reporter: i'm alisa parenti. you are watching "bloomberg technology." voters in georgia today are going to the polls to choose a new member of congress. kevin cirilli sat down with the rnc chair at the rnc headquarters today, and asked if this election could predict what could happen nationally in 2018. >> there are so many unique characteristics to each of these special elections. you can't model turnout. it is harder to to predict who is staying attention and coming out to vote in these elections. you have to take each of these special elections on an individual basis. reporter: you don't think this is an indicator of 2018? >> i don't. i don't think you can predict

2018 will be, based on an election, not even 100 days into the president's administration. alisa: french police say they thwarted an imminent terrorist attack just days before the first round of their election. two men have been arrested in the southern city of marseille. police seized weapons and explosives from the suspect who officials believed they are converts to radical islam. tax returns are due in the u.s. today. so is any money that you owe uncle sam for there have been 2017. over 100 million returns filed from individuals and close to 80% filed for refunds. global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2600 journalists. i'm alisa parenti and this is bloomberg. ♪ caroline: i'm caroline hyde.

this is "bloomberg technology." coming up, ibm revenue sinks for 20 straight quarters, dragging the stock lower. we will dig into the results. plus, the iphone is getting an overhaul just in time for its 10th birthday. the high-end features on the new model. and we bring you the latest from facebook's conference including , mark zuckerberg's big transfer -- big plans for augmented reality. first, ibm reporting first-quarter results. revenue fell for a 20th straight quarter, down more than 2%, to this is just under expectations. $18.2 billion. gross margins also trailed analyst predictions. as a result, shares trading lower after-hours. you can see we are down 3.9% in after-hours trading, more than $5 billion in the market cap. it is a 160 billion dollar

market value for ibm. let's get a little more analysis for you. we are joined with more reaction. is there any upside here? we see revenue falling, profit margin falling as well. any rays of light amidst the clouds? reporter: the few things i would point out is that pretax margin actually went up quite a bit, due to a severe cutting off sgna. so that is something to talk about positively. caroline: sgna? reporter: saves, administrative, general expenses. it led to pretax profit expansion. the other thing is they are non-gaping guidance of bps for the full year. the thing i would be listening to is to understand the difference why the gross margins declined by such a big amount between last year and this year, and what the difference would be

going forward. caroline: it was quite a significant fall. we are seeing them down to 44.5%, down from 46.9%. we are looking into those sorts of things. there is still a ray of light also where the growth is eventually going to come from. they have been talking about their cloud part of the business. in fact, we sell revenues climbed 35%. it is not enough to stabilize the overall ship, but they seem to be making the right investment in new growth areas. reporter: absolutely. if you look at the cloud numbers as well as other areas, you are seeing revenue growth over there. as we talked about, several quarters in a row now, legacy businesses are declining. it is not enough to offset the cloud growth, the declines in the legacy businesses. it will take some time before it lopsided, where you see the crowd businesses and analytics

will take over the declining legacy businesses. caroline: can you update us on the job's perspectives of ibm? this is a company that sat alongside donald trump and said they would be hiring, and it seems they have been making significant layoffs. i am typing in the loss function into our -- into the bloomberg. in october, they laid off 600 people in germany. what are we seeing in terms of employment? reporter: cost-cutting has been one of the big reasons why pretax profit increased this time across most of their divisions. we will be listening and trying to figure out if they are hiding in certain areas, whether it is in watson, artificial intelligence, cloud. or in areas where there is no growth, they are laying off people over there. caroline: i want to talk about the core operating expenditures. credit suisse has been saying the only way ibm can make its earnings-per-share forecast going forward is by reducing core operating expenditures significantly.

apart from layoffs, where else could they be reining in their expenditures? reporter: layoffs is a big expense item. rnd is still healthy. it is really cost-cutting through employee costs. a large portion of that is in the legacy businesses, where there isn't much growth. they are scaling back on that. caroline: where do you see this stock price going, this company going? the share price reaction after hours show that many are disappointed. reporter: i think we would want to understand a little bit about what was he hind the sharp decline in margins, whether it was a product mix or simply a function of newer products not having a high margin and going at a much faster rate compared to legacy software businesses, which were high margin in nature.

as time goes along, without a -- whether they scale up and are able to improve their market structure that is one of the , core reasons revenue was just 1% more than was expected. i don't think the shortfall in revenue had that big of a deal, but i think it is the gross margin that we would want more about. caroline: we will see whether those questions are answered. thank you very much. in funding round news, silver lake has amassed the largest ever technology private equity firm. the initial target was $12.5 billion. silver lake manages $39 billion in total. coming up, 10 years after steve jobs held at the original iphone, apple is ready for an iphone overhaul. we have the details next. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> do you have anything to say

on the first phone call? >> it's not too shabby, is it? [laughter] caroline: history was made. steve jobs making the first call on the iphone in 2007. yes, the iphone actually turned 10 years old. does it make you feel old? in a bloomberg scoop, we have learned apple is celebrating with its most extensive iphone lineup today. in addition to upgrading the current models, it has completely revamped the iphone with an all screen front, curved

glass, and stainless steel frame. welcome to the show. mark, talk to us about what we are expecting with these new products. >> it is going to be a big upgrade from the iphone. this will be the first time they are coming out with three new models. right now there is the iphone 7 and iphone 7 plus. they will upgrade those with faster processors and bells and whistles. the main attraction is the overhauled iphone 8, with a stainless steel frame, curved glass, and has a slim bezel. 8.rt of like the samsung s it will be able to pack in a slightly larger screen, but into an overall size found that's about the same size as the smaller iphone 7. caroline: talk to us about how this affects of the supply chain. we are talking about how it

looks like the galaxy s8. potentially samsung is benefiting from the supply chain here. >> this is a really interesting moment in the friend and enemy relationship between apple and samsung. these two companies fiercely compete in the high-end smartphone market, with samsung's own line of phones versus the iphone. samsung is also a very important supplier to apple. it makes things like computer chips and screens and memory, and over the years apple has tried to reduce its reliance on buying parts from samsung, but it doesn't always work. in the case of the fancy new screen on the iphone, apple will need to rely on samsung to supply these displays. it is a little bit of an awkward dependence. caroline: the frenemy continues. the specifications will be so high end, we will not be able to

get our mitts on these quite the same pace as we used to. >> this new phone will use the oled display, the colors will be a little better. samsung phones have had it for quite some time. but they are under supply constrained. we reported this six months ago with our colleagues in asia, these ol displays are in high demand. ed and only samsung's component arm is able to produce these. in the future, lg and sharp will get to it, but right now it is only samsung. it makes apple reliant on an arm of samsung's bigger business, but also keeps constraints high for the time being. caroline: it comes at an interesting time when we have seen pressure being put on suppliers of apple whether it be , in the chips area or imagination technology in the united kingdom. do suppliers have a concern with apple? they can be made or broken by this juggernaut. >> it is a little ironic that we are used to these smaller

companies falling victim to pressures from apple. in one case several years ago, there was a graphite supplier that went bankrupt after it was tying its entire business to getting business from the iphone. now we've seen the tables turn a little bit. you have apple relying on a company like samsung, which is just as powerful as apple. caroline: just talk to us about how important this launch is. it is a decade-old, but there's also pressure coming from samsung. we saw you playing with of the s8, and you liked it. it is a good quality piece of equipment. >> people are looking for what goes beyond the smartphone. apple still has to show the smartphone is the cream of the crop the king of the consumer , device industry. to your other the samsung s8 has oled, new features, the

display, higher end camera, the glass, six months before apple will have its launch in the fall. it comes at an important time, even though apple will retain the same form factor for three years in a row. we'll see. as i was told for our story apple set up to hit a home run, , so they better come through. i think they will. caroline: you think they will. we urge all of you to check out their stories. mark gurman who broke the story, and thank you for shining a light on the supply chain. thank you for joining us. sticking with apple, the man who cofounded the world's most valuable company says he's confident apple will remain on top of the game for the next few decades. we sat down with steve wozniak and ask about the disruption technology causes and where he stands in the midst of it all. >> disruption doesn't necessarily mean on a big scale, all jobs.

disruption to me means a company comes across with a new idea, a new approach, and everybody says, oh my gosh, that's the wave of the future. a lot of companies get disrupted. they get put out of business. that's what disruption means to me. you are talking about with human life and the way we know it, every change in my entire life and technology has changed how we live life. it has been very dramatic in recent times from personal computers, to smartphones, how accessandwidth, too high mobile. you can say it disrupted ways of the old. some people grew up with the old. we lament losing the things precious to us, but the way i've always looked at change and technology, from the time i decided to be an engineer, we created a new world that is different and we lose things in the past, but it's not bad. it is just another form of good. there is talk about humans being replaced, it's too early to come

to that horrible overall assessment. i think we have a pretty good employment level right now. caroline: what about apple's role in the future and what products they will unveil? we are all expecting the iphone 8. what new features will need to come from these products to ensure it remains the dominant smartphone? >> i'm not an expert on what apple's going to have. i don't speak for apple. i have read as much as you. i've probably read less than you about what the possibilities might be. obviously, a huge company has to look to stay huge and stay alive and keep going. apple has done it by spotting new trends, making changes, being innovative, going in new directions. i'd like to see if apple is going to be in something huge, a huge market like the self driving cars that are coming or , electric cars. what is apple going to offer that is so different from everyone else? the iphone said that a phone doesn't need to have buttons.

it can be a whole new smooth screen. it took a while for the world to catch on, but now you see that in all the smartphones. maybe apple will be the first company to take a lead in self driving cars. maybe the first car without a steering wheel and it will be the way for everyone. caroline: fascinating, they got clearance for trials for autonomous technology. are you an optimist about where apple and the big tech players will remain? you are talking about where humanity will be in 60 years. will we see facebook, google, and apple still the top most valuable companies in the world? >> no, there's always new things you don't expect to come. huge entities that take life in a new direction. apple, google, facebook, these companies will still be very huge and large. the trouble is, you get to a certain point of wealth that 60 years is too soon to take for

apple to go out of business. the only way apple could go out of business is if it merged with google and changed the names slightly. just a joke. caroline: that was apple cofounder steve wozniak. volkswagen is gearing up to take on tesla. the german company planning to roll out more affordable electrical vehicles. audi is also debuting a battery upscale crossover car to introduce in 2019. this is the chance for volkswagen to emerge from the diesel cheating scandal and comply with tightening emissions regulations. coming up, president trump has called the h-1b visa system a cheap labor program that takes jobs from americans. now he is taking actions to combat it. his latest move ahead. and a feature we would like to bring to your attention is our interactive tv function.

you can find it on the bloomberg. you can watch us live or see previous interviews and dive into any of the securities or functions we talk about. become part of the conversation by sending us instant messages during the show. this is for bloomberg subscribers only. check it out at tv . this is bloomberg. ♪ caroline: president trump is

taking action on the h-1b visa program, widely used by the tech industry. speaking in wisconsin, he railed against the program. president trump: right now h-1b visas are awarded in a random lottery. that's wrong. instead, they should be given to the most skilled and highest-paid applicants, and never be used to replace americans. no one can compete with american workers when they are given a fair and level playing field, which has not happened for decades.

caroline: now he has signed an executive order to review h-1b visa programs to favor more skilled and highly paid applicants. as we have been reporting 85,000 , visas are issued out of the program, but demand is white-hot. last year, the program filled its quota for the year in less than a week. the biggest recipients are indian outsourcing firms. mike covers the white house for bloomberg news and joins us from washington. thank you for your time today. this seems to be aimed squarely at the outsourcing companies. >> indeed, one of the administration officials who helped design this specifically named three outsourcing companies he thought would be hardest hit by this. the whole idea is to shift the h-1b visas away from the lower skill, less well-paid jobs to jobs that really are high skill and that you couldn't find an american worker.

caroline: it seems the white house is asking for the help from certain agencies for their ideas of how they can make this more targeted. reporter: yes. this executive order really doesn't order them to do anything. all it does is start a process that any large organization would do, which is, we have this goal, what are good ways to achieve this? this will probably take months, probably not until next year before you see any impact on this. caroline: what about the h-1b in terms of how much the executive can drive forward changes, or how much still we are seeing the white house held to account by congress? they are going to weigh in at some point? reporter: there are bills before congress, as you know, that would get rid of the lottery system and switch to a different system for allocating h-1b visas.

some of the experts we talked to were not quite certain how much authority the executive branch might have to completely move away from the lottery system, which the trump administration would like to do. even if they can't do that, they can probably come up with ways to change the rules of the lottery so that it can favor more highly skilled, more highly paid positions, and that is where they are asking for ideas. caroline: agencies being asked for ideas. it would be interesting to see if silicon valley is asked. this does affect the juggernauts based here, microsoft, facebook, and the like. do you think there will be some discussion going on with the technology community? reporter: i think they don't need to be asked. i think they will provide their ideas. caroline: we will see whether they do provide that. i am sure they are very willing and eager to give them an earful. thank you for the perspective.

coming up, we go to facebook's f8 conference. what mark zuckerberg has planned for the social media giant? if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the bloomberg radio. this is bloomberg. ♪ hey you've gotta see this. c'mon.

no. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. >> it is 11:29 a.m. in hong kong

. i am paul able -- paul allen. the pound surged as theresa may called on an early election to win backing for brexit. opinion polls gave her conservative party a 21% lead i she tries to build on the small majority won by her predecessor. she says the next election posed a threat to the country's withdrawal from the european union. a $1 trillion asset manager says investors should be looking for opportunities outside the united dates.

they told bloomberg markets have been overly optimistic about president trump's campaign promises on infrastructure, regulation, and taxes. he said china, india, and even the e.u. provide more reasons for optimism throw the global economy. vijaysher airlines boss mallya has been arrested in london and will be extradited back to india. he surrendered his indian passport and was released on bail of more than $800,000. he will return to court on may 17. he is accused of willfully defaulting on $1.4 billion of for his defunct airline. global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. >> asian shares are at the lowest in a month. shanghai falling over 1%. --res in hong kong felling

falling below the key 10,000 level. china tech stocks headed for a low. japanese stocks easing the days losses. i.t. stocks charge ahead. topix could manage gains for a third day if this momentum holds. let's look at equity movers in asia. air china sliding along with china southern. air china is headed for the biggest drop in 11 months. headed in the other direction we look at the leaders today. telco stocks in sydney recovering from wednesday's losses. telecom rising the most in two years. fortescuethe rise, with a seven-day drop. let's see how the aussie is very here, falling from a second day. a last look at the pound,

trimming tuesday's gains, holding above its 200 day moving average above the dollar. 905, the highest level since october. volatility is on the rise. ♪ caroline: this is "bloomberg technology." i'm caroline hyde. let's get back to the lead. ibm reported earnings, revenue fell short of projections, with -- marking a 20th consecutive quarterly decline. growth in new businesses like cloud services in artificial intelligence failed to make up for the slump in legacy hardware and software sales. ibm has lofty goals for sales, aiming to hit $40 billion by next year. the call is underway with analysts and investors. to $170 expenses came million. the ceo will not join the call.

facebook's annual developer conference has officially kicked off. in his keynote address, mark zuckerberg signaled a major focus for the company going forward will be augmented reality. >> even if we were a little slow to add cameras to all of our apps, i'm confident that now we are going to push this augmented reality platform going forward. long-term, all the work we are doing will go into glasses we all want. it is all the same technology. this is another step on the path. caroline: joining us with an inside take from san jose, california -- a rather relaxed look in mark zuckerberg on stage. what are your takeaways? reporter: it was really interesting. snapchat this morning announced they started doing this 3-d overlay on the real world. just in time, because facebook comes out with their big developer conference and says

that this strategy that snapchat has brought to the floor, we are going to win at it. zuckerberg is very confident that despite the slow start, they are going to be the ones that are going to get people used to augmented reality, first through their phones, and then through some sort of device. caroline: of course, they made a big push into virtual reality with the purchase of oculus. many questioning the price point, but they are not giving up on vri. reporter: absolutely. vr has become this incredibly crowded market. and for facebook, to look at the market and say what can we really own? it is a social software that helps people really build relationships. what they announced today was a thing called spaces where you can create a vr avatar and hang

out with your friends and family in this avatar world. caroline: plenty of energy going on at f8 from speakers and developers, but there was also a more personal awareness note made by mark zuckerberg. of course, noting that had been this tragic occurrence over the easter weekend in cleveland, it had been sadly broadcast on facebook. let's take a listen to what mark zuckerberg said. >> our hearts go out to the family and friends of robert godwin senior. we have a lot of work and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening. caroline: are you surprised he took to the floor and mentioned this, or did he have to? reporter: i think his word choice is interesting. prevent tragedies like this from occurring.

the tragedy is that the murder went viral. this is something that's going to be tricky for facebook to navigate in the future. they currently rely so heavily on humans to flag stuff when it is something that needs to be taken down. once it was flagged, they got it down in 23 minutes. that is not fast enough. the internet was even faster. what they need to do is use artificial intelligence to determine if these videos are inappropriate for the platform much earlier on. caroline: plenty of challenges, but still opportunities. fantastic reporting throughout the day from f8. sticking with facebook, there was news on the company's messenger platform. facebook announced new features in an effort to use the primary messaging app. we caught up with david marcus facebook's vice president of , messaging products, and i

asked about his goals to make messenger a one-stop shop for users. >> it all depends on what you are trying to do, but there are lots of things that belong in the conversational context. when you think about the messaging app it is the place , you go to to coordinate plans, whether it is making reservations at a restaurant, building a playlist, are many -- or many things that require some form of conversation and coordination. now instead of app switching, and bringing that in context sharing photos, you can do it inside of messenger natively. it is easier for everyone to do the things they were already doing. caroline: therefore, no app switching, keeping within messenger, and using box. this is the way you want to see companies interacting with people, people interacting with companies. there was a lot of hype with this announcement. can it live up to the hype in 2017?

>> every new technology has a hype cycle when it lives on a platform as large as ours. we have made a time of progress in the last 12 months. we've had over 100,000 up from last december. 33,000we have 65 million businesses on facebook, of which 20 million respond to messages on messenger every month and provide customer service and a better way than they could over the phone. things are happening because we opened the platform, because we have learned a lot, and because we built a successful developer ecosystem around a product that has over 1.2 billion people using it every month. caroline: this is a way of having applications run very swiftly, it is a piece of software. you must the monetization strategy of messenger. are we going to see advertisements? how are businesses going to be using this and paying you?

>> the way we are thinking about monetization for messenger is that if we create more value inside of conversations for businesses, then they want to create more of these. the way they do this right now is to buy ads in the newsfeed that opens conversations in messenger. that is the first step. it is creating a new demand for newsfeed ads. gradually we will test ways for companies to advertise and -- inside messenger and a tasteful way that does not get in the way of messaging. caroline: how big a part of facebook's overall revenue do you see messenger being? do you have a target? do you have a utopia? >> we don't break that out. it is very early, because buying ads in newsfeeds that point to messenger is only something that any of the companies that have built the platform could start doing.

it is very early still, so it is very small, but we think that with the user base and the thriving ecosystem that gets more value from the platform that over the long run we will , be able to build a solid system. caroline: many feel that f8 has been facebook showing how they can overtake snapchat. do you agree? are you taking aim at what snap has been doing? >> if you look at the stories format that was built and invented, now it is standard and available in a number of apps, because it does fit in a number of apps. when it comes to messaging, posting something on your day actually helps build context for better conversations or enables you to share plans. if you want to send a quick photo, who is up for coffee, and broadcast it to your friends, messenger is a great wasted that

-- is a great place to do that because you will get private responses instead of public. we feel this is a product adding a lot of utility and we will keep investing in it. caroline: that was facebook vice president of messaging, david marcus. another bloomberg school. -- scoop. verizon is open to a merger. that is according to the ceo. the largest u.s. wireless carrier could consider a deal with comcast, cbs, or disney. telecom and media industries increasingly converge. verizon has struggled with a mature and ultracompetitive consumer business, and has difficulty establishing itself in mobile media and advertising ventures. coming up, former microsoft ceo gives us details on his new venture, aiming to make government data more accessible. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: google has unveiled big upgrades to google earth. the redesign adds new features like 3-d maps and specific locations of interactive guided tours. these are led by scientists and documentarians helping users learn about the world. google says more than 50 tours are available under the voyager section. this version of google earth is now available in chrome or on android, and will be coming to ios in the future. former microsoft ceo and current l.a. clippers owner steve ballmer believes in data. he believes in it so much he has launched a comprehensive data driven look at government spending. it is called usa facts. earlier, david gura met him and asked if measuring productivity in tech has gotten any easier. >> measuring productivity is a weird concept to me.

measuring how people live, how they eat, what their housing looks like, how much money they have to spend on those things, that looks clear to me. obviously, we all like having cell phones. it has changed lives. it has made things different. yet, it doesn't show up in a particular way in some of the gdp and productivity numbers. to me, that may not be the most important point relative to what we are trying to do with usa facts. we had gdp and all the numbers out there, but i'm not sure it really captures the citizens' experience, and never will capture the citizens' experience. reporter: when you look at tech market exclusively or the sharing economy, it is hugely popular. more and more people are becoming part of it, yet it is

not making a ton of money. as you look at the data on that segment, what do you make of that? is that something you have to take as it is for the time being? >> we don't have data that relates specifically to the topic. not making a ton of money. as you look at the data on that my own sense is that tech is enabling people to do new things in cheaper ways, and that is all positive for quality of life, whether we will ever capture that precisely in our data, who knows? but i am a big fan of tech i was , in the tech industry for a long time. it can transform people's lives. reporter: president trump traveling to wisconsin today. what is your message to him about how immigration has fueled the tech sector over these decades, are you with him on that the system needs to be reformed? >> as ceo of microsoft, i appreciated the value of people who what were not u.s. citizens and the impact they could make, particularly in these high skilled engineering jobs. i will stand by what i've said. when i look at the broader set

of numbers, the total number of people who come to the u.s. under h-1b visas is about 165,000 a year. relative to all people coming under a visa, it is a relatively small number. number by percentage i think it is 2 million plus, overall, and 165,000, under that. some of it is going to google and microsoft, but some is going to outsourcing jobs people -- jobs. it is a much broader and more complicated question, but on a relatively small piece of numbers. if you add up all the h-1b new visas that go to people at facebook or google, it is not a dramatically high percentage of the workforce. reporter: i hear that you have amazon echo. you look at amazon as a hugely successive company, what does a

upstart tech company do in the face of a behemoth like that one, or like microsoft a few years back? what is the best route to compete with a company like that? >> the key is to find a place where you have a unique concept and understand how it will fit the user, and try not to be in the place where the behemoth can logically and easily go. you do not want to be building something that would be better done is a feature of the market leader, as opposed to an entirely new product. unless you are interested in having your product or company acquired by the behemoth. if you take a look at how amazon got going or facebook got going, these companies got going in the context of behemoths, but they had a unique product concept, they jumped on it quickly, they drove it to critical mass, and by the time it happened it was , far enough away at that time

that the other big companies were not responding fast enough, and the new ones can grow. reporter: i know you are a ford loyalist. your dad worked for ford, you drive a ford cars. we have seen a ceo of that company going back-and-forth to washington and awful lot. we have a president now who is seemingly interested in more interface with executives. is that a good thing? what is the role of government encouraging innovation entrepreneurship? , >> at the end of the day, business has to take care of itself when it comes to innovation. not that i like or don't like a role for government, but it's the creativity of people in business that will lead to these innovations. himness executives can give -- input on tax policy, but at the end of the day, the number one drivers will be what the businesses do that are largely

independent of government impact. caroline: that was former microsoft ceo and current l.a. clippers owner steve ballmer. coming up, a bevy of tech companies heading to the silver state. we dig into the tech land grab in nevada. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪ caroline: tesla's factory is

about to have a new neighbor, google. according to "the wall street journal," the silicon valley giant bought land in nevada. it stretches over 1200 acres. they might held a giant data center on the vast data -- desert tract. there is also speculation the land could also be used for testing self driving cars at high speeds. joining us to discuss is our bloomberg technology editor. who knew this was such a hot place to build out your technology companies? talk to us first about the data center element of this. this would not be such a new area of growth for google. reporter: google opens a new data center every one or two months, and they are always buying land ahead of time.

that is a common practice. they spend billions of dollars a year on that type of thing. renog a data center in might be a good area. it is high desert, so it can be quite cool there. nearby, so they could see how things are going on there. caroline: of course, google, the cloud part of the business, they think it will be eventually bigger than the search part of the business. it is an area of growth, so is autonomous driving. people are wondering why uber is looking at nevada. nevada seems to be pushing ahead of the laws and regulations to be approving this. reporter: california is sort of the place where self driving cars have been tested, but nevada, they have the first self driving car law.

actuallyhave spoken to had nevada write a self driving car laws of the contest self driving cars years ago. they have a reputation for pushing the envelope and being more lax than california. there's loads of space for google so they could easily test cars in the desert. caroline: we also have to look to tesla and the factory, they are may be pushing towards battery and clean energy. >> he's close to elon musk. he said basically he might give a lot of his fortune to elon musk, so he is highly supportive. if tesla needed anything, alphabet might invest. or you would support it. caroline: fascinating.

we will see how the 1200 acres are put to work. i want to go down there and see how they are jostling for space. i think ebay is there as well, and walmart. landgrab is on. thank you. bloomberg technology editor joining us. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." remember, all episodes are now live streaming on twitter. check us out at bloomberg tech tv weekdays, 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. that's all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> sterling hold its highest further the year as theresa may gambles on a snap election. the prime minister once a strong mandate pre-brexit. forecastf lowers its for gulf oil producers. measures will hurt saudi arabia. city joins goldman in backing raw materials. it says crude may rally to $60 by the end of the year. electric avenue