welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche these are your headlines >> president trump and his team celebrate the tax reform success as the bill goes to the oval office to be signed into law >> it will be an incredible christmas gift for hard-working americans. i said i wanted to done before christmas. we got it done >> corporate america takes the chance to pay out hundreds of millions in tax related bonuses with at&t and comcast handing

out $1,000 to a slew of employees citing the tax deal. the polls are open in catalonia for another regional election which madrid hopes will put an end to the separatist movement. and another blow for theresa may. first damian green is forced to resign amid a pornography scandal marking the third cabinet stacking in over two months good morning it's thursday, one more working day before the christmas season begins the news overnight, we got the long awaited u.s. tax reforms. the reaction was relatively muted. possibly that's on the back of some profit taking we're seeing into the end of the year as liquidity dries up a bit dow jones ended the session 0.1% lower. same story on s&p. the picture in europe in front of me, also not looking that

particularly positive going into the session. stocks europe 600 opening 0.2% lower on the day looking at individual sectors, ftse 100, up 0.1%. the leader in today's european indices. we have the catalonia elections coming up for the ibex let's look at individual sectors. oil and gas up 0.2%. that's been dragged along by the price of oil and what wti has been doing basic resource up 0.2% we had that big move in copper in yesterday's trading zooming in a bit, real estate down 0.9%, almost down 1%. that's a very interest rate sensitive sector we saw a bit of weakness in u.s. session overnight, and yesterday's session because of the rise in interest rate yields, that sector is continuing to struggle a bit utilities also struggling on the down side, down 0.6%

back to our main story it's a done deal president trump and republican lawmakers celebrated after giving the house -- after the house gave final approval to the biggest tax overhaul in 30 years. sending the 1$1.5 trillion bill to trump's desk for his signature and giving him his biggest legislative victory so far. the bill will cut corporate taxes from 35% to 21%. there are similar cuts for taxpayers but on a smaller scale. trump called the bill a christmas present for hard working americans. >> the heart of our bill is a tremendous amount of relief for the middle class and a doubling of the child tax credit and a near doubling of the standard deduction. that will be tremendous for people they'll see the results in february this bill means more take home pay. it will be an incredible christmas gift for hard working americans. i said i wanted it done before

christmas. we got it done >> senate minority leader chuck schumer quickly disagreed saying the bult wiill will result in increased share buybacks, not dividend gains >> this will be an issue for us all year this is not just forgotten the fact, they say, once people learn of what is in this bill, they'll be forei it. the koch brothers have spent millions of dollars trying to persuade people it's a bad bill. polls say it's a bad bill. the reason is simple, the suspicions of the american people that the republican party is helping the wealthy and powerful corporations and not middle class has been confirmed in this bill >> corporate america quickly responded to the cuts with some companies boosting capex and giving out bonuses

at&t and comcast were among firms offering bonuses and pay hikes. donald trump praised the moves and cited them as evidence that the tax cut will help middle class americans. retailers are cheering the sweeping tax reform bill the national retail federation calling it a major victory for retailers who pay the highest tax rate of any business sector. the nrf said the legislation will encourage investment, increase wages and expand opportunities for employees. stacy witlitz joins us on the show i was looking at a note from city earlier today about the average tax rate paid by individual vesectors, retail stands out as the sector that pays the highest amount of tax rate, averaging 35% the past couple years you would expect a drop to 21%

would be a huge boom to the sector how are you thinking about it? >> retail is one of the biggest beneficiaries, certainly if you look at the performance of these department stores and retail in general, retail rallied almost 20% since q3 earnings. that's very much in the stock. the tax celebration is in there. it remains to be seen what companies actually do with that extra cash will they continue to buy back stock, increase dividends and have share holders line their pockets or will they do what boeing, at&t and wells fargo are doing, investing in people, giving extra bonuses >> that's a big story for the u.s. everyone wants to see those signs of wage growth with the fed tightening in the background let's talk more about the individual names you want to own going into 2018. there's a lot of talk about the retail industry trends in general. of course the disruption by the technology and the advent of

e-commerce zooming in more what are some names in the u.s. retail space that you think will do well in 20 2018 >> in general you see the tax impact, which is helpful the offset is the continued shift to omni channel. all of these companies are being forced to invest in digital. it's a lower margin business that shift in cases will offset the tax impact some winners, i've been optimistic about pvh, calvin klein, they're expanding in europe comps up high singles in europe. gaining traction in the states there are other names you have to look at and say you want to own them certainly costco, lululemon. these are companies driving positive traffic in their stores and also have, you know, some investment already behind them >> you raise an interesting point. you say you want to reward the companies that attract traffic

to their physical stores and have less of an online presence. is the online presence eating into margins that much >> it is great example last night, bed bath & beyond reported and they're an example, they've been a laggard, they're offering free shipping, a lot of discounting. that's bringing down the overall operating margin you're seeing that in general in retail some of the retailers invested earlier than others. certainly walmart has taken the hit. i would look at target also now. they're really investing in digital, revamping stores. if that pays off in the long term, that's an interesting stock to15 times versu walmart at 21 times. >> there's lots of companies who are reliant on logistics companies, but since the demand is so high, and i was reading that a lot of the holiday

shopping has been back loaded this year. there's a lot to come, on average about 60% of shoppers are done with holiday shopping a lot will happen in the next couple of days was does that mean for fulfillment? is there going to be pressure on the logistics companies to get things delivered in time >> there always is last night was thekuz ocut off most retailers to get it by holiday. best buy over the past few years, they got their ac together in terms of execution you always hear those stories about consumers who get disappointed, and their kids holidays show up that's a huge issue. these retailers in terms of loyalty, you mess that up for a family, you lose that loyalty. so there is certainly a lot of pressure to get the logistics right. the other issue is that as people click and collect, they're coming into the stores to pick up things they ordered online in some cases these stores have

to pick things off shelves to fulfill the online so it's a very hard balance. not only with labor, but with your in stock and in stores. >> and managing that >> and managing that it's a tough balance target has talked about 80% during the high season come in to pick up it's a tough balance the ones who get that right win. >> i want to ask one more question about specific companies. are you rewarding companies that are moving into asia and taking advantage of the rise of the strong consumption power that's coming out of countries, particularly china >> sure. i think luxury is a great example. there's a nice bounce back in asia and the luxury guys have benefited from that. there's certain luxury guys like tiffany that are in a turnaround story and looking at the younger

consumer but i think certainly that the luxury sector has been the biggest beneficiary. >> we'll get back to you in a bit. again, to get in on the conversation, e-mail the show. the address is streetsignseurope@cnbc.com of course you can follow us on twitter, streetsignseurope@cnbc or you can tweet me directly ahead, polls open in catalonia as separatists and unionists lock horns in crucial regional elections we'll cross to barcelona for the latest

welcome back to the show polling opened in catalonia where a record turnout is expected for the regional snap election spain's prime minister, mariano rajoy sacked the previous government for banning a referendum and declaring independence parties ramped up efforts to secure votes

the last round of polling pointed to a tight race, but pro independence parties are likely to secure the most votes. willem is in barcelona with the latest this appears to be an extremely tight race it looks like the choices are the pro independence group or we get a hung parliament. what can you tell us about that? >> that's right. looking at the latest polls, it looks like there's no easy resolution to events here following on from today's vote i'll joined by fernando santos costa here in catalonia. there is no easy answer, is there? >> no, of course after a problem that has been a very complex problem, there is no easy answer there will be no easy answer but we hope that today is the first step for a good resolution of the problem we have had in catalonia. we have a historic opportunity

after 40 years we can change the government and get a government who works for all catalans and not only the people for independence we think there is a chance to get this kind of change. >> the challenge is that any negotiation after this, without any clear majority as the polls seem to indicated, will leave catalans, ordinary catalans, with a huge amount of uncertainty once again >> i think it's important that the -- whoever wins -- >> if there is a winner. that's the point >> maybe one will add more than the other one, but it's important that who wins has to be inclusive has to know the population is afraid that the other half of the population has won, then we have to be prudent, rational, we

have to be empathetic with people and reveal to catalonia that we have a consensus by dialogue >> your party is in trouble with this vote. it looks like you will halve the number of seats you have now the surge you've seen from your mainstream rivals on the center right, does that worry you here and nationally >> there's always something that happened with my party we always beat the polls the polls say that we'll lose, in the end, we have a better result we have to wait until now, see what happens there's been a tendency of useful votes in spain, in catalonia, some people have said ciudadanos is able to win the independent and to win

independency and people think to vote for them before they vote for us let's see what happens as i said, we have always beat the polls. >> okay. so you're looking confident there. in terms of any possible coalition down the road, the local affiliate here, it seems they have not taken a clear instance since october 1st on independence but they may have an important role they say they want constitutional reform to be a priority and that any deal that is made involving the party de popular will want that to be accelerated. is that something you think mr. rajoy is likely to follow? >> mr. rajoy has already said -- >> he agreed to it, but it's a question of how quickly he'll do things >> we're ready to do the constitutional reform. we said it three months ago.

of course we are ready we hope who wins this party will prefer to have a government that stands for university, a government who doesn't want to break everything so we hope they vote for a government of change >> you think realistically they will rajoy is a man known for not making changes >> maybe my party wants this kind of government, it doesn't mean it has to be a government of four parties. it can be a government of one party but supported by four other parties. it will be complicated, but i'm sure we'll get it. we'll have a government of change in catalonia. a government that works for unity. after 40 years, a government by

nationalists in catalonia. >> one thing i would point out, mariano rajoy has been used by a polarizing figure himself especially by mr. puigdemont we heard defeating mr. rajoy, taking back catalonia. is that a problem for the party? does that strengthen the party across the rest of spain >> i wouldn't say especially a problem. if puigdemont says he wants to beat that party, many people for unity in spain say that's my party. >> by highlighting mr. rajoy as the enemy, does that strengthen mr. rajoy across spain, or are you sure that ciudadadonos is trying to take back control.

>> it happened in the last regional elections, and ciudadanos was the first independence parties, and in the national elections, many people who voted for them, they came back to the party de popular so people are changing their vote depending on the elections. now maybe they feel we have ciudadanos and party de popular. so depending on the elections, they change their vote we don't have to extrapolate things to the national elections. >> all right thank you so much, fernando sanchez costa. there's so much complexity on a regional and national level, we are expecting record turnout today. it was 75% back in 2015. if it exceeds that it seems

likely the pro unionist parties competing today will be quite helped by a number of these people voting who might not normally >> brilliant thanks for bringing us the latest, willem as per the latest polls, it appears the party de popular will gain six seats, in a race that is so tight every seat will count. tune in tomorrow for all the reaction to the elections, and we will speak to a member of the catalonia republican left party and the former head of catalan eu affairs with four days to go until christmas, the race is on to deliver all the orders courtney reagan has this report from a company at the center of the storm. >> it's the final push for retailers to get packages shipped in time for christmas. if you're one of the 40% of americans still shopping and squeaking in last-mignon line orders, your packages may be

coming from one of these radial fulfillment centers. radial is a distribution provider for hundreds of brands. it is the second largest fulfillment center in the country. some orders are fulfilled by radial from amazon.com radial can fill prime eligible options instead of amazon's fulfillment options. this facility covers 1.3 million square feet, packing orders for air shoe carnival and others this is one of radial's busiest weeks of the year. every year the volume gets heavier as more shopping shifts online this week radial expects to shift more than two and a half times of packages than on a record breaking cybermonday. if you're checking off your shopping list online, watch the

shipping details carefully >> this year was unique with christmas being on a monday. so you had an earlier cutoff for ordering online than you normally do. our retailers did great behind the scenes upgrades. if you want to pay for airshiping, you have up to two days before christmas to order >> many retailers are been picking up the cost for shipping since december 13th, but now it's on shoppers to pay for rush shipping we're back with cnbc's retail analyst, stacey widlitz taking a step back november retail sales numbers in the u.s. were strong the strongest in six or seven years. are you expecting that to continue going into 2018 as the health of the consumer continues to be a theme into next year

>> there's no doubt that the november numbers were impressive they were up 6% almost year over year there's a lot of feel good going on in the states now with the tax impact here. i think there's certainly a lot of challenges as we go into 2018 you're still seeing deflation in apparel. you're seeing the grocery store space. there's some inflation coming in in costs, but they're still not able to pass it on to the consumer because of all the competition. there's challenges out there but we'll see what happens with the tax dollars if the companies do reinvest and do hire and get money into the hands of the average consumer >> i want to talk about discounting. one thing we're seeing in this country, the uk, the uk has embraced this phenomenon of black friday sales the discounting is starting earlier every year how is that eating into the retailer margins >> in the states, black friday starts a month before the actual black friday so it's kind of crazy.

you don't need to deal with black friday anymore in the uk it started four, five years ago. interesting. germany, it just started this year so i walked 68 miles in stores between black friday and last week >> you walked 68 miles >> 68 miles doing my store checks, according to my iphone a lot of that was in germany i couldn't believe it. this year for the first time, everything is 50% off. they did black friday this year in a big way last year it was kind of just a few american brands tiptoeing, dipping their toe in now the americanization discount craze is worldwide that's bad for margins >> so going forward then, yes, on one side you have the positive impulse coming from the tax reform then you have increasing competition and all of these earlier discounts that will eat into the bottom line it's tough to be positive on the retail sector going forward, right?

you have to pick the names that will stand out >> yes you have to pick your spots. again, certain names that invested early on in digital so a lot of that spen and thd a getting up to speed is behind them you have to look at sector winners. the strongest brands, the brands executing well that have loyal followers and ones that are making it easy for the consumer to shop where they want to shop and when they want to shop and also you look at last-minute shipping as we were talking about. if you can do that right, you got it right >> thank you very much for being with us. stacey widlitz cnbc retail analyst from sw retail advisers. coming up, new troubles for theresa may after her deputy rnime minister steps down amid a poography scandal.

welcome to "street signs." i'm joumanna bercetche these are your headlines merry christmas america. >> president trump and his team celebrate the tax reform success as the bill goes to the oval office to be signed into law

>> it will be an incredible christmas gift for hard-working americans. i said i wanted to have it done before christmas we got it done the polls are open in catalonia for another regional election another blow for theresa may. first damian green is forced to resign amid a pornography scandal marking the third cabinet stacking in over two months nokia shares hit a two-month high to top the european market as the finnish company signs a patent license deal. so the tax reform finally got passed yesterday the reaction overnight in the u.s. stocks was a bit muted with both dow jones and s&p ending the day about 0.1% lower the picture today is looking a bit muted as well.

quite subdued. s&p set to open up one point or so nothing major. dow jones, a couple points down. let's switch to europe and see what the picture looks like there. ftse 100 trading a tad firmer but not roaring out of the gates. ibex is an interesting one all eyes on this catalan local election ibex trading softer, down 0.2% xetra dax and cac currant continuing in line with the price action, also weaker. a quick look at foreign exchange all eyes have been on the u.s. dollar interestingly enough, even though we've seen reaction in individual stocks and in stock indices, the u.s. dollar traded soggy over the last week or so, which is a surprise to everyone, as one would assume that the dollar would trade stronger on some repatriation flows. you can see this morning, eu euro/dollar trading a tad firmer

dollar/yen, interesting cross. we had the bank of japan meeting overnight. you can see that cross is firmer on the day cable hanging in around that 1.34 mark. no major moves in foreign exchange let's get to one of the top stories in the european equities shares in nokia trading higher after the finnish phonemaker signed a patent deal with huawei the companies did not disclose details of the agreement deutsche bank shares have opened lower as they plan to cut up to 1,000 jobs amid the planned integration of post bank they hope to achieve two-thirds of the reductions by early retirement in the uk, britain's deputy prime minister, one of theresa may's closest allies, has resigned an investigation found damian green made misleading comments about pornography found on his work computer, this after the sunday times reported that

police found adult material on his machine in 2008. green denies he downloaded pornography but apologized forever breaching the ministerial code this is another blow to theresa may's government following the resignation of two other cabinet members. theresa may is willing to delay the day britain leaves the eu in exceptional circumstances. this is seen as a compromise to head off unrest from some brexit rebels within her own party. the bank of england says it would wave costly capital rules for european banks operating in the uk after brexit. governor mark carney said such a move would depend on the eu cooperating with london. >> as we sit here today, there are around 4 trillion of assets here a substantial portion are of european banks operating in london for us to -- we had to take a judgment, do we take a glass half empty approach to the

negotiations including at a time when there's prospect of a transition arrangement. including a time of that and say, no, you have to sub subsidiaryize now and then again in the future. that's tremendous cost the european commission threatened to impose sanctions on poland if it fails to review judicial laws. the bench requires the overhaul and itwas sure that poland's voting right in the bloc would be vetoed. mifid ii financial regulations are set to come into effect in days banks and brokerages have been busy hiring compliance executives in a bid to make sure they're ready for the rule change mifid ii is set to eliminate

jobs as well and create them many analysts are facing an uncertain future that investors are required to pay for company research caleb hawkins joins me on set today. we spend a lot of time talking about how mifid ii will affect the trading environment from a liquidity standpoint but i'm also interested to hear how it affects the recruitment space and some of the changes you have seen in the last year >> i think over the last couple of years in particular, definitely since 2016, there's been a huge increase in mifid two and regulatory hiring. we've seen a lot of projects managers, program managers, business analysts hiring especially technological pms, this is because of the regulatory executions, transactional and trade reporting. it's been a busy year for mifid

ii hiring in 2017. >> so people investing and people who can create the technology on the compliance side to make sure companies are abiding by this regulation >> yes, you have the regulatory issues, so you have to make sure the policies are there and the policy changes that will be implemented. >> do you get the feeling that things will slow down next year? or is the outlook for next year looking rosy when it comes to compliance officers? >> certainly from a recruitment perspective it will carry on into 2018. i think a lot are potentially behind the curve when it comes to the mifid ii space. i see the need for hiring across the remainder of 2018 after going live >> you were saying as the year has gone by, the hiring rates have gotten higher because there's more demand for a limited supply of people who can do these jobs. >> i think there's a lot of

larger investment firms, they started hiring in 2016 and took a lot of top talent. this year we are seeing smaller investment firms coming in, trying to get into market. there's a lot of big players who have taken the strong talent so i think we're seeing the smaller firms having to increase daily rates and attract talent away from the larger firms so we're seeing rates gradually increase throughout the year for mid fmifid ii >> do you think firms will be ready when this kicks in >> the bigger players are certainly ready. at the same time the consensus on the street is not every firm will be ready. i don't think the fca will come in and take enforcement action straight away. i think there's a period which will help them sort of take things slightly slower >> what elements of mifid ii are the ones that will be the most difficult for the industry to take up here

>> i think the best execution, monitoring, surveillance, trade and transaction reporting is also essential >> just going forward, do you think that the demand for compliance officers will continue, but at the same time we talked about that's one element of it, but then also jobs are being lost when it comes to -- on the trading side, because a lot of companies have to pay for research. that means some people within the sector will lose their jobs. can you talk me through that part of the market >> that's not really a part of the market from my perspective, but certainly from a compliance side, the market will be there from the compliance side, the market will continue to grow from a research background i don't see too much movement happening there either >> brilliant that was caleb hawkins from morgan mckinley. thank you very much for bringing us the latest on mifid ii. e-mail the show. the address is

streetsignseurope@cnbc.com and of course you can follow us on twitter, streetsignseurope@cnbc or tweet me directly. i'm all alone today, it would be nice to get comments. coming up, moving mainstream the new york stock exchange is looking to dive into bitcoins with two etfs. happy anniversary dinnedarlin' i'm messing up every dish, pot, and plate... ...to show my love. ta-da! all this devotion only calls for a little bit of dawn ultra. so concentrated, just one bottle has the grease cleaning power of three... ...bottles of this other liquid. a drop of dawn and grease is gone. try using dawn beyond the sink. and i'm the founder of ugmonk. before shipstation it was crazy, like... it's great when you see a hundred orders come in, but then you realize

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welcome back the u.s. commerce department announced it will impose duties of 300% on passenger debts made by bombardier. the decision is a win for boeing, which launched the complaint against the rival on grounds it was the recipient of illegal state aid. the dispute between the two air giants could move to a larger stage as canada is threatening to lodge a complaint through the world trade organization or nafta. alain bellemare will join cnbc at 13:30 to offer his opinion.

lawmakers aim to pass a spending bill in the united states by friday midnight to avoid a partial government shutdown kayla tausche explains >> reporter: house republicans are meeting to try to figure out what they have the support for to move forward. because they have this very real end of the week deadline to keep the government funded, they have abandoned any idea that they can push a longer term comprehensive package and instead are just aiming for a short-term deal to keep the government opened some proposals on longer term defense spending and controversial health care riders have been with drauchb fdrawn f date while anything can change in the next coming days, here's a likely scenario. a three-part package that would see three votes as soon as thursday in the u.s. that's number one. an extension of all government spending, potentially children's health insurance for one month number two, a short-term reauthorization of surveillance

programs known as fisa and an 1 $81 billion disaster relief package, while important in the united states, aides tell me could continue to be negotiated into the new year. the reason for the piece meal deal, were all these oppositions to be combined there would be opposition from house conservatives and senate democrats. hopefully by breaking them out leadership here hopes to secure the votes for each part independently. the top senate democrat chuck schumer today was asked if his party in the senate would support the deal he said he had not seen one yet. >> we're trying to get as good a deal as possible we won't negotiate against ourselves right here the bottom line is we have not seen anything. they're so busy with the tax proposal, we have not even seen a proposal >> reporter: one outstanding item, a waiver that would need to be authorized to avoid mandatory spending cuts that would be triggered by the tax bill that was passed today

that would need to be waived in order for that bill to be signed that's important for republicans but could be a bargaining chip for democrats. we'll see how they choose to play that over the course of the next 24 hours. president trump is making a list and hopefully checking it twice. he took time out of an event celebrating the tax bill's passage to blast countries that voted against recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital. he praised u.n. ambassador nikki haley for taking a tough stance and hinted the issue could impact distribution of future aid money. >> a vote against us, that means we save a lot this isn't like the old-times, when you vote against and then pay hundreds of millions i had a lot of good comment on it people are tired of the united stat

states, the people that live here, our great citizens that love this country, they are tired of this country being taken advantage of, and we're not going to be taken advantage of any longer. >> bank of japan governor kuroda described bitcoin as speculative investment he said the cryptocurrency doesn't work as a regular method of payment this as the central bank kept the rate on hold on its latest monetary policy decision. kim jong-un's forces could be stealing bitcoin. according to the "wall street journal," investigators say early evidence suggesteds north korea was behind a heist that hit seoul-based exchange ubit, which declared bankruptcy. that's a story we focussed on yesterday. the new york stock exchange filed to list two bitcoin etfs it's another step to bring the cryptocurrency closer to the mainstream

if you think bitcoin is rubbish, it is for one investor head to cnbc.com to read how a british man accidentally threw away 1$127 million of the cryptocurrency and is now battling to get it back. oh, dear that's not good. barney harford will be uber's chief operating officer he has been an adviser to uber since october. speaking of uber, the announcement followed a ruling by europe's top court that uber is a transport company not just a digital platform the landmark decision means member states can regulate the company as a transport service and has been watched as a test case of how other startups in the gig economy could be regulated in europe. in a statement, uber said the ruling won't thing that things in most eu countries arjun kharpal is on set with us.

what does this ruling mean for europe >> at the moment uber says it doesn't mean a lot for the way it operates in member states, the likes of uk, france and germany. it already complies with many laws there the question is what does this mean for some other issues arou around uber. for example to see if drivers are employees. the unions in the uk say uber is not a tech company, it's a transportation company, and the drivers should be employees and get holiday pay and benefits so we have to see what material impact this has on uber's operating expenses in many markets. still early days, i'm sure we'll find out over the next weeks >> will it have any bearing on the tfl licensing issue going on >> that's a separate issue that's about how they do

background checks on drivers, an whether they're keeping their passengers safe as well. those negotiations are separate. but no doubt that some of these other issues will play into some of the negotiation that dara khosrowshahi has >> we have a fascinating guest coming up. one of the most intriguing areas of technology is augmented reality, ar, which combines the real and virtual world companies are looking to figure out the ar business potential and look at new products that take advantage of it our next guest mixes ar with robotics in the red hot tech field cylus joins us on the show this is an exciting space. can i tell viewers that you actually brought in one of the robots >> yes >> hopefully you can give us a

demonstration of this. >> i'll show you quickly >> goodness. >> you can see -- >> what is that? >> this is a game in robots, you can have a video game character in real life this allows you to have robots with personality this robot is about to die very, very animated of course. they can express themselves quite well >> he just died. >> yeah. it's a very realistic game and experience >> tell me more about your country, what sort of products you're creating. >> what we are doing is combining robotics gaming and augmented reality. so allowing you to have things that normally exist in science fiction but have them in real life i can have a character play with someone else with my robots or play with single player using augmented reality. >> can i ask the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality? can you explain to me what those terms mean

>> it's down to the definition of the words augmented, you're taking the real world and adding on to it for example, look into your phone, you put something that's not there there. an example is pokemon go now virtual reality, it's an alternate reality. so you put on a headset, you step into this world that isn't real you can then explore this. we're getting to a phase where they're getting them mixed up. >> where are we now in augmented reality? i've played with a lot of different things in the augmented reality sphere, i really only had two good experiences of them. a lot of them are fairly messy, not concrete, and there's a lot of theory around augmented reality now. what stage are we at in the industry >> it's quite young in terms of growth it has a lot of potential.

and, you know, one of the theory noors theories behind that is the support augmented reality is getting from google, apple, a lot of different platforms coming up. so that means mobile ai will take off in the next few years, especially coming into 2019 there will be a more public consumer interest or focus i think because the technology is still quite young we have not figured out as a whole the best user experience and the best user interface to allow people to use ai in a meaningful way one way we do it is to have a physical product that can then touch the virtual. you can have a virtual opponent battle you in real life. so that's one of the more meaningful ways of having augmented reality. you mentioned the likes of apple

and google, they're trying to push virtual reality through the smartphone where do the headsets fit in is that where ar goes to >> i think in the long-term, yes. a trend that people are thinking would be you start from mobile it makes it easily accessible for everyone eventually when the ai technology is there, we start to shrink it down because we had lots of different pieces come to market that were a bit too early for their time then ultimately people think there will be contact lenses >> can you talk me through the costs of the robots and whether or not things are getting cheaper? one big obstacle for robots going mainstream is the cost how has that evolved >> over the last couple of years, yes, memory is cheap. you can offload the processing from the robot to mobile that opened up a lot of opportunity to have meaningful, useful consumer experiences. now as the cost has been driving

down more by adoption by all different types of market, it means there's a -- the pricing is more competitive. then you can start putting your memory and processing back on to the robot. the challenges are still around power. battery technology and mechanical kind of actuators, that's the underserved market. >> how big is the security risk? a lot of these connected devices now have been hacked, and there are obviously more computers in them now how do you secure the devices? what is the risk with devices getting increasing ai and processing power >> overtime they'll only get more and more secure it's a young industry. what we're starting to see, first of all, commonsense things, down to developers, making sure they're building security protocols second is regulations that are now kicking in, especially with consumer data stored in the robot or the devices you're connecting to. as themarket and industry

matures, we'll see them become more secure. >> can i see one more demo of the robot you brought in today i'm fascinated it's a little scary. i was going to say maybe i should get one >> does it dance >> it does dance as well does it have a name? >> it's a meccaman, we call him bob in the office. >> do you have other prototypes? >> yes, we have different products we're working on. it's an exciting time, especially for anyone that loves gaming and robots. everything is about to change. >> thank you very much for joining us that's it for today's show "worldwide exchange" is up next.

tax triumph. wall street cheers sweeping tax reform the latest market reaction straight ahead >> sharing the wealth. several big name companies are raising wages and handing out bonuses in the wake of the tax overhaul. and bed bath & beyond shares are in the red we'll tell you why it's thursday, december 21, 2017 happy winter solstice. "worldwide exchange" begins right now. ♪