Want to use momentum from their tax bill victory to take on welfare. Paul ryan says 2018 is a chance as a chance to reshape the safety net for the poor and disabled. He also wants to change food stamps and medicaid programs. In Southern California firefighters doused hotspots. ,winds increased that could whip up embers and flareups. A huge fire still smoldering northwest of los angeles. Officials say the blazes 60 contained and now the second largest in california history. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Im alisa parenti, this is bloomberg. Bloomberg technology with emily chang is next. Emily i am emily chang and this is bloomberg technology. Coming up, we take a look at a big year in consumer tech, from google to amazon to apple. What worked, what did not and what is worth your money . Plus, we discussed facebooks role on the platform for political propaganda. Is the social network overstepping by helping useroversial World Leaders the platform . Brian moynihan is the ceo of bank of america and says the firm is a tech company at heart. Our exclusive interview. Apple is developing an advanced heart monitoring feature for its new apple watch. It is part of a broader push to turn what is a Luxury Fashion accessory into a serious medical device. Wearables are far from mass production. Less than 20 of the population will be using a wearable device by next year. That growth rate is slowing. And analyst joins us from chicago, along with our bloomberg tech reporter alex webb who broke the story about , apple. What exactly is apple working on it are ready monitors your heart, but this is different. Alex they can monitor your heart rate. But that is in the moment. Your heart rate extended over certain period of time. An electrocardiogram, the ekg, the device they are developing what that is able to do is , anticipate future cardiac events. They can see if you possibly will have a stroke or blood clot and should see a doctor. That predictive and preventive and health care is a huge opportunity for apple, potentially. Emily how does this fit into apples overall plan . Alex the preventive idea is crucial. Apple has talked a lot about the prospects for health care, a huge industry. In to grow as much as 1 3 the next 5, 10 years. Apple is trying to position the watch toward the health care industry. It senses a great opportunity than just more luxury products. The watch was marketed that way to begin with. It was very much a luxury piece of leisurewear. We have breaking news, eric schmidt transitioning to a new role as a Technical Advisor to alphabet. Just getting in the full release from alphabet. For schmidt was google ceo a long time, then became executive chairman. Larry page returned as ceo. Larry page the cofounder of google. Page then restructured the company and became ceo of alphabet and schmidt became executive chairman of alphabet. There is likely some more to the story. Schmidt has been at the company for a long time. We will have more on the story momentarily. Alex, in speaking about apple and its health efforts, what does this signify about where apple wants to take the watch, and how much will this Health Monitoring part of the device help sales . Alex at the moment, it remains something of a luxury. If you are asking me do you have , a watch . Yes i do. Do you need a watch . I am not sure. They are trying to make it a central part of your life. If you have any concerns about Health IssuesGoing Forward you , really feel like you need to buy one. Emily nicole, i want you to tell us a little bit about how wearables are doing right now. There was a lot of optimism about the potential for wearable devices. They have not lived up to the hype in terms of adoption. Where do things stand right now . When it comes to actual use. Nicole that is exactly the case. Back in late 2015, we were very bullish on wearables. That is primarily because we expected the apple watch to respond well. When that did not happen, we downgraded our forecast last year significantly. We just updated that again. We bumped it up slightly, but nowhere near where we were at the time. Now we estimate that this year, 45 Million People in the u. S. Use a wearable at least once a month. Next year that will rise by , about 12 to about 50 million u. S. Users. Emily just once a month . Isnt the goal to get people wearing these every single day . Nicole most people probably do, but that is how we estimate usage for most consumer devices. Emily do you think a feature like a more advanced heart monitoring feature would actually significantly boost sales of Something Like the apple watch . Nicole like you were saying, they are trying to turn this from a luxury, nice to have item, into a need to have item. While i think that that kind of Health Information would be of a lot of interest to some people who have risk factors and there are other ways people are looking at apple watches, to monitor glucose for diabetics i do not know that is something that the mass market will feel like they need. Especially at the current price point. Emily so, alex. We are talking about how wearables are slowing down and it seems smart speakers are the hot thing this year. And could surpass wearable sales. I wonder if there is a similar question there as to whether they will continue to dominate the market as they are right now . Alex you mean in terms of for the watch itself . I think is interesting with the speaker. Has been delayed. When they were first developing they saw things they had learned from the watch. They did not get a great message in her in terms of who is buying it. They gradually shifted and realized health is how they should be marketing it. But this is a music device. It is interesting to see the relationship between the two products. Emily it was supposed to be here in time for the holidays. It is coming out early next year. To a lot of competition from google home and amazon echo. Alex webb, thank you so much. Nicole perrin, thank you as well. Sticking with gadgets, with 2017 coming to an end, Big Tech Companies are still fighting to win your heart. And more notably, your wallet. What were the biggest offerings this year from apple, amazon, and google . Mark gurman looks back on the year in consumer tech. It has been a jampacked year for new tech products. All the big players are buying vying for every part of your life. Google is no longer just a search company. Amazon is more than a retail channel. Apple more than ever is going for the high end. They are all trying to fight to be your number one. Apple is going for the high end, the smartphone, with the iphone x. Without a doubt, this was the most anticipated gadget of the year. Perhaps the biggest iphone update in the companys history. So far it has been a hit with consumers. It is leading apple to expect a recordbreaking 80 billion holiday quarter. Apple is looking to round out its hold on you with the four k version of apple tv, a new apple watch and an air pod. Google wants to sell you a 400, super loud, highend speaker that works well with its new pixel 2 phone. Their stereo sound could be a better fit than the home pod. Amazon is trying to be everywhere in your room. They have released several new echo speakers. My favorite, the echo spot. It is an alarm clock and device of the future. Music andtes with Video Streaming Services and is a perfect holiday gift for the gadget lover in your home. Apples home pod, will come out in early 2018 after being delayed. The iphone maker is already working on its next iphone as well as an ipad with facial identification for next year. Google is working on a new home speaker with a screen. Amazon is always working on new echos. Happy holidays. Emily that was bloomberg technologys mark gurman. Returning to headlines, we broke for you a few minutes ago, alphabet saying eric schmidt is stepping down from his executive chairman role to become a Technical Advisor to the company. This ending a 17 year Senior Leadership position at the internet giant. Joining us now on the transition, our Bloomberg Television editor at large cory johnson. Cory i remember when he got the job. It was an amazing thing to see these young entrepreneurs with a new idea get one of the best people in Silicon Valley. He was well known for what he did. He came with a knowledge of how Enterprise Software works so much. He was known for his mind in Silicon Valley. Google became one of the Great Companies in the history of the world. As much as it was the founders, it was eric schmidt deeply involved. He stepped to this executive chairman role. He was very involved in running the company. Nonexecutive chairman is a very different job. Essentially it is a board level advisory role. His longterm history suggest he will still have an active role in the business. A nonexecutive chairman is very different from an executive chairman and the coo. It is remarkable, just simply remarkable what he has done in 17 years at google. Emily so this from larry page. Continuing his 17 years of service to the company he will be helping us as a Technical Advisor on science and technology issues. I am incredibly excited about the progress our company is making and the strong leaders driving innovation. Presumably that is a reference to other alphabet companies. These efforts to cure death and create smart contact lenses. Ruth comes into google that she will pare down some of these things. Maybe limit reaching in some ways. Eric came into the company with a goofy idea of letting smart people give highs salaries and explore things. He turned it into a very successful business. One of the most interesting things about his long career in technology was recognizing how the very latest development in technology would be very pertinent in the near future in enterprise and consumer facing technology. And the way the scientific developments might change products available from Silicon Valley and putting his company at the forefront of that. Emily the question remains is there anything more to this story . If he transitioning out because he is ready to transition out or is there more . Cory there have been discussions about him going to all kinds of places. There is wonderful stuff in the Scott Galloways new books. They said, we have to get rid of and hire eric schmidt. He has been moving away from the executive role at google for a long time with the move from ceo to whom a we broke this story. Emily i remember when that happened. It was 2011. Cory when we first started the show. Emily page came in as ceo and in 2015 he restructured and turned the company into alphabet. Cory he has had a remarkable career at Silicon Valley. He has also been very involved in the Silicon Valley. He has also been involved in philanthropy. I would not expect that to stop either. Emily cory johnson thank you , for giving us the more context. Didi has raised chuxing has raised 50 billion. Cash reserves at 12 billion. Some of the money raised goes toward Autonomous Cars and electric car charging networks. Facing coming up, facebook care is about getting influential people on this platform. Now the companys practice of working with politicians, some use it to silence opponents is under scrutiny. We will explain. This is bloomberg. Emily facebooks influence in elections worldwide continues to be under scrutiny. The social network says it is a politically agnostic tool, but the company actively works with Political Parties and leaders. The initiative is run by a littleknown facebook Politics Team that is neutral and works with anyone seeking or securing power. Bloombergs sarah frier broke this story. Fascinating story. What exactly does the facebook Politics Team and do . Sarah just like facebook does with celebrities or sports stars, this team trains politicians on how to best use the platform, teaching them about live video how to build a base of , followers all of those tactics leaders andwhen the up running for office and get elected, facebook continues to have a close relationship with them and continues to help them. Sometimes they turn it into a Campaign Advertising relationship. Emily this is no matter what their politics. You talk about being associated with some political leaders associated with extrajudicial murders. Sarah absolutely. Dutere was one of them. They have worked closely with modi, and with the far right party in germany the scottish , national party. This is something that facebook just does, broadbased across all kinds of Political Parties. They do draw the line at very strong extremists. They do not work with the far right for example. This is something that is looking very concerning today because we are seeing facebooks influence in our global globally in shaping elections. The fact that politicians are getting special training to use the platform and in some cases using it against their citizens, definitely is an uncomfortable position for the company to be in. Emily and you spoke with a former member of the team because she was uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with the way the team worked. Sarah right, my colleague spoke with her. She said the team was has started to help to create democratic relationships within societies and evolved into an election nearing strategy. Helping people get elected, helping them run their campaigns. She said she did not like how it was turning. Emily back to the question, if facebook is a neutral platform, why do they need to help politicians learn how to use it . Everyone else learns how to use it on their own. What are they saying about their role here . Sarah i think it goes back to their longstanding competition with twitter. We have seen twitter become the bullhorn for important people around the world. Our president included. Facebook has never naturally been that kind of place for politicians and leaders. So they have had to train and ease people into it. They have been very successful in getting these politicians to get massive followings on their network. From that perspective, it seems like a good idea. When you look at it from the context of now youre helping the people in power. But the citizens in some of these countries may be new to the internet and not as digitally savvy. It creates a power imbalance. Imbalance that facebook is fueling. Emily sarah frier, thank you so much for sharing that with us. We will continue to follow. Coming up, facebook is not only dabbling in politics it is making a push into music. Signing a multiyear deal with universal music. How this ramps up its competition with youtube, next. This is bloomberg. Emily facebook has signed a multiyear licensing deal that lets the social network carry songs and artists from the worlds biggest labels. Universal group will cross platforms. Under the agreement, facebook users will be able to upload songs under the universal label and share using through Facebook Instagram and oculus of the art technology. Joining us from l. A. , lucas shaw. Talk to us about the motivation. Lucas they have great ambitions in video. Mark zuckerberg has said video is a big part of the future of facebook. In recent years, any video that included a song say you are at your wedding and you dance to ray charles that video gets , taken down because you do not have the right to use that song and facebook does not have the right to host videos using that song. It has been a source of frustration for users and facebook. It tries to be a competitor to youtube as a platform where you can upload any video you want. This solves that problem for and in the long term gives the potential to improve their relationship with the music business so that it could get the right to professional video in the future. For the music business it has , been irritating for them to have videos violating copyright on facebook. It helps them establish facebook as a competitor to youtube. Another huge network with billions of users that can be a place where people upload video. Emily do you expect we will see deals like this with other record labels . Lucas yes. Facebook has been talking with sony and warner for several months. If not more than a year. I do not know if they will announce them or how, i would be surprised if they did not have deals with all three of the majors in the next few months. What does this signify to the competition, whether it is youtube or spotify . I think what you have seen in the music business, there has been growth because of paid Services Like spotify, apple music. Free has been an untamed wilderness. Youtube is where everyone goes. The music business is trying to bring order to what people can listen to for free and what they cannot listen to. Universal music, made a deal with spotify that gave them greater control over what music was available for free. With youtube, and a deal announced earlier this week, they got greater control over what music was available for free. If they get to a point with facebook where facebook is hosting full songs, they will exert a lot of control over what is available for free. The labels want to say, you can listen to full albums, any feature you want if you pay. ,but if you are not going to pay, you can only listen to certain songs. They have made a lot of progress this year toward that end. Emily quick question, only 30 seconds left. We are getting more dribbles about a spotify ipo. What is the latest we know . Lucas a report in the wall street journal said the fcc was leaning toward approving their plans for a direct listing on the new york stock exchange, which is an unconventional way of going public. It is not a huge surprise, but we had supported earlier the fcc was looking into it. L. A. Thanks shaw, in , you. Still ahead, our exclusive interview with bank of america chair and Ceo Brian Moynihan. His thoughts on bitcoin and why he is skeptical about bitcoin. This is bloomberg. Is this a phone . Or a little internet machine . It makes you wonder shouldnt w