Apple's iOS Has Once Again Decimated Android When It Comes To Data That Matters (AAPL, GOOG) | ||
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Apple's mobile operating system is once again dominating Google's operating system when it comes to online shopping. Adobe, which is tracking online shopping, reports the following: "iOS users drove four times as much mobile sales revenue as Android users, 79 and 21 percent respectively." IBM's data produced similar findings:
This is important for a few reasons. For years, people have talked about Apple's tiny market share when it comes to the phone market. Globally, Apple has 12% of the smartphone market, according to Gartner. Android has 82%. In the US, Apple has 42% of the market, and Android has 52%, according to comScore. Market share is important because typically in tech, it's winner-take-all. The more people you have using your platform, the better you will do. In theory, the more people use Android, the more developers and publishers will tailor their websites and their apps to Android. In theory, Apple's iPhone will be a second class citizen with second class apps. Eventually people will bail on the iPhone if it's offering a second class experience. But, in practice, Android's market share advantage means nothing because iOS is more popular when it comes to usage, as demonstrated by these shopping data points. If you're making an app or a website, you want it to work best on iOS because that is where the most lucrative customers are. So, in practice, Apple gets the best apps and the best web experience because that's what makes sense for companies and developers. You could argue that this isn't indicative of usage, but merely demonstrates that iOS users have more money to burn. If that's the case, it's good for iOS, too. People with money to burn are an attractive cohort of users for developers and companies. SEE ALSO: How Apple Becomes A $1 Trillion Company Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Filthy Rich Investor Explains Why Being Rich Didn’t Make Him As Happy As He Thought It Would | ||
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As an immigrant in Canada, Palihapitiya grew up on welfare, living above a laundromat with his dad unemployed. Not being as privileged as some of his “rich” friends, Palihapitiya says the biggest thing on his mind at the time was “trying not to be poor.” He would obsess over the Forbes’ Billionaires List, dreaming of one day putting his name on it. “I grew up super poor. I thought I really, really wanted to be rich. But that was the only way I could see the world growing up how I did,” Palihapitiya told Business Insider. Perhaps because of this mindset, Palihapitiya quickly became one of the most successful tech leaders at a very young age. By 26, he became the youngest VP in AOL’s history and later joined Facebook in 2007, becoming the social media’s longest tenured senior executive. Along the way, he was able to build massive amounts of wealth, which is estimated to be nearly $1 billion. But once he finally became rich financially, Palihapitiya says it didn’t really make him as happy as he thought it would. He says he realized that unless he did something more meaningful with his wealth, and have a “massive impact,” he wouldn’t feel truly happy about being rich. “The most important thing I realized is you need something superficial like that (being rich) to act as a catalyst initially, so you are motivated to escape whatever you are trying to escape,” he says. “But then you need to use that as a bridge to a more meaningful, long-term, largely unrealistic goal that can keep you focused, grounded and helpful to others.” So after cashing out his Facebook stock, Palihapitiya founded his own venture capital firm called The Social+Capital Partnership. It takes a little different approach than other VC firms in that it mostly invests in companies that really tries to tackle serious social and global issues. For example, it’s invested in Glooko, a mobile diabetes management company, and Treehouse, a company that trains computer engineers and helps them find jobs. “I want to create a massive legacy,” Palihapitiya says. “I am fortunate enough that I can fund that and put the money back in the world.” SEE ALSO: Why Silicon Valley's Elites Are Obsessed With Poker Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Chamath Palihapitiya, the founder of The Social+Capital Partnership, is a classic case of a “rags-to-riches” story. Here's How Dominant Google Is In Europe | ||
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Yesterday, the European parliament passed a resolution to break up Google. Weirdly, the regulators never actually mentioned Google in the resolution, but it's pretty clear from their talk about search dominance which company they were thinking of. It's mainly a political move. The parliament actually has no power to split the company's search business from its other businesses, but this resolution places pressure on the antitrust regulators who actually do have this power, although some antitrust experts think it's logistically impossible. At the very least, these folks can place a bunch of restrictions on Google, like forcing it to bury its own products in search results. Big fines are also a very real possibility. Europe has been investigating Google on and off for more than three years now, based on complaints from Microsoft and other competitors. The details of these complaints and Google's actual behavior will probably influence whatever remedies are handed down. But it's also worth stepping back and looking at the big picture. Google is drawing this kind of fire because of its absolute dominance in a bunch of very important markets. It's arguably more powerful today than Microsoft was at its peak. Let's go to the charts. First, search. You may have the idea that Microsoft and Yahoo are putting up a decent fight against Google. That's true in the United States, where they have about 30% share between them. But in Europe, it's another story. Google has more than 90% market share, according to StatCounter:
Internet search is the most effective form of advertising ever invented. That's because Google knows exactly what you're looking for because you just entered it into a search box! If you happen to be looking for a product, Google has a pretty good idea of which ads to show you. So it's no wonder that Google is by far the leader in online advertising revenue. This is a much more fragmented market than search, but it's basically got 4 times as much revenue as its nearest competitor, Facebook. These stats come from eMarketer and are for the entire world, but the breakdown is probably similar in Europe:
But what about mobile advertising? Isn't Facebook doing better there? Yes, Facebook is growing its mobile ad revenue more quickly than Google, but overall Google is still way out in front, with more than twice as much market share. These stats are also global, not just for Europe, and come from eMarketer: It's logical that Google would be dominating mobile advertising, since Google also owns the Android mobile platform. It's got between 70% and 90% share, depending on market. Here's Android's market share in the "big 5" European countries — France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom — according to Kantar Worldpanel:
Last of all, in case you thought Firefox's move to swap Google for Yahoo as its default search engine would make a difference — not really. Although the statistics vary depending on how you count, but StatCounter looks at active usage on its millions of member sites. It shows that Google Chrome dominates in Europe, especially if you include mobile in the overall picture:
Dominating your market is not illegal. Dominating multiple markets is not illegal. Having one or more monopolies is not illegal. But using that dominance to raise prices and hurt consumers, or squeeze competitors, or enter new markets — well, those kinds of activities may in fact be illegal. And that's why dominant tech companies draw so much scrutiny from governments. The EU probably not be able to split Google up. But whatever happens in this particular case, Google's dominance means regulators are going to be looking closely at it for years to come. SEE ALSO: By The Time Europe Gets Around To Breaking Google Up, It Probably Won't Matter Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Sony Thinks North Korea Could Be Linked To A Cyber Attack Just Weeks Before 'The Interview' Hits Theaters | ||
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sony Pictures Entertainment is investigating to determine if hackers working on behalf of North Korea might be responsible for a cyber attack that knocked out the studio's computer network earlier this week, the technology news site Re/code reported. The attack occurred a month before Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp, is to release "The Interview." The movie is a comedy about two journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The Pyongyang government denounced the film as "undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war" in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June. Representatives of the North Korean mission to the United Nations could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday. Sony Pictures' computer system went down on Monday. Before screens went dark, they displayed a red skull and the phrase "Hacked By #GOP," which reportedly stands for Guardians of Peace, the Los Angeles Times said. The hackers also warned they would release "secrets" stolen from the Sony servers, the Times reported. Re/code said in a report late Friday that Sony and security consultants were investigating the possibility that someone acting on behalf of North Korea, possibly from China, was responsible. Re/code said a link to North Korea had not been confirmed but it had not been ruled out. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Sony Pictures was investigating every possibility, adding no link to North Korea has been uncovered. Sony acknowledged the computer outage in a statement on Tuesday. Emails to Sony were bouncing back on Saturday with a message asking senders to contact employees by telephone because its email system was "experiencing a disruption." "The Interview," scheduled for release in the United States on Dec. 25, stars James Franco as the host of a tabloid television show that is enjoyed by Kim, and Seth Rogen as the show's producer. When they are granted a rare interview with Kim, the CIA wants to turn them into assassins. KCNA, the official news agency in isolationist North Korea, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman in June as promising a "merciless counter-measure" if the film is released. The government also wrote to U.S. President Barack Obama asking him to stop it, the Voice of America reported.
(Reporting by Ron Grover, Michelle Nichols and Jim Finkle; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Frances Kerry) Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Yes, You Should Get The iPhone 6 Plus Instead Of The iPhone 6 (AAPL) | ||
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In a break from its usual pattern, Apple released two new phones with two new screen sizes this year. The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch screen. The iPhone 6 Plus comes has a 5.5-inch screen. The 6 Plus has a slightly better camera, and a better battery life, otherwise, they are the same phone. Previously, Apple's best phone was a 4-inch iPhone 5S. Apple is famous for making decisions for consumers. It doesn't give users as many options as Android, which annoys some people, but makes life easier for others who get flustered by too many choices. With the iPhone 6, Apple has introduced choice, and, predictably, people are feeling flustered. On an almost daily basis either I am asked about the 6 Plus versus the 6, or I see someone else asking about it. So, here's my answer: Buy the iPhone 6 Plus. You will not regret it.
I ordered an iPhone 6 Plus on the day it came out, and I love it. It's the best iPhone I've owned by a mile. A few weeks after I got it, I sold my iPad Mini, and I haven't missed it that much. I'm not the only one that loves the iPhone 6 Plus. Of the seven Business Insider tech reporters that upgraded to the iPhone 6, five of us got the iPhone 6 Plus. None of us regrets it. We all think it was the right choice. Kara Swisher at Re/code just wrote a love note to her iPhone 6 Plus, saying, "I could not be more ecstatic about the 5.5-inch screen and its lovely and enormous heft. I can definitively say it has made me happier than I have ever been in a cellular relationship." Why are people unsure of which phone to buy? Because after using a 4-inch or smaller iPhone for years, the leap to the 5.5-inch phone seems gigantic. On day one, the big phone will be a little weird and oversized. By day three, you won't even notice. The smaller screen on the iPhone 6 is still bigger than the current phone, so it will feel like a nice upgrade, but eventually it too will feel small. So, go big. After the first day, I haven't thought to myself at any point that the phone is too big.
Aside from the giant screen, what's so great about it? The battery life is off the charts. If I only use the phone a light amount, I'm getting 48 hours of battery off a full charge. If I use it heavily, I get 36 hours. One thing to note: I keep my phone in "do not disturb" mode at all times, which eliminates notifications from popping up on my screen, thus saving some battery life. The iPhone 6 is a good phone and you'll be fine with it, should you get it. But, the iPhone 6 Plus is the better phone, and you'll be happier in the long run. So, fear not! Get the iPhone 6 Plus, the big screen is a good thing. SEE ALSO: How Apple Becomes A $1 Trillion Company Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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If you've ever looked into buying a new TV, you may have heard something along the lines of the following: Nobody ever regrets buying too big of a TV. The bigger screen is always better for a TV. It turns out that the same might apply to phones.
Some people seem worried about it fitting in their pockets. The phone can be a tight squeeze if you're wearing tight jeans, or pants with short pockets. But, it's fine overall. I take my phone out of my pocket a lot, but that's not that really the end of the world since I tend to be using it. I also take my wallet out of my back pocket when I sit at my desk. Here’s How Good Tim Cook Has Been For Apple In One Chart (AAPL) | ||
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In just three years, Tim Cook has done something truly remarkable at Apple: he's more than doubled its stock price. When Cook took over the top job at Apple on August 24, 2011, Steve Jobs' health was deteriorating. Some doubted that Cook could lead the company as well has Jobs had. And while it may be too early to judge the products Apple has made under Cook, the company's stock had soared since he became CEO. Last April, Apple announced a 7:1 stock split on its shares. Shareholders received six additional shares for every one they previously held. As you can see below, Apple's stock has risen from $53 to nearly $119 on a split-adjusted basis:
It hasn't been a easy ride for Apple's stock, which took a beating in the second half of 2012 leading into 2013. But investors turned bullish on Apple in recent months, largely because of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. There's no telling when Apple's stock will see this kind of growth again. But if Cook can do for the Apple Watch what he's done for the iPhone, Apple might become a trillion-dollar company not too long from now. SEE ALSO: It's Going To Be An iPhone 6 Christmas Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Mobile Advertising Is Exploding And Will Grow Much Faster Than All Other Digital Ad Categories | ||
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Mobile is growing faster than all other digital advertising formats in the US, as advertisers begin allocating dollars to catch the eyes of a growing class of "mobile-first" users. Historically, there has been a big disparity between the amount of time people actually spend on their smartphones and tablets (significant and growing), and the amount of ad money spent on the medium (still tiny). But BI Intelligence expects that this gap will narrow substantially, as enthusiasm grows for mobile-optimized ad formats (such as interactive rich media and native ads), as targeting improves, and more and more advertisers learn how to effectively use the platform. New data from BI Intelligence finds that US mobile ad spend will top nearly $42 billion in 2018, rising by a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43% from 2013. The report looks at the most important mobile ad formats, including display, video, social, and search. The report provides exclusive breakdowns on how spend on each format will grow and why, and examines the overall performance of mobile ads. It also looks at how programmatic ad-buying tools, including real-time bidding, are reshaping mobile advertising. Access The Full Report And Downloads By Signing Up For A Trial Membership » Here are some of the key takeaways:
The report is full of charts and data that can easily be downloaded and put to use. In full, the report:
For full access receive to all BI Intelligence's analysis, reporting, and downloadable charts and presentations on the digital media industry, sign up for a trial membership. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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STARTUP GOD PAUL GRAHAM: Mean People Fail | ||
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Paul Graham, founder of startup factory Y Combinator, has ignited a new debate in tech world with an essay on "mean people." It may sound like a trite idea, but it has deeper meaning right now as it is squarely aimed at Uber, though it never mentions Uber once. Graham is a man of stature in the technology startup world. His words matter. Y Combinator has created startups like Dropbox, and Airbnb. As of last year, Y Combinator companies were worth over $13 billion. Uber is the most dominant, exciting startup to appear since Facebook. It's also the most polarizing startup since Facebook. This month has been dominated by story after story of Uber executives misbehaving: From Uber's CEO proudly admitting to messing with a rival's fundraising, to an Uber executive suggesting the company spend $1 million to research and attack its critics. There are, of course, many more stories about the company and its executives that people like to gossip about off the record. Some people think that these arrogant, ruthless, jerkish characteristics are necessary for a startup to succeed. Graham seems to disagree. He thinks the opposite is true. He thinks people that are mean will fail: Why? I think there are several reasons. One is that being mean makes you stupid. That's why I hate fights. You never do your best work in a fight, because fights are not sufficiently general. Winning is always a function of the situation and the people involved. You don't win fights by thinking of big ideas but by thinking of tricks that work in one particular case. And yet fighting is just as much work as thinking about real problems. Which is particularly painful to someone who cares how their brain is used: your brain goes fast but you get nowhere, like a car spinning its wheels. While this is an ideal view of the world, lots of people are already questioning how realistic it is. After all, Bill Gates was considered one of the toughest, meanest, most ruthless businessmen at the height of Microsoft's power. Steve Jobs was considered a jerk and a very difficult person to work with. Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the world, is a brutal businessman. It seems like there is a distinction between being a "nice" person and being a ruthless businessperson. The two are not mutually exclusive. You can been a good-hearted person who is kind to people in your circle, while still being a mean, ruthless arrogant businessperson. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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A Person Is Using Tumblr To Get People Who Post Disgusting And Racist Comments Online Fired From Their Jobs | ||
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A new Tumblr is taking the internet by storm this holiday weekend, and its cringeworthy content is enough to give you a massive post-Thanksgiving day headache. It's called "Racists Getting Fired," and the premise is exactly what you suspect it is: People who make racist comments on social media end up getting fired after this Tumblr's curator finds their employer and contacts them with evidence of their racist remarks. Here's an example (WARNING: LANGUAGE IS OFFENSIVE AND NSFW) A young man who goes by VA Truck Driver on Twitter tweeted the following remarks about the riots that took place in Ferguson, MO last week.
He then continued his racist diatribe, bragging about how the "trolls" would never find out who he was.
But scrolling through VA Truck Driver's tweets led to the following tweet from 2013:
That helped those behind the Tumblr page find his Facebook page, which also included the name of his employer. After his employer was contacted, he tweeted that he had been suspended from work "without pay" and that he was "very sorry." There are more stories like that on the Tumblr, which you can see here > Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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12 Surprising Things That Can Make You Successful | ||
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Sure, we all know that an Ivy League education, stint at a blue-chip firm, and stellar sales skills can help us get ahead. But it may surprise you just how many lesser known, seemingly random variables contribute to your professional success. From the month you were born to your comedic timing, the weirdest quirks can affect how successful you'll ultimately be. We combed through research on success to identify 12 surprising things that can influence your career trajectory. While some factors can be sought out, others are beyond your control. This is an update of an article written by Alison Griswold. For starters, your birth month is hugely important in determining success. There's a ton of research on what's variously called the "relative-age effect," "month of birth bias," or "birth-date effect." The basic principle is that kids born right before an annual cutoff date for starting school or sports are at a disadvantage because they're essentially a full year younger than other members of the group. That makes a big difference in physical, emotional, and intellectual maturity. On the other hand, just missing the date means you will be more developed than your peers. Malcolm Gladwell popularized this idea in "Outliers," which explored how more professional hockey players from Canada were born in January, February, and March than any other months. The reason? Canada's cutoff date for hockey programs is Jan. 1. Similar research has shown that the number of CEOs with June and July birthdays is far below the expected normal distribution. That's because kids born in June and July are usually the youngest in school, putting them at an early intellectual disadvantage. Your birth order influences your personality and development. Research shows that first-borns are highly ambitious and competitive. They tend to excel academically and, according to CareerBuilder, are the most likely to earn six figures and hold a C-level position. Middle children are considered strong team players and negotiators. Career-wise, they're the most likely to work in entry-level jobs and earn less than $35,000. The youngest siblings are usually the most creative and entertaining in their families. Because of this, they often end up in creative roles or mid-level management. Finally, only children are most likely to be self-centered and success-seeking, and can also be unusually mature because they spend so much one-on-one time with their parents. Like first-borns, they often end up in C-level or six-figure positions, but can be less satisfied with their jobs than people who have siblings. Public or private school? It turns out that more expensive isn't always best. That's right, the latest data says that public schools actually outperform their costlier private peer institutions. University of Illinois professors Christopher and Sarah Lubienski published that surprising finding in their book, "The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools." According to their research, students at private schools generally do well because they come from wealthy backgrounds and families with more advantages. But public schools are actually better when it comes to teaching math and keeping their teachers trained in the latest instructional methods. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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A Gecko-Inspired Invention Lets Humans Climb Up Glass Walls | ||
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Everyone's wished they had a superhuman ability at some point in their lives. And on the super power scale, the ability to scale glass walls like Spider-Man is right up there at the top — and it's already possible, as shown by a new invention described in a recently published study in the journal Interface. Using gecko-inspired hand pads created by these scientists, a person can now walk up a glass wall. "This is one of the most exciting things I've seen in years," Kellar Autumn, a biomechanist at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, who wasn't involved with the study, told Science Magazine. Gecko feetTo build the devices that enable this wall crawling ability, researchers analyzed how geckos support themselves and then improved on that already-powerful adhesive ability. Gecko feet are covered in tiny little bristles or hairs called setae, which interact with the molecules of different surfaces to create an electric attraction called van der Waals force. This force helps the little lizards cling to vertical surfaces and even walk on some ceilings. Part of what makes this really amazing is that the structure of these connections allows the gecko to detach and reattach their feet at will, which is the special skill that actually lets them climb up the wall and not just stick to it in one place. At their strongest, these little hairs are able to create an insanely strong attraction. If each of the 6.5 million tiny bristles was operating at full power all the time, those little gecko feet should be able to hold up a 286-pound adult human — bigger than the average NFL defensive end. But as Science explains, geckos can actually only lift a maximum of 4.4 pounds: The bristles on their feet can't all be used at the same time. The physical structure of the foot means that only a few small hairs can be at their stickiest at once. So on a small scale, they are incredibly powerful, but it's hard to scale up that ability to bigger and heavier objects. A human trickWhenever humans have tried to replicate gecko climbing ability, they've run into the same problem — they can't replicate sticking power using only a tiny surface area, and it's especially difficult to create enough sticking power for something as large as a person. But a team of engineers at Stanford figured out how to make it work.
In the new contraption, the two hand pads are all that hold the climber (lead study author Elliot Hawkes in the image above) in the above photo. The footholds he stands on are connected to those hand pads, so that the pads themselves are holding his body weight and he doesn't have to cling to the wall using brute strength. He's actually just standing on the foot-ledges in the above image. Each of the two hand pads is covered by 24 small tiles. Each tile is covered in tiny silicon rubber hairs that mimic the gecko's setae, each about as tall as human hair is thick. Those little rubber hairs, or microwedges, as they are called, can attach and detach easily without breaking down — and there's something special about their adhesive force that makes them perfect for climbing. The adhesive is designed so it becomes stickier when more force is pulling on it but it becomes less sticky if you take that force away. So by stepping on a foothold connected to a hand pad, Hawkes causes that pad to generate adhesive force and stick to the wall. To detach and climb up, he just has to take his weight off the foothold.
In order to create pads that are small but still able to use that force to hold a person's weight, Hawkes had to figure out where the gecko and other attempts at replicating it were inefficient. "Engineers hate inefficient things," he tells LiveScience. Walk the walkThe key was designing the hand pads so that the 24 tiles would be able to fully attach to the wall even with a weight pulling on them. So he connected the tiles using a material that becomes less stiff and more elastic when it's being pulled on, the opposite of most natural fibers. This means that the pads can evenly distribute all the weight, instead of having the majority of the force pull on one gradually weakening connection. "To be able to climb glass felt a little bit magical — it feels like you're hooking this device onto a perfectly flat smooth surface, and it doesn't feel possible," Hawkes told LiveScience. There are still limitations. This particular version attaches easily to glass, but wouldn't work the same on a rougher or sandy surface. But he thinks that those problems can be solved using other types of bio-inspired design, like the mechanism that geckos use to self-clean their setae as they go. He said that next up is figuring out how to use this type of adhesive to pick up space junk before it smashes into a satellite or to build drones that can walk up and clean skyscrapers. But we're hoping he also takes a shot at harnessing the power of the spiderweb. SEE ALSO: Jetpacks Help Soldiers Run At The Speed Of Olympic Athletes Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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There's A Mysterious Field Of Electrical Energy Outside Google's Office In London (GOOG) | ||
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There's something very strange happening outside Google's office in London. Multiple people have reported being zapped by a field of static electricity outside the building, and they have started videoing it to prove the weird phenomenon exists. Google declined to comment on this story when reached by Business Insider. Reddit user "master_poop" was one of the first people to discover the strange electrical field, posting a video which shows his hair standing on end. There's even an audible "buzz" from what he guesses is static electricity. After posting the video online, he explained that both of the people featured in the video had since suffered from toothache, and he had even had a small nosebleed. Some people on Reddit dismissed the video as fake. After all, people often try and game the popular site by inventing weird phenomenon. They can earn money if enough people watch their videos through ads on YouTube. But more videos have come to light showing the same electricity field outside Google's office. Back in September, YouTube user "LessAmazingPhil" uploaded a video showing his hair standing on end at exactly the same spot outside Google's London HQ. And there's even a third video showing another man standing outside Google's office with his hair standing on end from some kind of static electricity field. There are a number of theories for what might be causing the strange build-up of electricity. Some people theorise that there could be a problem with electrical wires underneath the street outside Google HQ. Others guess that the design of the building could be to blame. They claim that the building features a mesh of metal poles that could generate static electricity.
Despite reports of painful tooth fillings and nosebleeds that may have been caused by the electrical field, UK Power Networks has investigated the area and declared it safe. Earlier today, workmen were seen outside Google's office, digging up the exact spot where the electrical phenomenon was taking place. Here's where you can find the spot on a map:
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This 21-Year-Old Helped Fund 30 Startups Before Landing $1.5 Million For His Own | ||
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It turns out, you don't have to drop out of school to join the most famous "startup school for dropouts" in the Valley, the Thiel Fellowship. You just have to be young and exceptional. Zachary Hamed is certainly that. The Thiel Fellowship is a startup accelerator program founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel that encourages brilliant kids to leave school and launch tech businesses instead. But Hamed finished his computer science degree at Harvard before he did the Thiel Fellowship, graduating high school at age 17 and breezing through Harvard in three and a half years. Hamed was part of the 2013 Thiel Fellowship class. And today, at the ripe age of 21, his NYC-based startup Bowery just landed its first venture investment $1.5 million from Google Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, and others. Another 'Docker'Hamed launched Bowery with two young co-founders David Byrd also 21, previously an intern at Medium, and Steve Kaliski, 24, a former engineer at Palantir via Palantir's acquisition of Poptip. Word on the street is that Bowery is on track to become "another Docker," meaning a fast-growing startup that software developers love and bring into work.
The idea came from the cofounders' own experience. "I tried to install Ruby on Rails [a software language] on my Mac like 18 times, and every time I tried, I wanted to throw my Mac out the window. It was incredibly frustrating," Hamed tells us. Other software engineers agree. The three young founders are already attracting some interesting talent to work with them. They just snared Mitch Pirtle. Pirtle is best known as the creator of the open source project Joomla that has millions of users worldwide. Joomla is a website creation tool that competes with Wordpress and Drupal and has a loyal band of developers. Pirtle was working for MongoDB before joining Bowery. And Bowery also nabbed Francesca Krihely from Mongo, too, former community manager working with all of MongoDB's developers. This startup is worth watching for the tech itself. But Hamed's story is equally awesome. How a college grad got a Thiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship has become one of the most prestigious alternatives to going to college — in some cases, even to finishing high school. Each year 20 kids are accepted into the program, where they are mentored by some of the brightest minds in the Valley. Then they get $100,000 to work on their own startups, and they're off. With only 20 young people accepted, all under 20 years old, competition to get in is incredibly fierce. In Hamed's case, he doesn't fit the standard drop-out profile. "The public face is that everyone’s a dropout and that's the main goal of the program. But it isn't. It allows anyone under 20 to continue education with/without college," Hamed says. He's an advocate of college. "I took classes that formed my thinking around software development, design, education, around government, political science." He turned the fellowship's heads for two reasons. He was the first freshman to win Harvard's prestigious student business plan competition, he says. That experience helped him get a summer's internship at hedge fund Allen & Co, known for putting together the prestigious Sun Valley Conference. That's an invite-only show where the Valley's who-who descend on Idaho. And that experience caused him to work with his friend at Harvard Peter Boyce. Boyce was setting up a venture capital fund for Harvard students called Rough Draft Ventures, an offshoot of venture firm General Catalyst Partners. "I started that with a friend of mine in school. We eventually have done at least 30 investments and those companies have gone on raise hundreds of millions in investment," he describes. The idea was to get students seed money, from $1,000 to $25,000 to buy computers, or pay for other startup costs. "We went to General Catalyst and said. 'Boston is such a unique student ecosystem, no one is capitalizing on that providing investments they need,'" he describes. General Catalyst agreed and the fund was launched. The students are just advisors. They don't get a stake in any of the companies they fund. But Hamed learned a lot about the venture world, which came in handy when raising a round for Bowery. Rough Draft Ventures is still going strong today, with Boyce still involved and a new crop of students leading it.
The 10x engineer
Raskin talked a lot about the "10x engineer," those mythical engineers that are so talented and efficient, they are 10 times more productive than mere mortal engineers. While in San Francisco working at Jawbone, Hamed met his co-founders and the three of them wanted to make all engineers into 10x-ers. With Bowery, they are off to a good start. SEE ALSO: The 50 Most Powerful People In Enterprise Tech In 2014 Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Bowery makes a tool so obvious you can't believe it hasn't been done before. It lets developers load all the tools they need to write and test software on any PC in about 30 seconds. It eliminates the huge amount of troubleshooting they typically have to do to get set up.
Hamed was also helped by doing other internships in the Valley, including one Here Are All The Gadgets You Should Buy People For The Holidays This Year | ||
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Here's this week's episode of the "Jay and Farhad Show." As usual, it's New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo and I running through some of the biggest stories in tech this week. Since there aren't many big stories this week in tech, we did our own tech buyer's guide. We ran through ideas for people looking for presents. And we talk about how to think about gift giving. We record this podcast on a weekly basis. You can subscribe to it in iTunes here. You should definitely subscribe. Here's an RSS link to the show. We use SoundCloud as a host, so you can listen to the show over there, too. iPhone cords! Why? Because you can never have enough of them. And most people don't want to spend the money to buy one. It's not the sexiest gift ever, but it's low-cost, and it's useful. Spotify gift card! Spotify is a great way to listen to all the music in the world (other than Taylor Swift, the Beatles, and a few others). It costs $10 per month, which might not be worth it for some people. Give those people a treat by getting them a gift card to Spotify. Google cloud storage This is admittedly a very boring idea. But it's practical! See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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This Man Was Supposed To Become Steve Jobs 2.0 — Here’s What Happened Instead | ||
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Steven Levy, the esteemed technology journalist, wrote in Wired: "When people talk about who might fill the vacuum left by Jobs’ death, Dorsey’s name keeps coming up. "Talented geeks once dreamed of working with Jobs; now they fantasize about working with Dorsey." Once, GigaOm’s Matthew Ingram saw Dorsey give a talk at conference. The next day, Ingram wrote a post saying that Dorsey “is at least a strong contender” to “don the mantle of the Apple co-founder and CEO." Ingram wondered, "Could Dorsey change the way we interact with technology and the world around us in as profound a way as Jobs?" Among all those who argued that Dorsey was on his way to becoming Silicon Valley’s “next Steve Jobs,” the person who did it with the most authority was a man named Randy Wigginton. When Wigginton was 14 years old, he used to wake up at 2:30 in the morning to work on software for a computer that he was building with some people he knew: Apple cofounders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Wigginton stayed at Apple until 1985, when Jobs also left the company. Later in life, Wigginton went to work for Google. By 2011, he was working at a new startup: Jack Dorsey’s second company, Square. When Steve Jobs died that year, Newsweek reporter Dan Lyons called Wigginton to talk about his old boss. At the end of the interview, Lyons asked about his new one. "You now work at Square, which is run by Jack Dorsey, a guy that many people say reminds them of Steve Jobs. Do you see that similarity?” Lyons asked. “Yes,” said Wigginton. "Jack has a vision for things that don’t exist yet … I truly believe he is the Valley’s next Steve Jobs." There are few reasons the comparison between Jobs and Dorsey was made so often back then. The first was that journalists loved the notion. Steve Jobs was not only Silicon Valley’s best CEO ever, he was also the most fun to cover. He was by turns inspirational, mean, competitive, and funny. We didn’t want to see him go. We hoped someone else in the Valley would step up and become as interesting as him. The second was that, in many ways, Dorsey and Jobs had similar life stories. Both dropped out of college. Both cofounded startups that would change the world. Both were fired from those startups. Both returned to those companies years later. The third reason for the comparison was that Dorsey seemed to encourage it, if subtly. In the summer of 2012, someone created a Tumblr blog called “Steve Jobs’ Spirit.” According to popular lore, this “someone” was an Apple employee or two. The blog published one post. Its title was "Thoughts on Jack Dorsey, by Steve Jobs." It was written like a letter and addressed to “Jack." "I have no problem with your success,” it began. "The problem is, you wholesale ripped off my identity. Grand theft. I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way. You are not just trying to be the next me, you are trying to be me." Then, point by point, the post’s anonymous author goes over ways in which Dorsey had begun emulating Jobs.
It quotes Jobs telling Playboy, in 1987, that, after getting fired from Apple, "I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach.” It quotes Dorsey telling Vanity Fair that getting fired from Twitter "was like being punched in the stomach." It links to a video where Steve Jobs says of an Apple product, “No one has done this before.” It links to a video where Jack Dorsey says the same thing. The post goes on like that, showing how Dorsey seems to be constantly quoting Jobs without attribution. "Catch my drift?” the post concludes. "Stop trying to be me. Stop trying to be the next me. Be the first Jack Dorsey. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living my life." A funny thing has happened since that anonymous admonishment was posted to Tumblr two years ago. Smart people in tech stopped saying Jack Dorsey was the next Steve Jobs. Why? And what has he become instead? Terrible First-Time CEOsThe big thing people always forget about Steve Jobs’ career is that when the Apple board fired him in 1985 it was absolutely the right thing to do. At that point in his career, Jobs was petulant and rude and impossible to work with. He had great ideas for products, but he was unable to ship them in time or under budget. This is the way Jack Dorsey is most like Steve Jobs: He was also a lousy first-time CEO. Dorsey was bad at being CEO of Twitter for different reasons than Jobs was bad at Apple. Whereas Jobs was intemperate, Dorsey was inept. The first few chapters of "Hatching Twitter," New York Times columnist Nick Bilton’s book about the creation of Twitter, reads like an indictment against young Jack Dorsey’s management abilities. There’s a story about how, one day toward the end of Dorsey’s tenure, Twitter’s top engineer met with some of the company’s board members. “We have a bit of a problem,” he said. The engineer, named Greg, had discovered that there were no backups of Twitter stored anywhere. “If the database goes down right now, we would lose everything,” Greg told the investors, according to Bilton’s book. By “everything,” Greg meant ever tweet ever written, every user ID, and all of Twitter’s code. Panicked at how such a monumental mistake could be made, Twitter’s directors went out and met with other Twitter engineers and asked them about Dorsey. They were told: “Engineering and ops are a disaster." “He’s a great guy. A great friend. A fun boss. But he’s in over his head." “He’s like the gardener who became the president.” It would have been tough for anyone to manage Twitter in its early days. The company employed several anarchists. At one point, the company had a weekly “stand-up” meeting in which everyone stood up. Everyone except for the anarchists, that is. They would stay seated and curse at any manager who asked them to comply. One time, a clever manager decided to have everyone sit down at that week’s stand-up meeting. The anarchists spent the whole meeting standing up. Dorsey was never able to rein the chaos in. Partly this was because he was distracted. Bilton’s book reveals that Dorsey would often dash from the office at 6 p.m. sharp to go to one of his favorite extracurriculars: sometimes a drawing class, sometimes yoga, sometimes dress-making class. Partly, Dorsey could not control the anarchists because he was one himself. He had a tattoo on his forearm symbolizing his adherence to that philosophy. To be fair to young Jack Dorsey, he was never really CEO of Twitter. He held the title, sure, but while he did, most of the power that usually accrues to the CEO of a startup actually belonged to another Twitter cofounder: Ev Williams. Early on, Twitter was just a project inside of a company that Williams owned outright. When Twitter started to look like it could stand on its own, Williams asked Dorsey if he would be CEO of Twitter. Williams kept 70% of Twitter and gave Dorsey 20%. Throughout Dorsey’s tenure as CEO, Williams did for Twitter much of what startup CEOs normally do. Williams handled fundraising and acquisition offers. He made lots of hiring decisions. Dorsey, drawing a salary of $70,000 a year, was more like a product manager than chief executive. For most of his time, he managed a team of a dozen or so. One time, Dorsey set up a booth to “launch” Twitter at a dance party. According to Bilton’s book, he ended up slamming a bunch of vodka and Red Bulls and falling on his face. He had to go to the hospital. Finally, thanks to screw-ups like that, math errors with the finances, the missing backup of the site, and, most especially, because Twitter kept going down, Williams decided he wanted to be Twitter’s CEO. With the help of investors he picked — over Dorsey’s choices — Williams fired Dorsey and made him an “honorary” chairman. Much of Bilton’s book is about how this title allowed Dorsey to continue acting in public like he was part of the company, but that he was, in fact, hardly involved. Learning The Wrong LessonsDorsey was fired from Twitter in late 2008. In May 2009, he tweeted, “Getting ready to embark on something new and entirely different. Excited!” That "something new" eventually became Square. The official origin story of Square is that was created as a solution for a friend of Dorsey’s named Jim McKelvey. McKelvey was a glass-blower. One time, he was about to sell a $2,000 piece of glass. The shopper wanted to use a credit card, but McKelvey didn’t have a way to accept the card. McKelvey griped to Dorsey about this. And so Square, the startup that helps small merchants accept credit cards with their smartphones, was born. The conversation with McKelvey, a Square cofounder, probably actually happened. But as is often the case in startups, there is less poetry to Square’s real origin story than the official one, according to one employee who was there at the beginning. As prosaic as its origins may have been, Dorsey’s vision for Square was truly epic. He wanted to blow up the entire financial industry and reinvent the way the world bought and sold. After Twitter, says this employee, “Jack was looking to do something.” Dorsey started hiring people to figure out what that something could be. One early, promising project was an app called Log, “a private journaling type of thing.” Dorsey hired an engineer, Tristan O’Tierney to build Log. Then, for some reason, Log died. After about nine months, says this employee, Dorsey settled on a payments startup called Squirrel. Then he changed the name to Square.
“The vision was, payments suck, the entire financial industry sucks,” says an early Square employee. "It sucks for businesses, but it also sucks for the people who are trying to buy things or invest or have savings.” Dorsey believed that no one in the financial industry was “taking the user-centric point of view when they are making these financial products,” and that it was a “tragedy” because "payments are this thing that are actually quite intimate, especially when you’re talking about small businesses. Payments are their livelihood.” But Square was not just supposed to be a solution for small businesses; it was also supposed to be a product for consumers. "The goal, the ultimate vision,” says another early employee, was “to make paying for things easy around the world using technology that’s in our pockets.” Square wanted to own both sides of the network, says an early employee. The plan was, “Let’s disintermediate the whole thing." Square’s first product, a credit-card-reading dongle you could stick into an iPhone’s earphone jack, was supposed to be thinnest edge of a wedge Dorsey and his team could use to take over the payments world. Dorsey created the company, and ran it, in an almost exact reaction to how Twitter was built and run. He wanted to learn from his mistakes. Former Square employees say this commitment to change showed in several ways. Far from leaving the office at six every night, Dorsey pushed himself to work painfully long hours. He carefully selected venture capitalists who would not challenge his authority the way Twitter’s had. In contrast to Twitter, he hired up very fast, and was, within months, managing more employees than he ever had before. He decided that Square would not partner with nearly as many third parties as Twitter had. Dorsey felt that Twitter’s internal organization had been too slow to react to problems, too stagnant. So he consistently reorganized Square every eight to 10 months. Dorsey banned anarchy, or any semblance of it, from Square. He envisioned the company as one that would be run top down — a place where even top executives would be expected to submit their work to Dorsey for approval before going forward. Before the first Square dongle had launched, and when the company still had just 20 people, Dorsey sought to hire someone who could help him run the company’s operations in this manner. He met with Keith Rabois, a Silicon Valley veteran who had started out at PayPal and had held a big job at LinkedIn. During his interview, Rabois had explained to Dorsey the micromanagement techniques that Bill Walsh, the famous former NFL coach, had used to turn the San Francisco 49ers from a losing franchise into a winner of several Super Bowls. Recalling what he’d read in Walsh’s book, “The Score Takes Care of Itself,” Rabois said that one of Walsh’s first moves as head coach was to instruct all of the team’s secretaries on how to answer the phone. The point was that every role within the company had a “standard of performance,” and that if everyone knew what that standard was and strived for it, high performance would naturally result on the field, and the score would take care of itself. Dorsey quickly hired Rabois. As the company grew, every senior executive at Square running each of the company's major functions had to review their progress with Dorsey every week. The metaphor that Dorsey most liked to use to describe his controlling management style was that of a restaurant. In a gourmet kitchen, there are 10 people who touch a dish before it goes out. Everyone specializes. Someone sears the meat. Another person plates the vegetables. Someone adds the swirled line of sweet-potato mash. And so on. The final step in the kitchen is for the plate to go in front of a person holding a clean wipe rag. This person goes through a checklist to make sure everything about the plate is perfect. Does it have all the spices? Does the plate look spotless? Is anything out of place? Dorsey said that his role was to be that last person in the kitchen, for every decision the company made. Sometimes, Dorsey’s obsession with detail was effective, even charming. The week before Square launched a product called Square Wallet in 2012, Dorsey had an epiphany. When users opened Square Wallet for the first time on their smartphones, it should feel like the unboxing of a real physical wallet. To achieve that effect, Dorsey believed the wallet needed to be wrapped in virtual tissue paper. He suggested this idea to the Square Wallet product manager, William Henderson. According to an early Square employee, Henderson told Dorsey: “Dude, do you know how much work it’s going to be to render this tissue paper? And make it look realistic? Seal it all up? We have a week to ship and there are so many bugs. Why would we care about tissue paper?” Dorsey walked away from the conversation undeterred. Two hours later, he walked up behind the Square Wallet product manager while he was eating lunch. Dorsey leaned in. “William. Tissue paper.” He walked off. When Square Wallet launched, it was wrapped in virtual tissue paper. Sometimes Dorsey's style of management — combined with his seeming expectation that everyone in the company should work as many hours as he did — drove people nuts. In fact, the other way Jack Dorsey is a lot like Steve Jobs is that after he was fired from his first company, he went on to be a micromanaging, detail-obsessed CEO that lots of people hated working for. Remember, before Steve Jobs succeeded with Pixar and in his return to Apple, he failed at a personal-computing company called NeXT. In 2011, The Wall Street Journal’s Monica Langley reported that Dorsey would monitor the whereabouts of Square employees, and text them when he hadn't seen them for a few hours. Langley also reported that Dorsey told employees to stop going on vacation. She reported that he had told one employee to skip his bachelor party. Employees eventually confronted Dorsey. At an all-hands meeting, they asked why he “guilts” them into working 12-hour days and over the weekends. Dorsey refused to back down. "We have new competitors who want to kill us,” he said, according to Langley. "We have to hold them at bay and move faster than they can imagine." In 2012, Square employees began taking to public forums on the internet to complain about working conditions. On Glassdoor, a site that lets employees rate their bosses, and Q&A site Quora, they wrote that Dorsey was expanding Square too fast, hiring too many inexperienced managers, and pushing employees too hard. One or two took direct shots at Dorsey. One wrote: "There is so much BS flowing in the arteries here with Jack being 'GOD'. Maybe Jack is GOD, but if you don't believe that, you are going to be screwed." Another wrote that Dorsey "was pushed out of Twitter because he did not know how to run a company and he still does not." Very Different Comebacks
Dorsey’s return seemed to echo Jobs’ return to Apple, more than a decade after he had been fired. But Dorsey’s return to Twitter was much different than Jobs’ return to Apple. After Dorsey was fired from Twitter in 2008, he became something of an unofficial mascot for the company. He gave lots of interviews about how he created Twitter. He traveled the world as a Twitter representative. From the outside, it appeared as though he was still very involved in the company. He was not. A source who interviewed for a job at Twitter during this time remembers asking why Dorsey hadn’t been involved in the hiring process. This source remembers the interviewer saying “We don’t talk about Jack. He’s not involved. He’s off doing his own thing. No one cares about Jack here.” In 2010, that started to change. That summer Twitter executives had started to reach out to Dorsey to complain that Ev Williams was not a very good CEO. Dorsey told them to take their worries to Twitter’s board. Soon, Williams was fired, and Dorsey was brought back into the company as the head of Twitter’s product development. In Bilton’s telling, Dorsey arranged the entire coup from behind the scenes. Square employees we talked to couldn't believe that the Dorsey they knew could be so Machiavellian. Dorsey himself told The New Yorker's DT Max, “Was I thinking, Screw Ev? Emotionally, was I asking that? I don’t know. Maybe.” Whether Dorsey schemed his way back into Twitter or not, his return was — in contrast to Jobs’ — a failure. His disparaging words upset a lot of people in the room, according to Nick Bilton's "Hatching Twitter." According to Bilton, Dorsey never really recovered. By July, Twitter employees had "started to complain to Twitter managers that Jack was difficult to work with and repeatedly changed his mind about product ideas.” For a year or so, Dorsey worked two full-time jobs, going into Square and Twitter for full back-to-back days, every day. This also made him seem like Steve Jobs, who continued to be CEO of Pixar for a time after returning to Apple. But it’s not really clear how devoted to Twitter Dorsey was then. In an interview, Bilton told us that one thing Dorsey did for Twitter was interview job candidates. Sometimes these candidates would later interview for jobs at Square. Bilton says that Dorsey always steered the most talented people to Square, the company he controlled. By 2013, Dorsey’s big return to Twitter was basically over. He was coming into Twitter only once a week, and no one at the company reported to him. Meanwhile, at Square, employees were not happy to share their CEO. During an all-hands meeting where employees were allowed to submit anonymous questions, Dorsey got grilled over his two-timing. There never was a single moment where Jack Dorsey stopped being the next Steve Jobs. But if there had to be one, that meeting could have been it. "I don’t think I have seen anything as contentious as that,” says a former Square employee. Handing Over The ChecklistsIn the beginning of 2013, a New York lawyer named Steve Berger told Square that it had failed to protect his employee from sexual harassment by Keith Rabois, Square’s chief operating officer. Berger said that his client wanted a multimillion-dollar settlement. According to a report from Kara Swisher, Square’s outside council, Richard Curiale, investigated Berger’s claim and found that Rabois’ relationship had been a “welcome” one. Still, Rabois had not told Dorsey or anyone else in Square management about the relationship. Dorsey asked Rabois to resign, which he did. Some say Jack was happy to see Keith go, but a former employee tells us that’s not the case. This employee (who is not Rabois) says that anytime Square had a big decision to make, Dorsey “would not even say a word till he would look to Keith for his advice on whether it was a good idea.” Another source says that up to that point, there had been "two adults at Square: Jack and Keith." Rabois’ departure created a huge hole at Square. There went the guy who, like Bill Walsh at the 49ers, had been going around holding everyone to high standards of performance. Instead of hiring a single COO to replace Rabois, Dorsey decided to hire a team. His two most impressive hires were Gokul Rajaram and Francoise Brougher. Rajaram is a veteran of Google, where he built the company’s first ad network. At Facebook, Rajaram was responsible for all advertising products. Brougher also made her career at Google, where she ran the same massive sales force that Sheryl Sandberg ran at Google, before she became the COO of Facebook.
During the summer of 2013, Dorsey put Rajaram in charge of product development and Brougher in charge of business operations. Suddenly, instead of two adults at Square, there were several. Dorsey started delegating. Things moved faster. They had to: By the time Rajaram and Brougher were on board, Square had nearly 800 employees. One former Square employee says the company changed "almost overnight — much for the better." Another says Rajaram in particular was “transformational” for Square. "If you talk to 20 people at Square and ask what impression Gokul had on them, 10 of them would probably say he literally changed their lives. He’s one of the top product guys in the Valley, he’s an exceptional individual, exceptional talent." Another former Square employee said that Rajaram’s strengths matched up with Dorsey’s weaknesses. "I think Jack is a better visionary than he is a product strategist. He’s really good at saying, 'This is the way consumers should be able to do something.' And with Jack it’s like, 'Hey, Jack, great, we know what the vision is, it's ambitious scale, it's a big deal, I think it’s a great mission.' But it’s hard to know what to do for the next two years. What do I prioritize? Is one product area more important than another? I don't think that's the stuff that's Jack’s strength. This is why we hired Gokul." Every time a new employee joins Square, they get a little gift box. In the box, there’s a book called "The Checklist Manifesto." The idea is, excellence comes from going through a checklist to make sure you’ve done everything right, every time. For years, the way Dorsey ran Square was to be the guy going over every checklist. "That’s the clearest thing that’s changed,” says a recently departed employee. "His desire to be a major part of every checklist seems to have changed. What requires a checklist has changed. They’ve gotten faster as a company." So what has Jack Dorsey become, if not the next Steve Jobs? He has become a much better CEO — someone able to hire talented managers, delegate to them, and focus on his own strengths. Intuit 2.0
In an interview, Bilton told us that, back then, Dorsey was as likely to be “the next Steve Jobs” as any "random programmer with headphones on and blue hair." But these days, Bilton says, his sources tell him Dorsey "is becoming, or is now, a capable CEO." "He’s had a lot of experience. [Square] is a big business. He’s made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons." But now that he’s a capable CEO, is Jack Dorsey the CEO of the kind of company he wants to run? Last Spring, The Wall Street Journal published a story on its front page reporting that Square was unprofitable, running out of cash, and seeking a bailout acquisition from either PayPal or Google, perhaps even at a price lower than its $6 billion valuation. A couple of months later, Fortune’s Miguel Helft published a counter-story. He said Square hadn’t been negotiating with Google for a sale; it had been talking to Google’s venture-capital unit about possible investment. Helft said he looked at some of Square’s internal documents, and that they painted a much rosier picture of the company’s financials. He quoted an investor in Square who said that any time it wanted, the company could quit investing its revenues in growth and be profitable. According to these people, Square has about 1 million “micro” to medium-sized businesses using its credit-card readers to accept payments. Those merchants will do $30 billion in revenues this year, and $900 million or so of that money will pass through Square as gross revenues. Of that $900 million, Square will get to keep about $300 million in net revenues. These people say that Square could hang on to most of that $300 million and call it earnings (before taxes and all that), but that instead, it is reinvesting the money to try to develop new revenue streams. The gross revenues and net revenues are growing about 50% year over year, we’re told. Essentially, Square has a somewhat big, fast-growing, low-margin enterprise business with lots of customers. Like many enterprise businesses in a similar position — from VISA to LinkedIn to whoever provides payroll services to the company you work for — Square is trying to upsell its large customer base into higher-margin products. When Jack Dorsey started Square, he wanted to reinvent both sides of the payments network. He wanted Square to be both the way merchants accept payments and the way consumers make them. It’s never gotten real traction on the consumer side. Back in 2012, it looked like it might happen when Square signed a deal to power mobile payments in every Starbucks. But consumers hardly noticed, and Square was forced to call the deal a success because it helped prove that its payments systems would work with merchants of any size. Today, we’re told there are two factions within Square. One is led by Dorsey, who still believes that Square can still own both sides of the payments network. The other, perhaps more powerful faction, is led by Rajaram. Its view is that Square, a $6 billion company, could become a $25 billion company like Intuit, if it hunkers down and makes really great products for small businesses. Does Jack Dorsey want to spend the rest of his life making great products for small businesses? Through a Square spokesman, Dorsey declined to be interviewed for this article, so we were unable to ask him directly. A current Square employee tells us Dorsey finds the idea of running $6 billion — or even $8 billion — enterprise payments company “boring." Another says that, actually, Dorsey often talks about how he’s motivated by the idea that Square is helping small businesses thrive because small businesses create jobs. According to "Hatching Twitter," when Dorsey was running Twitter, he would daydream about quitting – sometimes to sail by himself to Hawaii, sometimes to become a fashion designer. Dorsey has also often talked about how he wants to be the mayor of New York City someday. Maybe he’s wondering what Steve Jobs would do.
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In 2011, there was a thing smart people around the technology industry used to say. 
It links to a photo of Jobs wearing his iconic rimless glasses with circular lenses. It links to a photo of Dorsey 
One obvious reason people started comparing Jack Dorsey to Steve Jobs a lot back in 2011 was that Jack Dorsey had returned to Twitter that year as an executive chairman in charge of product.
"Hatching Twitter" author Nick Bilton spent the first half of his book describing Jack Dorsey as an awful CEO of Twitter.
Yes, Google Does Use Its Monopoly In Europe To Distort The Market (GOOG) | ||
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If Google gets broken up because it's a monopoly, it will be mostly Google's fault. Today, the European Union took the first step in that extraordinary process: EU parliament members voted in favour of breaking up Google in order to end its monopoly in search. In Europe, 90% of search results come from Google. To be clear: We are a long, long way from actually seeing any part of Google hived off into a competing entity. It probably won't happen. But the fact that regulatory bodies here are even considering it tells you just how many enemies Google has made over the years, and how obvious its monopoly is. Google is more dominant in Europe than in the US, even though it is an American company with a towering stateside presence. Everyone admits that Google is a de facto monopoly. Peter Thiel, the libertarian tech investor, has said so. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer thinks Google is a monopoly. Yelp has lobbied the EU, arguing the same. The US FTC has investigated Google for monopoly practices, although it has concluded no significant antitrust action needs be taken. Even Google chairman Eric Schmidt has admitted "we're in that area." Schmidt and Page once declined to testify to Congress on the topic of their monopoly status. The fact that it monopolises search is not in itself a bad thing. Merely being a monopoly is not a transgression, even in Europe. (It's often a sign of natural success.) Rather, EU antitrust law applies when companies abuse their monopoly to manipulate markets around them unfairly. On that measure, Google has more than qualified for scrutiny over the way it distorts markets that have nothing to do with search.
Yelp's evidence was elegant and simple: It used Google's own search API to create a browser extension that displayed Google search results without results that include promo boxes generated from Google+, the unpopular identity/social network product that Google launched to counter Facebook. The extension shows you the "real" result generated by Google's algorithm, without the self-promotional fluff that Google layers on top of it.
You should take this argument with a punch of salt: Yelp is an avowed enemy of Google. Yet ... it's compelling. Yelp is not alone. Dozens of companies believe Google uses its search might to dictate terms in industries that Google itself does not compete in. Expedia, TripAdvisor, Microsoft and a bunch of smaller companies have complained that Google sets competition rules within their industries. Even adultery website AshleyMadison has a case: It cannot advertise on certain Google properties, but Match.com can. Google doesn't run dating sites, but it sets the rules through which they can advertise against each other. Over the years, all these complainers have piled up into a veritable tidal wave of discontent against Google. The company, because it is so successful and so dominant, has created an army of enemies that want to see it brought down. In Europe, they're making progress. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The best evidence for that came from Yelp and a coalition of companies it has formed who believe they are being screwed out of their natural, "organic" ranking in search results because Google simply dumps its own — often unhelpful — content on top of the "real" search ranking of which sites are best.
The difference is alarming. Hotel review sites like Tripadvisor — which have hundreds of reader reviews per hotel, and are thus good quality search results if you're looking for hotels — get buried under Google's own Google+ review boxes, in which only a handful of people have written reviews. It's difficult to argue that Google is serving the "best" hotel results if its own algorithm is being crammed down under auto-generated promo boxes for Google's own properties. This Game Company Sold 30,000 Boxes Of Bull Poop As A Black Friday 'Deal' | ||
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Cards Against Humanity, which bills itself as a "party game for horrible people," decided that it wanted to help potential customers "experience the ultimate savings" on Black Friday by taking its game off its website completely. Instead, though, the site offered a bizarre and hilarious "deal": It sold boxes of bull poop for $6 each. This isn't the game company's first quirky special. Last year, Cards Against Humanity sold its game for $5 more than usual, and ended up getting a huge spike in sales. It's also holding a Ten Days Of Kwanza Or Whatever sale where for $15, customers will get ten mystery gifts throughout December. Here's what you see now on the company's main website:
The company's FAQ page was equally amusing:
(Hat-tip to Ars Technica, where we first saw this story.) SEE ALSO: Here Are Google's Big Holiday Sales Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This Working Flying Car Prototype Is Absolutely Stunning | ||
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Flying cars might not be science fiction for long. Stefan Klein and Juraj Vaculik, cofounders of a company Slovakian startup called AeroMobil, have created a beautiful prototype that has already been on several successful test flights. We touched base with Klein and Vaculik to hear more about their amazing vehicle. AeroMobil cofounder Stefan Klein first started dreaming up designs more than 20 years ago. Here's one of his sketches from the early 90s. Fast forward almost 25 years, and here's the team with the AeroMobil 3.0. "To marry the car and the airplane is an interesting engineering and design challenge," Klein told Business Insider via email. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Here's What You Can Earn Working At Apple (AAPL) | ||
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Who gets paid more at Apple: designers or engineers? We've assembled a list of some of the top-paid jobs at Apple, based on data gathered from Glassdoor. Salary data on Glassdoor is based on anonymous salary reports that were voluntarily shared by both current and recent employees. Start printing your resume if you see your role on here. 22. Mac Genius Salary: $44,070 Mac Geniuses are super important to the shopping experience at Apple's stores. But they don't receive a lot of love from Apple, it seems (at least in terms of salary). 21. Lead Mac Genius Salary: $55,626 After you've spent a little bit of time at an Apple Store as a Genius, you'll get paid a little bit more. Lead Mac Geniuses get paid about half what a good software engineer at Apple gets paid. 20. Assistant Apple Store manager Salary: $56,046 Apple needs some people to help run its stores. Assistant store managers get paid better than the rank-and-file Mac Geniuses and sales representatives. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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THE DRONE GIFT GUIDE: Drones For Every Budget [Up To 55% Off] | ||
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Black Friday is bringing prices down even further — here’s a roundup of deals not to miss. We and our friends at Stack Commerce put together the ultimate guide for getting a drone, and we've got one for every budget. Don't forget to use the code HAPPYBF10 for an extra 10% off. UNDER $75: Extreme Microdrone 2.0 [46% Off] Despite weighing just over an ounce, the Extreme Micro Drone 2.0 (46% off) is impressively equipped with gyro-based stabilization and a camera — in fact, this is the only micro drone in the world with a swiveling lens. Being so compact means it can fly indoors and out, and it can pull 360º flips. A really nice all-rounder that is forgiving on newbies and ships globally for free. Get 46% off the Extreme Micro Drone 2.0 ($74.99 incl. global shipping) Don't forget to use the code HAPPYBF10 for an extra 10% off. UNDER $100: Code Black Drone [55% Off] The Code Black (55% off pre-orders) looks like it emerged from the Batcave, and it has the kind of features the Dark Knight would demand. It is a great out-of-the-box flyer, with a HD camera on board, and it is small enough to fly anywhere. Plus, it can perform the all-important flips. If you order by Dec. 1, the Code Black will ship in time for Christmas, but the price will rise come mid December. Get 55% off the Limited Edition Code Black drone + HD Camera ($89 incl. shipping; pre-order) Don't forget to use the code HAPPYBF10 for an extra 10% off. UNDER $125: Panther Spy Drone [55% Off] At the other end of the scale is the giant Panther Spy drone (55% off), which uses its size for durability. The rotors are surrounded by protective foam, but given that it has gyro stabilization, those guards shouldn’t be needed all that often. It also has a 720p camera, 2.4GHz transmission for good range, and 360º flips in its tricks locker. Get 55% off the Panther Spy drone with HD camera ($110 incl. shipping) Don't forget to use the code HAPPYBF10 for an extra 10% off. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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This year is going to be dominated by personal drones. Why? Because they’re incredibly fun to fly, and becoming increasingly affordable. Ireland pushes Europe's anti-smoking drive with plain packaging | ||
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Dublin (AFP) - Ten years since setting a trend with its workplace smoking ban, Ireland is pushing ahead to be the first EU state with plain packaging for cigarettes despite fierce opposition from tobacco companies. As part of Dublin's plan to make Ireland a smoke-free society by 2025 -- meaning a prevalence rate of under five percent -- lawmakers will vote to introduce plain packaging in the new year. Under the draft legislation before parliament, all forms of branding, including logos and colours, would be banned and all products would have a uniform packaging with graphic health warnings. "The cigarette box is the last form of advertising that the industry has," James Reilly, Ireland's minister for children who is spearheading the drive, told AFP. "Children are influenced by advertising. I believe this will prevent many children from taking up cigarette smoking." In March 2004, Ireland became the first country in the world to adopt a total workplace smoking ban. A decade on, Ireland is at the forefront for Europe, following Australia's introduction of similar plain packaging legislation in 2012. Canberra's move was met with fierce opposition by tobacco companies and other nations, particularly tobacco-producing economies. Five World Trade Organisation members have initiated dispute proceedings against Australia's measures at the WTO, arguing the laws are an illegal restriction on trade. - 'No evidence' - As was the case in Australia, the tobacco companies are fighting Dublin's plans. "No evidence has emerged from Australia, where plain packaging has been in place for almost two years, showing that plain packaging has changed the rate of decline in smoking or has had any actual positive behavioural impact at all," Japan Tobacco International's general manager in Ireland, Igor Dzaja, told AFP in an email interview. The tobacco companies say no concrete evidence exists to show the Australian ban was responsible for a reduction in smoking rates, despite Canberra stating daily smoking rates are down from 15.1 percent to 12.8 percent in three years. Pat Doorley, head of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Policy Group on Tobacco, said 50 studies show the measure will work. "The thrust of all these studies is that people prefer packages with the logos and the embossing and the colours to the plain packs," he told AFP. "The kids think they're cooler. The other thing is people are less likely to take notice of health warnings on coloured packets." Dublin is also looking to ban smoking in cars with children and to continue increasing the price of tobacco. In last month's budget, 0.40 cents was added to the price of 20 cigarettes, bringing the cost to 10 euros for the first time. Tobacco companies argue that plain packaging infringes their intellectual property rights. Philip Morris International said imposing an "arbitrary ban on trademarks ignores the hard data showing that 'plain packaging' is misguided and unjustifiable". JTI agreed, stating "plain packaging would leave JTI unable to exploit its intellectual property rights commercially, making them, for all practical purposes, valueless in Ireland." - 700,000 deaths a year - But Reilly is adamant Dublin will proceed with the plans, despite the opposition and possible legal challenges ahead. "I think it's testimony to the fact that it's going to work given the tobacco industry's very strong reaction to this. "Across Europe 700,000 die every year from tobacco-related illnesses." Reilly said Ireland could hit its smoke-free target despite a current prevalence rate of 21.5 according to Ireland's health service. "Absolutely. One should always aim as high as one can. "This is one of but a whole raft of different measures that we have taken to protect public health from this killer product." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Slowing inflation paves way for more ECB action | ||
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Frankfurt (AFP) - Slowing eurozone inflation is likely to make the European Central Bank increasingly nervous and pave the way for further monetary easing, analysts say. But the ECB looks unlikely to fire the latest weapon in its anti-deflation armoury as early as this coming week when it holds its last monthly policy meeting of the year. According to official data last week, inflation in the 18 countries that share the euro slowed to 0.3 percent in November from 0.4 percent the previous month, feeding fears of imminent deflation. Falling prices may sound good for the consumer, but they can trigger a vicious spiral where businesses and households delay purchases, throttling demand and causing companies to lay off workers. "What pleases consumers makes the ECB increasingly nervous," said Commerzbank economist Christoph Weil. The central bank is scheduled to publish its latest updated inflation and growth forecasts on Thursday and it is worried that medium-term inflation expectations could become permanently de-anchored from the ECB's target of around 2.0 percent. Given that the ECB has already launched a multi-pronged offensive against deflation, obtaining that objective could require more radical action, according to analysts. The ECB has so far cut its interest rates to new all-time lows, made unprecedented amounts of cheap loans available to banks via its LTRO and TLTRO programmes, and unveiled asset purchase programmes (ABSs and covered bonds) to pump liquidity into the financial system. But it has so far shied away from a controversial policy of quantitative easing (QE) that other central banks around the world have embarked upon in order to stimulate their economies. - 'Matter of time' - QE is the large-scale purchase of government bonds and such a policy has many critics in Europe, not least the German central bank or Bundesbank, because it is felt that it takes the ECB outside its remit and is effectively a licence to print money to get governments out of debt. "Broad-based bond purchases by the ECB now seem to be only a matter of time," said Commerzbank economist Weil. Such expectations appeared to be confirmed last week when the ECB's number two, Vitor Constancio, said the central bank would only be in a position to gauge whether the previous stimulus measures are working in the first quarter of 2015. "If not, we will have to consider buying other assets, including sovereign bonds in the secondary market," Constancio said. Just days prior to that, ECB chief Mario Draghi had vowed to "step up the pressure and broaden even more the channels through which we intervene... without any undue delay." But ECB-watchers are sceptical that QE will be announced as soon as Thursday. "The ECB will meaningfully revise downwards its growth and inflation projections on Thursday. Given the already low starting point, this would strengthen the case for further stimulus," said UniCredit economist Marco Valli. "We expect Draghi to signal that a new dose of monetary easing is in the pipeline." - 'When and how big?' - But the exact timing for action is "a close call", Valli said. "On the one hand, the ECB does not have any real incentive to delay a move that appears warranted by economic fundamentals. On the other hand, some governing council members seem to prefer to wait... before considering new stimulus measures." Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics agreed. "It seems clear that the ECB will soon embark on a full-blown quantitative easing programme incorporating sovereign debt purchases," he said. "The key questions now are when and how big? While we think that the contingencies for QE set out by president Draghi have already been met, governing council members may want more time to assess their existing policies." Commerzbank economist Michael Schubert said he did not expect QE to be approved until one of the first three meetings in 2015. "Only then will the ECB be able to assess the impact of the measures taken so far," he said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US universities battle scourge of campus rape | ||
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Washington (AFP) - Last spring, emails written by members of American University's Epsilon Iota fraternity were leaked, revealing to a horrified public the strategies -- from manipulation to outright drugging -- the brothers used to get sex. The messages from the members of the unofficial group at the campus in the US capital gave tips on targeting first-year female students -- perceived to be more naive -- and the best places to have sex without being seen. One email suggested inviting girls over for drinks before a party, so they "would feel more relaxed and safe." That "would be such a good idea to get the bitches in the right state of intoxication," it said. The problem at American University is one that colleges across the nation are confronting -- how to stem the rising tide of campus sexual assaults. The issue again made headlines earlier this month when Rolling Stone magazine detailed graphic allegations of assault and gang rape at fraternity parties -- and the administration's troubling lack of action -- at the prestigious University of Virginia. After the article was published, the school announced it was suspending fraternity and sorority activity -- so-called "Greek life" -- until January, when the new semester begins, and would hold meetings with students, faculty, alumni and others concerned to discuss steps to prevent sexual violence on campus. At American University, students are taking action. Amanda Gould, who is in her second year of studies, created a group -- "No more silence" -- and gathered 1,700 signatures to urge the university to expel the authors of the emails. "Everyone considers them as 'rape fraternities,'" said Gould. "But the university consistently said we can't do anything, because they are not affiliated with us," she noted, referring to Epsilon Iota's unofficial status. Gould nevertheless organized a demonstration on campus that she called a "turning point", explaining: "The university can't just sweep it under the rug anymore." She never managed to get a meeting with the university president, but she indirectly got support at a much higher level.
- 'It's on us' -
As outrage over the prevalence of sexual assaults on college campuses -- and what many critics blast as an inadequate response from authorities -- spread, the White House launched a national campaign. "It's on Us" -- promoted by President Barack Obama -- calls on each student to "be part of the solution." "Don't be a bystander. Stopping sexual assault is about being the guy who stops it," the campaign urges in videos using footage shot at parties, showing drunk women targeted by unscrupulous students. Across the United States, an estimated one college student in five is raped, and only 12 percent of these attacks are reported, Obama said when he launched the campaign in September. At American University, sophomore Faith Ferber is part of a student group that runs workshops on sexual violence prevention, which have grown in popularity on campus since the email scandal. The group has gotten the university administration to require all members of the dozen officially recognized fraternities to attend a workshop. For other students, workshop attendance is voluntary -- despite troubling statistics from a 2013 poll showing that 18 percent of American University students had been subjected to undesired sexual relations within the previous six months.
- 'Yes means yes' -
The hour-long presentation -- with free pizza as an extra enticement -- focuses on what constitutes true consent in a sexual encounter. In a slightly stilted atmosphere and using a prepared script, two presenters explain that both parties need to be sober and must consciously agree to any sexual act. "Consent is sexy. It is awesome to desire and to be desired," emphasizes one of the presenters. Very little is said, however, on ways to stay out of danger -- for instance, about drinking, or accepting either a drink in an open cup or a ride from a stranger. "Risk reduction is one very small, even not essential piece to sexual prevention," said Daniel Rappaport, the university official tasked with preventing sexual violence. The program takes inspiration from "Yes Means Yes," a law just passed in California. Under the new law, any sexual encounter without clear agreement could be considered rape if a complaint is filed with the university. In other words, at issue in investigations would not be whether there was a rape, but whether there was consent -- with public funding for institutions tied to compliance. But AU's Rappaport says the problem goes deeper than laws. "The core problem is the way we train boys to become men who are taught to be aggressive and dominate and to see women as objects of conquest," Rappaport said. Perpetrators don't stand out as easily identifiable monsters, he said. "They have the same social skills, same class schedules, same whatever as everyone else," Rappaport explained. "But they have been taught and reinforced by our culture over and over again that doing what they do is acceptable."
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The US Is On A Collision Course With An 'Absolutely Indispensable' Ally | ||
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The US and Turkey are headed for a showdown over Syria, as evidence mounts that Ankara is enabling groups that Washington is actively bombing. Discord between the two allies is now more public than ever following a new report by Dr. Jonathan Schanzer and Merve Tahiroglu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "Bordering on Terrorism: Turkey’s Syria Policy and the Rise of the Islamic State" details Turkey's apparent willingness to allow extremists — including militants from the Islamic State (aka IS, ISIS, or ISIL) — and their enablers to thrive on the 565-mile border with Syria in an attempt to secure the downfall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. "The IS crisis has put Turkey and the US on a collision course," the report says. "Turkey refuses to allow the coalition to launch military strikes from its soil. Its military also merely looked on while IS besieged the Kurdish town of Kobani, just across its border. Turkey negotiated directly with IS in the summer of 2013 to release 49 Turks held by the terrorist group. In return, Ankara reportedly secured the release of 180 IS fighters, many of whom returned to the battlefield. "Meanwhile, the border continues to serve as a transit point for the illegal sale of oil, the transfer of weapons, and the flow of foreign fighters. Inside Turkey, IS has also established cells for recruiting militants and other logistical operations. All of this has raised questions about Turkey’s value as an American ally, and its place in the NATO alliance."
Throughout the Syrian civil war, Turkey's southern border has served as a transit point for cheap oil, weapons, foreign fighters, and pillaged antiquities. As the conflict progressed, the fighters taking advantage of Ankara's lax border policies were more and more radical. "What began with scattered opposition forces exploiting the border became something that was really focused on the Muslim Brotherhood, which then became something that was utilized by [Salafist rebel group] Ahrar al Sham, which was then utilized by [al-Qaeda affiliate] The Nusra Front, which is now utilized by ISIS," Schanzer told Business Insider. He added that given various reports of jihadi financiers sitting in hotels on the border between Syria and Turkey, "it is impossible that [Turkey's intelligence agency] MIT is not aware" of what's going on. The financiers "are doling out cash to those who come back with videos of attacks, proof of what they've done against the Assad regime or other enemies," said Schanzer, who previously detailed Turkey's terrorism finance problem to Business Insider. Those videos are then used as propaganda to raise more money for funding fighters. America's Role
After supporting Turkey's cause of ousting Assad, Washington didn't follow up with significant support to the moderate opposition while Assad dropped Scud missiles and barrel bombs on playgrounds and bakeries. Obama then balked at enforcing his "red line" after Assad's forces killed an estimated 1,400 people in four hours by firing rockets filled with nerve gas on rebel-held territory near the capital. "I was in Turkey during the Ghouta attacks, and [Turkish officials] were incredulous," Schanzer said. "They believed that the United States was squarely behind [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, not only just in terms of steering Syria into soft landing, but also that it would back up its words with deeds and take action in light of an ongoing slaughter. "So I think in a sense once it became clear that the US was not going to be holding to its word, there was a sense among the Turks that they had to do this themselves."
ISIS And Blowback"Turkey does not have a conflict with ISIS, doesn't want a conflict with ISIS, and ISIS is benefiting from [Turkey's] border policies," Schanzer said. "Beyond that it gets a lot more fuzzy, but the point is that the Turks are not being forthcoming about this relationship." He added that despite no evidence that Turkey was actively working with ISIS, "it cannot be denied that Turkey is helping to facilitate the activities of a terrorist organization that has killed Americans and is destabilizing the region." Furthermore, ISIS is gaining a following in the country. The report cites an email from Turkey-based BuzzFeed reporter Mike Giglio that highlighted his concern about the "level of ISIS support among the 1-million-plus Syrians living in Turkey. I don't see how they can successfully weed out ISIS supporters from among these refugees."
Schanzer said that as the suspected presence of ISIS inside Turkey increased, and with it support inside Turkey for ISIS and other extremist groups, it becomes that much more difficult for Turkey to do anything. "They've inadvertently created a mechanism that can yield blowback for them that could be extremely painful," Schanzer said. "You have a lot of people now that are invested in the business of extremism in Turkey. If you start to challenge that, it raises significant questions of whether" the militants, their benefactors, and other war profiteers would tolerate the crackdown. Impossible To MaintainTensions between Ankara and Washington won't dissipate "so long as Turkey tries to remain neutral with regard to ISIS while all of these things are happening on its border," according to Schanzer. Consequently, the report argues, Washington must find a way to work with Turkey. Outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel described Turkey as "absolutely indispensable" to the ISIS fight. Turkey would need to shut down the border, wrap up known nodes of Nusra and ISIS supporters, remove ISIS recruitment cells, and dismantle ISIS logistical operations inside the country. (Schanzer noted that the US or NATO could assist.)
"After that, I think we do begin to question whether security or intelligence cooperation can continue when there isn't an honest give and take with what's happened," Schanzer added. The report concludes that Ankara must understand that "while America's Syria policy may have been feckless, its border policy has been reckless." And the repercussions of doubling down even further would jeopardize relations with a crucial ally. "No one wants to scuttle this relationship. But I do think that as more and more of this comes to light, it becomes ... essentially impossible to maintain the status quo," Schanzer said. "If we've decided that ISIS is an enemy worth defeating, it becomes impossible to maintain the relationship as it is." SEE ALSO: Obama's Policy On Assad, In One Word Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Schanzer, a former counterterrorism analyst for the US Treasury Department, told Business Insider that Ankara was "like that guy at the casino who keeps doubling down on a bad bet. Each time the policy has failed, Turkey appears to have decided to go back and do it again, but with higher stakes." 
The report notes that policy of the administration of US President Barack Obama regarding Syria may have indirectly instigated Turkey's dangerous policy.
Innovation hatching in Greece amid slow economic revival | ||
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Athens (AFP) - A taxi-tracking tool, a head-hunting engine and a vertical gardening company -- all business startups that have paradoxically emerged from a Greek economy long in the doldrums. Faced with the worst unemployment wave in living memory, Greece's youth are turning away from the traditional pursuit of civil service or family-centred jobs, and towards innovation and foreign funding. "If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere," muses Petros Boskos, a 35-year-old architect. Alongside two of his friends, Boskos created Verdical, a company designing "vertical" gardens for the sides of buildings. "It was basically my last chance to stay in Greece," he told AFP on the sidelines of a business innovation fair in Athens earlier this month. Until recently, most Greeks fresh out of university contemplated life-long job security in a civil service post, or guaranteed employment in their family-owned business. But that's no longer an option. - From 'daddy's store' to innovation - The four-year Greek economic crisis killed off thousands of small and middle-sized companies, and staff cuts and hiring freezes imposed by the cash-strapped state has made new public sector hirings all but impossible. One in two youths under 25 is currently out of work. "The public sector and daddy's store have lost their sheen," says Aristos Doxiadis of Openfund, a venture capital fund. Enter the innovation incubator. In the last five years, at least eight such initiatives -- offering advice to budding entrepreneurs with bankable ideas -- have opened in Athens. "We know that the Greek economy in its current form has no future," states Giorgos Vrachnis, manager of Egg, a business startup incubator backed by Eurobank, one of the main Greek lenders. "But it will take time to invent a new, outward-looking model. The domestic market is too small," says Vrachnis. Part of the challenge lies in the established mindset in Greek universities, where corporations and non-state funding are viewed with suspicion. "I grew up learning that businessmen are not good people," says Boskos, the young architect. Egg has a stable of 25 startups receiving one-year mentoring from industry experts in various sectors. Verdical, the garden designers, have won the right to stay for a second year. The campaign is assisted by European Union funds -- some 70 million euros earmarked under the Jeremie programme that helps small and medium-sized companies. A number of nascent Greek funds like Openfund have been assigned to distribute the money. According to Endeavor, a global non-profit organisation supporting entrepreneurship that opened a Greek branch in 2012, the sector has grown exponentially in the last four years. - Hatching the egg - The number of startups has grown nearly tenfold between 2010 and 2013 -- from sixteen to 144 -- while investment rose from 500,000 euros to 42 million over the same period, Endeavor said. "The Greek market was ripe for startup growth," says Spyros Trachanis, one of the managers of Greek fund Odyssey, arguing that valuable experience was gained during a first spurt in the telecoms sector a decade ago. "The pitches we see are constantly improving in depth," says George Tziralis, one of the managers of Openfund. Thirty-year-old Antonios Fiorakis has already tasted a measure of success with Incrediblue, a website for yacht and sailboat rentals in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Italy and Croatia. So much so, in fact, that he's planning to open an office in London. "Our clients have multiplied tenfold in a year, and for half of them, it was the first time they had spent on a boat," he said. Two projects assisted by Openfund have also found their calling. Taxibeat, an application that offers real-time cab tracking, was launched in 2011. It has found demand in several countries and its creators are currently raising more funds abroad. And Workable, a hiring aid for companies, has been operational for two years and is being financed by a major Silicon Valley investment fund. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US top court debates if online death threats are free speech | ||
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Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court will consider a groundbreaking case Monday about whether death threats posted on Facebook are liable to prosecution or whether threatening comments are protected by constitutional rights to free speech. It will be the first time the top court's nine justice -- who are not known to have Facebook accounts of their own -- will consider the limits of First Amendment protections on free speech on social media. The case involves Anthony Elonis, a rap music enthusiast who posted angry lyrics on his Facebook page aimed at his wife after she left him, taking their two children. "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts. Hurry up and die, bitch," Elonis posted after the messy break-up ending seven years of marriage. His wife told police she was "extremely scared" and obtained a "protection from abuse" (PFA) order forbidding Elonis from getting near her. But that only provoked him further. "Fold up your PFA and put it in your pocket. Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?" he wrote on Facebook, six months after their split. His abusive language extended beyond his broken marriage. After an FBI agent visited him, he said he would blow the agent up, then threatened an amusement park he had been fired from and posted about shooting up nearby schools. He said there were "enough elementary schools in a 10-mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined." Elonis even mused about laws against uttering death threats. "Did you know that it's illegal for me to say 'I want to kill my wife?' It's illegal. It's indirect criminal contempt ... Now it was okay for me to say it right then because I was just telling you that it’s illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife," he wrote. He was arrested and charged with communicating threats in interstate commerce, or the Internet. - 'True threat' - At trial, Elonis argued that he posted the messages "without a specific intent" to kill, and said writing the lyrics made him feel better after the split. "This is therapeutic... it helped me to deal with the pain," he told the court. But a jury did not agree, and Elonis was sentenced to three and a half years (44 months) in prison and three years of supervised release. An appeals court later upheld the conviction. The case could have repercussions on violence and harassment on the Internet and how the First Amendment -- which protects freedom of speech -- applies in the realm of social media. The Supreme Court will decide whether Elonis's comments constitute a "true threat," or were harmless because he did not intend to act on his words, as he argued. US law defines threats as "statements that a reasonable person would interpret as a serious expression of intent to do harm." The government argues that "a bomb threat that appears to be serious is equally harmful regardless of the speaker's private state of mind." Several anti-domestic violence groups have weighed in with briefs in support of the government's position as the case goes before the top court. Elonis, meanwhile, contends that his conviction would impact many artists, including singers, writers and cartoonists, who express themselves creatively. - No ban on free speech- The court has considered cases involving new technologies, including GPS, mobile phones and video games, but has never ruled on freedom of speech rights on social media. It has also considered cases about violent video games, videos containing animal torture, and lies about receiving the Medal of Honor. Law professor Steven Schwinn says that under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has consistently acted to protect the right to free expression. "In each case, it struck the ban or restriction as infringing on First Amendment rights," said Schwinn, from John Marshall Law School. "When it comes to these types of low-value -- even harmful -- speech, the Roberts court has been clear: if you don't like the speech, speak out against it; but government cannot ban it." "Given this trend, it is hard to see how this court would rule against Elonis. Sure, Elonis's speech was especially contemptible. But so were the other forms of speech this court has upheld." Law professor William Marshall from the University of North Carolina agrees that in previous cases the court has shown a commitment to protecting freedom of expression, even on the Internet. The Supreme Court is "very pre-disposed to protect the First Amendment and free speech in modern media and the popular culture," Marshall said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US lawmaker's aide draws ire over first daughter scolding | ||
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Washington (AFP) - A US lawmaker's communications director was facing social media calls she be sacked after her Facebook rant about President Barack Obama's daughters prompted widespread anger. Elizabeth Lauten, spokeswoman for Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, wrote a scathing post to her Facebook account scolding Malia and Sasha Obama, 16 and 13, for looking bored while attending a public event with their father on Wednesday. In the post, since deleted but widely reproduced in screen grabs, Lauten tells the girls to "try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play." The girls stood beside Obama -- looking vaguely bored -- as he issued the annual Thanksgiving turkey "pardon," saving two birds from the dinner table. The underwhelmed expressions of the teenaged sisters sparked mainly amused comment, but Lauten's remarks were notably more caustic. "Then again, your mother and father don't respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter," Lauten wrote in her post. "So I'm guessing you're coming up a little short in the 'good role model' department. "Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you. "Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar," she added, apparently referring to the girls' short skirts. The post quickly drew ire on Twitter and elsewhere, with many calling for Lauten to be fired, even after Lauten deleted it and posted an apology. "After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents, and re-reading my words online I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were," Lauten wrote on Facebook, also widely reproduced before she made her page private. "I'd like to apologize to all of those who I have hurt and offended with my words, and I pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this experience," she added. Star Jones, a lawyer and television personality, was among those unimpressed. "I’ve seen tacky people…but rarely seen someone as tacky as # ElizabethLauten for slamming the children of the # POTUS," she tweeted. Many directed their tweets to Lauten's boss, as the hashtag #FireElizabethLauten went viral. One commenter, whose username is Eclectic John, wrote: " @ RepFincherTN08 There is nothing that excuses what # ElizabethLauten posted re the children of our President. That's off limits. Fire her now." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Moldova votes in key poll at crossroads of Europe and Russia | ||
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Chisinau (AFP) - Moldova votes on Sunday in a crucial parliamentary election that hinges on whether the impoverished ex-Soviet country will pursue integration with Europe or return to Russia's fold. Opinion polls showed the political parties aiming for membership in the European Union were roughly neck-and-neck with those that back joining Russia in a customs union. Russia and the EU are locked in a tug-of-war to win influence in the region where armed conflict has erupted in neighbouring Ukraine between Kiev's pro-EU leadership and pro-Russian separatists. Moscow does not want to part ways with Moldova, a former Soviet satellite where it has troops stationed in the Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transdniestr, while the EU is keen for Moldova to be a success story for its soft power. Moldovans are voting for MPs to serve a four-year term in the 101-seat parliament. Parties must win at least six percent of the vote to get a seat. No party is expected to gain an outright majority. A small country of 3.6 million wedged between Ukraine and EU member Romania, around 78 percent of Moldova's population is ethnic Romanian, while Ukrainians and Russians account for around 14 percent. One of Europe's poorest countries, Moldova has struggled to break free from persistent political crisis. In June Chisinau signed an historic association accord with the European Union in the face of bitter Russian opposition. It gained visa-free travel for its citizens and access to a free trade zone as well as hundreds of millions of euros in funding. Russia retaliated with an embargo on imports of many Moldovan foods. - 'Kind of referendum' - Moldova is currently run by a pro-European coalition headed by Prime Minister Iurie Leanca that wants more integration with Europe. The presidents of Poland, Ukraine and Romania visited Moldova last week to back the pro-EU campaign, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a message of support to Leanca. "I am sure that Romania and Moldova will share a space of democracy and prosperity inside the European Union," said Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, an ethnic German recently elected on an anti-corruption ticket. But the opposition Communist party and Party of Socialists want closer links to Russia and its ex-Soviet allies and to tear up the EU agreement. "This agreement goes against the interests of Moldova. We will manage to get it cancelled, after which we will hold a referendum. The people themselves must decide where to integrate: into the European Union or into the Customs Union with Russia," the leader of the Party of Socialists, Igor Dodon, told AFP. The Communist Party led by former president Vladimir Voronin is more moderate and plays a crucial role as it could form a coalition with either side. Opinion polls show some 40 percent of Moldovans back pro-European parties, while around the same percentage support opposition pro-Russian parties. "The upcoming elections will be a kind of referendum," said Arcadie Barbarosie, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy in Chisinau. "If the pro-European parties win, Moldova's course towards European integration could become irreversible. If Moldova turns back towards the customs union (with Russia), however, it risks remaining forever in Russia's sphere of influence." Controversially, a pro-Russian party, Patria or Motherland, was barred from the election three days before the polls over alleged illegal financing from abroad. Its leader, a Russian businessman, fled to Russia. The Russian foreign ministry said Friday that the ban on Patria prompted "serious doubts about the democratic nature" of the polls and warned the vote could be "exceptionally dirty". Polling stations open at 7:00 am local time (0500 GMT) on Sunday and close at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT). A third of voters has to turn out to make the election valid. The authorities in breakaway Transdniestr -- where some 550,000 live -- do not allow residents to vote although several thousand are expected to vote in Chisinau-controlled territory. Moldovans living abroad will be able to vote at polling stations around the world, including 11 in Romania and five in Russia. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Nigeria vows to hunt those behind 'heinous' mosque attacks | ||
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Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan vowed to hunt down those behind "heinous" attacks that killed at least 120 at the mosque of an Islamic leader who issued a call to arms against Boko Haram. At least 270 others were also wounded when two suicide bombers blew themselves up and gunmen opened fire during weekly prayers on Friday at the Grand Mosque in Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim north of the country, according to a toll given to AFP late Friday by a senior rescue official. Jonathan "directed the security agencies to launch a full-scale investigation and to leave no stone unturned until all agents of terror... are tracked down and brought to justice," said a statement from his office on Saturday. The mosque is attached to the palace of Kano's emir, Muhammad Sanusi II, Nigeria's second most senior Muslim cleric, who last week made a call at the same mosque urging civilians to take up arms against Islamist extremists Boko Haram. Sanusi on Saturday returned from abroad to inspect the mosque. "From all indications, they (the attackers) have been planning this for at least two months," Sanusi told reporters at the airport without elaborating. "I have directed that the mosque be washed and cleaned and prayers should continue here," the emir said. "We will never be intimidated into abandoning our religion, which is the intention of the attackers." The attack, though, was widely seen inside Nigeria as revenge for the emir's call against Boko Haram. "It was death and blood all over. People lay dead and others shrieked in horror and pain," one survivor, Muhammad Inuwa Balarabe, told AFP from his hospital bed on Saturday. "I was inside the premises of the mosque. As soon as the prayer started, a bomb went off. They just started shooting people," said the 32-year-old tailor, who received serious burns to his thighs. Jonathan urged Nigerians "not to despair in this moment of great trial in our nation's history but to remain united to confront the common enemy". - Intensifying attacks - "One wonders what kind of religion these people practise," said survivor Maikudi Musa, who lost a sibling in the blast and saw another badly hurt. "You can't justify attacking and killing defenceless people at will in the name of religion." Just hours before the Kano massacre, a suspected remote-controlled roadside bomb near another mosque nearly 600 kilometres (380 miles) away in Maiduguri, was defused. Maiduguri, where Boko Haram was founded in 2002, was already tense after two female suicide bombers wreaked havoc at a crowded market on Tuesday, killing more than 45 shoppers and traders. More than 13,000 people are thought to have died in total since the insurgency broke out in 2009. - 'Out of control Boko Haram' - After the latest attacks, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General for west Africa, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, called on Nigerian authorities "to increase their response against terrorist threats in northeastern Nigeria", and for additional measures to protect civilians. UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the bloodshed at the mosque, saying in a statement that "there can be no justification for attacks on civilians". French President Francois Hollande called for a united front against Boko Haram "barbarism". "We must unite against barbarism, against the risks posed by fundamentalism, notably in the Sahel, in Africa," he said while on an official visit to Senegal. A Nigerian security expert, Ona Ekhomu, told a TV debate that the latest attacks showed that "we are at war in Nigeria". In the same programme, national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said: "We try to prevent crimes from happening... but criminals sometimes beat the security." With northern Nigeria gripped by fear, neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and Chad are also concerned that the violence could spread across their borders. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US activists demand police reform as Ferguson cop quits | ||
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Ferguson (United States) (AFP) - US activists launched a week-long march in Missouri to demand sweeping police reforms as the white officer who shot dead an unarmed black teen in Ferguson resigned. The officer, 28-year-old Darren Wilson, has left the force, citing safety concerns, according to a letter published by local media Saturday. A grand jury's decision on Monday not to charge Wilson in connection with the August 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown touched off days of sporadic violence in Ferguson, a suburb of St Louis. On Saturday, a core group of about 100 marchers, many from other states, set out on a 120-mile (192-kilometer) "Journey for Justice," heading from the St Louis suburb of Ferguson to the Missouri state capital Jefferson City. The marchers, organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), are demanding the sacking of the Ferguson police chief, nationwide police reforms and an end to racial profiling. "We will fight until hell freezes over, and then we will fight on the ice," NAACP president Cornell William Brooks told supporters at Washington Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church before setting out. The march is the latest in a series of protests that have taken place across the United States in the wake of the explosive grand jury decision not to indict Wilson. Wilson wrote in his letter "it is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal." The grand jury decision revived long-standing questions about how police, especially white officers, interact with African Americans -- questions raised again after last week's shooting in Cleveland of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. "What we're endeavoring to do here is seek justice for a grieving family as well as systemic, fundamental reform in terms of policing for an outraged community," Brooks told reporters. "When you have a 12-year-old child who is killed with a toy gun in his hand, there is something fundamentally wrong," Brooks said.
- Fighting from the start -
But when the group of older activists arrived at the memorial of flowers and soft toys where Brown was killed, some protesters who have been out since August wondered why they had shown up only now. "I've been out here fighting the fight from the beginning," said Markese Mull, celebrating his 40th birthday and a member of the local Peacekeepers group pushing for a better future and working to stop violence at demonstrations. Eugene Gillis, a trumpeter who plays at nightly protests, said young protesters feel alienated and reject the older generation of activists molded by slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. "Most of these young people say these people are out here for photo ops and that's what aggravates the issue," Gillis told AFP. Brooks, dressed in neat jeans and a sweater, prayed and fell to his knees in reflection at Brown's memorial while surrounded by a media scrum. Mobbed by TV cameras, he then led the march in one direction before turning around and heading back the opposite way, marching into West Florissant Avenue, where some of the worst looting took place. The marchers, including young children, were tailed by two buses in case they got tired, and a convoy of cars. The group told AFP they would march around 10 miles on Saturday, before returning to the church to sleep. Outside Missouri, others rallied in Brown's memory and called for change. Hundreds of people demonstrated in and around the US capital Washington, including some who laid on the ground for several minutes in a "die in" at a shopping mall near the Pentagon.
- 15 arrests in Ferguson -
The peaceful march came after 15 protesters were arrested late Friday outside the Ferguson police department and after demonstrators shut down a shopping mall in St Louis, demanding a boycott of post-Thanksgiving shopping. Monday's announcement that Wilson will not face charges sparked looting, arson and gunfire in parts of Ferguson, a mainly black suburb with a mostly white police force. The NAACP wants police to use body cameras, changes to the system of equipping police with military hardware, a promotion of diversity on the force and an end to the use of major force in cases involving minor offenses. Adrian West, a technology trainer, waited nearly two hours for the marchers to show up late, potentially missing a memorial service for a friend killed in a fight. But he still expressed support, hopeful that nationwide protests would yet bring change. "I think this is enough to get the federal government's attention, strong enough to make them listen, and it's quite possible Darren Wilson could end up getting indicted by the federal government." A federal probe into whether Wilson violated Brown's civil rights is ongoing.
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Silk Road smuggling | ||
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China struggles with contraband from its neighbours A hundred metres from the tiered, gold-tipped roof of the official border crossing between China and Myanmar in Ruili, an unofficial international trade zone thrives—across a 7-metre (23-foot) high metal fence that divides the two countries. Small groups of Chinese gather to buy cigarettes, coffee and Chinese medicines through the bars from Burmese stall-sellers. Farther along the road, a man in a red T-shirt crosses from Myanmar to China in bright daylight through a rectangular hole in the railings. China’s south-western province of Yunnan is trying to expand its imports from and exports to its land neighbours: Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. It shares more than 4,000km (2,500 miles) of border with them. The Chinese are not necessarily keen to import all of its neighbours’ products, however. The liveliest trade is in drugs. Yunnan borders on the Golden Triangle, a region notorious for its copious output of narcotics. Locals on the Burmese frontier point to fruit trees that now grow where opium used to, but the quantity of drugs seized has been rising. Yunnan’s border police confiscated 6.2 tonnes of drugs in 2013, almost double the amount in 2011. More than half the methamphetamine seized in China last year was from Myanmar and was seized in Yunnan. Drug smuggling between Vietnam and China, a lot of it through Yunnan, has risen sharply too.
Other forms of illegal activity are rife. Weapons smuggling is on the rise; signs written on walls near the China-Laos border in Mohan advertise guns and ammunition for sale. Most timber entering China from Laos and Myanmar is logged illegally, according to a report by Chatham House, a London think-tank. Contraband goods flow from China too. A Burmese politician told parliament in October that more than four-fifths of the 4m registered motorbikes in Myanmar were illegally imported. Many traders consistently underestimate the value of goods they are transporting to pay less tax. Most insidious is the trade in people. On November 24th Chinese officers arrested a gang accused of selling 11 Burmese women as wives in rural areas for 50,000-90,000 yuan ($8,000-13,000) each. In 2013 Yunnan border police found more than 100 trafficked people, and arrested over 6,000 others who had crossed the border illegally. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson Has Resigned | ||
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The police officer who ended 18-year-old Michael Brown's life, has resigned from the Ferguson Police Department. Darren Wilson, 28, was placed on paid administrative leave since the fatal confrontation with Brown on August 9th. Wilson said he hopes to work in the police force again but has decided to resign based on several threats the police department has recieved. Here is a portion of Wilson's resignation letter published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "My continued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance that I cannot allow. For obvious reasons, I wanted to wait until the grand jury made their decision before I officially made my decision to resign. ...The safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal." According to Wilson, he initially stopped Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson while they were walking in the street. After asking Brown and Johnson to move to the sidewalk, Wilson said he noticed that Brown was carrying a handful of cigarillos and realized that he'd heard an earlier call on the police scanner involving a robbery of the small cigars. Wilson told jurors that he feared for his life after Brown hit him and reached for his gun. Brown "had the most intense aggressive face," Wilson said. "It looks like a demon; that's how angry he looked." Some witnesses have described a different account of the shooting, saying Brown had his hands up in a sign of surrender. "The cop gets out of his vehicle shooting," witness Tiffany Mitchell told CNN. [Brown's] body jerked as if he was hit from behind, and he turned around, and he put his hands up. The cop continued to fire until he just dropped down to the ground, and his face just smacks the concrete."
Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, said that her son was "running for his life" after the altercation with Wilson. Brown died on the scene after he was hit with six bullets, two of which struck him in the head. His death sparked violent riots throughout the St. Louis suburb that lasted for nearly four months. Another wave of protests occurred after officials announced the grand jury's decision to not issue any charges against Wilson.
According to Police Chief Thomas Jackson, Wilson has a clean record on the force and is "an excellent police officer." The US Justice Department is still conducting a civil rights investigation into the shooting and a separate probe of police department practices. SEE ALSO: Darren Wilson's Official Account Of The Michael Brown Shooting Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Earlier this month the Associated Press reported that Wilson was One person killed as Egypt police and anti-Mubarak protesters clash | ||
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Cairo (AFP) - One person was killed in clashes between Egyptian police and protesters in central Cairo on Saturday after a court dropped a murder case against ousted strongman Hosni Mubarak, officials said. More than 1,000 protesters had converged on Tahrir Square in Cairo after the verdict earlier in the day. Police initially fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse them. The dead man had been shot, either with live ammunition or birdhshot. "He had been wounded in the clashes," a health ministry official told AFP. Earlier in the day, a court had thrown out murder charges against Mubarak and acquitted his police commanders of involvement in the deaths of protesters during the early 2011 revolt that unseated the veteran strongman. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Obama And His Daughters Bought Books From A Local Store For Small Business Saturday | ||
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"Do I get a discount for that?" the president asked jokingly while unloading a bunch of books from his shopping basket at the Politics and Prose book store on Saturday. "Maybe a neighbor's discount," the clerk joked back. It is not clear whether Obama would have taken the discount, if offered. The first family shopped at the same bookstore last year. On Saturday, Obama was met by a mostly cheery crowd of shoppers and got a round of applause when a baby earned a presidential selfie. Over the clicking of cameras and flashes of smart-phones, one shopper yelled: "When are you going to close Guantanamo?" "We're working on it," the president replied. "Any other issues?" Started in 2010 by credit card company American Express, Small Business Saturday comes on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day, to encourage people to spend their holiday shopping dollars at small businesses. It is the Black Friday for mom-and-pop shops that has become an annual tradition and has gained momentum, spawning "shop local" movements in communities across the country. Last year, shoppers spent about $5.7 billion at small companies on Small Business Saturday, according to a joint survey by National Federation of Independent Business and American Express. The White House released a list of the books purchased by the Obama trio: - Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande - Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business by Barbara Park - I Spy Sticker Book and Picture Riddles by Jean Marzollo - Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos Last year, the president and his daughters bought The Kite Runner, Harold and the Purple Crayon and The Sports Gene. Here is a video of the family checking out at the store: (Reporting by Elvina Nawaguna; Editing by Sandra Maler and Gunna Dickson) Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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President Barack Obama and his teenaged daughters, Sasha and Malia, went to an independent book store in Washington to buy books as a way to promote Small Business Saturday, an event aimed at boosting small businesses. NFL POWER RANKINGS: Where Every Team Stands Going Into Week 13 | ||
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Let's start at the bottom. The four teams from the historically bad NFC South are in the bottom four spots of our NFL power rankings this week. The Saints, Falcons, Buccaneers, and Panthers have a combined record of 6-23-1 against the rest of the NFL. That works out to a .200 winning percentage. In most NFL seasons, a team with a .200 winning percentage would get a top-3 pick in the draft. This year, one of those teams is going to make the playoffs. 1. New England Patriots (previously: 1st) Record: 9-2 Week 12 result: 34-9 win over Detroit One thing to know: Bill Belichick has no time for your heartwarming stories. 2. Green Bay Packers (previously: 2nd) Record: 8-3 Week 12 result: 24-21 win over Minnesota One thing to know: Green Bay is 2-2 against teams that currently have winning records. They can get a signature win Sunday against the Patriots. 3. Denver Broncos (previously: 4th) Record: 8-3 Week 12 result: 39-36 win over Miami One thing to know: Despite a bunch of injuries in the backfield, Denver had its best rushing game of the year in Week 12, dropping 200 yards on a really good Dolphins defense. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Sweet 16th straight win for record breaking Madrid | ||
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Madrid (AFP) - Real Madrid recorded a club record 16th consecutive win in all competitions with a 2-1 win at Malaga on Saturday to move five points clear at the top of La Liga. Karim Benzema opened the scoring when he turned home Cristiano Ronaldo's low cross after just 18 minutes to register his 13th goal of the season. Malaga 'keeper Carlos Kameni then kept his side in the game with a string of impressive saves as Ronaldo was held scoreless for the first time in the league this season. However, Gareth Bale smashed home a second seven minutes from time and the visitors held on despite having Isco sent-off moments later and seeing Roque Santa Cruz half the hosts' deficit in stoppage time. Real boss Carlo Ancelotti named his strongest available side as Iker Casillas, Marcelo and Dani Carvajal returned after being rested in the 1-0 Champions League win at Basel and the Italian was rewarded with a fast start. Bale's fierce effort from outside the box was beaten away by Kameni and the Cameroon 'keeper then had to make a brilliant save to deny Ronaldo from close range moments later after he was teed up by Bale. Casillas was forced into action at the other end on 14 minutes when he had to tip Santa Cruz's header behind for a corner. However, just as Malaga were beginning to gain a foothold in the game, they were hit by a classic Madrid counter-attack as Ronaldo was freed down the left and his low cross was swept home at the near post by Benzema despite Malaga's protests that Weligton had been fouled by the French striker. Casillas had a lucky escape midway through the half when Sergi Darder's dipping volley slipped between his legs and off the outside of the post. Bale was denied once more by Kameni as the 30-year-old bravely blocked at the Welshman's feet after he had slightly overrun another fine through ball from Ronaldo. Malaga were unfortunate not to be level once more before the break when Duda's long-range free-kick came crashing off the bar. The visitors also started the better after the break, but Bale's frustrating night in front of goal continued as he headed Toni Kroos's free-kick inches over before Kameni rushed from his line to deny former Malaga man Isco sealing the three points from another fine Ronaldo through ball. Ronaldo had a golden opportunity to extend his 11-game scoring streak in La Liga when presented with the ball inside the area thanks to a defensive mix-up between Weligton and Marcos Angeleri, but even he couldn't beat Kameni as the former Espanyol stopper dived to his right to turn the ball to safety. That miss nearly proved costly as Casillas spilled Samu Castillejo's low effort and recovered just in time to prevent Santa Cruz forcing the ball home from close range. The European champions finally doubled their advantage when Bale sprinted onto Ronaldo's headed flick-on and on his less favoured right foot fired high past the prone Kameni. Isco's return to La Rosaleda then ended early when he was shown a second yellow card, but from the resulting free-kick, Malaga's luck was out again as this time Juanpi struck the woodwork and Angeleri blasted the rebound over. Casillas was finally beaten in stoppage time when Santa Cruz headed home Arthur Boka's cross, but there was barely time for the Andalusians to launch another attack as they slipped to a first home defeat of the season. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This Guitarist's YouTube Video Was So Unique It Caught The Attention Of Prince | ||
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In 2006 former guitar teacher, Andy Mckee, uploaded a video of himself playing his song "Drifting". The video garnerened over 50 million views, and even caught the attention of Prince who flew Mckee out to Austrailia to join him for a few shows. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Apple's iOS Has Once Again Decimated Android When It Comes To Data That Matters (AAPL, GOOG) | ||
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Apple's mobile operating system is once again dominating Google's operating system when it comes to online shopping. Adobe, which is tracking online shopping, reports the following: "iOS users drove four times as much mobile sales revenue as Android users, 79 and 21 percent respectively." IBM's data produced similar findings:
This is important for a few reasons. For years, people have talked about Apple's tiny market share when it comes to the phone market. Globally, Apple has 12% of the smartphone market, according to Gartner. Android has 82%. In the US, Apple has 42% of the market, and Android has 52%, according to comScore. Market share is important because typically in tech, it's winner-take-all. The more people you have using your platform, the better you will do. In theory, the more people use Android, the more developers and publishers will tailor their websites and their apps to Android. In theory, Apple's iPhone will be a second class citizen with second class apps. Eventually people will bail on the iPhone if it's offering a second class experience. But, in practice, Android's market share advantage means nothing because iOS is more popular when it comes to usage, as demonstrated by these shopping data points. If you're making an app or a website, you want it to work best on iOS because that is where the most lucrative customers are. So, in practice, Apple gets the best apps and the best web experience because that's what makes sense for companies and developers. You could argue that this isn't indicative of usage, but merely demonstrates that iOS users have more money to burn. If that's the case, it's good for iOS, too. People with money to burn are an attractive cohort of users for developers and companies. SEE ALSO: How Apple Becomes A $1 Trillion Company Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Somebody Made A Lego Version Of The 'Star Wars' Trailer — And It's Fantastic | ||
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The First 'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed' Trailer is finally upon us and now the YouTube parodies begin. One of the initial ones flying around the internet is a genius iteration. Somebody made a Lego version and it's pretty brilliant. It comes via Snooperking on YouTube, and there's a lot of attention to detail here:
Watch the whole thing here: SEE ALSO: Here's An Explanation For Everything You See In The New 'Star Wars' Trailer Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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A South African Architect Created A Stunning House In Just 183 Square Feet Of Space | ||
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