions that you Might have and hopefully hopefully I will be able to answer them and hopefully this Months payrolls number will be less eventful than the number last month where CNBC Broadcast a number which was complete nonsense and Ultimately prompted a little bit of a counter move in the US dollar After the number the actual official numbers came out So what are we expecting today? Well, ultimately we're expecting a number that's going to be very much storm affected by hurricanes Irma and Harvey then that means essentially that the headline payrolls number is probably not as important as it would be in Months previously, and we've already seen Earlier this week with the ADP payrolls report that the employment numbers were affected by the By the by the by the tropical storms and hurricanes came in Significantly below expectations at around about one three seven But there hasn't really been that much of what I would call a correlation between non farms and ADP numbers in recent months We've seen a significant divergence between the numbers So I think even if we get a disappointing number for non farms today, and we are expecting a disappointing one of Well below one hundred thousand and certainly the lowest number for the year So the consensus view is for job gains of around about 80 or 90,000 But even if we come in well below that We can generally put that down to the fact that the the transatlantic storms have skewed The number to the downside in a similar way that we saw With the ADP numbers what we have seen this week is Some very positive ISM data manufacturing and services and what's particularly Confidence boosting about those particular numbers is that the internals were also very very positive And as a result of that we've seen a significant move higher in the dollar index and we can see that on This chart here. This is a dollar index and We've been in a downtrend pretty much since the first Fed rate rise in December At the end of last year Every single rate rise we've seen a lower dollar now We are seeing a little bit of a rebound at the moment and as you can see from the horizontal line That I've drawn on on this particular chart I Really don't see that we're going to see a significant move Higher in the dollar because an awful lot of what I would say is a positive dollar move He's already priced in and what we've got here is what I would call an inverse head and shoulders And it's it's matched pretty much buyer I'm pretty you know, it's matched pretty much in a mirror image by euro dollar where there's a significant area of support around about 116 70 now this is this is the left shoulder here We've got a head here and we've got a fairly weak Right shoulder here. So I think shorter the move above 94 20 on the dollar index I think unless this is a really gangbusters positive dollar number I think by and large a decent a decent number is already priced in and it and a bad number It's probably going to have a little bit of a little bit of a case of dollar weakness Certainly if we look at the weekly chart, we can see that over the past four weeks We've seen four successive weeks of dollar gains. So I think for me You're going to have to have a very very positive wages number To really suggest that we can get we have the potential for further dollar upside So I think for what I'm looking for this week It's less about the headline payrolls number and it's more about the wages number But ultimately I think with respect to the dollar move that we've seen this week I think we've probably seen it And I'm being asked if you can view the dollar index on the platform you can it's down here But unfortunately, we don't have an awful lot of historical data Which is essentially why I've used the Bloomberg chart because it gives me a much longer frame of reference When it comes to actually looking at the dollar index as a whole on an historical basis Well, we can we can only see the the actual futures contract You can't actually see the cash contract and that's why I generally tend to look at the dollar index On the Bloomberg chart because it gives me a much better long-term history Where the actual numbers are we've also got the Canadian payrolls report as well And certainly the Canadian economy has been going very very well over the course of the past few months GDP growth of annualized around about 3% a year We've seen two rate hikes from the Bank of Canada and there is speculation We might actually see another one over the course of the next few months So I think in terms of the US and North American economic data. It's been a fairly positive outlook So we've got the numbers up here expecting an unchanged unemployment rate of around about 4.4 percent For the US economy average earnings on a month-on-month basis of 0.3 an increase of 0.1 on The Canadian employment report. We're expecting job gains of around about 14 and a half thousand Down from the previous of 22.2 and obviously we have non-farm payrolls If we just get rid of that manufacturing payrolls number stick the unemployment rate in there with them We can display the high-impact announcements along the right-hand side So we've looked at the dollar index. So there is really a neckline resistance around about 94 20 So even if we get a spike through that given the gains that we've already seen this week I would be very surprised if we see significant move Further higher in the US dollar as we head towards the weekend one of the reasons for that I think is there's still an awful lot of what I would call uncertainty going around with respect to geopolitics Donald Trump made some comments at a dinner with those military top brass last night that There could be an unexpected announcement over the weekend calm before the storm Maybe he's going to pull out of the Iran not a nuclear deal Or maybe he could be planning something with respect to North Korea Hard to say But at the moment what we're seeing for me, this is pretty much a dollar story for this week and You know with respect with respect to what I'm what I'm looking out at the moment I'm suggesting that if we do get a move higher in the dollar today particularly against euro dollar. I think It could well be limited It could be fairly limited certainly we're looking at the euro dollar here and the key support here Which is similar to the resistance on the on the dollar index is around about 11670 we haven't quite got to there yet, but certainly this triple top that I outlined here Suggests that we still have further upside to run in the US dollar But I just don't think we're going to see it today We could well see it over the course of The next few right now I'm being asked at the moment if I'm still using the old platform now I'm still using the new next generation existing platform Same platform that I've been using for the past two to three years so So hopefully that answers your question so with respect to this particular number good support round about 11670 I think we will see euro dollar lower over the course of the next few days and weeks I just don't think we'll see a Significant lower low today That's probably going to come back and buy me, but certainly I think if we're looking at euro dollar We need to see a break below 11670 to argue for a move down to walls one 1575 Which I think we will see just just not this just not this week And certainly I don't think in light of the these particular payrolls numbers With respect to dollar yen Looking at dollar yen in particular. That's going to be a key barometer of where we are in the moment There's a nice little little bit of a flag formation Forming here or a little pennant or a little triangle top of that pennants around about 11320 so if we get a breakthrough 11320 then we're looking to retest the highs that we saw in July Looking a little bit overbought at the moment So certainly I think if we do see further upside I think we could struggle around about 130 20 1 13 30 Probably see a drift back down to around about 1212 70 12 30 I Certainly think a US December rate rise in answer to a question is pretty much priced in I think markets are thinking by and large that is what we're going to get And I think it will be a significant surprise if we didn't if we look at yields on the US 2 year We can see US 2 year yields are the highest levels For five years if we look at this chart here, we can see that So you can pretty much see that they're at 1.5 percent So I would argue that on the basis of this particular chart here. We're pretty much back at levels that we saw back in 2012 if we also look at the weight the rate rise probabilities world interest rate Expectations at the moment. We're looking at 77% nearly 77% Possibility market is pricing in a 77% probability is near as near as rounding it up That will see a December rate rise So I think the key question now is not whether or not we'll get a December rate rise is how many we get in 2018 and that's not immediately clear because ultimately Stanley Fisher will be leaving the Fed this month Janet Yellen may not even be in charge of the Fed come January and Donald Trump needs to fill five Positions on the Fed board So we don't really know what the nature of the what the make up with the Fed will be and ultimately we still have the unresolved issue of the debt Ceiling which has as yet not been resolved and won't be resolved until that December or just prior to that December meeting So that could be a Little factor that could derail any potential Fed rate rise. Let's look at cable We've seen a significant move lower over the back of the cook over the back of the cast past few weeks We're on a significant decline looking towards very key trend line support at the moment around about the 100 day moving average There's certainly I think a risk premium in terms of sterling weakness because of the political uncertainty and the absolute shambles of the Conservative Party conference Earlier this week, but I can't help thinking that we've probably seen they're the worst of the sterling move in the short term That's not to say that we can't fall a little bit lie There's certainly scope for us to fall back to around about 129 51 29 70 But if we look at the weekly performance on The pound we can see that much more markedly here We're still in an uptrend and we've been in the uptrend for most of this year So we certainly got potential for further weakness and the fact that we've fallen Towards 130 60 is a little bit of a worry But that is that is quite a key support area in the overall move since the March lows of earlier this year And again, we are looking a little bit oversold going into the weekend and ultimately I'm not convinced that Theresa May Will be ousted before the end of the year ultimately This is a little bit of what I would call Self-indulgence on the part of conservative MPs Really, I don't think they you know There is no upside in getting rid of the Prime Minister at the moment none whatsoever. Who are you going to put in her place? Boris Johnson really Philip Hammond not really. I don't think so. There is no credible candidate that You know can step in to her shoes at the moment Ultimately if the Brexit talks go bad, they still need a scapegoat So I think she will stay in place and an awful lot of what we're hearing at the moment Is an awful lot of hot air from dissatisfied back benches Which means that ahead of a potential rate hike by the end of this year and I still think we're on course for one Will probably see the pound rebound But that's not to say that it won't be a rocky ride in the short to medium term. So I think for me This this this number is probably not going to tell us any more than we already know the December rate hike is already priced in The dollar has had a very very good week And ultimately I think that further dollar upside is probably from here going to be fairly limited in the short to medium term Certainly with respect to stock markets. We're near the top of the range. I think with respect to the footsie 100 Can we go a little bit higher? Yes, we can we probably can come back to around about 75 40 75 50 But again, I think if the pound rebounds that will weigh down on the footsie 100 with respect to the s&p I think whether or not it's a good or a bad number makes no odds It's still I think very much by the dip But certainly I think in terms of where we are at the moment. I think it's probably going to be a little bit A little bit toppy I think the dollar is probably going to be a little bit toppy and Certainly if you know if you had to push me one way or the other I'd probably be looking to pare down any dollar long positions ahead of this payroll's number So we're counting down to the number now as I say a disappointing number would not be unexpected. So here we go Wow, that's a really negative number But the the revision has been a revision of 169 k And the unemployment rate drops to 4.2 percent 0.5 average earnings So poor headline number, but a very good average earnings number So I think markets are probably going to react to the average earnings numbers as I suspect yet they probably will and We're probably going to see a little bit of a push higher in the short to medium term on the US dollar On the back of that now mechanic candidate adds 10 000 jobs Slightly below expectations. Let's have a quicker look at the dollar CAD for our canadian for our canadian clients My mistake. I should have looked at that before I did anything else. We are starting to approach I'm significantly overbought territory on that. Certainly if we look at this particular chart here Um, if we look at this downtrend line here, we've been in a significant move higher on dollar CAD But you have to argue that we're probably nearing a short term top in that particular number And we we could potentially start to drift back as we approach As we as we approach the highs that we saw at the at the end of august Looking at the initial reaction with respect to the footsie 100 pretty much muted Not really not really affecting an awful lot until we get some clearer indication of where the dollar is going to go The market's going to want to push the dollar higher. I think that's pretty much a done deal But I think really despite the fact those wages numbers are good I think they're going to I think they're going to struggle to push it much higher Certainly, I would be looking to pare down any dollar long positions that I've got at this point in time Looking at the gold price at the moment Again a little bit of a drift lower that's still looking soft There's certainly potential for us to go a little bit lower and towards this trend line support from the lows that we've seen Again, you know nice little uptrend in place here But the potential for a little bit of weakness probably back towards these lows that we saw at the beginning of august but overall I think There's probably there's probably less upside Towards around about 1290 and a drift back down to around about 1260 1255 over the course of over the course of the next few days Moving on to Aussie dollar Let's have a quick look at that some of the key levels there Again very big support coming in around about This series of highs through here So we can draw that in there So around about 77 40 Why is that why is that significant because ultimately it was it was a significant resistance level on the way up So it's going to take something really significant to push it below which again sort of buys into The story that maybe the dollar is a little bit overbought and probably do a little bit of profit taking Being asked to have a quick look at the DAX That's certainly looking to test the 13 000 level But but again, I think that really depends on what euro dollar does over the course of of the next Over the course of the next few Next few hours again. We've seen a very very positive week for the german DAX But once again, what I want to see here is A close above 12 940 I think we could well see that there's certainly there's certainly potential for further gains in the DAX And it certainly ties in with my view of a lower euro over the course of the next few weeks And my target for euro dollar or 115 50 But certainly I think with respect to euro dollar, I'd be looking to sell rallies at this point in time I certainly wouldn't be looking to sell it at these particular levels simply because of where it where it currently is You know at the lows of the last Over the lows of the last few weeks I'm very much very much a trend trader when it comes to Euro dollar and I like prefer to sell into a downtrend And not sell at the bottom of a wave but sell into a pullback And at the moment, I think we are very very susceptible to a little bit of a pullback on euro dollar back above 117 20 117 30 over the course of the next few hours Looking at the Kiwi Let's move on to that Kiwi dollar broken below the 200 day moving average our technical basis That's likely to probably go a little bit further, but again, I think I would be looking to trade the pullback on that To around about 71 and a half 72 for a for a continued move lower there I think there'll be a little bit of round number support as we approach the 70 level So that brings us on to Crude oil now crude oil is quite interesting because we've seen a significant decline in Crude oil prices over the course of the past few days And I think the prospect is we're probably going the likelihood is we're probably going to see some more Why do I say that because it's seen a very interesting pattern Play out on the weekly chart and we can see it here now this in Technical analysis parlance is what we call the gravestone doji. Why is it called that because ultimately it's it's It's the gravestone of the bull market. We can see a technical definition of it here And as I say, it's quite useful as a warning sign that maybe we've seen a short-term top So gravestone doji is it calling market tops it marks the graves of the bulls that have lost today particularly good And we can see we can see it here, you know, basically, this is a good example The bulls have lost control and the bears are starting to reassert themselves. So let me just pull that out of the way We can see that here. We've tried to push significantly higher. We haven't been able to do it And now depending on where we close today If we close below 56 dollars a barrel Then I think the probability is we'll see a move lower In crude oil prices and I think this is the big conundrum at the moment with respect to the inflationary picture For the u.s economy if you look at the ism numbers that we saw earlier this week The inflation picture for prices paid is at five year high Yeah, if you look at the fed's preferred inflation measure, which is pce, it's at two yellow You know 1.1.3 1.4 percent So something is not quite right in terms of the trickle down effect of where prices are going Ultimately doesn't change the picture that we're potentially going to get a fair rate rise in december The big question is where do we go after that? Just been asked to look at canada yen. So i'm going to look at that for you And give you an indication as to where I think that is going Certainly in the context of this particular move here We are starting to trade a little bit sideways from the highs that we saw in september. Let's drill that down even further and we can Start to do a little bit of analysis on it. So here we go. Let's draw this one there Nice little bit of resistance all the way through here Certainly think the canada has probably got potential to probably move Back towards 90 47 But overall, I think we've potentially seen the top canada yen Look to sell a rally back to or was about 94 97 91. We're starting to go higher on the slow stochastic So it's probably being long with a stop loss below these series of lows through here Is probably the what the right way to go around about 89 60 so Looked to really buy the dips on that. I think canada yen Right cable being asked to look at cable I think this 100 day moving average is probably going to be quite important. Certainly, I think 130 30 130 40 I think is a decent area of support. We saw it was a decent area of resistance Through may and june here. Let me make the chart a little bit bigger for you So looking at this this area here between 130 30 and 130 40 We saw a peak there. We saw a peak there We saw a series of peaks through there. So I think If we drop below 130 20 then we'll probably go ahead back towards this train line support here But if we can find support around about 130 20 130 30 Then I think we can see a move back to the walls around about 131 on 30 120 130 30 So certainly in terms of the pound I think there's potential for a rebound from around about the 130 20 130 30 area If I if I was looking if I was looking at the cable chart So hopefully that answers your overall question with respect to the pound against the dollar. Let's just get rid of these numbers here Does anyone else have any questions? Dollar index in the longer term well That's you know, it's a fairly that's a fairly decent question. Ultimately for me the dollar index Is directly predicated on that resistance area 94 20 So that was the inverse head and shoulders that I was talking about earlier. I did post the chart on twitter earlier today And for me in the longer term, I think the dollar index has got potential to go higher But for today, I think we're probably really seeing the highs in the dollar. We'll probably come back retest Retest retest the lows on the dollar index. So if we look at the chart that I was looking at earlier On this chart here, we're probably going to come back down from the highs that we saw. So 94 20 is there We've seen 94 10 the high So we we can potentially come back down to around about 93 18 really depends on what euro dollar does We weren't able to break that 116 70 area. We may have another go at that But ultimately I think as long as the the euro dollar is able to hold above 116 70 1665 The dollar index should drift back But over the longer term, I would expect the dollar index to push higher complete that inverse head and shoulders And head and head higher. So Hopefully That answers your question longer term. I think it goes higher Just not today the thing about pre-empting inverse head and shoulders breakouts is they have a habit coming back and biting you and that's why I was That's why I articulated my concern about selling euro dollar on a break below 116 70 1665 Because this you could argue Here's a head and shoulders reversal here. We saw the triple top here. This is the left shoulder here This is the head here It's an irregular head and we've got a very lazy right shoulder here Which I don't think has really been given an opportunity to complete. So I think if we get a rebound Of 116 70 then we can get a pullback to 118 30 and then we can potentially head lower from there But at the moment, I think the range trade for euro dollar. It's 118 30 116 70 And look to sell the rallies on that and by definition That should cap the dollar index but in the short term but in the longer term I think the dollar index can can go higher just not today Hopefully that answers your question and I don't have to re-answer it Later today if the dollar index does break higher, but ultimately, you know, no one's right all the time That's why we have stop losses. That's why we implement risk management And ultimately if the dollar index does break higher, then you're looking to put a stop loss at around about 94 30 94 40 if dollar if euro dollar breaks lower then your stop loss needs to be around about 116 40 116 50 If you're looking for a little bit of a rebound on euro dollar Um germany 30 Quite happy to look at the germany 30 Again, as I said, I mean that I think is going to be a direct correlation with euro dollar If euro dollar breaks lower then the germany 30 will continue to head higher If we get a rebound in euro dollar and it heads back towards 118 Then that I think that will put downward pressure on on the dachs and at the moment I struggle to see it above 13 000 today. I really don't I don't think the momentum is there I don't think you really want to see Um, I don't think you I don't think you're going to see Um investors wanting to stay long over a weekend North Korea still remains a clear and present danger We don't know what's going to happen over the weekend With president trump and pulling out of the iran nuclear deal So I think if you're looking to I would be very very cautious about being overly long equity markets going into the weekend It's a natural caution born of the fact that you will have no control over where they open up on monday morning So I think it does pay to be very cautious in that regard So the euro affects the germany 30 absolutely it does if you actually look at what the dachs has done since The euro topped out at 120 Um, we if we look at a daily chart here ladies and gentlemen We can see it when the euro Was at 120. Let me just pull that there. There's there's the dachs. Okay, if we look at euro 120 It's not an exact correlation. Okay, so you need to be careful about extrapolating a direct correlation but if you look at If you look at where euro dollar topped out around about august september and where the dachs bottomed out on august and september When euro started to drift lower that started to go up so And the reason for that is that a stronger euro Means that german exporters are much less profitable because ultimately a weaker currency boosts your export capability when you convert it back into local currency So exporters want a weak currency. That's why everyone was So not too bothered about a weaker pound because ultimately it boosts your export capability Same applies to german exporters a weaker euro good for german exporters increased profits So you look at euro you look at euro dollar and you look at the german dachs And there is a little bit of a correlation with respect to The way that they correlate with each other. It's not a direct correlation, but certainly in the short term It does work quite well With respect to the dow Jones We have Again new record highs every day and we can probably continue to carry on doing that I think we'll probably struggle to make a new high in the short term But certainly I think there's no reason to suppose we won't continue to do them next week In the medium term, I think probably what we'll see today is a little bit of a sideways consolidation In the same way that we saw Head on on wednesday Simply because again caution ahead of the weekend a little bit of profit taking taking some money off the table It's a new week next week. We've got the latest fed minutes. We've got uscpi. We've got us retail sales CPI generally has been a little bit on the weaker side What I will be looking for next week though ladies and gentlemen is some evidence that the Strong prices paid numbers that we've been seeing out of the ism numbers start to manifest themselves in the CPI the headline CPI numbers. We've certainly seen it In respect of wages today What we want to see it now is in terms of headline inflation at the moment We're not seeing that but certainly I think that wages numbers that we saw that wage number that we saw 15 or 20 minutes ago does appear to suggest that wages are now starting to exert upward pressure On inflation and that is a good thing. That's a good thing for the US economy It's more spending power for the US consumer and ultimately it will mean that the Fed has more flexibility to raise interest rates over and above the quarter of a cent that's being priced in already for the end of this year Okay, so that's it for This week got one other thing to say We do have a Monday webinar with my colleague David Madden. You can sign up for that on the Website It starts at 12 15 and he'll give a preview of the week ahead other things to watch out for next week It's the start of bank earnings season US banks Third quarter earnings now We've heard an awful lot of concern that maybe trading revenues might be a little bit weaker So watch out for that because I think if you look at US banks, I think they are priced Quite nicely. So if they come in and disappoint we could see a little bit of a drift lower having said that Banks like higher rates and certainly higher bond yields Are certainly going to improve their profitability So, you know talk talk of tax reform talk of higher rates You know all generally positive for us banks But ultimately we do need to be prepared for the fact that they might be a little bit disappointing on the revenue side When they report next week, we've also got China trade data Given us an indication of how well the Chinese economy is doing ahead of The plenum the the congress which starts on the 18th of october So we may see some indications as to how the Chinese economy is doing whether or not the exports Are starting to slow down as a result of a stronger Chinese economy There is some evidence that Chinese exports were slowing at the same time As internal consumption was actually starting to pick up. So keep it keep an eye out for that as well And obviously, Catalonia Catalonia going to be could be a potential clear and present danger For european equity markets and by definition for the euro as well So I think that could be another factor that could well limited the upside in euro dollar Again, look to tell rallies on that back towards the 118 level if we see them So that's it for today and this month ladies and gentlemen Thank you very much for your questions. Thank you very much for your feedback until the november payrolls or the october payrolls in november I'd like to thank you very much for listening and wish you all a very good weekend


Hey everyone, Shepard 1000 here and Monkey and Bruno's over there and we're on a little bridge on a bike path, sorry about the wind, but today that's a bigger step than I thought it was. So today we're going to get some photos and some video drone footage of these two here lakes. We can get to this with our boat from where we put in. Alright guys, so without any further ado, here's the intro, let's get the drone up in the air.