I have the great pleasure for this gala dinner tonight. We have the great honor of having His Excellency Khaldun Khalifa Al Mubarak. He is the chairman of the executive affairs authority of the Emirates and group chief executive officer and managing director of the Mubadala, which as everybody here knows is the great sovereign fund of this country. So, Your Excellency, it's again a real pleasure to ask you to come here and to tell us a few words before, before you are rushing to the airport because you have to be in Washington, I think, or New York, maybe, tomorrow morning, but before you come I want to tell you a grand merci. Khaldun Al Mubarak speaks very good French with a perfect accent. Please. Good evening. Thank you, Thierry, for your kind introduction, and congratulations on convening the 14th edition of the World Policy Conference. The depth of content over three days is frankly extraordinary, and I am delighted to join you all this evening. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to welcome you all to Abu Dhabi and to have the opportunity to engage in person, face to face, rather than screen to screen. I am sure many of you appreciate that as well as I do. As we navigate the long tail of the pandemic together, we genuinely hope that your arrival to the UAE was seamless and that Abu Dhabi's precautionary measures have allowed you to be productive, feel safe, and to connect with our wonderful city. In addition to this international gathering, Expo 2020, Dubai Expo, opened yesterday, sparking a six-month global conversation around innovation for the future. And of course, congratulations to France on its Expo National Day, which happens to be today. Celebrations are also underway for the UAE's Golden Jubilee, with this country's 50th National Day on the 2nd of December. Tonight, if you all allow me, I will talk about our government's policy, our policy approach for the next 50 years. Specifically, I'd like to share with you this country's response to the coronavirus. And in doing so, share how the UAE's government's values, priorities, and strategies were not only tested and practiced, but supercharged for the future. Let me start with some context. Our nation's approach to governance is grounded in the vision of the UAE's founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nayan. Sheikh Zayed brought the seven Emirates together to form the Federation of the UAE in 1971. We were a new country in a volatile neighborhood with a harsh climate and basic infrastructure during very early days. We grew up listening to stories about our forefathers mitigating and adopting to challenging circumstances. By necessity, they had resilience, grit, and a forward-looking perspective, which remains in our collective memory and present-day experiences. Even in the early days of his leadership, Sheikh Zayed had a farsighted ambition. That was simple, but visionary. He imagined a country where people had opportunities to learn, contribute, and prosper. He set the course for a stable and sustainable economy, and aspired for the UAE to be a responsible global citizen. I was seven years old when I met Sheikh Zayed for the first time. I was with my grandfather, who was the UAE's Chief Justice at the time. And Sheikh Zayed, who was larger than life to any seven-year-old, came to my grandfather's home. Sheikh Zayed visited families, often and informally, throughout his lifetime. It was an expression of how much he valued people. He said, and I quote, Wealth is not money. Wealth lies in man. This is where true power lies. The power we value. This is what has convinced us to direct all our resources to build the individual and use the wealth which God has provided us in the service of the nation. Sheikh Zayed's leadership was defined by his commitment to creating an educated, prosperous, and generous society. More recently, in 2015, his highness, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nayan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, reaffirmed these values when he said, to in quotation, Our best bet at this time, our best bet at this period of time, sorry, when we have wealth is to invest all our resources in education. Because there will be a time, 50 years from now, when we load the last barrel of oil aboard that ship. If our investment today is right, we will celebrate that moment. Close quotation. In spirit and intention, these pioneering tenants remain the bedrock of UAE government strategy. There are so many examples of this. Sheikh Zayed's deep respect for the environment drives our clean energy needs and goals. Last year's signing of the Abraham Cords reflects his faith in peaceful coexistence. And the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, formed by Sheikh Zayed 45 years ago, set the benchmark for forward-thinking economic diversification and investment. Now, let's all fast forward to 2020. During the darkest days of COVID-19's global disruption, that legacy propelled us here in the UAE. In late January 2020, when COVID-19 seemed like a distant risk contained within China, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed requested a briefing with all the authorities across Abu Dhabi. In the room, we had people responsible for the economy, the health sector, supply chain, national security, food security. We were all there, January 2020, late. And to be honest, we all walked into the meeting, me included, pretty relaxed. We regularly give briefings on different topics to His Highness. On this day, I myself talked about the economic impact that past pandemics had in the relevant markets. We each discussed worst-case scenarios from our perspective. And as we started to go around the room, we started to grasp what His Highness Sheikh Mohammed already knew. COVID-19 could be disruptive and devastating in so many ways. The meeting turned to early mobilization and a mandate to stay ahead of the virus's probable search. We talked about things that were unimaginable at that time, like lockdowns, quarantine, global shortages of medical equipment, and supply chain breakdowns. The most perceptive question that day was, how do we test for COVID? And the answer was a PCR test. His Highness insisted that we have the expertise, the infrastructure, and provisions to manage a comprehensive in-country testing regime. We all walked out of the meeting on high alert, recognizing that this is real and the timeline to prepare was bearing down on us. Our responsibility was made very clear to us that day. Save lives, protect all the people of the UAE, and safely emerge from this unprecedented global crisis as fast and as strong as possible. Because of that meeting, in late January 2020, the UAE is where it is today. The country has conducted over 83 million COVID-19 tests per capita, that is the third highest number of tests globally. Every day, we test more than 3% of our entire population, or approximately 300,000 tests a day. We have the fourth lowest positivity rate globally, at 0.1%. In personal terms, I test probably on anywhere between 2 or 3 times a week. The UAE has also administered 20 million vaccine doses, which per capita is the highest number of vaccine doses globally. 83% of our population is fully vaccinated, and a further 11% is partially vaccinated. The highest share of vaccinated population in the world. And our vaccination campaign continues, now providing booster doses to ensure maximum protection to our people and population. It's fair to ask, how did we achieve this? Unlike the ambitious targets articulated in our national policy agenda, COVID-19 wasn't a choice. But we are succeeding in mastering both in the same way. Our national disposition is to accelerate towards big challenges, or seemingly impossible, driven by the ingenuity and resourcefulness of our people. It is not in this country's DNA to ever stand still. COVID-19 became the rocket fuel that supercharged every priority in our national agenda. We are therefore now sprinting towards our long-term objectives. Let me share a few examples. One of the UAE's long-term goals is to ensure in-country expertise and infrastructure across critical sectors. In response to COVID-19, the UAE became the first country outside of China to set up a lab capable of processing tens of thousands of PCR tests daily. We also now have a domestic vaccine production capability as the first producer of vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines in the Arab world, with a capacity of over 200 million doses annually. That's already in place now. In March 2020, we anticipated a shortage of medical masks. Within four weeks, Strata, our aerospace manufacturing facility in Helaian, pivoted its facilities to produce 95 masks in partnership with Honeywell, with a production capacity of 30 million masks annually. The UAE is now a large-scale exporter of masks, with 80% of our output distributed to 10 countries, including the U.S., Japan, and Egypt as an example. A seamless, secure, and personalized virtual ecosystem is at the core of the UAE's transformational agenda. The pandemic imposed a wholesale change in how we conduct business, educate students, interact with people, and offer government services. The Al-Hasan app, which many of you would have downloaded probably upon arrival, is an example of our aim to centralize and integrate critical healthcare information virtually and in real time. A newly expanded telemedicine infrastructure is another example, and in the past 18 months, Abu Dhabi's health services, virtual outpatient clinic conducted half a million online appointments, accounting for about 10% of all its outpatient consultations. Following the direction set decades ago by the late Sheikh Zayed, the UAE's foreign assistance program proactively supports countries and communities in need. The UAE is always a first responder in that space, and throughout the past 18 months we have provided over 2,200 tons of medical aid to over 136 countries, including 4.3 million PCR testing kits and over 2,100 ventilators. 117 countries received aid from the Logistics Hub in Dubai's International Humanitarian City, and we set up seven mobile hospitals and clinics in developing countries. Millions of vaccine doses are being donated throughout international initiatives like COVAX, alongside $10 million of in-kind donations to the WHO. As a gateway between East and West, the UAE is deeply invested in strong diplomatic ties around the world. Undoubtedly strengthened during the pandemic. Our bilateral relationships allowed us to share information, learn from others' experiences, and kickstart mutually beneficial collaborations. In the early months of 2020, we were in constant touch, as an example with our Korean counterparts, to mine their knowledge and pandemic management. We have also been cooperating with our Chinese counterparts on three clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines involving over 31,000 volunteers here in the UAE. And we are working with partners in Israel on breakthrough therapies and technologies for severe diseases, which include, of course, COVID-19. The 2021 Edelman Trust parameter highlights that 80% of the UAE respondents say that government is the country's most trusted institution. Very compelling point. I was surprised when I saw that, but it shows you the level of the population's trust and confidence in this government. Throughout the pandemic, we made sure to honor that social contract by communicating often and honestly with our citizens and residents. And by being decisive, immediate, and transparent about precautionary measures that are based on science, data, and global best practice. Like our forefathers decades ago, by necessity, we were agile, imaginative, and innovative when this crisis hit with speed and intensity. We are now emerging from this period with minimal negative impact on our community and optimal prospects for our economy. This month, the UAE placed sixth globally in the Bloomberg COVID resilience ranking, which analyzes where the virus is being handled the most effectively with the least social and economic disruption. And COVID-19 hasn't been our only focus these past 18 months. We advanced our goals in space exploration with the July 2020 launch of the HOPE probe into the Mars orbit. Only the fifth country in history to do so. We are now gathering the first complete picture of the Martian atmosphere to support global research efforts and scientific understanding. We furthered our leadership in the clean energy sector as the first Arab country to produce nuclear energy when the Balakawan nuclear plant started commercial operations in April 2021. In the midst of COVID, we were able to start our first nuclear power plant safely and efficiently. We also continue to produce the cheapest kilowatt of solar energy in the world at 1.35 cents per kilowatt. We strengthened diplomatic relations first with the Abraham Accords in August 2020, a historic peace agreement between the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel, which is opening the door for partnership and exchange. And also, with our two-year term on the UN Security Council, working towards further global cooperation and problem-solving. We doubled down on attracting and retaining human capital by expanding our global visa residency program and creating a long-term pathway to UAE citizenship. We focused on our competitiveness by fast-tracking significant pieces of social and commercial legislation that make living, working, and investing in the UAE more rewarding, more enjoyable, and easier, including 100% foreign ownership of companies. We kept investing in growth areas of the future. At Mubadela, which I run, for example, COVID-19 supercharged our deployment of capital in areas that are driving global progress, like healthcare, life sciences, and of course technology. So what do I think the next 50 years will look like for us here in the UAE? Just like that January 2020 meeting with His Highness, there will be both challenges and innovations that I cannot imagine. But I can tell you, as a nation, we have the experience and expertise to take educated risks to advocate humanity and to advance it. As a government, we have a renewed confidence to excel in the face of challenges and overcome the unexpected. And most importantly, as individuals, we are empowered to contribute to our collective future. I will leave you this evening with a quote from our founding father, Sheikh Zayed, who said, open quotation, Future generations will be living in a world that is very different from that to which we are accustomed. It is essential that we prepare ourselves and our children for that new world, close quotation. Thank you so much for your time. I apologize if I had gone too long. But as you can see, I am very passionate of what we have accomplished as a nation over the last 50 years, what we have accomplished over the last two years in the face of these incredible global challenges, and obviously how excited I am for the next 50 years of what we intend and hopefully will do as a nation. Thank you for being with us here today. Thank you for making the time to fly and come from many different places. I hope you have an enjoyable stay here in the UAE. And above all, thank you, Terry, for your kind invitation. It is really my pleasure to be with you today. I apologize. I have to run. I am flying to New York for an important meeting tomorrow. But hopefully we will have more and more of these gatherings and I wish you a wonderful evening. Good night.


Good morning, welcome to an incredible morning that we have the privilege to come to Jesus, to celebrate what he has done, to thank him for what he has done, and to intercede for our city. We are crying out from the heart of our city to the heart of God today, on this beautiful day that the Lord has made. And we are believing that God has something powerful and something special for us. Not just for us in this room, but for you wherever you're at. Maybe you're at home or you're in your car or you're at work already. God has something special for you and maybe you're in a whole other city. We want you to be crying out for your city. So as we go into moments of intercession for our city and the cities in this area, we want you to interject your city's name and your region's name into these prayers. And we want you to participate by praying and taking your stand on the wall that this is not just a spectator thing, this is a participatory thing, that you are a prophetic watchman on the wall of your city that God has posted you where you are to pray, to intercede, and that God will move through your prayers in your city as you pray. Today, I just felt led to open up out of Psalm 57. I don't know if you've been feeling this, but it's really easy that when summer comes around to get into what I call a summer lull, we kind of just go through the motions. We get into this summer kind of almost like a hibernation or like a lull in our spirits and in our minds. And for us, it's kind of easy as well because we took last week off. And so sometimes it's hard to get out of that lull when you've taken a week off from what we're used to doing and what we love doing so much. And because of that summer lull or even that religious lull of going through the motions, I feel led this morning to open up by just commanding our souls to wake up. Like wake up, wake up mind, wake up soul, wake up heart, wake up to the Lord. And so in Psalm 57, King David says, starting verse seven, my heart is steadfast, oh God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and make melody.  I will awake the dawn. I will give thanks to you, oh Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praise to you among the nations for your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, oh God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth right now. Let's actually do what King David did here. He said, I will, I will awake the dawn. I will awake my soul. I will awake my mind. So let's do that right now by commanding our souls and commanding our minds to get up, to awaken the dawn with praise and with thanksgiving, with declaring the steadfastness of God, that his steadfastness is great. And so Lord, we come to you today. Some of us are tired. Some of us are in a spiritual lull. Some of us are just worn out. Some of us are tired from pressure and from pain. And Lord, we come to you right now. And we say, here we are. We will awaken the dawn. We will awaken our souls with praise. We will awaken our minds with thanksgiving, God. For your steadfast love is great, Lord. Do not let us forget, Lord, that your steadfast love is great. It is greater than all things God. And so from this declaration, Lord, with your steadfast love, awaken us, Lord. Awaken us, God.  Just begin to awaken yourself. Just begin to awaken yourself to his steadfast love. Declare his thankfulness, his worthiness, his holiness, his beauty, his splendor, his majesty. Use your voice. Use the instrument God has given you. You may not play a guitar or a keyboard, but you have a voice. Awaken the dawn. Settings like this, it's really easy just to push forward it. I just feel the sweetness on this moment right now as we command our souls to bless the Lord. There's a lot of things that we could do better as the church, but I think one of the things that we need to do the most is bless the Lord. Just minister to the Lord. Like King David said in Psalm 34, I will bless the Lord at all times, not sometimes, but all times. His praise will be continually on my lips. My soul makes boast in the Lord. Lord, right now we bless you. Lord, we turn from our ideology, which has gripped us for so long. The ideology of God bless America. Yes, God, we do need you to bless America, but Lord, we sidestep that and we say America bless God. And so Lord, right now from the heart of our city, we command our souls to bless you. We bless you, Lord. We lift you up, God. We praise you, we exalt you.  And so Lord, as we bless you, may it be a sweet aroma to your throne, Lord. May it be a sweet fragrance to your nostrils, God. Lord, we do not make our boasts in ourselves. We do not boast in our strength. We do not boast in what we have and what we can do and what we've accomplished. We boast in you. You are good, God, and we bless you. Just begin to bless the Lord. Begin to bless him, begin to thank him for his goodness, begin to bless him, begin to praise him for his awesomeness and his holiness, his steadfast love. Bless the Lord out to him. When his children's lips are filled with praise, just begin with your mouths, not ours, not words. The frustration we lift you up. We lift you up, Lord. I know good thing, Lord, we seek you. Your words has taste and see that you are good, Lord. We wanna taste and see with the very senses that you have given us. We want to experience you and know you, Lord. Above our wants and our desires, God. Now that we magnify you, we exalt you. In this moment with everything that we are going through, with everything we are facing, all the noise and the traffic of our lives, all of the schedules and the agendas, that we are yours, yours, wholly yours. Holy hearts, soul, mind, strength. We are yours from a personal level to a prophetic level. What I mean by that is we've just commanded our souls. We have just confessed that we are his, that we've belonged to him personally, but now I want us to turn that same heart, that same focus to our city. And what I mean by that is to prophetically pray to prophetically decree and declare that this city is his, that the people of this city are his. Isaiah 55 says, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy, out money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live. Lord, right now we say to Kalamazoo, greater Southwest Michigan region, come, come, come to Jesus. Come to the Lord, listen diligently out. All who are lacking, all who have gone to merchants in order to satisfy the void, but been only been left more empty, come to Jesus. We say to Kalamazoo, come to Jesus. We say to Plainwell, come to Jesus. We say to Ossego, come to Jesus. We say to Battle Creek, come to Jesus. We say to Three Rivers, come to Jesus. We say to Vicksburg, come to Jesus. We say all around this region, come to Jesus. Come everyone who thirsts, come to Jesus. Come to the waters of Jesus.  Been looking forward, come the Lord has. Live up to him now. I want us to begin to think of our far from Jesus, neighbors and coworkers and family members and just begin to say, come prophetically, say, come to Jesus, name them out loud. Don't be silent. If you're not in Kalamazoo, name your city, name the people who come to your heart and say, come to Jesus, come. I say in 55, we have come Lord and we have found now asking that Kalamazoo would come to you and come to know you.  With everlasting water, Lord, we have tasted and we have seen and we have drank from your well, Lord and we want Kalamazoo to come and so Lord, we ask you for Kalamazoo, Lord, to come. We ask for you to begin to speak to the hearts of Kalamazoo, that people who are far from you would come to know you, that they would come to the living waters, that they would come to you, Lord God and that they would drink, Lord, that they wouldn't just put their feet in the water, Lord God or go knee deep in the water, Lord God, that they would jump all the way in, Lord. So Lord, I prophesy a revival right now of people coming by groves.  Southwest Michigan today is the day, day 56, success. The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, to love the name of the Lord, we prophesy this, that those who are far from you are gonna come to you. They're gonna come, they are coming as we speak. Lord, would you soften their hearts? Would you open their minds? Lord, would you open their ears to hear what you are saying? Your ears to hear that salvation has come for them and you love them. Lord, show them your compassion and Lord, would you show those who are far from you your compassion through us? Would we be ambassadors of compassion to this world that is far from you? Lord, make us joyful in your house of prayer. Fill us with joy.  So fill us with joy as we watch those who are far from you and as we pray for those who are far from you to come, to come. Lord, we love you. We go into this day that you have made. Lord, do something crazy awesome in our midst. May we have a conversation that leads someone to you. We love you. We thank you for this hour in Jesus' name. Thank you for joining us for this hour of prayer and intercession and worship. I wanna encourage you to go throughout the rest of your day prophesying and praying that many would come to Jesus. We'll see you back tomorrow morning. On the live stream, we'll be back in the prayer room at noon and at 6.30 today tomorrow. Have a great and blessed day.


Hi everyone, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, I'm just going to help you move your fingers up and down on the piano harmonically rather than melodically, which we normally end up doing. Melodically we do drills like that, or we do maybe arpeggio chords. In this exercise, I'm trying to move your harmony, move stacks of notes together up and down. I'm going to share this video on C major scale. However, I would recommend that you transpose it to other scales as well. We have done a few videos on how to transpose. It will be there in the description. You can check that out. Very important to transpose. Now, I'm going to first teach you the chord movement. It's a fair amount of chords, but all quite easy to play. Everything will have three notes. Some are not traditional, you could say. Then we look at different ways of expressing it and just see how far we can go in this lesson. Bring your pianos out. You need to play along with me. If you read sheet music or if you'd like the MIDI or anything to supplement the lesson, including my handwritten notes, you can head over to Patreon and get yourselves a copy. That would be awesome. Let's get cracking. The first chord is C major. So, I'm just going to call it out as from the bottom to the top. So, low, middle, high. So, E, G, C. And I like to play it a little on the lower side. So, first chord E, G, C. Second chord D, G, B. Third chord F, G, D. Fourth chord E, G, C.  G, C. F, C, D. Then A, C, F. G, C, E. And then higher. B, C, G. G, C, F. Then F, C, D. G, C, E. Then E, G, C. F, G, D. D, G, B. E, G, C. So, what I was singing was the top most note of each chord. Again, I would recommend you to check the notes. It will be easier to follow along. So... You can challenge yourself with different speeds. Maybe you want to go start with semi-brieves or whole notes. Two, three, four. You may be arguing what should the left hand do. Well, pretty much anything in the C major scale. There are a lot of these chords where... Pretty much a lot of the bass notes seem to sound quite nice. So, feel free to explore your left hand. Any of the white notes or the C major scale would be nice. Or else, just keep it simple or safe and stick with C. Okay, so you have different rates of shifting. First, you can practice. Semi-brieve shifting would be... Two, three, four. One, two, three, four. You need to do minimum shifting. One, two, three, four. Two, three, four. Then you can do on-the-pulse shifting. That's every beat. That will be rather tricky. Four, one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten. It's fun to practice this. So, the first variation I have for you now that we've learnt it as a pulse... is you can break up this sound. You can break up the chords by doing something like this. This is how I like to break my chords. And first of all, the speed will become a bit more faster. This is what we call as quavers or eighth notes. So, those are broken chords. So, how am I counting this? Outside, inside. You can remember it like that. Outside, inside, outside. It's the same chord, but you break it. Outer two, inside one. Those are your broken chords. One more time. So, that's your broken vibe. The arpeggio now you completely break the chord by doing something like this. The way I'm doing the arpeggio pattern is high note, middle note, low note and then middle again. And I like to hold my pinky or the up topmost note so that it breathes out the melody. Highest note. Hold it. You can use the pedal as your jumping that can ensure it's smooth.  And another thing I like to do is to combine broken and arpeggios. Basically, you start with broken and then follow it up with arpeggio. Instead of doing only broken, arpeggio, combo, you start with two notes. You can see the notation. Let me play through the whole thing with combo pattern. So, a few variations, even more variations. Now that we know the block system, the broken chords in the arpeggios, why not fool around and play them in as many time signatures as we possibly can? So, if we do this over, let's say a 4-4. Well, that's over. Why don't we do this over a 3-4? So, there's three. What about something like broken on 3? Two, three, and two. Just make sure it's three. One, two, and three, and one, and two, and three, and one, and two, and three, and one, and two, and one. Two, three, one, and two, and three, and one, and two, and three. And you can do the arpeggio one also. You can even think of 3-4 as 6-8, if you think about it, or different phrasing. You can also do it in fives. Yeah, seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So, with seven, since it's a bigger number, you can break down your accents into one, two, three, four, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. Something like... So you can use the combo when you're hitting two notes together as the accent point. So you can build this, try building it in different time signatures. That would be a nice exercise. And another thing I like to do is just look at C on your left hand, and look at the chord, of course, in the right hand, and develop some drumming patterns. Like, let's say you wanted to come up with... So if I vocalize that, it would be left, right, right, left, right, left, right, right. I think so, right? Left, right, right, left, right, left, right, right. So I'm going to now figure out a way to replicate that on the piano with all these chords. So the left is just your C for now. Or change it. Left, right, right, left, right, left, right, right. On a 4-4. Right? So we've done it in odd time signatures. We've done our syncopations, where the two hands come together. And last but not least, you can play the entire right hand system in your left hand and see how it goes. Now you may be arguing, why am I doing this in the left hand? You must be thinking, what should the right hand do? Well, the right hand can just play a melody. Maybe play the higher notes of the chord. Okay, and I put a little note in the notation, calling it as G anchor for the first bar. So that'll be first two bars actually. You see what's happening there? G is like the same note throughout. That's what makes it a bit tricky if you ask me from a fingering perspective. Now you shift, C is your anchor and other notes move around it. Now C will continue to be your anchor and now G becomes the anchor. Okay, so in a nutshell, this is our chord drill. Which you can start off by playing in your right hand. Just use it to improve your chord movement. Like I said at the beginning of the lesson, you're trying to improve your skill of going up and down the keyboard in blocks with many multiple notes played together. So I hope this exercise will be a good start if you haven't done such a thing before. Or for those of you who have been doing that in the past with some other books or other exercises or lessons, this will add to that party. So practice the chords well. After that, remember there are, you can play them as a pulse. You can do broken arpeggios or the combo thing. Then we played them in multiple time signatures. We use some syncopation and we moved it all to the left hand and we played some melody lines in the right hand. The notation is waiting for you on our Patreon. Do consider picking it up and also stuff we've done in the past and stuff which we are going to do in the future. That becomes the portal for all supplementary material from our YouTube channel. Right guys, thanks a ton for watching. Again, this is Jason Zak from Nathaniel School of Music. Cheers.


So, myself is Kunjan Dalal and I am also known as Kunji, so friends and Twitter people knows me as Kunji and I will be skipping other part of intro because we are having less time, so we need to run. So, oh what happened, oh sorry, okay, so this is the agenda for today, so this talk is basically designed for 45 minutes but as there are the good talks on same topic, so it cut down to 20 minutes and because of that I am cutting down few of the stuff, you may or may not be knowing but we will try to cover it after talk, so if you any question is there just let me know, not between the talk after the talk. Let's start with the pop quiz, so first question, how many of you already know Elm, have used it, okay, how many of have used it in application, production level application in the project, there are two people, great. Now, this is the important question, how with you guys, how many time it happens that you seen a cool demo in a conference and when you go back to your work, you can't convert that demo to a proper application, like there is a cool thing happening for 1 hour 45 minutes and you go back, you try to re-implement that stuff and it didn't work out, oh every time demo works out, that's great, okay, so today we are not going to see demo, instead we are going to see something from the history, so it's not about what is possible but it is all about what can be possible, so what is already become the history, so I will be talking from my experience, the core sample will be in Fsharp because Fsharp is like general purpose programming language, it has strongly type nature and it works for web and mobile servers, machine learning, anything you name it, you might find Fsharp working there. There is two things for Fable and Fable Elmish or in general purpose we talk as Elmish, Fable is basically Fsharp to JavaScript compiler powered by Babel, so basically it takes the Fsharp converge to AST and provides to Babel, Babel take that thing and converge to JavaScript and Elmish is a abstraction layer or a library written in Fsharp to give Elmish style architecture to Fsharp code, so basically if you want to create Elm, Elm style applications with Fsharp Elmish, Elmish is the library to do that thing, we check out the code for both, let's start with the Fable first, so here is the simple Fsharp unit of measure code, so you provide the unit of measure to your types, so which is basically Fsharp specific code, so this type of units you can give to your code and it will be very helpful when you are working with finance, research or biology because it will not allow other types to compare or do the algebraic addition or subtraction, means you can't compare meter with the fit if you are giving a type, when you convert this to a JavaScript using Fable it becomes very dynamically type JavaScript language, this is generated JavaScript code, it generates ES6 code I guess which is more readable than what browsers can execute, then you pass this to a Babel and it will convert this to a enable JavaScript and it will run your application, let's talk about the Elmish, this is your routine model, so this is similar to Elm, you have the model which has a property of value, which of type string and then there is a message which is of change of value of type string, this is your state init function which initialize the value as a empty string and updates function which takes the new value and update the value with the new value and this is the view which can show your model in a view html view, you are writing this kind of html Elm as well and it will dispatch the event to the update method which eventually change the model and again updated model which shows the value and the view, so I guess this is very much what we do in Elm, so there is no much of a difference there, this is the wiring up, the same thing we are doing in Elm also, so you can wire it up and this is the program with react Elmish dash app is a div tag or div id which we take and run whole application in that div, so any questions still now miss, anyone feels that this is not similar to Elm because it is very much, I learn Elm first and then move to Elmish, so let's go little deeper, what is spa, anyone can explain me what is spa, yeah oh that not the spa in salon, the single page application, what they promise is you don't need to learn any other thing other than html JavaScript and CSS, nothing else, it will give you that most powerful geometric diagram or triangle which is nothing, you learn that html JavaScript CSS and nothing else you need to learn, but what really happen when you learn spa, be it AngularJS or ReactJS or any other libraries, you have to learn many angles, there are too many things so seriously, this thing also happens with spa, yeah there is no full screen mode, that's nice, okay so anyone recognize who is this, that's me from the future, so today I will be providing tips and tricks and you have to just take it for granted because just like you take every words for granted from old wise man, so that is what it is, this is from experience and when you get experience you have wrinkles, so we will be talking about model view update architecture, the ALM structure or the ALM architecture, so I strongly feel that in MVU architecture, model is the most important thing because model is the message between update and view function, so if you are controlling the message, you are controlling the narration, that's the message tearing down, getting tear down, so I will start my tips and tricks from the model itself, how you model the applications and obviously how you model the model of model view update method, let's talk about the model, okay so if you are having any kind of authentication and I hope many of the application having that authentication structure, please divide your application into two part, one part where you need to be getting authenticated and one part you don't need to be getting authenticated, so I normally start my application this way only, so it is having only two message, two page model in option type either application or authentication and then model will be having user token which is having token or a token detail and then the current page and the page model, why I tell you, can you see the line number 10 or 1011, where I am checking the user token is none, so what happened when I was writing the application, I started with simple thing like login page should not check the user and other page should check the user, but that other pages start growing 10, 15, 25, so that user token is not none started growing again and again, so that is a repeated code I stack and the page grows like anything, so it is better to reflect from where you start if you are having any kind of authentication in that, in your application for two, three pages it is fine, but more than 10, 15 pages or 25 pages it is better to get refactored and one prototype if we are not using JWT please use it, it is good for a stateless applications JWT is JavaScript web token, sorry, page model, so in that application and authentication if we are going deep for a page, this is how I normally like to define a page model, so there is a bad page model, so in bad page model what happened is like you load all the pages at one shot, you are going into application after authenticating a user and then every application is getting loaded, so in good page model only that those pages are getting loaded which is you are seeing in the screen, so I started that way, I am loading almost everything calling every API, it is asynchronous, it do not hurt, but soon your application started growing and it can go to the 7 or 8 level deep, so when you are changing the model it becomes a issue, so instead of that if you are taking the option type of it, it will only update the model which is required to be updated, this is a page model, so when you are on some page how you want to define your components, so I normally like to divide components in a separate components, so if you are having a page with a single big form also, I take 4 entries, 4 entries, 400, I take a group of 4 randomly, give a random name, but make a smaller chunk, it will make a later code easier, a simple example if you are having a auto complete, auto complete based on a server API, so then you have to write client code and server code both, so it is better to abstract that component away instead of writing in a same file even just because it is a same page, you have to abstract that away, even if there is a username authentication, that username should be valid based on some rules and regulation and username should also be available on server, so you are doing server call and also a client call, so again that username, even though it is a simple text book, it should be abstracted away, component model, so now we are very much narrow down to a simple component, a simple piece of the page, we are almost halfway, if anyone like to take a break, I will just drink it, we already take a break right, okay, before we talk about the component model, let's talk about the domain driven design, anybody heard about domain driven design here, anybody using it in an application or anybody can say that they are using it right way, so if we can use domain driven design on server side, why can't we use in domain driven design in client side, it is very much possible, I started my application this way, so there is a validated type then there is a person type, person error type and my model looks like person is a person then person error, off type person error, this is very dumb implementation of domain driven design or how you represent a domain, so if a person is a domain then you have the error, so whenever you are saying the person of person type should be very much valid only, so but what happened when I am using with the ALM or ALMS way, when I want to update that first name should not be empty, a simple error message, I have to go through person error, then validate and then message, it's like three or four level deep, just to update a simple model, it becomes more complicated when you are using this kind of types or record types either in ALM or F sharp, so how can you solve that problem, we can use lenses obviously, it is available in ASCAL, lenses are available in ALM also it is available in F sharp, but if you have to use lenses to update your record type then definitely you are doing something wrong, so it is very much a good time to update the application structure, I use lenses and then I spend like four to five days just refactoring the whole code for not to use lenses, because one point of time lenses become more complicated to code with and also become slow, so I just flattened the model in a separate component, so there is a first name of first name component and last name of last name component, so first name can have their own separate update method which change the error or first name value and last name also can have separate component which change the error message and value or you can do this way also, I just flattened straight away first name and first name error stays in a model, so I normally go with the rule that a model should not go more than one level deep or lenses should not be there in your ALM or ALM mislibrary, you can use it, but even the creator of lenses in ALM the event says no, if you are using lenses you are doing something wrong instead start changing your code in a model view fashion, let's talk about the command the state part, single responsibility principle normally whenever we do to-do list or a to-do list or any simple sample application, we don't go this way but this is more a useful way, if you are changing something here I am converting string to upper, I am not updating model in the same command, if you are doing something then do one and only one thing in that command itself, so change value is for converting that string to upper then I am sending message to a change, so it happens it authenticated and then I am updating the value, so normally I go this way, command I take a command to do something maybe a poster value to API or changing something on a client side and if it validated the command is valid then I will move to the event or call change that okay now update the model everything is validated it is event that happened, so now you can update the view, if you update the view another way to look at this is like you separated with the command and events, so command will return only unit type it will generate another message which will eventually update the model and which will eventually update the UI, so if you know CQRS it is mostly happen this way command do not generate the events it will not change the state but event do just remember this slide specifically because it will be useful in future just two slides after two slides I will talk about this again and you can wire up command and event this way it is a simple wire up so yeah sure, subscribe this is the least used feature when it comes to I have never seen that much of use of this thing, subscribe is there to use please use this is very default example of subscribe you can subscribe to a clock to tick every second and then every second it will change the model this is kind of real-time use of subscribe you are dispatching an event based on the real-time or reactive input you are getting from the server be it server sent event or a socket, so here if you are changing your commands into command and events it will be useful because command just validate everything on a client side it will go to the call the API go to the server validated again generator event event comes via socket push from the server to client and from here using subscribe you can update the model so it is it becomes more of a reactive application let's talk about the view this is my favorite part, views will be simple and cute like as small as possible and as cute as possible here I am just doing one thing document table only so there is nothing much more into view but I like to keep root as simple as possible see if someone is reading the root it should get whole idea of the page so if there are more than one thing it should be like that even I can remove the document table and put the whole HTML code in the root but instead of that just keep it abstracted and writing instead of writing commands okay this is table code make a separate function and give the proper name so it will always easier to go to that view part and change it later use CSS wrappers okay this is very useful when you are writing big projects instead of writing classes you can easily create wrappers to write those classes for you so you will not have spelling mistakes in CSS class which normally happens for at least person like me who don't like CSS and you can cut the code like anything so I have seen like 75% of reduction in my code after using wrappers so you don't have to go nested du du du and write classes and then go through that again based on a framework this is fulma is a wrap around the bulma CSS and I never seen a bulma CSS I just go to the fulma documents and use it why I choose the elm instead of elm one language for server client beat web mobile data science machine learning data processing I have done almost everything I written there so I would work with web mobile I have done data science thing I have done machine learning and data processing beat server or web a possible to leverage the library fable provides you a bridge between JavaScript and app shop so even you can access dynamic part of JavaScript without any issue even the in same code you can write function in JavaScript you can access in a app shop you write function in app shop you can access in JavaScript possible to leverage react libraries there are a lot of libraries which is already created so instead of letting it go I can use it easily with my almas architecture because of all this I can use the acquired knowledge throughout the years so basically it's almost 11 years in software so learning new things doesn't mean that I should forget all about things so whatever libraries and whatever names I know beat react or beat any other libraries I can use it easily this is react lift that code if you can see the code so it is basically a library to create maps and this is the app shop album code I'm writing and this is the result you can create maps easily so we are not we don't have to create whole library altogether just to support maps there is awesome tool chain available this is html to elmish which is same as html to elm that is available you give the html code it will convert to the elmish code there is another good thing is TS to TS to fable so you give the typescript definition it will convert the app shop definition for you so you can use any typescript definition it will convert for you it will convert that thing to app shop so you can easily use it in elmish project without any issue so any JavaScript library you can use it including jQuery I have seen but not with elmish with the fable so I guess oh please here thank you that's done from my end these are the links there is a awesome fable which I am maintaining safe stack is a complete stack like means stack you it will generate the server side shared code and client side code for you which will be having a server side refresh so if you change the server side code it will refresh the whole thing if you change the client side code it will do hot reload for you all thing will be set up you can share code you can share the domain part you can share the validation thing you can do railway oriented programming on both side I have done that what the app shop elmish this is the talk where me and the creator of fable was talking about elmish so you can listen to that talk fulma is a rapper I have already told baler is another thing launched two days back which convert your elmish code to the web assembly so you can if go even more native to that browser and fable you already know just check out the repo you can run app shop code without any internet so it runs company app shop code in your browser and this is the consulting I started recently right now there are not much people this is the fable compiler twitter handle and me so if there is any comments good comments you can tag the fable compiler bad comments you can tag me I always try to improve that thing questions we don't have time I guess sure it's to the only we can cut his time any questions I'll be here for today and tomorrow just let me know and thanks


Microsoft's game plan for the future of Xbox is absolutely fascinating. The company has just announced plans to purchase the entirety of Xenimax Media, the parent company for Bethesda Softworks. Microsoft will now own the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, and all upcoming games from every studio under the Bethesda Wing. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreyer, Microsoft will pay $7.5 billion for Bethesda. To put this into context, Microsoft paid $2 billion for Minecraft's Mojang and Disney paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm. What makes this even more fascinating is the fact that Microsoft plans to give away all of Bethesda's games for free to Xbox subscribers. The Xbox Games Pass, available on both console and PC, will give unrestricted access to the entirety of Bethesda's games catalog. So why is Microsoft making such a huge purchase, and then dumping it all on subscription service? Because Microsoft has lofty ambitions for the Xbox brand. The company isn't as concerned about winning a console war as they are about becoming the Netflix of gaming. According to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, Sacha Nadella, with the acquisition of Bethesda, we metaphorically and literally double our gaming content capacity. This is a big deal, as it's a large step towards Microsoft's plan of releasing a new blockbuster game to quote Xbox Game Studio's head Matt Booty every three or four months. Booty compared the big brands under the Microsoft banner to cultural icons when he said, We need to continue building characters, stories, and worlds that can transcend generations, devices, and platforms. You know, if you look into things like the Marvel characters or the Lord of the Rings, when those Marvel characters were first invented in the 1960s, nobody knew that there was going to be a thing called Netflix. But yet, here we are. And, you know, the Marvel library figures heavily into video streaming. Booty has attempted to downplay the rivalry between Xbox and PlayStation, and it's clear to see why. Microsoft has completely different goals with the coming generation when compared with Sony and Nintendo, as we've shared in a video before, according to head of Xbox Phil Spencer. When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward. That's not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position. Indeed, it's easy to see that in buying Bethesda, Microsoft is rectifying one of the major problems with Google's own attempt at a gaming subscription service, Stadia. That platform has failed to gain a sizeable audience in large part because of the lack of must-play exclusive games. Ultimately, no matter whether it's a console or a subscription service, games make all the difference. This is why Microsoft are pushing the smaller, less powerful, cheaper Xbox Series S alongside its big sister, the Series X. The company sees the console as a delivery system for games, so it makes sense to make it as accessible as possible. This is also why Microsoft is additionally offering Game Pass on PC, and, if people really want it, mobile. The console is of secondary importance to giving people access to games, and the purchase of Bethesda adds another selection of must-play games to their library. Phil Spencer says that, apparently, Bethesda is a good fit because the higher-ups at the company share Microsoft's vision of the future. Over the years, I've had many deep conversations with the creative leaders at Bethesda on the future of gaming, and we've long shared similar visions for the opportunities for creators and their games to reach more players in more ways. With all this in mind, though, does this mean that Bethesda's games will now be trapped in Game Pass forever? Will it be impossible to play the next Doom on Switch or PlayStation 5? Not necessarily. Microsoft has already allowed many first-party games, such as Obsidian's The Outer Worlds, to release on other platforms. In contrast to the PlayStation 5, Xbox isn't being marketed around its exclusive titles, but rather about the cheap entry point as these games are available for subscribers for free on the day of launch. According to Matt Booty, the question is less binary about should it be on Switch, should it be on PlayStation, and more, does it make sense for the franchise? In other words, is it a kind of game where it would benefit from the network effect of being on a bunch of different platforms, or is it a game where we can best support it by putting resources and making sure that our platforms, things like xCloud and Game Pass and Xbox Live, are really leaning in to support the game? So it seems that, while Microsoft is pushing their subscription service hard, they are also happy to publish their games on PlayStation or Switch when doing so brings in more money. After all, they still have the big advantage of providing these games for free. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft's risky strategy pays off, and the $7.5 billion investment will pay dividends. In fairness, the company definitely deserves respect for taking a chance on an unorthodox idea. Regardless of whether this leads to a big hit for Microsoft, it's nice to see the company take such a big swing.


This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by you, the listener. Thanks to every single one of you, including Hi Tech Oki, Jim Hart, Logan Larson, and James Irizari. On this episode of DTNS, Amazon brings its voice assistant into the large language model era, announces tons of new hardware, and OpenAI releases a new version of the image generator, Dal E3. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, September 20th, 2023 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Saradale. I'm Sarah Lane. Whoops, from Salt Lake City. I'm Scott Johnson. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Scott forgot who he was. We hope that you've recovered from the slip. That was a big surprise. Big surprise to me. Whoa, that's me. I don't know what y'all were doing 20 years ago today, but I was getting hitched. So, happy anniversary to my best friend. Tom, that's awesome. Well done. Sorry, I didn't mean to rub it in. I'm just trying to push my wife out of the universe. Let's start with the quick hits. Microsoft's head of gaming, Phil Spencer, responded to roughly 100 internal documents being accidentally uploaded to a U.S. Court website related to the now withdrawn U.S. FTC versus Microsoft lawsuit in a post on social media about the exposed documents. Spencer said, quote, it is hard to see our team's work shared in this way because so much has changed and there's so much to be excited about right now and in the future. We'll share the real plans when we are ready. Oh, the real plans. Oh, gosh, yeah. In an unrelated leaked memo, it's a weak leaked memos. Microsoft's head of consumer marketing, Yusuf Mady told employees that Thursday's Microsoft announcement scheduled for 1 p.m. Eastern will include AI efforts as well as new surface hardware. This feels more like an intentional leak. Microsoft has reportedly been developing an AI related chip for its products, so it could be AI in the hardware. I expect it probably will be. Also, Mady said that the Windows Web and services units are now being brought together into a single unit, which makes it sound like Windows is going to become even more cloud reliant integrating web services and AI. What's up for iOS includes native support for the iPad now seen and reported by W.A. Beta Info. The iPhone version could previously be used on the iPad. Many iPhone apps can be, but the new iPad version is customized for a larger screen. Users can link their iPad app with an iPhone version and that would port over existing messages. The test flight version of the iPad app is maxed out on users with no information about when it will come to the general public. So for now, expect this soon, Mish? Maybe. China's Ministry of State Security accused WeChat on Wednesday. That the U.S. has continuously attacked Huawei's servers since 2009. It also includes U.S. tech companies, accuses U.S. tech companies of installing backdoors on software to steal data from China and Russia. The post specifically called out spyware called second date as being developed by the U.S. National Security Agency. As we mentioned in GDI yesterday, Mac, the U.S. As we mentioned in GDI yesterday, Max is launching a live sports add-on October 5th under the Bleacher Report brand. Existing Max subscribers will get it at no additional charge until February of February 29th. Then after that, they have to pay $10 a month to include it. If they so desire, you don't have to. You would just choose to. In addition to studio shows like Inside the NBA, one of my favorites, the Bleacher Report add-on will have live games from the NBA, NHL, MLB, men's college basketball, cycling races, and also soccer. All live games on cable or broadcast will be included as well. All right, let's get into that Dolly news. Hello, Dolly. Let's do it. Hello, Dolly. How are you open AI announced version three of its image generator, Dolly, D-A-L-L-E, just in case you were confused. It understands context better and integrates with chat GPT, so says open AI. So for example, you could tell chat GPT to write a prompt for Dolly three. Open AI uses external web teamers. That is a group that intentionally tries to break a system to test its safety for the better of everybody on the other side of it to develop better safety measures for Dolly three to help prevent creation of explicit or violent images. Dolly is also instructed not to create art in the style of living artists. Artists can send images to open AI that they wish to exclude from the training models as well. If they're kind of worried about it somehow getting in there chat GPT plus and enterprise subscribers will also get the new Dolly in October, followed by researchers and API users later in the autumn. Open AI didn't offer a time frame for a free version, but one would assume they would hope that some free users would play around with it and make it a little bit smarter. All right, Scott, let's start with you as somebody who you know is very into image generation from the human sense. What do you what do you think about the latest version of Dolly Dolly three as a as a human art generator? Yeah, I actually think this is really good news and I hope it's probably not the they're probably not the only group AI group working on this to ensure future versions of their image generation. They're certainly getting sued the most though. They are getting sued a lot. That's a big motivator turns out if you really want to get somebody to do something often often a suit will do it. But the fact that they are I think is really good news for the future of all of this stuff and I hope others follow suit. You know, we don't really know how it's going to present itself until we see it in action. But I like the idea that the model will at least do its best or hopefully do its best to avoid some of the trappings that are around this thing like taking other artists work or having been trained on it producing artwork that looks just like theirs and then others using it or selling it or whatever. These are all big problems and in and around this stuff and it's part of the reason you don't hear much or as much controversy when it comes to chat GPT because people are doing a lot of tech stuff and I'm sure that some people are saying well Scott they can also write in the style of so-and-so and write in the style and I have heard people complaining about that and then suing chat. I think George R Martin just joined a suit against open AI for that make sense because that that you know it's kind of the same problem. But I feel like the image stuff gets more stage time because it's visual and everybody can see it. It's different than writing where you got to go read a bunch of paragraphs to see if something was taken or not. So smoking like an artist right exactly but knowing that all of that is happening on the writing side and the art side I think is really healthy for quote unquote for lack of a better term the industry or movement of the AI and large language model image and text generation. We don't want these things to be taking people's work and doing it without any kind of credit or all you know these other some of these issues will remain and we're still going to be arguing about this for years I think but these are steps in the right direction regardless of the motivation was it was if it was lawsuits fine but they're the big player or one of the biggest players in this mix and when the big player makes you know in roads like this toward trying to apply ethics some kind of ethics to this stuff even though it's moving so rapidly I think is a really good thing. I'm probably missing something here but creators can submit this is from the Verge article creators can submit an image that they own the rights to and request its removal in a form on its website. Okay I get that remove my don't train on my data without my permission I support that I think you should have the right to decide whether your stuff gets trained on or not great great job open AI a future version of Dolly can then block results that look similar to the artist image and style well don't they have to train something to recognize whether the art is being created in that style at which point aren't they training a model to do just that and the reason I bring that up is I I think the fear of this is a little overblown because again. Yeah you could you can get the generator to do something in the style of Scott Johnson but that's no different than getting someone else to write in the style of Scott Johnson to me the problem is what you do with it and maybe what I'm missing is scale you can do this at scale which you couldn't if you have to do it by hand and that that is a big difference but I'm not sure that that this is as big of a problem as people are fearing it's going to be because you're having to give if I'm reading this right open AI the the same tool that they might use to train the model in order to stop it from accidentally creating something that looks like your art right how would the model know to avoid your thing if it didn't know your thing implicitly know your thing so it could avoid making your thing you're I think you totally right I think that's probably true but you know that's where these that's where the nuance comes in with this whole conversation it's like well this we have to look at it this like almost like a person and I don't mean like in the AI sense which is like a person I don't mean that what I mean is for this thing to actively avoid this and apply these quote-unquote ethical standards they have to know what they're being ethical for and so in this case as Tomics described it you have to train it on the thing they're avoiding so it seems goofy and backwards and would it be better if it just never knew your style and maybe but I don't think that's realistic I think it's going to need to know what salve to use the name Salvador Dolly's work looks like for it to avoid outputting Salvador Dolly and making his people mad you know so yeah I think you have to train it on everything it's complicated yeah no it absolutely is what is also complicated sometimes Salvador back in August I don't know what I'm doing but some people seem to think that what I do is is okay and I've been doing it for a long time so I conducted a seminar called how to make a great podcast good news we recorded it you can get that session in the new DTS Patreon store I explain the foundation of podcast producing how I do things share some ideas and experiences on how I think a podcast can be made great and you can get that seminar if you're interested either as a downloadable file that you can keep and watch whenever you want or streaming if you'd rather have it just available in the cloud and you don't have to worry about the file you can pick which one you want just go to patreon.com slash shop Amazon held its devices and services event Wednesday spending the majority of its time touting the services part upgrades to its voice assistant thanks to the inclusion of large language model support finally let's see what old Al Exa has in store Amazon says it should sound more natural it should respond faster be better at using context so you can just speak in natural language you don't have to keep repeating the wake word you can have ongoing conversations for example Amazon says you should just be able to say I'm cold and it will then adjust the thermostat because it knows what you mean when you say that for smart homes you should be able to just make a list of what you want your devices to do and Amazon will be able to create a new smart home routine for you. Amazon's example to the verge on this was Alexa every morning at 8am turn up the light play wake up music for my kid in his bedroom and start the coffee maker other smart home smarts include smart lighting which can take into account brightness time of day and motion to intelligently decide whether to turn lights on or off and automatically discovery should be easier to apparently after you add a new smart light you can just say turn on the new light and it'll know prebuilt features in third party devices will be supported as well so if you have the example they gave was GE's colored light bulbs you can say make it look spooky in here and then it'll turn orange and black I assume or if you have a Roomba you can say the floor is dirty and then the Roomba will be like oh you all go clean that up these features are called dynamic controller and action controller respectively and require participation from the device makers to make it work so it's not just a generalized thing a few other things here Amazon showed off map view which yeah if you have an iPhone or an iPad that has the LiDAR sensor the most recent ones do you can create a map of your home and then display all your devices on a map so you can control them from there you can just look at the family room light tap it and turn it on and off AI upgrades will work on all echo models going back to the launch of version 2014 the very first one new upgraded voices system coming to the BMW cars as well and the large language model powered smarts come into the fire TV search function so that you can search in natural language and narrow down your results that way as it gets more capable Amazon says it might start to monetize some of this since they can't get you to buy anything through these speakers Amazon told the verge the idea of a superhuman assistant that can supercharge your smart home and more work complex tasks on your behalf could provide enough utility that we will end up charging something for it down the road now the company is going to introduce the upgrade for free to begin with through a preview program so if you're in the US in the coming months look for that everybody gets a chance at the non-smart home upgrades through that preview program but if you want the smart home stuff I mentioned that's invite only alright let's pause there before we get to the hardware what are our hopes and dreams for these upgrades to the voice assistant oh man well okay so we've got a new piece of kids hardware the echo pop kids coming with branded content like Marvel or Disney for $50 which includes Amazon kids plus a new fire HD kids plus pro for older kids and fire HD 10 kids which starts at $190 for upgraded battery life and processors yeah let's get let's get into the hardware Amazon also announced the echo show 8 with spatial audio and room adaptation or improved sound similar to how sonos speakers work home screen content will change when it detects your nearby pre-order starting now for $150 shipping next month and Amazon introduced upgraded echo frames with longer battery life upgraded audio and multi-point pairing there are also new frame styles so you can keep it fashionable Amazon echo frames sell for $270 a new fire 4k stick with Wi-Fi 6 for $50 also was announced the fire TV max streaming stick has Wi-Fi 6 E Dolby vision HDR HDR 10 plus and Dolby Atmos audio for $60 a $120 version of fire TV soundbar works with fire TV devices without set up for $120 so you're paying for a little setup all fire TVs and echo shows also get ambient art which you can alter with voice commands again using some generative AI in the process three new blink security devices including a camera range extender for $50 come in next year a battery extension pack for outdoor for that one's 30 bucks and a new floodlight camera for 160 bucks pre-orders on that now and a new ring stick up cam pro has a radar powered 3d motion sensor a new 8 inch echo hub is a thread border router and matter controller that you can mount on the wall or smart home control and other smart display functions for $180 I am very excited about the new Eero mesh Wi-Fi because I use Eero and even if Amazon owns them I still love them the max 7 has Wi-Fi 7 support Wi-Fi 7 isn't even a fully certified standard so it's forward compatible 10 gigabit ethernet ports and can support more than 200 connected devices pricey starts at 600 bucks and you can get it in packs of one two or three and an accessibility feature for the fire max 11 tablet will let you control smart home devices video audio and more with your eyes with a feature called eye gaze a new $6 per month service called emergency assist can call emergency contacts if something goes wrong and use voice commands to connect with assistance directly okay we have talked about software we have talked about a hardware what do we think quick thoughts Scott Johnson well to me the big that all of this new hardware this avalanche of hardware that we just talked about depends on how good these this improved language model based AI stuff is with the A word if she's that much better and I can have the kinds of conversations with her that I'm currently taking for granted on things like chat GPT which I've become very accustomed to I don't want that to go away I am I'm all in on the future of some of that if she can exhibit some of those same sorts of responsive answers even when my question may not be perfect or there can be some intuiting of what I mean some of that Tom laid out earlier I think all this hardware then suddenly seems more interesting to me without it none of this seems interesting to me because the current state of the a word and the echo ecosystem is not all that great it feels behind it feel like it's it's lagging for that matter so does Siri so does okay G word they all kind of have lagged for me in terms of catching up with what's happening on the on the cutting edge of all of this which chat GPT and others are at so for me all of this hardware sounds awesome in the shadow of the a word is now like legitimately good at giving you what you want when you want it and how you want it then I'm interested in all of this and these don't seem like high prices 120 bucks for this or that not as big a deal but if it was all like status quo I don't know man I would I don't think any of this would be exciting there have been rumblings you know from inside and outside Amazon and Google talking about the assistance you know of like you know everything is kind of it there were such bigger hopes for all of these assistance and they're not really what they've promised to be especially when you look at all of the AI you know chat GPT type stuff I kind of disagree I feel like my you know I'm more or less in the Amazon ecosystem I do use sono speakers so there are certain echo speaker functionality that either comes to me or just never does but for the most part I can do what I want to do I tell you know my lights to do what I want them to do I tell my TV to turn on and off I you know order things for my groceries I do not think this is a bad life but I understand that if you know you're a company like Amazon you want way more from a person like me if I am a person who is not not shy about you know speaking out loud what I would like the assistant to do they would like to make way more money off of me and you know I'm here for it I will I will play around with us to me it's a contextual thing like if I ask my echo to play back a certain band that I like if that band is not super easy to distinguish like if I say R-E-M she's going to know and she'll play me an R-E-M playlist but if I say play me live that word's too weird it's a band and I loved him in the 90s but it's weird it's hard to SEO that name there are other bands called the band and band and things like that I would love it if she could know more than that I did this with my own podcast I can say hey A word play the morning stream and it knows to play the latest morning I love the work on our A word but if I say hey same name play me core my other podcast about video games she really struggles because core is a she doesn't understand she tries to play me some music by some yeah this is really convoluted now I'm not saying this is just a music application but it's one example of if she can become have a stronger vernacular a stronger communication and more intuitiveness and all those things that we want to apply to AI then I find the music I want and the podcast I want and more and more content a home home device stuff that I want suddenly becomes a lot more viable to me because I'm not just getting the very baseline basic stuff which I agree is cool but I just think it could be cooler I think the future of Amazon smart assistance is better after this announcement for me than it was before and you alluded to this earlier Sarah that people have been criticizing these voice assistants and that Amazon was hoping we would use them to all shop more on Amazon and that is definitely not what we're doing because I'm the same as you I use it to turn lights on and off you know get a notification that there might be a storm coming or something that doesn't make Amazon ongoing money which is what it wanted to do it's why it was putting out all those weird integrations with shopping and constantly is like hey would you like to buy this or that look at the Echo show the Echo show was designed for me to walk by and go ooh yes add to my shopping list and then buy it that doesn't never happen but no for the most part I'm like oh look the weather 75 so what it looks to me like is they are trying to improve the voice assistant trying to catch up they were ahead of the game in 2014 and it's perfectly normal that they're going to be a little behind this this late in the game nine years later but they're making strides if they fulfill on all the promises they made in this announcement then they should be able to say okay you know we've got a much more capable voice assistant and get more people to buy them that's important because a lot of people were thinking Amazon might back out of this industry and it doesn't look like they are the other thing was that I was kind of worried about that to be honest you know because it's like even at the you know the very you know low level of just being like hey you know who turn TV on I am used to doing that to the point where I do that in places where someone's like who are you talking to and I'm like oh you don't okay yeah so the good and the bad news is it looks like they hit on a monetization strategy that doesn't involve retail not that they're going to give up on trying to sell you stuff they will but they told the Verge a super intelligent smart home helper and I'm like oh I know what you're going to do you'll keep making this available for free on your echo you're not going to pay to use voice service on your echo but there's going to be fancier options probably related to the smart home oh do you want to be able to program your smart home better easier through matter and thread pay for the the smart home assistant version of this and they can get some ongoing subscription revenue out of that possibly there there'll be some non-smart home stuff where they're like your voice assistant could be even better if you're a prime subscriber or if you add on this thing but it seems like that's the direction they're going and it also seems like when you look at all this hardware we're not seeing the drone that flies around your house or the astro robot or anything like that here this is all very real life stuff smart assistant smart home stuff I think they also see this is like oh this is our advantage in the smart home and I think it really is and they're going to try to capitalize on that yeah also the euro stuff I've got an euro situation where I am now works well it could be bumped up a little bit and that is partly on the telco side but but yeah I I'm a big fan of the euro Wi-Fi stuff that I think would I mean most likely be compared to Google Wi-Fi right kind of same idea stuff like that there's a few mesh competitors out there but and I haven't tried them all because I am satisfied with the euro and I've never I've rarely run into problems with it even mixing older versions with the with the more recent version the six version it's it's pretty stable and works pretty well the concern you at all that sevens not fully standard now that's they this goes back there's a long tradition of this I don't know if you remember like back in 2004 everybody was putting out pre n 802 11 pre n routers because the standard was pretty much there just hadn't been ratified yet so they're like well let's just put out the routers with the support and then we can do a firmware update to tweak it a little when when it gets ratified but no this I don't think that's a concern that's an advantage that means like oh once Wi-Fi seven is ratified you're already in the game you've got it there sure 600 a little high but hey it's that's that's the only that's the big downside now well if you happen to be traveling with a smartphone don't have an Eero hub anywhere near you and you have tapped to pay capabilities Chris Christensen has a handy tip for you this is Chris Christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute one thing that happened in the pandemic that you may not have noticed if you don't live near a major city is that a lot of cities are moving their mass transit system from using whatever complicated system they had before to using tapped to pay and so using your Apple watch your iPhone or your Android phone without getting any special pass you can just tap on in the New York subway in the London subway and I suspect in other ones that are going on right now so if you're heading to one of those cities or many other cities in the world master your tapped to pay skills also easier is it used to be that if you wanted to get a week long pass you would have to buy something special and now for instance in the New York subway as soon as you do a certain number of taps on and off for the rest of the week from Monday to Sunday every other ride is free so get ready to tap to pay on your next trip this is Chris Christensen from amateur traveler everyone who's not in the U.S. is laughing at us right now but yes yes we're finally getting it to they've had I was using my watch to tap to the long time ago and just just being in Korea they have tapped to pay for Samsung but not for anybody else Oh really anybody else interesting okay I mean I let's check out the mail Oh sorry yeah I was just going to say there was some time where the only store that I wanted to go to was like Samsung pay or nothing yeah so yeah they love their Samsung over there well yeah it's you know it's got a local advantage all right let's check out the mail bag all right let's do it Rob followed up on our RFID at Amazon just walk out tech conversation that we had Richard Lee Henry on yesterday's show Rob said the tag itself isn't powered and is dormant he was referring to I think was me just sort of being like does that become an issue if you have the tag somehow and a piece of you know the garment that you that you take out of the store and and use going forward Rob says when you pass through the reader the reader itself emits a lower power field that's enough to trigger the tag to respond with a small packet of data like an item number or U.P.C. the readers then able to pick detect that response and then the sale continues so if you're sitting at home that tag is still there but it's dormant if you have something that could read it like a flipper zero or that you might have near you you could trigger it and get the code but without readers literally everywhere they can't really be used to track you or collect data yeah and I got an answer to to my question about where they are they tend to be on the tag that is attached to the clothing somebody said look for kind of a thicker sticker with what looks like wires which is actually the antenna for the RFID so you take the tags off your clothes which most people take the price I get off right then you're fine yep well Scott Johnson no matter how many RFID tags you might have on your clothing we're we're happy to have you here oh thank you very much yeah yeah I have 12 on me right now 12 separate tags by the way cool pants by the way but let folks know where they can keep up with the rest of the work yeah I've been tracking them they're good yeah because that's how it works I am usually talk on the show about the video game shows and stuff that sort of tech tangential but I am going to mention film sack dot com and the reason we're going to do that is because that is a podcast we have been doing since 2009 and we still love it somehow and that means I think listeners really like it so anyway if you like movies old new and everything in between and you want to hear for hosts discuss these things each and every Saturday check it out today at film sack dot com patrons stick around for the extended show good day internet I mentioned Astro the rolling robot from Amazon we acquired one earlier and Roger has been trying it so I gave you my impressions of it earlier this summer we're going to check in with rogers testing of the Astro robot stick around you can catch this show live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern twenty hundred U.T.C. find out more at daily tech new show dot com slash live we'd love to have you join us live if you can but we're always on demand as well we'll be back tomorrow talking and all the details within with Chris Ashley joining us talk to you then