Messages on the social media sites. And Mark Suckerberg is taking the ice bucket challenge. The challenge, which has gone viral is to raise money for a. L. S. Research. We just heard from president obama speaking from Marthas Vineyard he address ide rack and the protests unfolding in ferguson, missouri. Were going to talk a little bit about that and how technology and social media have been fueling these protests. But first, to our lead story of the day, it didnt have the usual fanfare of a samsung launch but nevertheless samsung is getting a jump on apple, re revealing its newest smartphone aed of the new iphone. This is a departure from older phone, its called a galaxy alpha, has a metal casing instead of a plastic one, has a 4. 7 inch screen and comes in five colors. It will be available starting in september. The top phone make has seen its Worldwide Market share decline. Joining us now is bob odonnell nd michael gorman. They just released this secretly, just a press release on their website. Not a lot of fanfare. What is your reaction . It looks like a decent phone. It is kind of what we would expect. It just shows how often samsung really does i hate to say it slavishly copy apple. If you look at the look of the general phone, its very much like what we have seen apple do. The interesting thing is i think apple will do a bit of a twist, well see where it might be more surfed. Then samsung will be a step behind. It is plastic on the back, to be clear. It is metal on the edges and plastic in the back. It will still look and feel very nice. It is a big challenge trying to compete these days, because these phones are getting to be so similar. Test interesting some reviews said, is it a flagship phone . It has some flagship specs. Also some mid tier specs, like the camera isnt as good as the s5. I still think the flagship phone is the galaxy s5. The screen is not as big. The screen is lowerres. Lower res. I assume that was made for battery purposes. It is using less power because of the thinner chassis that they have put in the phone, and theyve had to put in a smaller battery. That is a concern. To see how it performs. From a hardware perspective, it looks like a flagship. Premium components. Fits in better with what weve seen from l. G. And h. T. C. And of course apple. The question is, why . We know they have been struggling in market share. They try to serve all customers, from low to high end. Theyre giving the name the phone the galaxy name, so the uestion is why bother . Why not try to make the s5 better . I think what they are trying to do is fit into more segments. As the Smartphone Market has matured and started to fill up the market, the need to really subsegment to a degree we have not seen before. Now virtually everybody in the u. S. , for example, everybody already has a smartphone. Youre talking about getting people to upgrade. They will be very specific in their choices. Theyve lived through a couple of generations of smartphones and know things they like and ont like. And pricing wise, its below the s5, its not the flagship in that sense. Again, they are trying to fit in between these different markets. Unlike the u. S. , many other parts of the world do sell unsubsidized phones. They actually have to hit different price points. That is part of what theyre doing with this as well. Is samsung doing too much . Samsung has always done the shotgun approach. Throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks. This seems like a continuation of that. It is kind of like copying what apple has done. Have seen where these other hardware manufacturers have put a bigger focus on the premium look and feel to the hardware. Thats long been a criticism for people with samsungs phones. It hasnt hurt them before, but w theyve seen their sales drop, they were like, we got to try something. There has been some discussion about the glass. Samsung uses corning and apple uses sapphire glass. What is the different . All i want to know is whether its going to break. Sapphire glass and its not technically glass. Its kind of a sapphire crystal. Its more scratch resistant, and theoretically, potentially more break proof. We will see what happens in the real world. But thats the idea. The idea of talking about sapphire, everybody thinks its a jewel. No. Its chemically manufactured. Nevertheless, it is one distinguishing point. One last point i want to make. When we think about the Smartphone Market in general, most people in the u. S. Have smaller screen phones. A 4. 7 is on the large size for the u. S. Market. That will be important, because not everyone has made that transition. Apple will drive a lot of transition with that. I just did a survey of 2,500 people around the world on things they plan to purchase in the next year, all kinds of gadgets, and number one by far was large smartphones. That is what people are looking for. A 4. 7 inch screen, to me, having been using an iphone, mostly seems reasonable. 5. 5 seems just too big. How do you think the new iphones will do compared to the new ptions from samsung . I think youve got a lot of people for me, its about hand size. The sweet spot with the iphone and why it has been so popular with women in particular is the smaller size. When my girlfriend was shopping for a phone, she had no allegiance either way, but it was uncomfortable for her to hold a wider phone. She got an iphone because it was more comfortable and she could fit it where she wanted it to be. I expect apple to go bigger, but i dont think we will see anything over five inches. Just because i think you get into more of a niche market. And really youve seen the 4. 5 inch, 4. 7 inch phones have large uptake across many markets. Thats a better sweet spot. It lets people see video on their phone. People have been clamoring for bigger screens to do media and that stuff. I think that is probably where we will end up. What do you think . Well certainly see the 4. 7. The 5. 5 is interesting. Again, remember, apple needs to grow in other markets, notably china. In china, the 4. 7 is actually not so big. It is kind of on the smaller side. They like five plus. Part of apples idea is, lets build products we can sell around the world. Yes, maybe theyre a smaller piece of the market in the u. S. But they might be significantly larger in other parts of asia where they want to grow. We will see if samsung sneaks in anymore announcements. Michael gorman, thank you. Thank you both. What role is social media playing in the protests unfolding in missouri surrounding the death of 18yearold Michael Brown . More on that when bloomberg west returns. Ote] welcome back. Im emily chang. Just moments ago, president obama took a break from his vacation on Marthas Vineyard to address the situation and humanitarian crisis in iraq, and simmering tensions over the death of a black teenager outside of st. Louis. Our White House CorrespondentPhil Mattingly joins us now with more. Lets start on iraq. What is your takeaway from what the president had to say . Well, emily, the president didnt mince any words. He said the situation on the top of mt. Sinjar has improved. Many of the advisors sent over there in the last couple of days will be leaving iraq sometime in the near future. So big step forward. Already much of what weve heard in the last 12 to 16 hours is they believe the siege that has been surrounding that mountain has been broken. A major step forward at least on that issue. The bigger issue as the president underscored again today is the political things in baghdad. The president said theres modest improvement there, no big gain bus at least some steps forward. What most of us were paying attention to is the president s take on whats going on in ferguson, missouri. The president said he had spoken to the governor in missouri shortly before coming out and you said there is no excuse for the escalation of violence that has been going on, on both sides of the situation. I think its something youll see the white house keep a close eye on. Also, theres a parallel investigation with the local police and the fbi and Justice Department on the federal side. There is the determination from the administration to try to get to the bottom of what happened. He said he did ask the d. O. J. And the f. B. I. To investigate. Lets take a quick listen to some of the things he had to say. When Something Like this happens, the local authorities, including the police, have the responsibility to be open and transparent about how they are investigating that death and how they are protecting the people in their communities. There is never an excuse for violence against police, or for those who would use this tragedy as a cover for vandalism or looting. There is also no excuse for police to use Excessive Force against peaceful protests. He also said that police shouldnt be bullying journalists. What do you make of how he came out, sort of defending both sides in the situation . You know what is interesting, emily, you compare this to his remarks a little over a year ago on trayvon martin, which were very from the heart, trying to take a look at the issue of race. This was not that. This was an effort by the president i think he was very cognizant of the fact that leadership from above has not existed in ferguson in the past five days. Two washingtonbased journalists were arrested and detained for a short time frame yesterday. That is terrifying to a Government Official when you look at things going in that direction. The president is trying to establish leadership from above, trying to get federal officials in there to get some control of the area. Then they will deal with the broader underlying issues. It definitely sounded like he was trying to find some middle ground. Phil mattingly, thanks so much for that update. As unrest continues in ferguson, missouri, a hacker group anonymous, an International Group of hackers and activists, has urged Peaceful Protesters of the death of 18yearold Michael Brown. This morning, they released the name and photo of the alleged shooter. The st. Louis Police Department disputes the report, saying its inaccurate. We are joined by professor of anthropology at Mcgill University and author of the forthcoming book hacker, hoaxer, whistleblower, spy. Thank you for joining us. How would you describe anonymouss role in these protests and the situation in ferguson so far . Anonymous has played a couple of roles. They have amplified the role that the media played, which is getting the word out, having people be able to participate and know what is going on. And they did this largely on twitter by providing live updates and pictures and rallying calls, but they go no further than that. They go a little further than that, by releasing names of officers involved, whether that was the name of the chief of police in st. Louis, revealing his name and that of his family, and then this morning, as you noted, the supposed person who shot mike brown. I wonder, behindthescenes, how are they organizing themselves . How will they discuss whether to release this information once they have obtained what they believe is correct information . Historically, in some operations where they have been releasing name or incriminating evidence, they tended to organize by very small teams and they would work with locals in the area and really only release information once it was pretty solid. I actually watched this morning as members of anonymous and participants were discussing whether to release the names. It happened on a public channel, which was quite unusual, and it was quite kay yacht. It was clear that while many felt the information was suggestive, it was not definitive, people were saying nevertheless, in the heat of the moment they called for a vote. They went into a chat room where they voted, more people voted yes, and boom, next thing you know they release the name. How would you compare their role in this protest to their ole in other protests, and waderanging protests . One good example is the bart operation in 2011, where some bart policemen killed charles hill in San Francisco. There were some protests at the bart station and bart was going to set to shut off cell phone access to quell future protests. Anonymous got involved at that moment where there was censorship. Im pretty sure that issue would have stayed a regional or city issue. Because anonymous got involved, it transformed into a national issue. With this case, it was national from the start. It was so heated. What anonymous has done is reached different audiences, amplified things. But also really stirred the pot of controversy because they keep claiming they will release the name of officials involved. And again, this has really been controversial, within anonymous and outside of anonymous as well. Talking about the role of social media, it is amazing with these protests, as with so many in the past several years, the power that social media has. The protest being live streeped for all to see. Is it good or bad . On the one hand, it gives power to the people. On the other hand, it can spread misinformation and lead to even more violence. Absolutely. Participating online and watching things unfold is a very powerful vehicle for witnessing the event. You are not there, but a lot of people feel like they are there. They feel connected. Lines of solidarity get built up because of the kind of dimension and rich elements that happen on social media. It is certainly the case that it ups the ante for misinformation. Generally, i think that misinformation gets corrected quickly. The problem, of course, is the person who is misidentified in the process definitely suffers consequences. Again, i think misinformation is corrected rather quickly on social media, but there is definitely Collateral Damage for the target that is misidentified. Thinking back over year, over decades, i was thinking of the l. A. Riots, for example, how would those have been different if social media, if facebook and twitter and the internet existed . That is a great parallel. Those were pretty explosive, pretty profound. I think they probably would have been bigger. I would not of been surprised if they had spread to other cities as well. There is something very infectious about what happens on social media. Things spread very quickly. I think we saw that quite a bit with occupy. It was a movement very much grounded in place. It had to do with new york city and wall street, but social media allowed it to spread in ways that i think really surprised even the organizers. I think that was the case with the rodney king riots as well. How do you expect these protests to play out . I think there will be continued pressure to get the name out, and i think the Police Department will be forced to release the name, kind of against their wishes. There is a lot of pressure coming from advocacy groups, from journalists, from anonymous, from people in the community. And that kind of ongoing pressure and demand is not going to go away. It is going to intensify and it will force them to release the name. We will continue to follow the story. Thank you so much. Mcfill university and author of hacker, hoaxer, whistleblower, spy, gabriella coleman. Well be right back. The challenge that Companies Face the most are the i. T. They have to bring that technology into the business and try leverage it in their daily work. Technology is even more important in consumerization of i. T. Samsung has addressed this by bringing in a framework to help get the best of both. Samsung is doing a lot to help our businesses meet those changes and those challenges, i choice. Ere the right we are committed to areas of solution and support. Welcome back. Im emily chang. Twitter is taking action after offensive material was posted on the twitter account of zelda williams, the daughter of actor robin williams. People sent her cruel images of her father who apparently took his own life this week. Twitter said it will not tolerate abuse of this nature and is evaluate though improve privacy rules. The company has also suspended the accounts of those who sent her the offensive material. Green may be good for wall street, but is arrogance good for Silicon Valley . Well ask california Lieutenant Governor ga vin newsom next on bloomberg west. Time for on the markets. Lets get you caught up where stocks traded today. E closed across the board with ins, the nasdaq and s p up. 4 . Gains across the board. Were looking at is rks 955 on the s p. You are watching bloomberg west. Im emily chang. Sill can valley rhetoric has become synonymous with sayings like demock rahtizing the internet. Its that arrogance and quoteunquote, sess that has translated on the backside. Rent is expected to surpass manhattan for the First Time Ever next year. Thises a Silicon Valley releases a digital diversity report shows a heavily white and asian male work forest. Does Silicon Valley have an arrogance problem . For more, im joined by San Francisco mayor and current california Lieutenant Governor. Thank you for joining us. But how did i get involved in this . This is a loselose. Think about the age cohort we are dealing with. So many people in their 20s. Find me an industry, and age cohort within that industry in their 20s were there is not a large percentage of people that think they can dominate the world. Ost of the big breakthroughs you see in the world, going back to the 1960s and the engineers that got us 45 years ago apollo, most of them were in their 20s. Theres an arrogance that comes ith that age and then there is n arrogance of another kind. Some believe arrogance is not good. If greed is good for wall street, is arrogance good for Silicon Valley . Is that what you are saying . Some of the greatest leaders have changed the world dramatically. They were not always the nicest folks. Folks know a lot about mother theresa. She was not always the most friendly to those closest to her. God fored by, excuse my language. Look at real change agents, from gahn tee gandhi to mandela, chavez, king, they were strongminded, strongwilled people. Steve jobs was legendary for bei