emily: google is going head-to-head with apple pay. and betting big on their virtual reality cardboard box. ♪ emily: i am emily chang and this is "bloomberg west." the new york city wants the power to approve uber and lyft app updates. we will hear from both sides of the debate. plus, pandora's plan to expand into news, weather, and sports. i sit down with their founder. pebble's ceo is here with the new smart watch and we will compare it to the apple watch. that's ahead. first, google telephone --

developers dissenting on san francisco today for the company's annual i/o conference. there was a series of new features including an updated android operating system and an always on search feature. also a partnership with hbo to offer their standalone app on android devices. also, a new system called android pay. for more on google's reentry into the payments space, i am joined by googles manager, wanted. -- juan. what is different about android pay, how do customers benefit? juan: it makes it easy to do in app purchases and terminal purchases. what we make for other system players that make it easy to interact with their devices. emily: people browse, don't buy

and that is something that google is trying to change. how does the weight that people that shop on android phones differ from those that shop on apple? juan: apple made it easier and faster to pay with native apps on their devices. google is looking for a similar experience to make it just as easy on their platform. make it so that commerce can be more streamlined on those platforms. mobile as a whole is a place where merchants and consumers are both looking for new ways to connect more easily. while there is so much browsing activities on these devices, there are far less purchasing activity, because it is been generally more difficult to do that. but with apple pay in the makes and android pay and products like us and paypal, we are all trying to simple fight that -- simplify that system and make it so that merchants can't benefit by having more streamlined ways to offer their products. emily: i want to bring in cory johnson who has been at google all day long. it seems like a lot of the

players are playing catch-up to apple. android pay, some of these voice recognition features, hbo. what is your take on that? cory: i think you are absolutely right but i think that the way that google does these things is very different. nothing was announced here today. a new operating system that everybody knew was coming and they had given away most of the features of in advance. a new way to pay that is similar to what the wallet was. google worked with a series of produces of their handsets, they work with many manufacturers. apple works with one manufacturer, it is apple. it is a very different ecosystem they are trying to support. the nature of an event like this -- this is a place where developers want to come to find out the latest, i just went to a session in there where developers were learning about when to have a notification button and how you should program such a button. that is a very different thing than announcing a new iphone. that is where google is and that

is the kind of thing they are trying to get done. maybe giant product announcements just aren't there -- are their thing. -- are not their thing. emily: does this increase the frequency with which people by? -- buy? juan: yes, it does. we have been using it to power things like uber and hotel tonight. it is much easier to have stored payment credentials that they don't have to restore every time they purchase. emily: i want to hear more about this cardboard virtual-reality device. corey, you and i have tried oculus. is this thing the real deal? cory: virtual reality a really cool word. this thing is really cool. there was this thing where you could take your iphone, slap it in and you could see things kind

of virtually. look around and have a different experience. very clever stuff. this thing is a little bit better. it is similar to oculus but not completely immersive. you can look at something that is in front of you, turn to your right, see something different turns your left, see something different. it is a fascinating step in the direction of trying to figure out what to do with these new capabilities of chips that can calculate the movement on a device, widely available devices, and cheap cameras. it's just a step in that direction. but there is a use case that is greatly lacking. but it's interesting and cool nonetheless. emily: no surprise skydiving events? no surprise briefing from larry page? it's been about eight months since he passed over a lot of the control. what is your take on how well

his replacement is stewarding google? cory: it is possible that the all-time highlight of google i/o was a time that sergei parachuted in. he was jetting around behind me. on a skateboard, i don't know if you saw it. this ceremony of these events, we are at a point now where every ceo of a major corporation feels that they have to be steve jobs. they have to take off their necktie, they have to give an inspirational speech in front of a fevered crowd of employees and some users. that was not always the way of a product announcement. i think that the adoption of this mobile technology and the ubiquity of android is one of the reasons why this event is important if for developers of not everyone else. emily: cory johnson, our editor at large and the ceo of braintree, thank you.

a plan to move be on streaming -- pandora has a planned -- has a plan to move beyond streaming music and compete with apple's beats. >> never think you know what they are doing. that is a very smart company. emily: beats music will be relaunched, maybe a new name how worried are you about that? tim: we haven't lacked for competition for a long time. what i've learned, i learned this year after year, that building a great playlist is fantastically hard to do. so, we find more and more confidence in the differentiation that we have. emily: one-day pandora is looking to stay ahead of the competition is to extend beyond music. tim: we have talked about the non-music part. i think that will eventually find a home on pandora. how do you do that in a way that is elegantly integrated with

the music experience? it will be nice to listen to bloomberg tv or on the hour geographically targeted sports or news. eventually, right now we are focused on music. emily: you can watch my entire interview with tim westergren on the studio 1.0 tonight. coming up, new york's taxi commission targets googler and lyft. should regulators check in charge for every app upgrade? what we are learning in the earnings report of gamestop next. ♪

emily: the taxi wars continue this time in new york. the city wants to have three new rules which aim to stop drivers from canceling trips and reorganize uber in such a way that they could get potentially shut down if they break the law. right now, uber operates as six different entities in nyc, and 3 -- the city needs to approve app upgrades before they go through and will charge a thousand dollars every time. tech companies have spoken out against this last rule in a new letter sent to bill de blasio. it was signed by facebook and yelp. they said this will stifle innovation and the progress it brought to new york city. this is why the entire internet

has come together to protest the de blasio administration's rules. internet companies should not have to ask the government for permission to innovate. the rules were debated at a public hearing today. so, what happens next? joining me is the former chair and commissioner of the new york taxi commission and the special collections partner and investor in lyft. what was the feeling at this event? guest: most people were in favor of the rules with the exception of a couple of silicon valley interests that came forward and expressed concerns. they listened to those concerns and said that they will make an amendment with changes to not stifle innovation but also to for the first time a think in , this country's history to my knowledge, regulate an actual app. i cannot think of any industry where it has been done before. that's clearly why there was some opposition from some people that were well outside of the transportation sector including

silicon valley interests and groups that testified against the law. emily: let's talk about that, because we spoke to uber, and they said they push out minor updates every single week. our app is a global app, some things might be in china and have nothing to do with new york city. gabe, what do you think about giving new york city power over an update and charging for it? gabe: this is classic. there's a bit of a misinformation campaign or some confusion. having run the d.c. and chicago dot's, i've been in the middle of this before. obviously i am pro-taxi. i am pro-government. i think what is funny about this is that it is very clear that a thousand dollars is a one time fee paid every three years by any right hailing company -- any ride-hailing app company

whether it is lyft or uber. there is no per update charge. there is also nothing that needs to be approved with updates unless it affects pricing or transparency or something that is codified in the rules that new york city passed. again, there is a lot of confusion being put out there and i think actually when you look at what they have codified in the regulations, it is pretty clear-cut and i think it is basically transparency for the benefit of the customer and the driver. emily: some of the things proposed don't seem that unreasonable. uber operate six different companies. new york would like them to operate as one company. otherwise, does this seem fair to you? >> i agree with a decline on -- gabe klein on these issues,

but there is a lot of misinformation out there that is being spun. first of all, they are just looking to treat them like everybody else. they have come in and said we need to be treated differently. when i was commissioner, and this is all about the consumer. we put rules in place that when you put credit cards in the back of yellow cabs, number one, you have to go through a process where they make sure that hackers cannot break into your credit card information and steel that information. number two, privacy concerns. these are two elements that are slightly involved but not completely involved in these rules and that is where agency -- agencies should be focusing. the white house, the ftc, and even senator franken have raised concerns about these issues but nobody to the state has acted upon regulating what type of data needs to be shared with the government. other than the tlc. i believe these rules will pass and it is about leveling the

playing field. the taxis are providing a lot of this information for years, why should it this group be exempt just because they're bringing lobbyists and -- it makes no sense. emily: interesting you think that they will pass. matthew dowd, the former chairman of the new york taxi commission. and gabe klein. we will continue to follow the story. solar sail technology could one day hurdle humans at 47,000 miles an hour through space. but it is still early days. reporter: wind power for world travel. centuries ago, ships just like this ushered the age of the sale il but in this age of technology, we are not using the sails up in space, we are using the sun's power, the power of spaceflight. liftoff, an atlas five rocket, may 20, cape canaveral. in its pay load, this light sail.

superthin, superlight with a reflective film. a sail that catches the sun. >> if the force is constant. -- reporter: he explains that light pushes. >> it is a very very small push. it is on the order of a few ounces per football field. when you get up into space, if you unfurl a lightweight reflector and have sunlight on it, it will move. reporter: he says, think of the sun's energy like little pellets from a bb gun propelling a sail through space. we can go faster than any rockets that have been made. to pluto, for example. >> with two or three years as opposed to seven or 11 years depending on the size of the sail. >> it takes you to where you want to go, so one mission that is being talked about is to rendezvous with -- reporter: carl sagan brought the idea to the masses on the johnny carson show in 1976. in application however, the

human race is only five years into experiments. the first to fly was japan's icarus in 2010 for about $60 million. -- $16 million. nasa has invested 25 million over the last two decades, to provide space deployment in 2010. they tried to follow with son jammer. this is welcome news. johnson was excited for two reasons. >> it will eventually let us go to the stars. the other is i think it lets us cut that accord with the earth and not have to worry about bringing everything with us. reporter: following the path of science fiction from star wars to star trek, solar sails are quickly going -- are quickly becoming a fact. they might take us across the solar system in the next hundred years. emily: coming up, we are putting pedal's -- have all -- pebbles

newest smart watch to the test to see how it stacks up next to the apple watch. ♪

emily: it is time for the daily bite, one number that tells a whole lot. today, it is 5760. this is the number of hours of original scripted tv that aired last year. if you wanted to watch every minute, you would have to be viewing for 24 straight hours for at least eight months. that is a ton of original content. and so much of it doesn't pay off -- in 2010, 10% of original series were canceled. today, more than half of shows are not renewed, but if they find a hit, the payoff is huge. according to an analyst, amc was able to boost advertising revenue by 200% since striking gold with "mad men" in 2007. google announced a partnership with udacity with an aim to have android developers make better

apps. i am joined by you -- to the -- udacity cofounders sebastian. great to have you back on the show. tell me about this partnership with google. you are trying to teach developers how to write better code. how big of a problem is bad to code in android apps? sebastian: the mission is to announce a degree. what students can do is that they can become top-notch android developers. this is not an advanced degree but it empowers students to get to the skill level to find great jobs in silicon valley. emily: how does the way that android apps are written compare to the way that apple apps are written? is one code better?

sebastian: android obviously has an enormous dominance in the world. what we find is the different size of the devices, watches television sets, tablets. we find that this requires a certain skill. for the first time, we have a degree that teaches people that skill. emily: you are the guy behind mood shots. they have pitched this new virtual reality device as a big item for the classroom. how excited are you about this? is this a big deal? sebastian: i have been asked what is the biggest impact on the world and who will bring our -- it will bring our education to egypt and it is funding 2000 scholarships. this means the entire arabic peninsula can learn great stuff. to me, that is really gratifying because i have this belief that if we get good educations to places like syria and so on, we might have fewer terrorists.

emily: all right, thank you so much for stopping by. great to hear your thoughts. it is time now to talk smart watches. have all -- pebble is ready to ship its second smart watch called the pebble time. it raised $20 million farm almost 79,000 backers on kick starter. the early supporters will get their hands on it in just a few weeks. could this success story be a serious competitor to the apple watch? the ceo is with me here in the studio with the pebble. i have my apple iwatch to compare. i would like to go through a few features. let's start with the display. these are very different. >> pebble features and -- features this display. this is like a normal watch, it is always on. instead of having to flick a

wrist, you can just look down and see exactly what time it is. emily: it is a lot more like my phone. a traditional led display. what about batteries? yours can last longer. guest: we focus on what we think is an awesome watch as well as an awesome smart watch. and last up to seven days on a single charge. you don't have to charge it every night. emily: what about weight? that one is lighter. >> it is lighter so that when you are going for a run, you don't feel it bouncing too much on your wrist. emily: what about apps? >> we have worked really hard on that, we have sold a million pebbles. it has been an adventure to see who would start building apps on top of pebble. we have over 27,000 developers who are currently writing apps for pebble. emily: i remember trying out the first pebble watch.

how did you make some of these decisions that are so different from the way that apple has designed their watch? >> we designed it with the community in mind. we launched the first pebble on kick starter. since then, the community has grown. emily: what do you mean? are you getting feedback from people? >> exactly. we were just three people in a garage down in palo alto. when we launched on kick starter tens of thousands of people got , interested in what we were making, they had given us feedback on twitter, on facebook, and we both a product that i think reflects the million plus people using the product. they wanted something that was lightweight, inexpensive waterproof, long battery life with a great screen and we worked really hard to meet that. emily: how many have you sold? guest: we have sold over 95,000 in just a month. emily: thank you very much. thank you so much for watching this edition of "bloomberg west."

we have a former google executive. you do not want to miss our conversation. that's all today from san francisco. ♪

♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: joe nye is here. he is a university distinguished service professor and former dean of the harvard kennedy school of government. he served in the clinton administration as chairman of the national security council and assistant secretary of defense. his new book is called "is the american century over?" i'm pleased to have him back on the program. welcome. >> thinks, nice to be back. why did you decide to write this book when so many people are trying to figure out that very question? joe: well, there is a conventional wisdom that this is a chinese century.