emily: i'm emily chang and this is the "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you all of our next interviews from this week in tech. coming up in this hour, president donald trump's meeting with kim jong-un produced a handshake and a promise to keep talking. but it was light on details. what is the summit signal for what is to come. and we head to e3, where we speak with some of the biggest names in gaming.

on the latest trends and how they are keeping up with demands. and london tech week just wrapped up. how the city is shaking up headwinds like brexit to lure talent and innovation. this week we saw a historic summit between president trump and kim jong-un. the u.s. and north korea agreed to see complete denuclearization of the korean peninsula following the summit. and yet, no deadline was set and the path to disarmament remains undefined. president trump also said kim has accepted in invitation to visit the white house, but no date for that. we spoke with our correspondent kevin who is on the ground in singapore. kevin: it was quite remarkable to not see the details of what had been a months-long summit in the mmaking come to fruition here in singapore. president trump en route back to the united states already. he has been calling his allies, including chinese president and shinzo abe. his top diplomat, secretary of

state mike pompeo, will be touring asia to continue to lay out the case. meanwhile back in the u.s., the fallout is continuing not just from democrats who are urging the president to take a more cautious approach, bt to verify whether or not north korea will actually denuclearize. also some republicans, senator marco rubio and senatrs mccain, kennedy and republicans from arizona and louisiana are raising their concerns about their side. reing to kim jong-un for how he plans to denuclearize. more broadly, the president will need congressional approval should he decide to ease back economic sanctions. no sign of taht yet, but as yoi mentioned, the president is extending an open invitation to kim jong-un to come to the white house, saying this is the first of many steps to come in a th marathon pressth korea. conference, the final point i will make, more than 75 minutes

of trump taking questions. he was more praiseworthy of kim jong-un than he was of canadian prime minister justin trudeau. emily: thank you so much. are the president and kim jong-un still talking or texting? if so, what kind of phone might they be using in north korea? according to researchs likely being done by in american company. we are joined by the person who wrote about this topic in bloomberg's newsletter. julie, north korea may not be as disconnected as we think. what kind of devices are available in north korea, and who is using them? julie: right, at least the leaders in north korea might not be as disconnected as we think. kim jong-un has been photographed a number of times using macbook computers and other devices. this study shows there have been a lot of leaders -- they cannot name names and say how many each has, but there has been exports

of computers and other devices that are being used by them in north korea, which is contrary to what many would believe with sanctions and the way that typical north koreans use and access the internet. they are only allowed to access certain sites and go through certain products, usually not an iphone. this is shocking that the leaders over there are bucking that trend and are getting access to the iphone x and samsung. emily: samsung is in their backyard, yet, their mortal enemy in south korea. how does the use of apple devices compared to send some devices? julie: i cannot say how many each of them have, but there are a lot of listed devices on there. samsungversions of devices, and everything from the

iphone six to the iphone x. most of them appear to be -- they say it gravitates towards older devices. so, things that are running on older software. it does appear that maybe the sanctions have gotten tougher be trday's meeting. that might have parred back some of those exports. maybe kim jong-un doesn't have access to the iphone x yet. if yesterday went well, like it sounds it has so far, maybe he will be able to get one in the future. emy: is there a concern that some of these products, specifically american products, can be used in cyber espionage? julie: right, absolutely, that is one of the big concerns. a lot of these might be used -- espionage might be happening outside of mainland north korea. but some of it is, and that is a big concern that they could be using software devices from an american company to do things like cyber espionage and work on threats to the united states using american products.

that is something the reports call out as a reason of concern of them using it. although, again, if they do, in fact, go away from all these nuclear plans, denuclearize the nation, it would not be as much of a problem going forward. emily: that was "bloomberg technologies" julie verhage. china plans to file for an ipo valued at $6 billion. the listing would be in hong kong and could take place as soon as this month. it is the city's second multibillion-dollar listing this year. xiomi prepare for their own ipo valued at $10 billion. speaking of which, analysts say the smartphone giant could be twice as expensive as apple once it goes public. morgan stanley says they should trade at a premium because of a faster growth trajectory. both morgan stanley and goldman sachs say they could trade more

than 30 times the projected earnings, which is double apple's value. apple is going into hollywood with a right in feature films. the company is near a deal to create a animated film. joining now from l.a., our showbiz reporter. what do we know? reporter: we know that apple has been in talks with the irish animation studio cartoon saloon. that is a quite well-known animation house that made films like "song of the sea," "breadwinner" and "secret of kells," and it has received many academy award nominations for its films. it is considered high caliber. apple is getting in with a high quality producer of content. it says something to their ambition. we do not know how the film will be distributed digitally. we know that apple has been talking to people in hollywood over the past couple of years and has been hiring aggressively

to build a team to make content and buy content for streaming. but it is unclear if it will be a part of the apple music streaming service. although that seems unlikely, given that it is an animated movie. emily: is there a sense that there is a shakeup to come in animated movies given the potential exit of john lasseter, the cofounder of pixar, from disney? anousha: this weekend we have the incredible's two. there is growing competition for the animated section. it is not a given. pixar has had flaws. -- flops. not very many, obviously. disney is in a weakened position without john lasseter because he was a visionary. he was responsible for the resurrection of disney animation that came back with "frozen." it had a checkered period of years before that. he obviously led pixar and that

label. now disney is clearly in the works to bring up through its ranks, to leave those two divisions leaders in their field. we see how that goes but clearly there will be change there. there is a lot of work going on in hollywood and animation. emily: still ahead, our conversation with the london mayor at the launch of london tech week. his launch on a new study that calls a london the new tech capital of europe. listen on the bloomberg radio app and in the u.s. on serious xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the dutch payments processor almost doubled in the trading debut in what has become the biggest european tech ipo of the year. the company, which calls netflix and spotify among its clients, now exceed long-established financial companies. it is one of the new breed of tech firms challenging the big things and credit card issuers who have long control systems for processing payments in stores and online. and we have just wrapped up london tech week, bringing together some of the biggest names in coding, artificial intelligence and venture capital.

bloombergs caroline hyde kicked off the tech week with the london mayor. >> this is europe's biggest festival of innovation and it is amazing. there are more than 50,000 with businesses coming to london tech week from around the world. and there is so much energy and excitement. the great thing about london tech week is it is bigger each year. you have startups to those thinking abut startups, to the multinationals, to innovators, entepreneurs, researchers, all in one place. it is a very exciting ecosystem and this is the future. we cannot run away from ai automation tech. why? because a, it is out there. and b, it would be foolish to do so. we are going through a forced industrial revolution. i want to surf the wave. i want us to make the most of the tech sector. it improves our quality of life. i want to see how tech can be

used to improve public services. how can tech be used to create a jobs that are future. caroline: you talk about riding that wave. we are still seeing record money coming in and it is continuing to grow, but there is slight competition out there. there is now a report saying paris is the number one destination to put your money. are you worried about that, that london has been knocked off the number one spot? sadiq: if we were complacent, i am not complacent. but there is good news as well. the recent report for ai showed, as far as ai companies are concerned, there are more in london than in paris and berlin combined. so, we are the ai capital of europe. also we have seen a relationship the tech investment still going up post-brexit. look at apple, google, snapchat, facebook continuing to invest in london.

but i think paris and berlin raising their game is good for us. i see them more as working collaboration with paris and berlin rather than competitive. i think it is really good that we have a synergy where if you are a small web designer in london or a startup, you don't want to have a partner in paris or berlin, even more important post-brexit. the future is cities working close together, the mayor is working close together, and people working close together rather than national government. i welcome paris and berlin raising their game. it bodes wfooon. caroline: what about the regulatory environment? welcoming company such as uber. do you think they are welcoming to tech companies and how does the conversation continue? sadiq: i want london to be a place where you want to come if you are a tech startup, if you in disruptive technology, if you are an innovator. whether you are multinational or

by yourself with a friend. but here are the rules. the rules are -- everyone plays by them -- the rules are, whether you are uber or partnered with a start up, it is really important that i support london as to them as a regulator saying to someone like uber, you are not playing by the rules of the game. i don't care how many lawyers care howgot, i don't big your lobbying arm is. play by the rules of the game. the new global ceo's have heeded that message. look at the changes uber have made. they are respecting the rules we have had. in the end everyone benefits because there is better service, no corners cut. tech companies should benefit because they are doing the socially responsible thing as well. i benefit as well because i want tech companies coming to london. i want tech companies to be helping me provide better public services cheaper.

also, it is a 21st century solution for problems we have had for many decades. caroline: do you think that we are seeing companies growing with the assets that you want to see in london? i know that you are someone who was her a much focused on diversity in the world of tech. are companies getting that message? sadiq: what is remarkable is the values these companies have are positive and aggressive but no one has engaged with them. if you don't engage with them they will do with their own way. i have engaged over the last two years with many of these ceo's, innovators, startups. they want to do the right thing. they want to pay a london living wage. they want to make sure that when it comes to the talent pipeline they are going across communities to make sure there are more women involved. the good news is, young people and women want to enter these tech sectors. they have to help make sure that

parts of our city the have not enjoyed the fruits of growth, they will enjoy the fruits of growth. because anybody can do it. i want young people to learn there is great stuff around for coding for girls. i want to see campuses that are environmentally friendly. all i have had with my conversations with tech startups, they have the right values, they love london. i was looking at research lately in relation to ai companies. the number of founders who are either ethnically diverse or are women was remarkable. they have the resources. my job as a mayor is to give them a helping hand. emily: that was london mayor sadiq khan. we should mention that the mayor's office commissioned that study that suggested london is the ai capital of europe. coming up, kittyhawk, the startup backed by google founder larry page has a new aircraft taking to the sky. this is bloomberg.

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emily: not too long-ago flying cars were considered far-fetched technology. but now some major players and tech are making it a reality for potentially all of us. senior executive editor for bloomberg brad stone takes a look at kitty hawk's latest flying innovation. brad: no, it is not a scene from "the fifth element" or "star wars." flying cars, they are suddenly very real.

a german company has a flying car with room for two. airbus is developing single person autonomous vehicles. chinese drone company ehang is trying to get one in the air as soon as federal regulations will allowing. it can fly over 11,000 feet. and uber predicts urban air taxis will be roaming the skies in 10 years and has even partnered with nasa to develop sky ports. >> we make big, bold bets. that is part of the identity of the company. brad: the company's vision for etwork, dubbed, uber air, would let companies push a button and get high speed flight in and around the city. another flying car company just announced the kitty hawk flyer, funded by google's larry page, with to control sticks and looks like something out of "star wars."

at first it will go 20 miles an hour and fly up to 10 feet in the air without the need for a pilot license. >> it is computerized so that any person can learn how to fly. brad: no word yet on when it will go on sale or how much it will cost. kitty hawk is also working on another aircraft. all in all, at least one dozen companies around the world are pursuing the sci-fi dream of personal aircraft to help you avoid congested highways. but are we in need of a reality check? to flying cars in the sky, we will need a new traffic control system, years of safety tests, and cultural acceptance with the idea that these new vehicles could be landing right next door. emily: our bloomberg tech senior executive editor brad stone here now to talk with me. i am not sure i am ready to ride in one of those, especially at

11,000 feet, but how big a leap in innovation is the new flyer from kitty hawk? brad: it is cool, i would love to ride one. i think they have probably made advancements in lightweight material and battery advancement. it is essentially a drone you put a person on top of. but they only fly over water and you can only go 10 feet in the air. this is a recreational vehicle, i kind of compared it tawar jet pack. it is not that monumental. emily: is it about relieving traffic congestion? going short distances? brad: totally. that is why it is kind of a one-off. kitty hawk has another car ca the ora, whichis a flying air taxi. lots of other companies, airbus, they are working on the idea that you hover over traffic instead of sitting in it. emily: we saw a bit of your interview a few weeks ago, is this something that uber can really be competitive? or is this just flashy pr? brad: when you're looking at

things that could move there ir bottom line, uber elevate is an idea. they are trying to bring it together. i think it is probably going to be companies like kitty hawk, or airbus, or others that are actually making a difference. emily: flying car aficionados say that flying cars will be here faster than self-driving cars. give us a reality check. brad: we can look out the window here at pier 3 and see autonomous test cars passing us. tesla has vehicles that are level three autonomous. the faa has to take a deep decade-long look at these vehicles. the idea of these personalize flying vehicles flying in the air will take a long time. emily: where do regulation stand right now? brad: as it stands, nowhere. dan went to uber elevate and said we will come at this from a safety perspective. it takes ten years for them to

authorize a new aircraft. there are things like the air traffic control system and what kind of airspace you will use that have yet to be figured out. i think we are at the very beginning of what will be an impactful transport revolution but it will take a long time. emily: our thanks to bloomberg's brad stone. tesla says it will cut 9% of jobs across the company. the cuts will impact salaried employees and will not include production associates. tesla stays this staff reduction will not affect its ability to reach targets in the next few months and no further cuts are planned. speaking of musk, byom. bring your own marshmallows. and elon musk will supply the flames to roast them in the form of a flamethrower. hundreds of people lined up outside hos boring company to get their hands on the $500 flamethrower.

the flame-off took place next to space x headquarters and showed off prototypes for a hyperloop tunnel. coming up, the gaming creates the upending fortnight headed to nintendo switch. how will it impact the maker of mario? we will ask nintendo of america president reggie fils amie next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang. this week, we broadcast live from l.a. at the videogame industry's biggest show of the year, e3, the electronic entertainment expo. one company that annually makes a super smash at the event is nintendo, but the company's shares sank after unveiling some new titles almost all of the main content displayed during the show was either announced or leaked in prior months and weeks, including fortnite, pokemon, and super smash brothers ultimate. wednesday pushed nintendo up to his lowest in september, wiping out all of the market gains they made in eight years. we spoke with nintendo of america president and ceo reggie

fils from the event. ,reggie: nintendo loves to surprise people. what that means when we approach an event like e3, we show content that is one a lot over the next six to nine months, and no more. so we always had more surprises. there was always more in store. so, why the analysts reacted the way they did? who knows, but we know from a company-perspective, there is a lot more up our sleeves and a lot more we have to show over the weeks and months ahead. emily: tell us the surprises. reggie: right here, right now. emily: [laughter] reggie: for us we believe there is a lot more value for the consumer to tell them about content, and then launch it, just like we did for fortnite. and fortnite already has 2 million downloads, specifically on the nintendo switch. emily: wow. reggie: so for us, by surprising the fans and driving this type of excitement, we are able to drive the business forward. and that is what is most important to us. emily: so super smash brothers, fortnite, new pokemon games, which will move the needle the most for nintendo this year? reggie: for us, the way we look

at it is that we had an opportunity here and now to continue driving momentum. fortnite, the expansion for launching that isn't -- that is launching tonight mario in december, pokemon , launching in november right before black friday, and super smash brothers ultimate in december, it is the pacing of news, the pacing of launches that will drive the business forward. emily: let's talk about the online service. you do have that coming in september which means it is cloud-based, and the network performance of the games you have been trialing had been bad. some players and say it is unplayable. is that going to improve? reggie: absolutely. we need to be clear. when we do a trial event with mario tennis aces, we are as much learning about the technical infrastructure as well as the way the game is going to play. and so you have to expect some challenges when you do that. when we launched the game, it is going to perform just like it

, did for fortnite. emily: ok, let's talk about the switch. you have added some incentives to make it cheaper for people to buy a second one. are there going to be more of those incentives? reggie: those incentives are specific to the japanese market. emily: so that is not coming to the u.s.? reggie: it is not coming to the north american marketplace, and this reflects the difference in culture and the difference in living situations to have across the world. japanese homes, small, typically one tv in a household. so for that market, offering an additional sku that takes out hdmi cables and things like that makes sense. here in the americas, three big tv's per household, big to these. for us, selling a fully configured second switch to the home is what we are focusing on, we are seeing that happen. we especially expect to see that happen with pokemon, let's go pikachu and let's go eevee. emily: there are some concerns that the switch cannot carry the torch for both the switch and the wii.

what you doing to make it more attractive? reggie: let's focus on the americas and the marketplace. in december, our dedicated s grewld business, 2ds, 3d , by 27% year on year. so far this year, our 2ds and 3ds is up 10% this year. so the switch is not all on its own. it is getting some very strong support by a dedicated handheld business here in the americas, and for us, we want to continue driving both of those platforms. the dedicated business for 2ds and 3ds is for kids and for families to get engaged for the first time, potentially, in video games. then the nintendo switch will be that game were consumers want to play smash brothers and zelda all of these big, epic games. and that is what we will continue to do. emily: speaking of the games, valor,e, arena of pokemon quest it is great these , games are a success and free to play. how are they going to make money for nintendo? reggie: the way they get monetized is the consumer buys

either a tire, or season passes, things of that nature. and as long as those merchandise well, and there is a strong profit for us and for the developer themselves. emily: what is nintendo's opinion on the loot boxes? on these pay-to-win tactics. reggie: you know loot boxes, , broadly speaking, have gotten a bit of a bad rap. the game mechanic of buying something that you're not quite sure what is inside is as old as baseball cards, as an example. and so what we believe that nintendo is that a gameplay mechanic that offers the consumer something to buy that they are not sure what is inside can be interesting, as long as that is not the only way you can get those items. i think that is where maybe some developers have made some mistakes. for us, it is one of many mechanics that we can use to drive ongoing engagement in the game. emily: so, tell us about the new president and what might change for you? your new president. reggie: he is a veteran 25 years , with the company.

what is great about him is he has had some fairly extensive experience outside of japan, and he was one of the first financial people that nintendo of america was dealing with back in our early days. he spent 12 years in europe, so he has an understanding for the overseas subsidiary. he loves our content, plays are -- our games. so from my perspective, he is a great choice to be our next global president. emily: that was nintendo of america president reggie fils aime. the-year-old global hit fortnite was the talk of the event. the multiplayer shooting title released last year has become a cultural phenomenon, and while epic games may be reaping most of the benefits, one ceo says this is benefiting the entire industry. he says as first-time gamers take to fortnight, they will be looking for other titles and we caught up with him there at e3. >> i am not sure it is shaking up. it is a great thing for the industry. we wish we had all of them.

not all of them. in the case of fortnight there is some evidence for bringing on board a younger audience, perhaps a more female audience. and if people are being introduced to video games, that theylrn to thatis great for all of us. emily: three big titles coming out in october, red dead redemption, call of duty, how do you make sure your games are a winner? >> the way we create success, the entire focus of our company is on the quality of our titles. "red dead redemption" has been a highly-anticipated title. we have begun to put mash ups in the market place, and people seem to love them. preorders are strong, and we are feeling really good about "red dead redemption." it is not a stand-alone in terms of theme. they're not very many western thing titles in the marketplace. when we put out "red dead redemption" the first time, it was a western could not work, and it was a massive hit and sold over 60 million units. we feel really good about red dead redemption. emily: why are you not showing

it at e3? everyone wants to see it. seems like a great opportunity to generate buzz. >> we are not showing any products at e3. this show is a great way for us to connect with our retail customers, a great place to connect with the press, and industry analysts and investors. our products are widely marketed and people have a sense to them. while we do have consumers at e3, it is not primarily a consumer show. emily: so, how do you intend to monetize it and make sure it gerates revenue over a long time? >> our focus over a long period of time is engagement. what we have said is regard to all of our releases we want to , give consumers an opportunity not only to fall in love with the product, but to stay in love with the product over a long time. if we do that, revenues and profits follow. we don't lead with monetization. it is not our primary concern. we are concerned about entertaining, captivating, and engaging consumers over a long period of time. emily: i am curious on your thoughts on the latest gaming industry controversy,

loot boxes and play-to-win, pay-to-win tactics. is that healthy for the industry, or is it exploitative? >> i do not believe it is exploitative. i think at the end of the day, this is entertainment. entertainment is not a must-have good. it is a want to have good. we choose to be entertained. the randomization mechanic has been used by us in the past. it is not a mechanic that we typically use. we do not have any problem with it, however, and i think the bottom line is, do your game mechanics fit with your creative offering? if they don't, consumers won't show up. emily: any concern that legislators are going to crack down on it? >> i don't think there is a concern in the u.s. there may be in international markets, in the same way we have pure freedom of speech in the u.s., and in certain international market we are constrained with what we can do creatively. emily: so you think in europe they could crack down? >> i don't think it will be across the board, possibly one or two countries will have a point of view about what kind of mechanic can be used. i think that would be

wrongheaded, and it hasn't happened yet, but it may. emily: and yet, last month, the supreme court ruled to strike down a law preventing gambling in sports. i know you have expressed optimism this could have an impact on e-sports. you know, are you doing things to prepare for potentially legalized e-sports gambling? legalized gambling in gaming. >> we are not yet. we are open-mi. we are an entertainment company. we are obviously not a gambling company. it is a different mechanic and really a different business and it requires regulation. i think we would have to think long and hard before going into that business, however it clearly creates opportunity. emily: that was take two's ceo. and still ahead, bitcoin tumbles over the weekendter a south korean cryptocurrency said they had been hacked. we are going to track the breach and talk about whether the market can recover after a rough start to 2018. and the building blocks of life. did nasa discover them on mars? we will get the answer straight from their lead scientist.

this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a crypto exchange in -- crypto exchange hack in south korea puts fuel on the fire. bitcoin itself is down more than 50% in the last year, and the south korean exchange says some of its digital currency appears to have been stolen. they would not disclose how much. the exchange did say two-thirds of the stolen assets have been frozen or collected. investigators are following the rest. this isn't the first time we have seen this attack. the japanese exchange coin check was hit in january with a heist worth when will these security $500 million. risks let up? we spoke with jordan roberts a our host of what you miss, joe weisenthal. jordan hackers compromise the : website for a small south

korean crypto currency exchange. coin rail is not a name that would be on the tips of both peoples tongues. it is fairly in the top 100 of global cryes. but what happened has a lot of residence for anybody investing in this market and part of the reason you are seeing this big selloff this weekend in terms of billions of dollars a , billionsency stock of dollars of value from crypto falling. the reason is this, once a peace -- a piece of digital currency is stolen, you cannot get it back. it's not like money that can be reimbursed by a bank, although some have reimbursed victims of hacking attacks. i find it endlessly fascinating of what a cryptocurrency is. it is a number. it is a digital file you are given, and if you give it to an exchange, and that exchange is then hacked, that money is gone for good. you are seeing a lot of people running away from the market because of that security risk. emily: i want to put this into context.

take a look at this chart in my gtv library which shows the slump in cryptocurrencies over the last six months. joe, how much of this is due to this particular hack? is it due to lingering concerns of crackdowns in china, or overall pessimism from folks like yourself? joe: i think it is a combination of a lot of different things. i think the simplest answer is this is the backside of the euphoria that we saw in q3 and q4 in 2017 when people were throwing out enormous expectations of where the price was going. it was going parabolic. celebrities were talking about it. and the interesting thing is if you look from a fundamental standpoint in 2018, and you saw ongoing moves whether it's legacy financial companies expanding into the space, upstarts getting more institutionalized, people who have their careers in finance jumping into crypto, things look

really good. some of the news looks really good, but it hasn't been enough to stem the tide of what is sort of what happens if the other half of an asset goes parabolic like this. emily: on this security issue in particular why are crypto , currencies so difficult to secure? you would think they would be less vulnerable to fraud because they are trackable. jordan: you would. product -- part of the problem is though as i said earlier, one , of the really difficult parts about handling virtual currencies, or digital currencies and protecting them, is that it is simply a file. it is simply a number. it is a unique number assigned to a particular individual and the value of their digital currency. so if you think about all of the massive data hacks we have seen, and you know the terabytes of data flying out of companies as the result of hacks, if you replace those data, whether it is emails or whatever, with a bitcoin that could be worth thousands or millions of dollars, what you get is the

perfect target for these hacking attacks. and when the criminals make off with their bounty, it is literally a file filled with numbers that then becomes tens of millions of dollars. they are very, very hard to protect because they are a very small, discrete piece of data that once you lose it, it is gone. emily: and yet there are big banks experimenting with cryptocurrencies. some more than experimenting. do you see this becoming a legitimate currency that is backed by a global financial system, if some of these hiccups and issues are worked out? joe: it is possible, but something that i think is really important is that the hiccups that you mentioned and that jordan described are both the vulnerability of cryptocurrencies but also arguably, the selling point because if you think about it, what is the case to use a cryptocurrency as opposed to traditional currency for transactions? it is the implicit promise

nobody can seize it from you, or nobody can tell you who you can spend it with, and nobody can tell you, that you cannot move it from one country to another, circumventing capital controls. these are all of the things that are theoretically what make bitcoin, or make other cryptocurrencies, appealing to be some measure of -- appealing to people, and so the flipside has to be some measure of irreversibility. because you could not have a system where you could have an ironclad guarantee that you can do the transaction if there was a third party that could say, no, we are going to reverse that transaction, or you are not allowed to. and so, as long as the cryptocurrency is sort of designed for this purpose, there will never be a day, i don't think where there is not a risk of hacks and mistakes that result in a permanent loss of funds. emily: jordan, it's not just about cryptocurrency, it's about the blockchain in general which so many people are heralding the future of. not necessarily when it comes to

bitcoin and these particular currencies but the potential for blockchain technology to revolutionize the rest of the internet. i mean, do you think there is more optimism there outside of know specific market? ,-- markets? jordan: sure, yeah. uderlying technology for these digital currencies, the blockchain, it actually has unique and interesting properties that a lot of big banks and other organizations are trying to tap, so much so it has become a meme, a joke. one of the things i find amusing about these hacks if there is anything amusing at all, it is that when this money is stoen as a result of the blockchain and transparency that joe talked about, you know, you can actually see where the money is. it is like somebody robbed your bank account and holding it in front of your face but you don't know who they are. you can identify all of these stolen bitcoin and digital currencies. you just don't know who is

holding at behind it. , that is a feature of the block chain and of the technology undergirding these digital currencies. and you can see it. you can revoke those coins. you can block them. you can freeze them. there is a lot more transparency in that system than the traditional banking system, and that is ultimately a good thing that lots of companies can put to use. emily: that was bloomberg technology's jordan robertson and bloomberg's joe weisenthal. coming up, nasa's curiosity rover may have made its most significant discovery yet. on the red planet what this , means for finding life on mars. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> ♪ is there life on mars? emily: well, there might finally be an answer to david bowie's timeless question. or at least a better chance to narrow down the answer. nasa's mars curiosity rover has found what could be the foundation for life on the red planet.

organic molecules have been found on mars' 3.5 billion-year-old bedrock. elon musk may be trying to colonize mars now, but nasa says this means chances of finding life there already just went up. to tell us more about the earth-shaking discovery, we spoke to a bio geochemist from nasa goddard space flight center and the lead author of the study on these findings. >> essentially, we found organic matter in rocks from an ancient lake on mars. that lake was around 3.5 billion years ago. so that planet was a lot different back then, and we have had other clues that tell us pretty much their water was around, their nutrients were around and energy sources around. and now we have evidence of organic material. everything that life would need to be happy was there. we just don't know if there was life. the organic materials that we found could be from life, or perhaps they were just possible

food for life when the lake was around. either way, it still bodes well for the search for life going forward. emily: so let's take it one step further. is it possible that some form of life still exists there? does this give you any information about that? >> well, we are not really sure if life has ever existed, but if life ever got established, it was probably really early on in the mars history, around the same time life was established on early earth. at that point, the two planets were probably very similar. mars sort of took a different path. it lt its gnetic field and the atmosphere started getting swept away, and radiation began hitting the surface. it changed the planet significantly. and thus earth kind of took a different path and developed a really diverse bioatmosphere, and mars, if it ever had life probably lost a lot of its , biosphere. there are some scientists who think that life would have taken refuge in the subsurface if it

ever existed and it still be may there day, but there are other scientists who think the mars biosphere is burnt out. emily: so the curiosity rover has been taking samples for five years now, and i know this gives you new details on where and how to look, but what is next? now that you know this. >> well, the next step is to look for the bio-signatures. these are basically imprints from life. you can imagine a dinosaur leaving a fossil behind in the form of a skeleton. well, microorganisms can leave behind chemical imprints of their existence, and possibly even cell structures. those are the kinds of things we would look for in the ancient rocks as indicators of whether or not life used to exist on mars at some point. there is to, there is two missions in the works right now that could shed light on this. the first one is from the european space agency that will launch in 2020, and it has the capability of drilling down two

meters, which is a really important technological development because that means that they can get away from the radiation. they have the potential to get to organic materials that are much better preserved than what curiosity discovered in the top several meters. the othr mission is one by nasa called the mars 2020 rover, and if it stumbles upon the right materials, it can cache it and bring them back to earth for further analysis. and both of those could tell us a lot more about whether life ever existed on mars and the potential for life to exist there today. emily: and nasa is looking for life in the solar system outside of mars. if it is somewhere else, what is most likely? >> it is anybody's guess. there is mars. the subsurface is a good place to look for more recent life. there is the ancient rocks for ancient life. on other places, two really appealing places are ocean worlds. we call them -- the smallman

that goes around saturn and the other one is the europa. both have oceans underneath an icy crest, and it is possible actually haveans something similar to actually he something similar to what we imagine as the microbiology, hydrothermal vents in the ocean here on earth. if that is the case, that ocean water could have signatures of life in it, could be modern-day cells. it could be old material, but things that would tell us if there had been life there. if we can access that ocean material, then we could do a good search for life. emily: if that is the case -- >> it might be something that evolved independent of earth, which would be fascinating for everyone in general but certainly the science community. emily: that was a nasa's jennifer eakin bro. and that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you the best in tech throughout the week. tune in each day at 5:00 p.m. in new york in 2:00 p.m. in san

francisco. all episodes are now live streaming on twitter. check us out at technology weekdays. that's all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪ two, down, back up!

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