Forces me to, she drink an ungodly amount of water. A new relationship with water so you will be clean. Then she burns me, and puts substance from an amazonian tree frog. Relax. Water is life. That is when in. Frog juice really kicked there was the desert. And then it was kind. There were huge telescopes against the heavens, strange city full of minrals, a chair i can control with my mind. Are you still up . Yeah. Home toon valley maybe other the biggest tech giants in the world, that they are being challenged like never before. I lead author, journalist and im on a quest to find the most innovative tech creations and meet the beautiful freaks behind them. Hello world. Science says this desert is the driest place in the world. The governor plaxico is about 2000 feet above sea level. The days run extremely hot and the nights get extremely cold. Gave is out this health to build a place telescope. Between the High Altitude and the lack of moisture in the air, the view of the stars is practically unobstructed. Im heading for the atacama large millimeter array, aka alma, the largest astronomical project in the world. Ashlee so we are just 500 meters now from the top of the site. I do feel a little bit lightheaded already. Almas telescopes sit at nearly 17,000 feet, the same elevation as everests base camp. So, it is cold, windy, and difficult to breathe. There are dozens of telescopes, and it costs 1. 4 billion to build them all here in the middle of nowhere with the united states, japan, and europe footing most of the bill. And for that kind of money, they did not get a gardenvariety optical telescope. They got something special. I tracked down almas kindly head mechanic, fabiola, to get a better understanding of how this place works. When you are in santiago and you go out to dinner with somebody, how do you explain to them how the telescope works . Fabiola ok, with an optic telescope, you look in the sky and that is what you see. Ashlee yeah. Fabiola with alma, whatever you dont see with your eyes, whatever is black, that is a lot, you see with alma. Ashlee alma sees in what is known as the millimeter range of the electromagnetic spectrum, far beyond the visible range seen by optical telescopes and the human eye. Armed with this superhuman vision, alma can unveil all kinds of magical stuff in the universe that would have been invisible before. To get an idea of what wonders alma is finding in space, i went to the control center, where i met this very tall man. Richard at one time when i was in graduate school, i was supposedly the tallest astronomer who had ever lived. [laughter] richard the Younger Generation is taller, so im not sure that is still true. Ashlee Richard Simon and his fellow astronomers are using alma to look for the origins of stars, life, and the universe itself. With alma, they are able to see the cosmos in more detail than ever before. I was looking at the work you guys do. You can spot even sugar molecules near a star somewhere off in the milky way. Richard we can detect all kinds of different molecules. Think of alma as a huge chemical sniffer, so we can start to understand how stars form, how planets form, how did we wind up with water to support life . Ashlee the surreal images alma creates have revealed earthlike exoplanets, a comet nursery, and galaxies at the edge of the known universe. In the not so distant future, they can also help answer the question of whether we are not alone. Richard one of the small moons of saturn has geysers of water vapor and other materials coming out, and it is possible with alma to actually look at that and to try to see some of the chemistry that is going on. What is inside that moon . What is blasting out into space . Are there complicated organic molecules . I suspect that we will learn a lot more about the chemistry of life, and the possibilities for life in very strange places even here in our own solar system. Ashlee keep watching the skies, you beautiful nerds. Ashlee it is not all dusty highways and infinite vistas in the chilean desert. There is big tech and big fun to be had as well. And to find the fun, you just need to look for the oasis, the town of san pedro de atacama. This is one of the worlds most remote tourist hotspots, a magnet for dirty hippies, and chilledout dogs. Ashlee why would anyone choose to vacation at 8000 feet in the desert . Well, there are glorious geysers that demand to be roamed, there are sand dunes to surf, and there are huge watering holes that no one can explain. Ashlee oddly enough, there is big business out in the atacama, too. More solar radiation reaches this desert than anywhere else in the world. This makes it the Perfect Place to build massive solar panel farms. If you stop by for a visit, they will put you to work washing the panels. How is my technique . Good . [inaudible] ashlee the tricky thing about solar energy is that it needs to be stored. I like that. And the atacama happens to have an answer for that, too. Chile is one of the worlds leading producers of lithium, the stuff that goes into all of our smart phones, laptops, and electric car batteries. And to see how lithium is pulled from the earth, i went to visit the operations of the mining giant s. Q. M. Hello, ashlee. How are you doing . Finally here. Ashlee my guide through the mines is alejandro bucher. He is a cheerful engineer who has spent years working in the great void. When i think of a lithiumion battery, and a laptop, or tesla with thousands of batteries, it is what, like, a spoonful of lithium that would go to this battery . Alejandro in a cell phone, you can have Something Like a spoonful. In a car, you could have maybe 10 to 15 kilos of lithium. Ashlee it is the nearby Andes Mountains that make these mines possible. Over millions of years, minerals from the mountains leech into the ground. Then they collect together and form huge salt beds, rich in lithium, sulfate, potassium, and boron. Companies like s. Q. M. Pump water up through the beds and store the mineralrich liquid in large ponds. From there, it is up to the sun to do its thing, and evaporate away the water, leaving the minerals and salt behind. And nowhere evaporates better than chile. Alejandro now we are heading to the first part of the pond operation. Ashlee there are a lot of ponds. Those are pretty. Alejandro this is the first pond. You can see the salt forming on the surface. Ashlee its going to be crazy, because you already have the harsh heat and cold, and then you have all this salt just blowing around. Alejandro the pickup trucks suffer a lot, but the other equipment, we made them from a special steel that works good here. And now, we are moving to the lithium ponds which are only two of the the 44 million square meters that we have here. Alejandro this pond, we made this so we can experience what is lithium brine. When it is in it the bigger pond, we cannot separate. So, we made these little pumps. Ashlee what exactly is this stuff . Alejandro this is magnesium chloride. Magnesium chloride, it is a magnesium that we need to get rid of in order to produce the lithium in the plant. Ashlee ok. Alejandro we will only send them the liquid. Ashlee just the liquid . Alejandro just the liquid. Ashlee so this is lithium. What are the odds that some part of this is in my smartphone . Alejandro i could not guarantee it, but i am pretty sure almost 100 that part of your smartphone went through this pond at some point in the past. Ashlee at some point. This is smartphone juice. Alejandro yeah. Ashlee you guys must be excited that teslas are selling well and that everybody is getting into electric cars now. Alejandro it is very interesting, but it puts a lot of pressure on us. So, we will more than double our capacity probably in four years. Ashlee chile may have the largest lithium deposits in the world, but it is starting to fall behind countries like australia and china when it comes to production. And in china, it is a onestop shop with the mining and battery production happening together. This is a leap Chilean Companies have been unwilling to take. Maybe you could make the batteries here in chile . Alejandro well, for me, it would be excellent, but the company we are experts in hydrology, experts in mining, experts in producing lithium. If we put that to produce batteries, we are probably not going to do as well. Ashlee things have been extra tense lately between the mines and the chilean government. The feds have put strict quotas on lithium production, and they have also been trying to act tough and save face after some politicos were accused of taking bribes from the mines. Environmentalists are not huge fans of the mines either. They say that water is being sucked from nearby lagoons that feed these flocks of sunning flamingos. Alejandro what we do here has absolutely no impact to the flamingos, but we are still responsible for what is happening with them. We need to do counting of the flamingos every year. They identify them by the feathers on the tail. [truck horn] ashlee the miners here work for a week and then take a week off because of the dry, hot, salty conditions. Ashlee but there are some onthejob perks. Alejandro the sunsets here are every day amazing. You have all these different colors that only women know the names of. Every day, and you dont get tired of that. It is really beautiful. Ashlee alejandro has a point, not so much about the colors that only women apparently know, but about the beauty of the mines. These odd marvels make the modern world run. Let teslas flamingobreeding program begin. Ashlee chileans like to hold santiago up as a symbol of everything they have done right. It is orderly and prosperous. And there is all that you would want from a capital city clinging to the bottom of the globe. Ashlee sure, you can get roped into the occasional kari kari. Ashlee but here, they say it is more refined, and nothing says refinement like a footlong coney. Mayonnaise, definitely a questionable choice. This capital, built with mineral wealth and struggling with its fallout, is looking for new ways to survive in a changing environment. [car horns] hector [speaking spanish] ashlee so, hector pino figured out how to make water from air with the touch of a button. Ashlee hector made a fortune as an engineer, but now works fulltime on his freshwater system. What propelled you to think up this project . Hector [speaking spanish] ashlee do you use this machine at home . Hector yes. Ashlee ok. And your daughter uses this every day . Hector complete my family. Hector [speaking spanish] ashlee hector sees the technology having uses far beyond his family. His freshwater machine feeds off humidity in the air and pulls in water particles through a vent, and then basically forms a rain cloud inside the machine. A series of filters purifies the water, collect it, then pristine h2o flows out of the faucet. Ashlee so, i can drink it . Hector yeah. Its no problem. Ashlee muy delicioso. Right now, one magic water machine costs about 1600, but he wants to shrink the price and its size to something the size of a backpack. As he perfects the design, he has installed his machines in chiles dry north. Hector [speaking spanish] ashlee hector distilled the idea for freshwater inside an incubator funded by some of santiagos wealthiest people. It is called the idea factory, or i. F. , for those into the whole brevity thing. They support tech with a dogooder bent. Politicians stop by to schmooze, kids get a chance to learn. It is not a factory designed to build the next google or facebook. I. F. Focuses on things for chile and south america, and they have got hyperlocal branches hidden in unexpected corners of santiago. [dog barking] ashlee there are tech incubators all over the world, but you wont find many in a neighborhood like this. I. F. Has another building here that has been set up to inspire local youngsters and give budding inventors a helping hand. Ashlee here in recoleta, things are a bit more lively than palo alto, and it suits the place. Ashlee i showed up on a demo day when kids from the neighborhood pour through the gates to check out i. F. s gadgets. There was plenty of eye candy, but nothing beat this. Hello, robot. It is like every other Video Conferencing robot on a stick, but this one is basically lethal. That is so cool. Ashlee all of the gadgets come from this man, roderigo quevedo. He is something of a local celebrity and has kanye west levels of passion. Roderigo [speaking spanish] ashlee roderigo was an officer in the chilean army, and then an engineer, until he had a revelation and became a robotics entrepreneur. His most inspired invention is this wheelchair. People can control it by tilting their head or making a gesture. Soon, roderigo hopes it will move by thought alone, by reading impulses from a brainwave monitor. Roderigo [speaking spanish] ashlee [speaking spanish] roderigo [speaking spanish] ashlee roderigos helpers were surprisingly gentle as they gave me the power of telekinesis. Roderigo [speaking spanish] [bell ringing] ashlee that is how i turn it on . Three blinks. It is like a genie. Roderigo uno, dos, tres. Ashlee oh, my god. [laughs] ashlee that is crazy. Its amazing. [laughter] ashlee and that was the perfect ending to a magical trip. [wind blowing] ashlee chile will always have a special place in my subconscious. Ashlee when i close my eyes at night, i can still hear my shaman, magdalena, singing and see her desert compound. Shes scarred me, but you know, in a good way. Ashlee of all my trips around the world this year, this one was a proper adventure. There is a mystical quality to chile, and it only gets more profound as your body dries out and your brain loses oxygen. As for the tech, chile has the big stuff down. It has embraced the weirdness of the land and tried to make the most out of it. If the startups in santiago can tap into that same spirit, then chile has a Bright Future ahead. Either that, or the poison really got to me. [laughs] so we need tablets installed. With the menu app ready to roll. In 12 weeks. Yeah. The world of fast food is being changed by faster networks. Data, applications, customer experience. Which is why comcast business delivers Consistent Network Performance and speed across all your locations. Fast connections everywhere. Thats how you outmaneuver. David at one point, your father left your mother. Ginni it was sudden, and my mother found herself with four kids and no money. David lets talk about ibm. Ginni we are the champions for business. David when you meet with a president , are they willing to say, mr. President , that is not a good idea . Ginni people are respectfully on a singular opinions. David do you feel a certain possibility . Ginni women do need role models. David in the stay fit category. Ginni the difference is he does not get to hit me. Would you fix your tie, please . David people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed. Just leave it this way. Alright