Latest / Connecting the Dots / AI Policy, Global Competition, and the Tokenized Market

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AI Policy, Global Competition, and the Tokenized Market · Connecting the Dots

• 0:00
  Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
• 0:03
  it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snarful Solutions
• 0:06
  Group brings you Connecting the Dots, where we
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  break down what's happening in tech and why it
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  matters to you. Now, let's dive in with your
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  hosts. Good morning and welcome to Connecting
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  the Dots, broadcast daily right here from Snarfle
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  Solutions Group in Sacramento, California. I'm
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  Alex. And I'm Morgan. We are really thrilled
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  to have you listening with us today as we break
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  down what's happening behind the scenes of the
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  technology you use every single day. Yeah, exactly.
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  But before we get into the invisible tech architecture
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  today, let's get you caught up on the physical
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  world. So today is Friday, March 20th, 2026.
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  Finally, Friday. Right. And looking at the window
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  here in Sacramento, we've got some morning haze
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  burning off, which is paving the way for a beautifully
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  sunny and honestly unusually hot day. We're looking
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  at a high of 91 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah. And
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  that heat is kind of a major theme nationally
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  as you head into the weekend. We are tracking
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  a very rare March heat wave that's pushing temperatures
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  way above normal across the entire southwest
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  U .S. And, you know, with that heat comes some
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  pretty severe dry conditions. Critical fire weather
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  is persisting from the central Rockies straight
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  through the central and southern plains. Right.
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  So we're talking gusty winds, incredibly low
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  humidity. Yeah. So definitely exercise caution
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  if you're in those regions. Meanwhile, it's a
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  completely different story out in the Pacific.
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  Hawaii is currently getting hit with a Kona low.
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  Oh, wow. Yeah, for those who aren't weather nerds,
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  a Kona Low is this type of seasonal subtropical
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  cyclone. It essentially reverses the usual trade
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  winds and pulls deep tropical moisture right
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  over the islands. A lot to rain. Tons of rain.
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  It's going to bring several rounds of moderate
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  to heavy rainfall straight through Sunday. Definitely
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  a weekend of geographic extremes. Checking in
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  on the financial markets, things were a bit more
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  subdued to close out the week. The Dow closed
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  down 15 .9 points and the S &P 500 dipped. 12
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  .53 points. Just a slight cooling off. Yeah,
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  exactly. Nothing major, just settling down after
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  a really busy week of trading. If you're watching
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  the crypto boards, however, Bitcoin is having
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  a highly energetic morning. It's up over $575,
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  currently trading around $70 ,497. Nice. And
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  speaking of high energy, we have to give a massive
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  shout out to the SF Giants. What an absolute
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  slugfest of a game yesterday. Oh man it really
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  was a 14 to 11 win over the Rockies. That is
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  the kind of game that just keeps you glued to
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  your seat until the very final pitch. Right and
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  JT Brubaker took on the win on the mound and
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  Drew Gilbert was just seeing the ball perfectly.
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  going three for five at the plate. Yeah, that's
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  the kind of sustained performance you love to
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  see rolling into a weekend. For sure. And, you
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  know, sustained performance is actually a perfect
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  way to think about how you should be starting
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  your own mornings. Oh, I see what you did there.
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  I try. But seriously, the difference between
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  dragging yourself through Friday and actually
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  dominating your schedule usually comes down to
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  .com. Okay, let's shift gears and open up the
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  Morningstar. The SNARFL Tech article report.
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  That's the one. As we comb through the stack
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  of sources today, a very distinct narrative emerged.
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  We are watching this massive coordinated effort
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  to standardize the chaotic systems of the last
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  decade. Yeah, let's start with the legal system.
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  Our first story comes from Washington. the newly
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  released White House draft framework for AI legislation
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  is officially out. Right. So the Trump administration
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  led by White House AIs are David Sachs and tech
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  advisor Michael Kratzius. They are making a really
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  aggressive push for a unified national set of
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  rules for artificial intelligence. And the primary
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  mechanism of this framework is preemption. The
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  administration wants to preempt what they're
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  calling a 50 state patchwork of AI laws. Which
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  makes sense from a business standpoint, right?
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  Absolutely. If you look at it structurally, having
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  50 different states passing 50 different definitions
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  of what AI can and cannot do creates an impossible
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  compliance matrix. Right. Like a tech company
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  would have to segment its databases based on
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  whether a user crosses state lines from California
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  into Nevada. Exactly. The White House argues
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  this stifles American innovation and has a massive
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  competitive advantage to international rivals.
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  They want one single rule book. Okay, and a huge
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  pillar of this proposed rulebook focuses on how
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  kids and teenagers interact with these algorithms.
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  The draft requires new measures to protect kids
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  online, heavily pushing for mandatory age assurance
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  processes at the App Store level. So parents
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  would have to explicitly approve app downloads
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  for minors. Right. And the platforms would be
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  forced to offer robust account controls allowing
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  parents to manage screen time, privacy, and you
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  know... content exposure now the debate here
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  isn't about whether kids need protecting right
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  it's entirely about the mechanism of that protection
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  the administration believes that by centralizing
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  the rules at the federal level they can force
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  apple google and meta to build standardized parental
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  dashboards yeah they argue this empowers the
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  parent rather than relying on a government agency
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  to dictate what's appropriate which in their
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  view avoids messy first amendment censorship
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  issues I gotta say, though, I have to challenge
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  the core premise of relying on parental controls
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  as the primary defense mechanism here. How so?
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  Well, think about the last time you tried to
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  set up a new smart device or manage a family
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  iCloud account. It is incredibly tedious, expecting
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  everyday parents who are already working full
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  time and managing a household to essentially
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  moonlight as IT security administrators for their
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  teenagers. It just feels completely unrealistic.
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  You know, you aren't alone in that critique.
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  Child safety advocates and policy experts are
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  raising the exact same red flag, and they're
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  pointing to internal data from the tech giants
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  to prove it. Really? What does the data say?
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  So a recent internal study leaked from Meta revealed
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  that their proprietary parental supervision tools
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  had a statistically minimal impact on adolescent
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  usage habits. Wow. Yeah. Furthermore, internal
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  documents from TikTok show that families rarely
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  even activate these controls. And when they do,
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  the tools mostly just limit screen time. They
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  completely fail to address the primary parental
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  concerns, like exposure to inappropriate content
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  or predatory interactions. So it feels like the
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  government is mandating seatbelts in all cars,
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  which, obviously, is a positive step. But through
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  this preemption clause, they're telling individual
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  states they are legally forbidden from lowering
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  the speed limit in a school zone, even if local
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  data shows the road is still dangerous. That
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  is exactly the friction point. The preemption
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  clause is the battleground. Policy experts at
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  organizations like the Heritage Foundation point
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  out that state legislatures have historically
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  been the most agile first line of defense against
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  emerging tech harms. Great. They can move much
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  faster than Congress. Exactly. If Congress preempts
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  them, that agility just vanishes. This is exactly
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  why competing proposals are gaining traction.
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  most notably a framework introduced by Senator
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  Marsha Blackburn. Okay, yeah. Her proposal takes
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  a radically different structural approach. She
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  has introduced a framework that incorporates
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  major bipartisan bills like the Kids Online Safety
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  Act, or COSA, and the End No Fakes Act. And her
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  stated goal is to protect the four Cs, right?
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  Yeah. Children, creators, conservatives, and
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  communities. The mechanical difference between
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  her framework and the White House draft is that
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  Senator Blackburn's bills target the actual design
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  architecture of the platforms. So not just adding
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  a dashboard. Right. Instead of giving parents
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  a dashboard to turn off the app, the legislation
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  forces the developers to remove addictive design
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  features by default. We're talking about banning
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  infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, and those
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  algorithmic reward loops engineered to maximize
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  dopamine hits. Got it. So using the car analogy
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  again, instead of giving parents a slightly better
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  brake pedal, they're trying to redesign the engine
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  so it physically cannot accelerate to dangerous
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  speeds in the first place. That's a great way
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  to put it. And crucially, her framework explicitly
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  preserves state authority. It does not preempt
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  states from passing stricter laws. So we're watching
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  a real time philosophical collision over who
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  holds the ultimate authority to govern this stuff,
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  the federal government, the states or the parents.
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  Exactly. And while lawmakers debate the legal
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  architecture from the top down, the tech companies
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  themselves are rapidly standardizing the physical
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  architecture from the bottom up. Which brings
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  us to our second story. Yeah moving from the
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  laws governing AI to the actual silicon running
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  it in your living room, right? So Xiaomi the
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  massive global electronics and hardware manufacturer
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  Just pulled the curtain back on their new MIMO
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  V2 AI models and the financial commitment here
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  is staggering. Oh, it's huge They're executing
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  a twenty seven point eight billion dollar research
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  and development push over the next five years
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  to put that in perspective $5 .6 billion is slated
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  to be spent in 2026 alone. Wow. And they're channeling
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  those funds directly into their self -developed
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  MIMO foundation model. The flagship release is
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  the MIMO V2 Pro, which carries the internal code
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  name Hunter Alpha. Sounds intense. It is. This
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  is a one trillion parameter model. To demystify
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  that term real quick, parameters are essentially
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  the artificial neural connections within the
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  model. The higher the parameter count, the more
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  complex reasoning, nuance, and contextual memory
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  the AI possesses. Right. And Xiaomi's Gensmark
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  tests claim Hunter Alpha is operating in the
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  same weight class as OpenAI's GPT -5 .2 and Anthropix's
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  Opus 4 .6. Which is wild. And they also launched
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  a leaner open source variant called Mimo V2 Flash.
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  This version is built for blistering speed, focusing
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  on rapid reasoning and coding generation. It's
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  meant to compete head to head with models like
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  DeepSeq v3 .2. But, you know, the technical specs
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  aren't even the real story here. No, the real
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  story is the strategy. Why is a company famous
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  for smartphones, electric vehicles, and like
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  smart refrigerators spending nearly $30 billion
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  to build a foundational brain. It comes down
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  to their master strategy, which they call the
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  human car home ecosystem. Currently, most smart
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  devices rely on an API and application programming
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  interface. Right. An API is essentially a digital
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  bridge to someone else's server. If your smart
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  home runs on an external API, every time you
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  ask your fridge for a recipe, your data travels
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  to a third party server, gets processed, and
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  comes back. Which leaves the hardware company
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  completely at the mercy of the software provider.
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  Precisely. If that third -party software provider
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  decides to raise the toll on that digital bridge
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  by two cents per query, suddenly a fleet of two
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  million smart cars costs an absolute fortune
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  to operate. Right. Or if their servers just go
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  down, your car's voice assistant stops working
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  entirely. Right. Xiaomi wants to sever that dependency
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  completely. They want the AI running your smartphone
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  to be the exact same proprietary intelligence
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  running your EVs navigation and your home security
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  system. Complete top -to -bottom vertical integration.
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  Okay. I understand the financial mechanics of
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  that strategy. It makes perfect business sense
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  for them. But as a consumer navigating this ecosystem,
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  the concept raises massive red flags for me regarding
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  single points of failure. How do you mean? Well,
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  we hear the phrase putting all your eggs in one
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  basket all the time, but let's look at this more
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  mechanically. Think of this ecosystem like a
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  biological central nervous system. If your appliances,
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  your locks, and your vehicle are the limbs, and
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  this trillion parameter hunter alpha model is
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  the brain, what happens when the brain suffers
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  a glitch? If you use separate systems, a bug
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  in your thermostat is just a cold living room.
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  Right. But if the entire house shares a single
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  cognitive architecture, an algorithmic hallucination
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  is effectively a digital stroke. The whole system
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  paralyzes simultaneously. Yeah, that is terrifying.
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  But the trade off you're describing is the ultimate
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  dilemma of modern convenience. The benefit of
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  a shared nervous system is absolute contextual
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  awareness. True. The system knows you left the
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  office because your car told the network. So
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  the house begins cooling down your living room
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  and preheating the oven before you even pull
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  into the driveway. It feels like magic. It does.
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  But the cost of that magic is handing over the
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  architectural blueprints of your physical reality
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  to a single algorithmic entity. If it misinterprets
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  a command, the cascading effects across your
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  car and your home could be disastrous. Yeah,
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  you're hitting on the core theme of the day centralization.
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  Xiaomi believes the seamless interoperability
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  of a centralized system far outweighs the isolated
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  safety of fragmented devices. They're betting
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  $28 billion that consumers will choose convenience
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  over compartmentalization. And you know, that
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  physical standardization inside your home perfectly
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  parallels a completely invisible standardization
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  happening right now in the global economy. Let's
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  move to our third story and examine the underlying
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  plumbing of Wall Street. Right. So the U .S.
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  Securities and Exchange Commission has officially
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  greenlit a rule change for NASDAQ, permitting
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  specific high -profile securities to trade in
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  a tokenized format. Which is a massive shift.
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  This is happening through a pilot program managed
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  by the Depository Trust Company, or DTC. To understand
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  why this matters, you really have to understand
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  what the DTC does. Right, they're kind of the
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  invisible backbone. Exactly. The DTC is essentially
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  the central vault of the American financial system.
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  They handle the post -trade settlement. When
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  you buy a share of stock on an app, you see it
• 14:35
  in your account instantly. But behind the scenes.
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  Behind the scenes, a massive archaic process
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  kicks off involving clearinghouses, brokerages,
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  and multiple separate ledgers that all have to
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  be manually reconciled to prove you actually
• 14:49
  own that share. Yeah, and the current standard
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  for this reconciliation is called T plus one
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  settlement, meaning the actual transfer of ownership
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  and funds finalizes one business day after the
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  trade is executed. Right. Every step in that
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  multi ledger process introduces a fraction of
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  a delay, a fraction of a cent in fees and a fraction
• 15:07
  of counterparty risk. And tokenization completely
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  upends that mechanism. By putting these securities
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  on a blockchain, they're creating a single immutable
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  cryptographic ledger. Instead of five different
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  banks checking five different spreadsheets at
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  the end of the day, there's one undeniable digital
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  receipt sitting in the middle of the table that
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  updates instantly. What makes this pilot program
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  monumental is the scope. They aren't testing
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  this on obscure, highly volatile crypto assets.
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  The SEC approved tokenization for heavy hitters
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  equities in the Russell 1000 index and major
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  S &P 500 ETFs. Yeah, they're taking the most
• 15:41
  traditional, heavily regulated financial instruments
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  in the world and migrating them to blockchain
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  rails. So for the average investor listening,
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  what does this change about your retirement account?
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  Well, the brilliant part is that on the surface,
• 15:55
  it changes absolutely nothing. A tokenized share
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  of a Russell 1000 company has the exact same
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  ticker symbol. It carries the exact same CUSIP
• 16:05
  number, which is that nine character alphanumeric
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  fingerprint used to identify any financial security.
• 16:11
  Right. You retain the exact same voting rights
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  and receive the exact same dividends. It even
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  trades on the exact same NASDAQ order book. So
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  the mechanism of the trade remains identical,
• 16:22
  but the infrastructure supporting it is revolutionary.
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  It's applying the technological efficiency of
• 16:28
  cryptocurrency to the strict, uncompromising
• 16:31
  regulatory standards of traditional finance.
• 16:33
  Exactly. And by running it through the DTC, they
• 16:35
  strip away the wild west volatility risks usually
• 16:38
  associated with crypto networks. The best way
• 16:40
  to visualize this shift is to imagine a massive,
• 16:43
  historic skyscraper. The tenants are still working
• 16:47
  inside, going about their day. You walk into
• 16:49
  the kitchen, turn the faucet, and the water flows
• 16:51
  with the exact same pressure you're used to.
• 16:53
  Right, everything looks completely normal. Everything
• 16:55
  looks completely normal. But hidden behind the
• 16:58
  drywall, the building management has systematically
• 17:00
  swapped out a century of rusted, leaking iron
• 17:04
  pipes with state -of -the -art, high -efficiency
• 17:06
  materials. It really is the ultimate invisible
• 17:09
  upgrade. Furthermore, it incorporates a brilliant
• 17:12
  fail -safe mechanism. If a specific trade encounters
• 17:17
  an error and cannot meet the rigorous tokenization
• 17:20
  requirements on the blockchain, the DTC system
• 17:23
  automatically defaults the transaction back to
• 17:26
  the traditional legacy settlement process. It
• 17:28
  ensures the market never freezes during the transition.
• 17:31
  That is so smart. It proves that regulatory bodies
• 17:34
  are finally gaining deep technical comfort with
• 17:36
  blockchain technology. This pilot program is
• 17:39
  the definitive first step towards standardizing
• 17:42
  tokenized assets across mainstream global markets.
• 17:45
  The financial architecture is being rebuilt while
• 17:48
  the market continues to trade at all -time highs.
• 17:51
  It's fascinating. It really is. Before we zoom
• 17:54
  out and connect all these dots, we want to mention
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  a step back and look at the whole board. Today's
• 18:49
  three stories might seem disconnected at first.
• 18:51
  Politics, smart appliances, and stock market
• 18:54
  clearinghouses. But they are all chapters of
• 18:57
  the exact same narrative. Yeah, we're watching
• 18:59
  the standardization of modern life. In Washington,
• 19:02
  the White House is attempting to pour the concrete
• 19:04
  for a unified national legal framework. prioritizing
• 19:08
  centralized control over state -level agility
• 19:10
  to manage how society interacts with algorithms.
• 19:14
  Right. And in the physical realm, Xiaomi is spending
• 19:17
  billions to ensure that the artificial intelligence
• 19:20
  monitoring your home security is the exact same
• 19:23
  proprietary brain navigating your car and answering
• 19:25
  your phone. They're centralizing your personal
• 19:27
  hardware to eliminate reliance on external software
• 19:30
  bridges. And then in the financial sector, the
• 19:33
  SEC and NASDAQ are quietly replacing the fractured
• 19:37
  multi -legged gears of traditional banking with
• 19:39
  a single standardized blockchain infrastructure.
• 19:43
  The architecture of our digital, physical, and
• 19:44
  financial realities is evolving simultaneously,
• 19:47
  which leads us to a vital question you need to
• 19:49
  consider as you move through your weekend. The
• 19:51
  push for standardization is always sold on the
• 19:53
  promise of efficiency and safety. One set of
• 19:56
  laws is easier to follow. One AI ecosystem is
• 20:00
  vastly more convenient. One financial ledger
• 20:02
  is faster and cheaper. But consider the ultimate
• 20:04
  cost of that efficiency. Is this incredible push
• 20:07
  for centralized standardization genuinely going
• 20:10
  to protect you as a consumer? Or is it slowly
• 20:12
  and visibly locking you into massive, unavoidable
• 20:15
  digital ecosystems where you have absolutely
• 20:17
  no alternative when things go wrong? Keep that
• 20:20
  dynamic in mind the next time a screen prompts
• 20:22
  you to agree to a new set of unified terms and
• 20:24
  conditions. We're here to help at Snarful, so
• 20:27
  reach out on our website if you have any more
• 20:28
  questions. That's a wrap on today's top stories.
• 20:35
  Remember, tech doesn't have to be complicated,
• 20:37
  and we're here to help connect the dots. If you've
• 20:40
  got questions or want to learn more, visit us
• 20:43
  at snarful .com. Thanks for listening, and we'll
• 20:46
  catch you next time.