Uber Will Be Valued At $40 Billion In New Round, Says Report | ||
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Uber is close to raising a new round of funding that would value it between $35 and $40 billion, according to Bloomberg. T. Rowe Price is said to be among the new investors. The valuation matches what Business Insider's Henry Blodget heard from a source last week. It would be a massive leap in valuation for the transportation company, which was valued at $18 billion in its last round just this summer. The company has been embroiled in controversy recently, after one of its executives suggested hiring investigators to dig up dirt on journalists. But an internal presentation from late 2013 shows the company well on its way to making $1.5 to $2 billion in gross revenue this year. Revenues on New Year's Eve grew more than 4x between 2012 and 2013. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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There's A Really Good Reason Why The Xbox One Is Such An Enormous Device | ||
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When it comes to tech, thinner is the new normal. Microsoft's Xbox One, though, goes against the grain. It weighs around 8 pounds and is pretty chunky, especially compared with other consoles it's competing with. It's even bigger than slimmest version of the 360, which came out in 2010. But there's a good reason for it, according to the Xbox industrial designer Carl Ledbetter: It needs to stay cool. "Everybody gets frustrated, because what we want is for everything to be wafer thin, not get hot and just be a snap to put together," he tells MCV's Christopher Dring. "But the reality is that there are very real issues around cooling when you’re pushing some number of watts in the processor, therefore the thing has to have some size to it. There’s always an interesting dynamic between engineering and design, and constraints around performance." He says that you can't design something without taking into consideration engineering factors. "It’s called designing with constraints, and constraints create very real things for people to go after and solve," he says. "Blue sky can get a little tough because it is limitless and it’s boundless. The engineering doesn’t really become a barrier — engineering is necessary, just like the design and technology. It’s a combination of everything that creates the product." The Xbox One isn't just a chunky black box, either. Its patchwork squares are a reflection of the console's dashboard, which looks similar to the experience on the Surface tablet. It's meant to be seamless across the entire brand. And all of that effort matters, even if nobody really notices it.
"For us it is about creating a very consistent and seamless experience that is reliable, so that when you see it, it is already starting to communicate aspects of the brand, and when you go into the user experience, it fulfills your expectations," he says. "It would be like if you saw a beautiful car, and then you opened the door and the handle felt a little strange, and when you got inside it had been designed by someone different, and even the controls were not what you expected." Read the rest of the interview with Ledbetter over at MCV>> SEE ALSO: PlayStation Chief Takes A Victory Lap Around The Xbox One Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Meg Whitman: HP Used 'Military-Style Communication' To Talk About Its Split (HPQ) | ||
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So how do you tell the world that you are going to carve up an $111 billion company — the biggest, most complicated spin off ever — without freaking out your investors, partners, employees? You become like a military machine, Meg Whitman told Wall Street analysts on Tuesday after reporting the company's earnings. The thing is, enterprises are notoriously nervous about change. Meg Whitman herself has thumbed her nose at IBM's sale of one of its server units to Lenovo and claimed that HP picked up a lot of IBM customers over the uncertainty just that one transaction caused. But she's reassuring Wall Street that splitting HP into two huge $57 billion public companies, which will take a year, will not cause her customers to get nervous and flee. That's because she says HP has already talked to just about everyone. Within hours of making the announcement, HP personally reached out to over 100,000 members of its ecosystem. "We communicated with 38,000 customers and 69,000 partners in the first 18 hours after the announcement. It's kind of amazing. We were in a military style communication," Whitman said. "Post that all of the senior executives have met with hundreds of customers and partners and almost universally, they are enthusiastic about this. They think it's going to be good for them, good for their business. We'll have two more focused companies with an ability to react faster to the marketplace," she explained. When you think about that, she's really saying that years into her turnaround, which has already trimmed 41,000 employees from the payroll, HP is still too big and bureaucratic. That's probably true. 275,000 employees is still a huge company. And it remains to be seen if more employees will be let go when HP divides into HP Inc., the printer/PC unit, and HP Enterprise, the rest of the company. In fact, HP board member and powerful VC Marc Andreessen has predicted that HP's split up will be so successful in making the company more nimble and able to compete with startups, that all the biggest, oldest tech companies will do the same. Whitman says that employees are happy, too, because customers are excited. "I think this has gone as well as it could have good. I'm pleased with the communication, pleased with the reaction and pleased with the rallying of our employees across the globe," she said. SEE ALSO: Why Oracle Employees Are Gossiping About A Tiny 60-Person Layoff Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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HP Executives Hint That More Layoffs Are Coming As It Splits (HPQ) | ||
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HP has laid off 41,000 people (with about 9,000 people left to go) under its current downsizing plan for 2014. On Tuesday, the company hinted that more layoffs could be coming with its plans to separate itself into two huge companies. During its quarterly conference call, Wall Street analysts asked for details about HP's plans to divide itself into two companies: HP Inc., which will be the PC and printer unit, and HP Enterprise, which will be all the other businesses like servers, networking gear, software, outsourcing, cloud computing and so on. Maynard Um of Wells Fargo delicately asked CEO Meg Whitman if these plans will involve any "incremental synergies" which is code for more layoffs, though it also implies getting rid of other things like equipment, real estate. Whitman didn't answer the question directly but hinted that this was likely. "This separation was totally the right thing to do for this company," she said. "It gives us a chance to clean-sheet two, new Fortune 50 companies. It's remarkable how it focuses the mind around overhead. Do we need exactly what we have today? What we are not doing is separating the company into two pieces exactly as we have today. Knowing what we know now, if you have a chance to restart this Fortune 50 companies, how would you organize? That has been a really interesting and I think, going to be really good, for both of these companies." Whitman asked CFO Cathie Lesjak to respond to the question, too. She said, more bluntly, "I don't have a specific number for you. We're still working through this. We're working through, frankly, also the costs of the separation, which we will give an update on in our earnings call in Q1." But she added, "This is an opportunity to do zero-based budgeting, as close as you can get to zero-based budgeting for two Fortune 50 companies. Because every line item needs to be reviewed. Every balance sheet item needs to be reviewed, in order to do this split. So its a huge opportunity for us to really take a different perspective with our cost structure." Many HP employees probably won't be surprised if HP does trim its workforce some more when it splits. They've been going through layoffs since 2008. The latest round, which began in 2012 as a plan to trim 27,000 employees, was expanded to 29,000, then to 34,000, and then, in May, to 45,000 to 50,000. And HP is still enormous. Over 275,000 people work there. Again, Lesjak said that out of the 50,000 employees it was cutting in the current layoff, 41,000 are now gone. The layoff cost HP $1.6 billion in its fiscal 2014, and it expects to save $3.5 billion dollars when the layoffs are complete, applying some of that savings to R&D and product development hoping to get HP to grow revenues again. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Here's The New Actor Who Will Play Steve Jobs (AAPL) | ||
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Universal Pictures has cast Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs in its upcoming biopic, reports CNBC. Universal picked up the film from Sony Pictures, which backed out of the project last week. Fassbender is the latest addition to a list of actors rumored to play Jobs in Aaron Sorkin's screenplay. Sony considered Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale for the role, but both backed out. Sony also lost director David Fincher after he reportedly demanded too much money from the studio. Danny Boyle will direct Universal's film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sorkin's screenplay is based off Walter Isaacson's biography of the Apple CEO, "Steve Jobs." SEE ALSO: Leonardo DiCaprio Won't Play Steve Jobs In Sony's Next Biopic Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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HP Has Over 400 People Working Full Time On Carving Up The Company (HPQ) | ||
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By this time next year, HP expects to have cleaved itself into two huge, publicly traded companies. On Tuesday, HP CEO Meg Whitman talked about how she and her team plan to do that while keeping customers calm, happy and willing to sign big contracts. "This is a big and complicated separation," Whitman told analysts on the company's quarterly conference on Tuesday. "It is the biggest separation that's ever been done and it's not a typical spin-off, where you've got one big company spinning off a little part of the company. These are two Fortune 50 companies that both have about $57 billion of revenue." So she formed a new "separation" group. "We have some of our most talented executives running the separation and that is what they are doing full time. At its peak, that will probably be between 400 and 500 people," Whitman said. "The rest of HP, all 275,000 of the rest, will be in fact, focused on running the business. I have a lot of confidence we'll be able to deliver [a good] FY15, which is critical." What will those 400 to 500 people be doing? She explained: There is one central "corporate separation management office," she said. They are creating three years of historic financial records for each of the different businesses. They are also doing a "very detailed analysis of tax and legal separation. We have over 786 legal entities at this company." This group will be analyzing all 786 to see where they belong or if they should be kept as they are at all. There is also a "separation management office" for both of the new companies: HP Enterprise and HP Inc. "Their job is to make sure we have the right strategy with the right cost structure as we head into being two separate companies," she explained. And there's a group of people working on the separation of HP's information technology: servers, networks, data centers, software licenses and the like. The good news here is that HP is going to reboot its IT infrastructure from scratch. "That is an opportunity to create an IT infrastructure for each company that isn't based on our legacy system or isn't based on a manufacturing system, which for so many years it has been," Whitman said. Building IT from scratch for two huge companies is going to be expensive and HP hasn't said how much it plans to spend on this separation. But if your goal is to create two huge new tech companies, it only makes sense that they eat their own dog food and use all the latest, greatest tech. All of this has already begun. "We have deadlines every month. Things that have to be decided, operations that have to be changed," she said. Whitman said that she'll be providing investors with progress reports every quarter. SEE ALSO: How Dion Weisler Rose To Become One Of HP's CEOs In Just Three Years Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Troubled Mobile Payments Startup Clinkle Is Giving Away Free Cash In Vending Machines | ||
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University of California, Berkeley students have been tweeting selfies from the company’s "Treat Bot" stationed outside a campus dining hall as they collect free $20 bills for signing up for the service. The service itself is a bit confusing. It's basically a version of Venmo, but with a complimentary black debit card that can earn perks. “Use the card, and you get treats. Send treats to another member, and their next purchase could be free,” Rob Ryan, Clinkle's director of design, wrote on ProductHunt in September. After a tumultuous 17 months of layoffs and executive turnover, the Clinkle app has only just launched on select college campuses. This also isn’t the first time Clinkle has tried paying users to use its service. In June, the company paid beta testers $10 when they swiped their card for a fifth time. SEE ALSO: These Mesmerizing Time-Lapse Maps Show How Startups Are Transforming Major Cities Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Clinkle, a mobile payment startup that was showered with $30 million in funding last year, is now distributing some of that cash in the form of a vending machine, CHART OF THE DAY: Consumers Ready To Upgrade Want An Apple iPhone (AAPL) | ||
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Last month, BI Intelligence created a 22-question survey and distributed it to the entire Business Insider website, which attracts roughly 50 million unique visits each month. Based on the pool of 2,107 respondents — the vast majority (95%) of whom own smartphones — nearly half said they planned on buying a phone in the next six months, and the majority of those people (55%) said they planned on buying a new Apple iPhone. After Apple was Samsung, which attracted about 22% of intended smartphone purchases. There's a ton of other interesting tidbits from BI Intelligence's analysis of the survey. For instance, one-third of future iPhone buyers said they wanted to buy the iPhone 6 Plus, and somewhat surprisingly, the price of the phone was a non-issue for the vast majority of respondents, regardless of region or income. To learn more about the survey, visit BI Intelligence.
SEE ALSO: CHART OF THE DAY: Samsung's Mobile Market Share Is Tumbling Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Now, Anyone On Earth Can See A View Of Our Planet From Space In Real Time | ||
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There's nothing as profound as seeing Earth from space. Yet, only the 543 people who have trained as astronauts ever get to experience the Earth in a way that boggles the human mind — called the overview effect — until now. But now, thanks to the High Definition Earth Viewing experiment, anyone with access to a computer and internet can watch Earth float in space from the perspective of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The HDEV experiment was activated on April 30 of this year, and so far over 32 million people have experienced the Earth in a way unlike any other — at a height of 268 miles above the surface. Several commercial HD video cameras are attached to the European Space Agency's Columbus module aboard the ISS. Each camera is pointed at Earth, and live records and streams what they see. The live stream cycles through the different cameras on board. When that happens, the live stream cuts out for a few seconds, but the fresh, new view you get is completely worth the few seconds it takes for the switch. As gorgeous as it is, this experiment has a purpose besides awing people on Earth: Each camera is protected inside a pressurized, temperature-controlled case. The experiment aims to test the effects of space on this equipment and the video quality it produces. High school students helped design some of the components of the experiment through the High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware program. Enjoy the view below: SEE ALSO: We Asked A NASA Astronaut What His Scariest Moment Was IN PICTURES: The Incredible Story Of The Women Who Were Meant To Be The First Astronauts But Were Left On Earth Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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REPORT: Twitter Is Thinking About Buying A Startup Backed By Justin Bieber (TWTR) | ||
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Twitter is in talks to acquire the app Shots, the selfie app backed by Justin Bieber, according to CNBC. Twitter is particularly interested in Shots' user base, the source told CNBC, which includes more than 3 million users. Nearly two-thirds of those users are women under 24. The report comes just after Twitter CFO Anthony Noto accidentally posted a tweet on Monday night hinting that an acquisition is in the works. The tweet was meant to be a direct message, but Noto mistakenly posted the content as a public tweet instead. Here's a screenshot of the tweet: Pop star Justin Bieber is an investor in the Shots app and led a $1.1 million seed round of funding about one year ago. Shots CEO John Shahidi told Fox Business' Katie Roof "we are focused on building out the product and not focused on selling it." But he also didn't rule out the possibility that talks with Twitter had been held. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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REVEALED: The Demographic Trends For Every Social Network | ||
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The demographics of who's on what social network are shifting — older social networks are reaching maturity, while newer social messaging apps are gaining younger users fast. In a new report from BI Intelligence, we unpack data from over a dozen sources to understand how social media demographics are still shifting. Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Trial >> Here are a few of the key takeaways from the BI Intelligence report:
The report is full of charts (over 20 charts) and data that can be downloaded and put to use. In full, the report:
For full access to all BI Intelligence reports, briefs, and downloadable charts on the digital media industry, sign up for a two week trial. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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These Mesmerizing Time-Lapse Maps Show How VC Money Is Changing Major Cities | ||
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San Francisco is being flooded with startup funding. Rents are sky high, newly-formed companies are offering lavish perks, and storefronts across the city are transforming. Zillabyte software engineer Nikhil Karnik decided to analyze exactly how this growth has changed the city, as well as several other startup hotbeds such as New York and Austin, in a series of interactive maps. Using Zillabyte, a framework for high-end data analysis, and the Crunchbase API, he created time-lapse visualizations of venture funding rounds for each city. The results are captivating. Bubble sizes correspond to the total amount of funding raised, and the sample size for each city is limited to 1000 companies. Here's San Francisco:
It's clear that San Francisco has been flooded with venture capital, but Karnik’s maps show exactly where the big venture-funded startups are taking root. For instance, you can see why rent in SOMA — the upper-right hand corner of the map — is so expensive. Next, check out New York:
Karnik’s timelapse of funding rounds in New York City is limited to Manhattan, but you can see that startup growth since 2009 has been relatively steady compared to San Francisco’s relative explosion. Startups seem to prefer hip downtown neighborhoods such as SoHo or the Flatiron, as opposed to more traditional midtown. Finally, let's take a look at Austin: Austin’s growth appears to be scattered across city limits, though many startups do line major roads and freeways. Karnik notes that his methodology isn’t perfect. Cities have very different histories and social dynamics that can either foster or stifle entrepreneurship, and he would like to look at population growth and development versus the rate of venture funding to gain further insights. He's curious how much changing demographics in large urban areas correlate with the latest tech boom and if it's possible to pinpoint "up and coming" startup hubs using this type of analysis. In the meantime, for more maps and a technical explanation of his methodology, check out Karnik's full blog post. SEE ALSO: Look How Much San Francisco Has Changed In 3 Years Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Microsoft Engine That Nailed The World Cup Is Predicting Every NFL Game — Here Are Its Picks For Week 13 | ||
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Microsoft's Cortana had a solid Week 12, correctly predicting 11 of 15 NFL games. It's now 116-60 (65.9%) on the season. Cortana is a Windows phone virtual assistant that's using a Bing Predicts algorithm to predict every NFL game this season. It started at the World Cup, where it correctly predicted 15 of 16 knockout stage games, including Germany's surprising win over Brazil in the semifinal. Week 12 was a nice bounceback week for the algorithm after it went 8-6 in Week 11. There were a ton of big favorites (only two point spreads were within a field goal) and most of them won. Las Vegas betting favorites also went 11-4, and Nate Silver's ELO model went 12-3 — correctly predicting the Bengals over the Texans when both Cortana and Vegas had Houston as the favorite. ELO has correctly predicted 69.8% of all NFL games this year, while Vegas favorites are right around Cortana at 115-58-3. The Bing Predicts algorithm makes picks straight up, not against the point spread. Here are Cortana's picks for Week 13 as of Tuesday night. We'll update them throughout the week if they change (Vegas favorites in parentheses):
Cortana and Vegas agree on every game, but there is plenty of time for things to change. Here are Cortana's results so far this year:
SEE ALSO: NFL Power Rankings, Where Every Team Stands Going Into Week 13 Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Early Box Investor Explains Why He’s Not Nervous About The Delayed IPO | ||
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The IPO delay — which Box CEO Aaron Levie told us has been an “extremely unusual process” — raised a lot of eyebrows because companies usually don’t hold out for that long after filing an S-1. In particular, many outsiders pointed to Box’s massive losses, where sales and marketing costs alone exceeded its total revenue. Normally, this would make a lot of investors nervous. But Chamath Palihapitiya, the founder of the VC firm Social+Capital, who’s also one of the early investors of Box, says he’s not concerned at all. He says Box’s high spending is, in fact, “good burn.” “Box found out that enterprise sales is expensive to get off the ground, and it takes a long time as typical sales cycles are 12, 18-plus months,” Palihapitiya told Business Insider. “But they also figured out that when you do finally close these deals, you’re closing huge 10,000-plus seat licenses and they’re multi-million dollar, multi-year contracts.” Palihapitiya has a point. Subscription services like Box spend a lot up front to acquire customers, and the process could take years when they're dealing with big companies like General Electric. But once they close the deal, it turns into a recurring source of revenue, meaning those deals become 100% gross margin businesses year after year. Palihapitiya says the fact that Box, as a private company, has already built a strong enterprise sales channel is what makes it different from other enterprise startups. A lot of enterprise startups only have small and medium-sized businesses and mid-market customers when they go public, which causes them to spend another few years of massive losses trying to build a sales channel for big enterprises. He says Workday is the only other enterprise software company to have successfully built an enterprise sales channel as well as Box before going public — and that’s something Wall Street appreciates in the long term. “When they’re public, Box could be in a very unique set of only a handful companies that have all three channels (SMB, mid-market, big enterprise) cranking,” Palihapitiya says. “They understand the nuances that really matter and they’ll get rewarded by Wall Street for that.” SEE ALSO: Aaron Levie On Box's Unusual IPO Process, Burn Rate, And The ‘Race To The Top’ Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Box, the enterprise storage and collaboration platform, has Apple's New iPhone Ad Shows Off One Of The Best Features Of iOS 8 (AAPL) | ||
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Apple has a new iPhone 6 ad out, and it touts one of the best features of iOS 8 — the ability to make and receive calls from any Apple device. Gone are the days of lamenting a missed call while your phone was charging, or running around the house when you hear the phone ring. Whichever Apple device is nearest will do. This all works over WiFi, though Apple says you can tether your other devices to your cell network if that's not an option. Continuity, as Apple calls it, is just another way of keeping you tied into the company's product ecosystem. You can't place calls from Beats headphones, but I'd never rule it out in the future. The back and forth between Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon makes for a hilarious ad. The duo also showcased the iPhone's vivid graphics — courtesy of Apple's A8 chip — in another recent ad while playing Vainglory. You can watch the full ad below: SEE ALSO: Here Are Apple's Black Friday Deals Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Google Has Invented A Super Spoon To Help Parkinson's Patients | ||
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Lift Lab, a Google owned company, has created a spoon that allows people with essential tremors and Parkinson's Disease to eat without spilling. In clinical trials, the Liftware spoons reduced shaking of the spoon bowl by an average of 76%. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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HP Misses On Revenue, All Businesses Down Except PCs (HPQ) | ||
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HP just reported its fourth quarter earnings: inline with profits and a miss on revenue. HP reported Q4 earnings per share of $1.06, right in line with expectations and revenue of $28.40 billion, that's a miss. Analysts expected $1.06 earnings per share for the quarter and revenue to be $28.77 billion, down 1.3% over the year-ago quarter. For the year, HP reported net revenue of $111.5 billion, that's another slight miss. Analysts expected the year to finish with $111.74 billion in revenue, nearly flat (down only a .5% from last year). HP beat the non-GAAP full year EPS number by 1 cent. It reported $3.74 when analysts expected $3.73. The company had given guidance of $3.70 to $3.74 per share. This is the first earnings report since HP announced its plans to cleave itself into two public companies in 2015. Revenue was down in just about every business unit. The only bright spot was the PC division, where revenue was up 4% year over year with a 4.0% operating margin, entirely due to businesses finally buying new PCs. Consumer PC revenue was down 2%. Here's the press release. PALO ALTO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/25/14 -- HP (HPCQ) (NYSE: HPQ)
HP fiscal 2014 fourth quarter and full-year financial performance HP fiscal 2014 fourth quarter and full-year financial performance Information about HP's use of non-GAAP financial information is provided under "Use of non-GAAP financial information" below. HP today announced financial results for fiscal 2014 and fourth quarter ended October 31, 2014. Fiscal 2014 net revenue of $111.5 billion was down 1% from the prior-year period and flat on a constant currency basis. Fiscal 2014 GAAP diluted net earnings per share (EPS) was $2.62, flat in comparison with the prior-year period amount and within the previously provided outlook of $2.60 to $2.64 per share. Fiscal 2014 non-GAAP diluted net EPS was $3.74, up from $3.56 in the prior-year period and within the previously provided outlook of $3.70 to $3.74 per share. Fiscal 2014 non-GAAP net earnings and non-GAAP diluted net EPS exclude after-tax costs of $2.1 billion and $1.12 per diluted share, respectively, related to restructuring charges, the amortization of intangible assets and acquisition-related charges. Fourth quarter net revenue of $28.4 billion was down 2% from the prior-year period and down 3% on a constant currency basis. Fourth quarter diluted net GAAP EPS was $0.70, down from $0.73 in the prior-year period and within its previously provided outlook of $0.67 to $0.71 per share. Fourth quarter non-GAAP diluted net EPS was $1.06, up from $1.01 in the prior-year period and within its previously provided outlook of $1.03 to $1.07. Fourth quarter non-GAAP net earnings and non-GAAP diluted net EPS exclude after-tax costs of $684 million and $0.36 per diluted share, respectively, related to restructuring charges, the amortization of intangible assets and acquisition-related charges. "I'm excited to say that HP's turnaround continues on track," said Meg Whitman, chairman, president and chief executive officer, HP. "In FY14, we stabilized our revenue trajectory, strengthened our operations, showed strong financial discipline, and once again made innovation the cornerstone of our company. Our product roadmaps are the best they've been in years and our partners and customers believe in us. There's still a lot left to do, but our efforts to date, combined with the separation we announced in October, sets the stage for accelerated progress in FY15 and beyond." Outlook For the fiscal 2015 first quarter, HP estimates non-GAAP diluted net EPS to be in the range of $0.89 to $0.93 and GAAP diluted net EPS to be in the range of $0.72 to $0.76. Fiscal 2015 first quarter non-GAAP diluted net EPS estimates exclude after-tax costs of approximately $0.17 per share, related primarily to the amortization of intangible assets and restructuring charges. The fiscal 2015 full year and first quarter outlooks do not include costs associated with the separation, which are expected to be non-GAAP adjustments beginning in Q1 2015. Asset management Fiscal 2014 fourth quarter segment results
SEE ALSO: How Dion Weisler Rose To Become One Of HP's CEOs In Just Three Years Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Use This Clever Trick To See Your iPhone's True Signal Strength | ||
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Ever find yourself questioning how accurate those little signal strength dots are on your iPhone? Luckily, there's a trick to reveal your iPhone's true signal strength, and it takes less than a minute to enable. First, you'll need to access a hidden app on your phone called Field Test Mode. To do this, you'll need to open up your Phone app and dial the following number, *3001#12345#* , including the asterisks and hashtag, and tap "Call." This opens up Field Test Mode, which is mostly filled with menus of cell signal jargon that you don't need to worry about. What you're interested in is the tiny number in the upper left-hand corner of your iPhone, which should have replaced those cell signal dots.
Here, for example, my iPhone is showing my cell signal to be -59. While that number can vary anywhere from -40 to -130, it will always be negative, and the closer that number is to zero, the better your cell signal, according to OSX Daily. The best signal you can get would be -40, and no signal at all would be -130. To exit Field Test Mode, you can simply tap the home button and you'll be brought back to your iPhone's home screen, no harm done. Now you can always repeat this process to enter Field Test Mode and see your true cellular signal, but if you'd like the ability to always check that number without going through that hassle, you can set things up so your iPhone will display both numbers if you just tap the signal dots in the future. To be able to peek at your true signal strength number you need to get back into Field Test Mode by re-dial *3001#12345#* and tapping "Call." You'll be brought to the Field Test App, but instead of using the home button to exit, hold down your iPhone's power/sleep button until it shows the "Slide to power off" screen and then hold the down your iPhone's home button, which will force quit Field Test App. You'll be back to your iPhone's homescreen, but this time you should notice that your signal strength number has now replaced your signal strength dots.
If you tap that number, you can switch between the two as you see fit. To undo any changes you made, simply repeat the steps to get into Field Test Mode and tap the Home button to exit the app and everything will revert back to normal. SEE ALSO: Use This Trick To See A Map Of Everywhere Google Knows You've Been Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Business Insider Is Looking For Superhero Inside Sales Reps in NYC, Chicago and San Francisco | ||
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Business Insider is a dynamic publisher reaching the new generation of business leaders. We are a well-funded start-up at the forefront of digital media. We are also one of the fastest-growing business media companies, reaching more than 60 million readers per month.
We are looking for inside sales people (Account Executives) to sell across all industry verticals. The Account Executive develops and cultivates client relationships. The AE is accountable for achieving specified revenue targets, prospecting clients, and accurately forecasting revenue. She or he works closely with Account Directors to formulate account strategies and close deals. Success will be highly dependent upon a candidate's willingness to prospect, cold call, and articulate the BI value proposition. Job responsibilities: • Achieve revenue goals on a quarterly basis • Seek out and develop relationships with clients; develop an understanding of clients' business issues; sell through BI offerings that support clients' strategic and tactical needs • Drive engagement with clients and deliver an exceptional customer experience • Communicate effectively in writing and over the phone • Accurately manage and forecast sales pipeline Requirements: • Work / internship experience in the digital media space • Attention to detail • Drive, determination, consistency and passion • Mastery of typical office software applications
Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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If You Think Virtual Reality Is Just For Gamers, Then You Should Look Again | ||
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Right now, everyone thinks of virtual reality as being for games and games alone. But that’s just not true. Recently, I was privileged to test a special application built for the Oculus Rift, which showcased the ability to jump right into a live concert. You get the best seat in the house: Hovering right in front of the stage, and above the crowd. You feel like you’re really there, minus the heat and the smells and the random people bumping into you. As you move your head around, you can see other concert-goers — real people — cheering, and as you turn back towards the stage, you can see the pyrotechnics go off right as Paul McCartney hits the chorus to “Live And Let Die.” I took the Rift off my head, and I was back inside Business Insider’s conference room. Virtual reality is going to be huge. Monumental. It’s going to change the way we live. Facebook and Samsung have already made significant investments, and Apple was recently caught looking to hire an app engineer “to create high performance apps that integrate with virtual reality systems.” And then there's Magic Leap, the mysterious $542 million startup that's built an augmented reality device "so badass you can't believe it." The future of virtual reality is incredibly exciting. But right now, the main focus is games. And here’s why.
Computers back then were cold, unfriendly machines. But Russell wanted to demonstrate the capabilities of this new digital equipment, so he created a game, called “Spacewar.” And once the game was created, it was nearly impossible to pry the MIT students and employees away from the computer. “Spacewar” would inspire the arcade culture, and also had a huge impact on early game maker Atari, the creator of the first mainstream video games like "Pong," "Space Invaders," "Pac Man," and "Donkey Kong." Video games made computers approachable. And the same thing is happening today with virtual reality.
Virtual reality is just getting started, but the goal is clear: Total immersion. With other display-based technologies — computers, phones, tablets, and video games — you might feel immersed, but you’re innately aware that you are still disconnected from these devices, and you can always turn them off. Virtual reality, on the other hand, wants “you to achieve the impossible and believe you’re in another world,” according to Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe.
Like that Paul McCartney concert, the ultimate goal with VR is to get you to experience something you’ve never done before — to truly believe you’re there, and have an authentic experience. Perhaps this means you’ll be able to sculpt without buying clay (like in the GIF above), or experience skydiving without needing to jump out of an airplane, or visit far-away places like the Himalayas or the gardens of Kyoto without needing to leave the country — or our own bedrooms, for that matter. And who knows how current smartphone apps could translate to virtual reality? Maybe online dating will be transformed by VR, where "Tinder for Oculus" would allow you to see your potential dates as they really are — not just a few random pictures from Instagram — and let you “swipe right” by nodding, or “swipe left” by shaking your head. Maybe Yelp for Oculus would let you actually explore restaurants, bars, and clubs before you decide to take a date there. Again, these are all far-off dreams, but they would add considerable value to our own digital experiences. Companies like Oculus acknowledge there’s a long way to go: virtual reality needs new rendering and graphics architectures, as well as new art approaches to accommodate the “considerable demands” required to build great VR. But the promise of total immersion — being transported to a separate reality, or perhaps the same world but from a perspective you’ve never seen before — is the next best thing to our own lives. That might sound like hyperbole, but it's absolutely true. SEE ALSO: Here's Proof Apple Is Exploring Virtual Reality SEE ALSO: The Top 50 Video Games Of All Time — RANKED Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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In 1962, decades before Steve Jobs tried to make computers “personal,” Steve Russell sat in a small room at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working in front of the PDP-1, the first computer to utilize a visual display.
Just like that era, the quality of VR games is somewhat poor currently. The controls can be wonky, and the visuals don’t even approach the quality of PCs or today’s living room consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. But it’s a start. The ideas are there, and people are certainly experimenting with VR more and more — first through Facebook-owned Oculus, and now through other primordial (
So Much For The Tablet Market — The iPad Has Hit The Wall (AAPL, GOOG, MSFT) | ||
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The tablet market has hit a wall. We already knew the iPad was in trouble — in Apple's last three earnings reports, iPad sales have been down from the previous year. Now, research firm IDC predicts that 2014 will be the first full year that iPad sales will decline. They're expecting total sales to be down 12% from last year, with no major bounceback or recovery in the holiday quarter. But the picture is even bleaker if you look out four years. In 2018, IDC predicts that overall iPad sales will be only 70 million, barely ahead of 2014's predicted sales of 65 million. Worse, IDC thinks the overall tablet market will show a compound annual growth rate of only 5.4% between now and 2018. Android tablets will be hit a similar slowdown, growing at a compound rate of about 6% per year, to about 183 million. About the only winner will be Microsoft, as sales of Windows tablets are expected to triple by 2018 to just over 30 million. That's still third place. Predictions four years into the future are notoriously difficult to get right and often look silly later on. But these look reasonable based on current buying patterns, as it seems like people are holding on to their tablets a lot longer than they are with their smartphones. The only way Apple and other tablet makers can turn that around is by giving customers reasons to buy a tablet instead of a PC. The overall PC market is still huge, with more than 300 million shipping per year. All those PC buyers are potential tablet switchers. That's especially true in businesses, where PCs are still how employees do a lot of work. Some of those PCs — say for mobile salespeople or retail floor workers — seem like they could easily be swapped for a tablet. But it's pretty clear that growth isn't going to come from getting tablet buyers to throw out their two- or three-year model and pick up a new model with additional bells and whistles. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Lyft Says It Just Had Its Biggest Week Ever | ||
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While Uber made headlines last week for all the wrong reasons, its chief competitor Lyft was having its biggest week ever. Lyft spokesperson Paige Thelen told Business Insider on Tuesday that last week was Lyft's biggest week yet. That's in terms of how many rides were taken on the app, though Lyft would not disclose those numbers. Thelen told Business Insider that several people had asked how Lyft was doing in response to the controversy surrounding Uber. Citing recent growth, Lyft is also introducing a new email campaign to customers this afternoon. The emails will answer guests' questions about the service. For instance, it's typical Lyft protocol to fist-bump your Lyft drivers upon entry and sit in the passenger seat. It's much more casual than Uber's black car feel. But now, Lyft demonstrates that it's trying to shed that laidback look, or at least let its riders choose how they want to ride. The new email campaign tells customers that if they want to take a seat in the back of their Lyft car or forgo the fist-bump, that's fine, too. Here's a screenshot of one of the emails: Lyft is a contender in the on-demand car service wars. Sure, the $332 million Lyft has raised pales in comparison to Uber's $1.5 billion. But Lyft provides a solid service, and if Uber continues to make public missteps, Lyft will continue reaping the rewards. SEE ALSO: Uber Is Generating A Staggering Amount Of Revenue Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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BuzzFeed Is Going To Buy Apple Watches For All Of Its 700 Employees | ||
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Buzzfeed has already generated more than $100 million in 2014 revenue, CEO Jonah Peretti stated in a company-wide memo obtained by Capital New York's Alex Weprin. Peretti tells Business Insider that his company is profitable. So, it's not a big deal for BuzzFeed to incentivize its 700+ employees with a ~ $245,000 perk. Peretti told his employees in that same $100 million memo that they'd each receive Apple Watches if Buzzfeed hits 200 million unique visitors and 750 million video views in a single month. Peretti added that the company was already within "striking distance" of that goal. BuzzFeed's last reported monthly uniques number was about 150 million. If Buzzfeed buys the cheapest Apple Watches (there will be three models) for all 700+ employees, it'll spend a minimum of $245,000. Apple Watches will start at $350. From Peretti's memo: Earlier this year we passed $100 million in revenue for the year. This is a huge milestone and amazing accomplishment! Now we are in striking distance of two other huge metrics: 1) The BuzzFeed site is poised to pass 200 million monthly unique visitors for a calendar month 2) BuzzFeed Motion Pictures is close to 750 million views in a calendar month If we hit 200 million UVs and 750 million video views, on the *same* month, we will celebrate by buying all BuzzFeed employees worldwide an Apple Watch. BuzzFeed's revenue milestone is especially impressive considering Buzzfeed lost its president and advertising mastermind, Jon Steinberg, earlier this year after turning down a substantial acquisition offer from Disney. The company was aiming to generate $100 million total this year. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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'Dancing With The Stars' Did A Routine Set To Old Nintendo Music, And It's Amazing | ||
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"Dancing with the Stars" went old school on Monday night. Mark Ballas and Sadie Robertson, from the show "Duck Dynasty," danced to music from "Super Mario Bros." As expected, it was as amazing as any dance set to music from "Super Mario Bros." could be. Ballas was Mario, Robertson was Princess Peach, and a couple of other dancers jumped in later as Luigi and Toad. Nobody did the original "Mario" dance, which was featured during the ending credits of the TV show "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!," unfortunately.
Still, the "Dancing with the Stars" choreography is pretty awesome. And if you can't get the song out of your head, Nintendo released the "Super Mario Bros." medley. Check out the video from "Dancing with the Stars" below: SEE ALSO: These Images From 'Grand Theft Auto 5' Are So Vivid, They Look Like Real Life Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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We Went To A YouTube Convention, And It Was Insane | ||
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YouTube creators have become celebrities in their own right, accumulating millions of views and hordes of fans who follow them wherever they go. According to a recent survey by Variety, teens worship YouTube stars even more than they love mainstream celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence or Selena Gomez. We got a glimpse into the world of YouTube fandom when we attended Playlist Live, a three-day convention-style event for online video creators and fans. The event was insane, with thousands of teens waiting in crowded lines to get autographs and selfies with their favorite YouTube stars. Plenty of high-pitched screaming was involved. We arrived to the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, N.J. in the early afternoon on Saturday. The line to get in stretched down the block. Playlist started in Orlando in 2011 as a three-day gathering for fans and creators of online video. This was the first Playlist event to be held in the Tri-State Area, so we weren't sure what to expect. Thousands of teens had shown up to meet their favorite YouTube stars. The vast majority were girls who had come with friends or their moms. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now | ||
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Good morning! Here is what you need to know before your first meeting of the day. 1. Europe begins discussing whether it should try and break up Google. The search engine has a 90% dominance of the market here. The EU parliament debate begins at 7pm tonight. (Don't expect any immediate action.) 2. Meanwhile, Washington is annoyed that the EU believes it has the power to interfere with Google. Republican and Democrat congressmen have sent a latter expressing their alarm at the idea that the EU may proceed with its plan, according to the FT. 3. People are furious that Facebook failed to warn police that the killers of soldier Lee Rigby were using the social network to plot his death. One of the killers, Michael Adebowale, talked with a fellow extremist in December 2012 and expressed his "intent to murder a soldier in the most graphic and emotive manner." 4. Britain's bank culture is "toxic" and will take a generation to change, according to a report. The BBC says, "Over two decades 'an aggressive sales culture took hold in retail banking,' with staff in some branches receiving cash bonuses, iPods, or tickets to Wimbledon for hitting sales targets, it said. Those that failed to hit targets 'were humiliated by having cabbages and other vegetables placed on their desks,' it added. 5. Twitter is thinking about buying Justin Bieber's startup. The selfie app has 3 million users who over-index among women under age 24. 6. The UK government will introduce a new bill to parliament calling for increased surveillance of British citizens. The government wants tech companies to be required to keep and hand over citizens' ISP records, Bloomberg reports. 7. Anti-police demonstrations spread across the U.S. in reaction to the decision to not prosecute a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man six times. About 2,200 National Guard troops have been moved in to keep peace in Ferguson. 8. China is annoyed that the West is hiding corrupt officials who fled the country taking their cash with them. Many Western countries have no extradition treaty with China, the FT says. 9. A Tesco director lobbied government not to publish dirty chicken reports. Tim Smith was the head of the Food Standards Agency and then went straight into a job as a director at Tesco, the Guardian says. 10. OPEC meets today. The cartel is under pressure to cut supplies in order to boost the plummeting price of oil, which is causing havoc for many countries' economies. And finally ... A rare and "magnificent" first folio of the work of Shakespeare has turned up at a small library in France. Librarians thought the book wasn't remarkable because the cover had fallen off, the New York Times says. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things You Need To Know Before European Markets Open | ||
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HP Executives Are Hinting That More Layoffs Are Coming As It Splits. HP has laid off 41,000 people (with about 9,000 people left to go) under its current downsizing plan for 2014. On Tuesday, the company hinted that more layoffs could be coming with its plans to separate itself into two huge companies. Uber Will Be Valued At $40 Billion (£25.5 Billion) In New Round Of Funding. Uber is close to raising a new round of funding that would value it between $35 and $40 billion, according to Bloomberg. T. Rowe Price is said to be among the new investors. Asian Markets Are Mixed. The Nikkei closed down 0.14%, but the Hang Seng is currently trading up 0.65% ahead of the close. Samsung Just Sold Off Stakes In Chemical And Defence Units For $1.7 Billion (£1.1 Billion). Samsung Group said on Wednesday it is selling stakes in defence firm Samsung Techwin Co and three other units for 1.9 trillion won ($1.72 billion) to Hanwha Group units. Oil Prices Hit Another Four-Year Low On OPEC Rumours. Oil prices have been extremely volatile after rumours that OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing nations, had not agreed to a major production cut. WTI crude futures for January 15th are currently trading at $74.14 (£47.23). Santander Has A New CEO. Jose Antonio Alvarez, the bank's former CFO, replaces Javier Marin, who became chief executive two years ago, according to the Financial Times. Rosneft Is Cutting Its Output. Russia's oil giant Rosneft said Tuesday it had cut its daily output by 25,000 barrels because of "marketing conditions" that have seen the price of crude shrink by nearly a third since June. UK GDP Is Coming. British GDP figures for the third quarter are out at 9.30 a.m. GMT. Economists expect no change from the 0.7% jump from the second quarter registered in the first estimate, with business investment expected to have risen 9.7% in the year to September. Juncker's Investment Plan Is Set To Be Announced Today. The new European Commission president is expected to announce an investment programme intended to give the lifeless European economies a jump-start. The new European Fund for Strategic Investment will be funded to the tune of €21 billion, but its work will have an net effect on the economy of about 315 billion euros ($390 billion), according to an official estimate. US Politicians Are Expressing 'Alarm' At The EU's Probe Of Google. A joint letter from both Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate slammed the EU's approach to the massive US tech company, according to the Financial Times. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Good morning! Here are the major stories to be aware of before markets open in London and Paris. Juncker unveils massive EU investment plan | ||
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Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker was set to unveil an eagerly awaited 300-billion-euro investment plan in European Parliament on Wednesday, intended to boost the continent's flatlining economy. The plan is the cornerstone of Juncker's five-year agenda to jumpstart the EU's moribund economy, which has failed to grow since the financial crisis and is mired in mass unemployment and near-deflation. The new European Fund for Strategic Investment will be funded to the tune of 21 billion euros, but its work will have an net effect on the economy of about 315 billion euros ($390 billion), according to an official estimate. As expected, overall responsiblity for the three-year plan will fall to the European Investment Bank, a little-known EU institution based in Luxembourg that is often criticised for its lack of ambition. Juncker will formally introduce the plan to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday before submitting it to EU leaders at a summit in December. The heart of the problem in the 28-nation bloc is a drastic lack of investment, which remains way off pre-crisis levels, in stark contrast to the US and despite unprecedented stimulus measures by the European Central Bank. The plan announced Tuesday is designed to attack the investment problem head-on, but with the added challenge to do so without more public spending, with most EU countries already paralysed by high deficits and mountains of debt. - No new money - Crucially, the Juncker plan in the end relies on no new money, but re-engineers existing funds in such a way, officials said, that will provide far more added value than in their existing allocation. "The amounts are lower than we hoped, but we felt that coming in recent weeks," an EU diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. In essence, the plan uses existing cash from both the EIB and EU to feed an investment fund that will be tasked with financing private-sector driven projects. Officials said the projects would provide a "real added value" for the European economy. The overall figure multiplies the initial 21 billion euros by a factor of 15, which was a "conservative" estimate, EU officials said. But economist Reinhard Cluse at UBS in London said that EU investment plans "focus too hard on big headline numbers". "These have relied on significant 'crowding in' of private resources, which has often failed to materialise," he said, before the final details of the plans emerged. A list of projects is currently being drawn up by EU and EIB officials, with the input of member states. Officials hope the fund can be operational by mid 2015. Once up-and-running, a team of financial experts at the new fund will help decide projects, mostly based on their level of advancement and the likelihood to draw in private investors. Expectations have been high for the plan, with EU member states at odds over the final amount and the balance between public and private spending. Economics Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici warned last month that whatever the case, the plan should be convincing. Otherwise "this will seem like a trick, recycling, and therefore a flop," he said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Arsenal take on Dortmund in crucial Champions League clash | ||
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London (AFP) - Arsenal captain Mikel Arteta insists his side will learn the lessons of their painful loss against Manchester United when they take on Borussia Dortmund in a crucial Champions League clash on Wednesday. Arsene Wenger's side need a draw against Group D leaders Dortmund at the Emirates Stadium to be sure of joining the German club in the knockout stages of Europe's elite club competition. But a defeat could leave Arsenal needing a result in their final fixture -- in an extremely hostile environment at Galatasaray -- to avoid being eliminated at the group stage for the first time in 15 seasons. Given Dortmund have already beaten Arsenal 2-0 in the group stages this year and won 2-1 at the Emirates at the same stage last term, there is every reason for Arteta and company to be concerned -- especially since Arsenal's 2-1 home defeat against United on Saturday condemned the team to their worst start to a season since 1982. Arsenal's failure to convert a series of chances to kill off United was a major frustration, but Spanish midfielder Arteta is confident they will make amends against Dortmund. "We will have to analyse what we did wrong to lose the game, but if we played 10 times like this against Man United, then we would win nine and draw one," the Spaniard said. "The fans have seen both the quality and the determination which the team played with, so we say sorry, we tried our best, but it was not our day - (next time, the team) just have to put the ball in the net." There were, though, signs of a growing discontent among some Arsenal fans after their second successive defeat in a season which has seen them collect only four Premier League wins, while they squandered a three-goal lead in a 3-3 draw against Anderlecht in their previous European fixture. - Heated exchange - United substitute Darren Fletcher was involved in a heated exchange with fans behind the opposition bench following his team's opening goal, when objects, including red wine, were reportedly thrown at the visitors as they celebrated. A few Arsenal fans also held up A4-sized placards calling for Wenger's dismissal, which were quickly confiscated by club stewards. With so much negativity surrounding the club, Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has warned his side not to take qualification for granted. "We know that we only need one point from our last two matches to qualify for the last 16, but we know that we have not made it yet," said Szczesny, who faces a race to be fit for the Dortmund game after suffering an injury that forced him off against United. "We are all ready to bounce back against Dortmund on Wednesday and hopefully get a place in the last 16." Should Arsenal beat Jurgen Klopp's side, and the Germans then lose at home to Anderlecht on matchday six, there is an unlikely scenario which could see them go through as top seeds and so avoid the likes of Barcelona or Bayern Munich in the knockout stage. Despite their 100 percent record in Europe this season, Dortmund have already lost seven times in the Bundesliga this season and a 2-2 draw with Paderborn at the weekend left them one point off the bottom of the German league table. To make matters worse, Dortmund will be without Marco Reus until the new year after the forward suffered ankle ligament damage against Paderborn Yet Szczesny maintains Arsenal should not read too much into Dortmund's sluggish form. "I am really surprised how much Dortmund have been struggling in the Bundesliga this season. Especially when you look at their results in the Champions League this season, they have won every single game comfortably," he said. "But I still think they are going to do well as they are such a good side." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US National Guard deployed as Ferguson protests | ||
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Ferguson (United States) (AFP) - More than 2,000 soldiers deployed in the US town of Ferguson, on a second night of protest after a grand jury chose not to charge a white policeman who shot dead an unarmed black teen. After a night of racially-charged unrest following Monday's decision, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said the National Guard force in the Ferguson area would be tripled to halt the looting and arson. At the Ferguson police station a cordon of 50 riot police faced off across a road with around 100 noisy protesters chanting and waving placards, including one that read: "We will not be silenced." Inside the perimeter of the station, National Guardsmen equipped with riot shields and batons could be seen preparing for the night. The protest crowd was smaller than it had been on Monday, and there was no initial sign of violence, but some masked agitators could be seen on the fringes of the demonstration. "Lives and property must be protected. This community deserves to have peace," the governor said, as anger mounted nationwide and fresh protests took place in major cities. Marchers disrupted traffic on bridges and the Lincoln Tunnel in New York city -- leading to a number of arrests -- and crowds took to the streets in downtown Washington, near the White House. US President Barack Obama decried the violence and called for rioters to be prosecuted, while acknowledging the deep-rooted frustrations of minorities who feel they are unfairly treated by police. "There are productive ways of responding and expressing those frustrations and there are destructive ways of responding," he said. "Burning buildings, torching cars, destroying property, putting people at risk. That's destructive and there's no excuse for it. Those are criminal acts."
- 'Broken process' -
Lawyers for the family of slain youth Michael Brown denounced the prosecutor whose grand jury hearing found that police officer Darren Wilson had killed the 18-year-old in self-defense. "This process is broken. This process should be indicted," Brown family lawyer Benjamin Crump told a news conference. Crump criticized the way Wilson had not been cross-examined when he appeared before the grand jury, which decided not to indict him over the August 9 shooting. But in his first televised comments since the incident, Wilson told ABC News he had feared for his life during the confrontation, believing Brown was attempting to wrestle his gun away from him. "I can feel his hand trying to come over my hand and get inside the trigger guard and try to shoot me with my own gun," Wilson said. Asked if he believed he would have acted the same way if Brown was white, Wilson responded: "No question." The officer said he was comfortable that he had acted correctly. "I don't think it's haunting. It's always going to be something that happened," he said, adding that his conscience was clear because "I know I did my job right."
- 'A nationwide problem' -
Civil rights firebrand Al Sharpton said the Brown case renewed a nationwide fight for greater police accountability. "This is not a Ferguson problem... This is a problem all over the country," Sharpton said. "We may have lost one round but the fight is not over. They have broken our hearts, but not our backs." Separate protests flared, meanwhile, in Cleveland, Ohio, following the fatal shooting by police of a 12-year-old black boy holding a replica gun at the weekend. Despite appeals by Brown's family for calm in Ferguson on Monday, protests rapidly degenerated into looting, arson and running street battles between police and stone-throwers. Protesters shot at police, robbed locally-owned stores and set cars and buildings ablaze in what police said was the worst violence since Wilson shot Brown. Ferguson mayor James Knowles meanwhile declined to comment Tuesday on the Wilson's future, saying only that the 28-year-old officer remained on administrative leave. "His current employment status has not changed," Knowles said. The August shooting sparked weeks of protest and a nationwide debate about military-style police tactics and race relations. The Ferguson grand jury concluded Wilson had acted lawfully in firing 12 shots at Brown after he first reached into the officer's car to grapple with him, then turned on him as he gave chase. Brown's death, the aggressive police response to protests and now the result of the grand jury hearing have stirred racial tensions in Ferguson, a mainly black suburb with a mostly white police force. The town's African American community of 21,000 has been on edge since the shooting, and residents complain of years of racial prejudice and heavy-handed police tactics.
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Ferguson Protesters Create Mass Gridlock In New York City | ||
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Thousands of protestors gathered around New York City Tuesday night, one night after a grand jury decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August. As of around 10pm, protesters had reportedly blocked traffic near Wall Street, Times Square, the United Nations, the FDR Drive, Lincoln Tunnel, and numerous city bridges at various points in the evening. They blocked all lanes of traffic on the FDR drive on Manhattan's east side: At the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, a large group of protesters sat in silence for several minutes: The protesters shut down the Lincoln Tunnel earlier in the evening, but it was reopened around 8:30 pm. This is what the scene looked like earlier in the evening:
In Manhattan, around 1,000 protesters walked north up Fifth Avenue:
Post by Julie Zeveloff. And this was the scene at the Williamsburg Bridge:
Earlier in the day, more than a dozen City Council members walked out on their chambers in protest of the non-indictment, according to NY1. Here's video of FDR Drive around 20th St. where protests were blocking traffic:
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Samsung sells defence, petrochemical units for $1.7 bn | ||
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Seoul (AFP) - Samsung Group announced Wednesday the sale of stakes in four petrochemical and defence affiliates for $1.7 billion as the South Korean giant steps up restructuring efforts ahead of a generational ownership succession. The sale to the Hanwha conglomerate, which has major petrochemical holdings, is expected to be finalised in the first half of next year, Samsung said in a statement. The deal involves Samsung Electronics and other group affiliates selling their combined stakes in defence firm Samsung Techwin and Samsung General Chemicals. A 50-percent stake held by Samsung General Chemicals in its joint venture with the French energy giant Total, called Samsung Total, will also be sold to Hanwha, along with Samsung Techwin's 50-percent holding in a joint venture with French defence firm Thales. It marks the first sale of Samsung affiliates since the group was forced to shed its struggling carmaking unit in 1997 during the Asian financial crisis. Samsung is comprised of dozens of units including Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of mobile phones and TVs, which earn a collective revenue equal to around 20 percent of South Korea's annual economic output. The family-run group currently chaired by Lee Kun-Hee has merged, broken out or newly listed some of its key units in recent years as he prepares to hand over helm to his son, J.Y. Lee. The founding Lee family has been under growing state pressure to unravel its complex cross shareholdings and make its governing structure more transparent. The sell-off announced Wednesday indicates a desire to streamline the behemoth so as to concentrate on its key profit-making units, said Kim Ji-San, analyst at Seoul-based Kium Securities said. "The deal shows Samsung is determined to shed non-core units deemed not competitive enough globally and to focus on key businesses like electronics, finances, construction and engineering," Kim said. Samsung Techwin, a developer of security equipment and aerospace technologies, reported a net profit of 133 billion won last year, but has amassed a net loss of 14.5 billion for the first three quarter of this year. Samsung's restructuring has not always been smooth sailing. Last week it had to scrap a merger between two major units -- Samsung Heavy Industries and Samsung Engineering -- due to the spiralling cost of buying back stock from shareholders opposed to the deal.
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In Ferguson, blacks say racial bias is fact of life | ||
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Ferguson (United States) (AFP) - When Sean Jackson became a father, he says he knew he needed to teach his son how to interact with police so as to avoid arrest -- or worse. Such is the life of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri. Ferguson is at boiling point over a grand jury's decision not to indict a white officer for shooting dead an unarmed black teenager, and African Americans here are furious over police brutality, racism and what they say is daily profiling. "Listen. This is what most white people don't understand," says the 45-year-old Jackson, standing outside the burnt-out ruins of a store after the worst night of violence the St Louis suburb has seen since Michael Brown, 18, was killed in August. "Any black man driving through Ferguson is a nervous man because he's worried about the police pulling him over. "You're nervous about getting killed or getting locked up, or a ticket -- you're hoping for a ticket. When every day you're living your life and you have to be nervous -- it's not fun." Local residents have staged protests ever since Brown was shot dead. On Monday, they degenerated into looting and arson after a grand jury cleared officer Darren Wilson of any wrongdoing. Jackson says he has been harassed by police multiple times. He taught his son, now 25, to keep his hands up, and say "yes sir, no sir" if he is ever stopped. "We do have to teach our sons how to deal with the police so they don't get killed," he said, describing St Louis as one of the most prejudiced cities in the United States. "People here get so in tune with that we don't even notice it -- people from outside are hollering about it. Man, you know what? Time for change." - 'Could have been me' - The US Bureau of Justice Statistics says of the 2,931 "arrest-related" homicides from 2003 to 2009, almost all were men and more than half aged 25 to 44. Blacks suffer disproportionately. Blacks made up 32 percent of the casualties, yet just 13 percent of the population. According to a Justice Department report, blacks and Hispanics are three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than whites, and four times as likely to experience the use of force in encounters with police. One in three African-American males can expect to spend time in prison, while black high school students are far more likely to be arrested than white classmates, the liberal Center for American Progress think tank has noted. Men here say they know they could have been in Brown's place on August 9. "I understand it as a black male, to know that could have been me shot," said Darrell Alexander, 56, a retired registered nurse, touring the riot-hit area. "Justice is still not being served so the young people are mad, and they have every right to be. This was blatantly racism, the whole situation." Alexander is a supporter of Copwatch, an organization that researches complaints against police officers in a bid to promote public safety and ensure officers remain accountable. Two summers ago, he says he was pulled over by St Louis County police at midnight as he drove into his affluent neighborhood, his hair in dreads, on a bogus insurance call, which was later thrown out in court. "It was because it was 12 am, I didn't look like I lived in that neighborhood... I didn't look the part so I was ticketed and these are the kind of unnecessary things that we have to go through," Alexander said. "These are the types of things that white privileged America can't understand because they don't see it. It doesn't happen to them." - 'Still hurting' - MZ Tay, a nurse wearing a "no justice, no peace" T-shirt who was so upset she was nearly in tears, warned that Ferguson was in for a bumpy ride in the coming days. "This is not going to fly. This is going to get so much worse before it gets better. I can see other places getting burned down," she told AFP. "This is just the beginning because everyone is still hurting. Everyone is just so in uproar, how is it we still live in slavery days." She also said she now kept a camera in her car to record the number of times she has been pulled over in her expensive vehicle. Ferguson's police department is overwhelmingly white, even though its population over two decades has grown to become two-thirds African-American. Terrence Williams, 23, spent Tuesday picking up trash from the side of the road. He said he had been out volunteering since 7:00 am. Williams has a degree in criminal justice and dreams of joining the police force -- "anything to be a positive role model at such a negative time," he said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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More scans for Aussie batsman Hughes as he fights for life | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - Australian batsman Phillip Hughes was to have more scans Wednesday after surgery to relieve pressure on his brain as players rallied around the bowler who inflicted the damage. The 25-year-old, who was pressing for a Test recall, was knocked out by a Sean Abbott bouncer in a freak incident at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Tuesday, crumbling to the ground unconscious after the heavy blow to the lower head. He underwent surgery and was in an induced coma in intensive care at St Vincent's Hospital. "Phillip Hughes remains in a critical condition in St Vincent's Hospital after being struck in the head while batting for South Australia against NSW at the SCG yesterday," Cricket Australia said in a statement. "He will have scans this morning and a further update will be provided when the results of those scans are known." Test captain Michael Clarke was one of the first to arrive at the hospital on Wednesday, resuming a vigil at his close friend's bedside and comforting Hughes's mother and sister. Hughes made his Test debut in South Africa in 2009, where he made 75 in the second innings at Johannesburg. The left-hander followed up in the second Test at Durban with centuries in both innings, amassing some 275 runs at the crease. The runs dried up and despite playing 26 Tests he has never secured a regular place in the team, partly due to his perceived weakness against the short ball. But with doubts over the fitness of Clarke for the first Test against India next month in Brisbane, he was seen as a potential replacement. Shaun Marsh is now the frontrunner. The popular Hughes was wearing a helmet when he was struck but manufacturer Masuri said he was not wearing their most up-to-date model. "From the footage and pictures currently available to Masuri, it appears that Phil Hughes was struck by the ball to the rear of the grille and below the back of the shell, missing his Masuri Original Test model helmet," the company said. "This is a vulnerable area of the head and neck that helmets cannot fully protect, while enabling batsmen to have full and proper movement."
- All the support he needs -
Hughes was attempting a pull shot when he was hit, and fell badly. Medical staff worked on him, including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and oxygen, for more than 30 minutes before he was taken from the field and rushed to hospital on life-support. While it remains unclear how badly he may be hurt, advocacy group Brain Injury Australia said generally that recovery was a long process, although no two injuries were the same. "Recovery from brain injury is a marathon, not a sprint," said spokesman Nick Rushworth, who had his own brush with death in 1996 in a cycling accident. Up-and-coming bowler Abbott, who made his one-day and Twenty20 debut for Australia in October and is just 22, was seen cradling the injured player immediately after the incident. "It says a lot about Sean doesn't it," Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland said, calling it a "freak, freak accident". "Sean will have all the support he needs around him." Cricketers from around the world have rallied behind not just Hughes but also Abbott. "Stay strong @seanabbott77. Not your fault young man," tweeted former Australian great Dean Jones, while Damien Fleming said: "Feeling for Sean Abbott who was just bowling a cricket ball." Cricket Australia said all current domestic Sheffield Shield matches had been abandoned in the wake of Hughes's injury, with official Pat Howard saying "it's just not the day to be playing cricket". Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Most US HIV cases not under control | ||
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Washington (AFP) - As many as 70 percent of people infected with HIV in the United States do not have the virus under control, boosting the risk of transmission, according to a study. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the vast majority of 1.2 million infected people either were no longer in care or were not taking medication regularly in 2011. "There is untapped potential to drive down the epidemic through improved testing and treatment, but we're missing too many opportunities," said Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC's Center for HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STD, and tuberculosis prevention. "Treatment is crucial. It is one of our most important strategies for stopping new HIV infections." Among 840,000 people who did not have the virus under control, 66 percent had been diagnosed but were not getting regular care, while 20 percent did not know they were infected. The study said four percent of those infected were getting care but were not prescribed anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). Finally, 10 percent were receiving treatment, but nevertheless did not have the infection in check. The CDC said ARVs can significantly reduce the viral load, the the point of rendering the infection undetectable. Regular and effective treatment can also reduce the risk of transmitting the virus by 96 percent. But only 30 percent of HIV-positive people in the United States had the virus under control and were receiving proper treatment. In 2009, about 26 percent of infected people had it in check. The newest data also shows that viral load increases with age, and among 18 to 24 year-olds infected with HIV, only 13 percent had a handle on it. Among those 65 and older, 37 percent reported low viral loads. CDC said the main reason for a higher viral load among younger people is because almost half of people in that age bracket had not been diagnosed. There are about 50,000 new HIV infections every year in the United States, according to the CDC, which said the "epidemic continues to threaten the health and wellbeing of many Americans." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Uber Will Be Valued At $40 Billion In New Round, Says Report | ||
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Uber is close to raising a new round of funding that would value it between $35 and $40 billion, according to Bloomberg. T. Rowe Price is said to be among the new investors. The valuation matches what Business Insider's Henry Blodget heard from a source last week. It would be a massive leap in valuation for the transportation company, which was valued at $18 billion in its last round just this summer. The company has been embroiled in controversy recently, after one of its executives suggested hiring investigators to dig up dirt on journalists. But an internal presentation from late 2013 shows the company well on its way to making $1.5 to $2 billion in gross revenue this year. Revenues on New Year's Eve grew more than 4x between 2012 and 2013. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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There's A Really Good Reason Why The Xbox One Is Such An Enormous Device | ||
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When it comes to tech, thinner is the new normal. Microsoft's Xbox One, though, goes against the grain. It weighs around 8 pounds and is pretty chunky, especially compared with other consoles it's competing with. It's even bigger than slimmest version of the 360, which came out in 2010. But there's a good reason for it, according to the Xbox industrial designer Carl Ledbetter: It needs to stay cool. "Everybody gets frustrated, because what we want is for everything to be wafer thin, not get hot and just be a snap to put together," he tells MCV's Christopher Dring. "But the reality is that there are very real issues around cooling when you’re pushing some number of watts in the processor, therefore the thing has to have some size to it. There’s always an interesting dynamic between engineering and design, and constraints around performance." He says that you can't design something without taking into consideration engineering factors. "It’s called designing with constraints, and constraints create very real things for people to go after and solve," he says. "Blue sky can get a little tough because it is limitless and it’s boundless. The engineering doesn’t really become a barrier — engineering is necessary, just like the design and technology. It’s a combination of everything that creates the product." The Xbox One isn't just a chunky black box, either. Its patchwork squares are a reflection of the console's dashboard, which looks similar to the experience on the Surface tablet. It's meant to be seamless across the entire brand. And all of that effort matters, even if nobody really notices it.
"For us it is about creating a very consistent and seamless experience that is reliable, so that when you see it, it is already starting to communicate aspects of the brand, and when you go into the user experience, it fulfills your expectations," he says. "It would be like if you saw a beautiful car, and then you opened the door and the handle felt a little strange, and when you got inside it had been designed by someone different, and even the controls were not what you expected." Read the rest of the interview with Ledbetter over at MCV>> SEE ALSO: PlayStation Chief Takes A Victory Lap Around The Xbox One Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Meg Whitman: HP Used 'Military-Style Communication' To Talk About Its Split (HPQ) | ||
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So how do you tell the world that you are going to carve up an $111 billion company — the biggest, most complicated spin off ever — without freaking out your investors, partners, employees? You become like a military machine, Meg Whitman told Wall Street analysts on Tuesday after reporting the company's earnings. The thing is, enterprises are notoriously nervous about change. Meg Whitman herself has thumbed her nose at IBM's sale of one of its server units to Lenovo and claimed that HP picked up a lot of IBM customers over the uncertainty just that one transaction caused. But she's reassuring Wall Street that splitting HP into two huge $57 billion public companies, which will take a year, will not cause her customers to get nervous and flee. That's because she says HP has already talked to just about everyone. Within hours of making the announcement, HP personally reached out to over 100,000 members of its ecosystem. "We communicated with 38,000 customers and 69,000 partners in the first 18 hours after the announcement. It's kind of amazing. We were in a military style communication," Whitman said. "Post that all of the senior executives have met with hundreds of customers and partners and almost universally, they are enthusiastic about this. They think it's going to be good for them, good for their business. We'll have two more focused companies with an ability to react faster to the marketplace," she explained. When you think about that, she's really saying that years into her turnaround, which has already trimmed 41,000 employees from the payroll, HP is still too big and bureaucratic. That's probably true. 275,000 employees is still a huge company. And it remains to be seen if more employees will be let go when HP divides into HP Inc., the printer/PC unit, and HP Enterprise, the rest of the company. In fact, HP board member and powerful VC Marc Andreessen has predicted that HP's split up will be so successful in making the company more nimble and able to compete with startups, that all the biggest, oldest tech companies will do the same. Whitman says that employees are happy, too, because customers are excited. "I think this has gone as well as it could have good. I'm pleased with the communication, pleased with the reaction and pleased with the rallying of our employees across the globe," she said. SEE ALSO: Why Oracle Employees Are Gossiping About A Tiny 60-Person Layoff Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Coal mine fire kills 24 in China: Xinhua | ||
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Beijing (AFP) - A fire at a coal mine in northeast China killed 24 workers early Wednesday, state media reported. The blaze at the mine in Liaoning province also left 52 injured, Xinhua news agency said, quoting the state-owned Fuxin Coal Corporation. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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HP Executives Hint That More Layoffs Are Coming As It Splits (HPQ) | ||
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HP has laid off 41,000 people (with about 9,000 people left to go) under its current downsizing plan for 2014. On Tuesday, the company hinted that more layoffs could be coming with its plans to separate itself into two huge companies. During its quarterly conference call, Wall Street analysts asked for details about HP's plans to divide itself into two companies: HP Inc., which will be the PC and printer unit, and HP Enterprise, which will be all the other businesses like servers, networking gear, software, outsourcing, cloud computing and so on. Maynard Um of Wells Fargo delicately asked CEO Meg Whitman if these plans will involve any "incremental synergies" which is code for more layoffs, though it also implies getting rid of other things like equipment, real estate. Whitman didn't answer the question directly but hinted that this was likely. "This separation was totally the right thing to do for this company," she said. "It gives us a chance to clean-sheet two, new Fortune 50 companies. It's remarkable how it focuses the mind around overhead. Do we need exactly what we have today? What we are not doing is separating the company into two pieces exactly as we have today. Knowing what we know now, if you have a chance to restart this Fortune 50 companies, how would you organize? That has been a really interesting and I think, going to be really good, for both of these companies." Whitman asked CFO Cathie Lesjak to respond to the question, too. She said, more bluntly, "I don't have a specific number for you. We're still working through this. We're working through, frankly, also the costs of the separation, which we will give an update on in our earnings call in Q1." But she added, "This is an opportunity to do zero-based budgeting, as close as you can get to zero-based budgeting for two Fortune 50 companies. Because every line item needs to be reviewed. Every balance sheet item needs to be reviewed, in order to do this split. So its a huge opportunity for us to really take a different perspective with our cost structure." Many HP employees probably won't be surprised if HP does trim its workforce some more when it splits. They've been going through layoffs since 2008. The latest round, which began in 2012 as a plan to trim 27,000 employees, was expanded to 29,000, then to 34,000, and then, in May, to 45,000 to 50,000. And HP is still enormous. Over 275,000 people work there. Again, Lesjak said that out of the 50,000 employees it was cutting in the current layoff, 41,000 are now gone. The layoff cost HP $1.6 billion in its fiscal 2014, and it expects to save $3.5 billion dollars when the layoffs are complete, applying some of that savings to R&D and product development hoping to get HP to grow revenues again. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Here's The New Actor Who Will Play Steve Jobs (AAPL) | ||
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Universal Pictures has cast Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs in its upcoming biopic, reports CNBC. Universal picked up the film from Sony Pictures, which backed out of the project last week. Fassbender is the latest addition to a list of actors rumored to play Jobs in Aaron Sorkin's screenplay. Sony considered Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale for the role, but both backed out. Sony also lost director David Fincher after he reportedly demanded too much money from the studio. Danny Boyle will direct Universal's film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sorkin's screenplay is based off Walter Isaacson's biography of the Apple CEO, "Steve Jobs." SEE ALSO: Leonardo DiCaprio Won't Play Steve Jobs In Sony's Next Biopic Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson: 'I Know I Did My Job Right' | ||
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Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson spoke directly about his experience to the press on Tuesday for the first time in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos. A grand jury decided on Monday not to indict Wilson for shooting and killing Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, after he stopped him for jaywalking in August. Apart from transcripts of Wilson's testimony that were released Monday night after a grand jury declined to indict him, he has not spoken publicly about Brown's death until now. In the interview, Wilson explained why he got out of his car when he stopped Michael Brown. Wilson says Brown punched him while he was in his car, which prompted the officer to get out of the vehicle. “My job isn’t to just sit and wait. I have to see where this guy goes," Wilson said in the interview. Wilson also implied that he feared for his life. “He was a very large, very powerful man," Wilson said while describing his first altercation with Brown, also adding that Brown threw the first punch. He then said, “He tried to shoot me with my own gun." When Stephanopoulos asked him if he would have done anything differently, Wilson simply replied, "No." Wilson says that he has a clean conscience about what happened on that day, saying "The reason I have a clean conscience is because I know I did my job right."
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How To Use Math To Find The Ideal Spouse | ||
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Some people believe that when you find the right person you just know. The rest of us could use a little help figuring out how to choose the right spouse. You can actually optimize your chances of marrying the best person using the solution to the famous Secretary Problem. This problem has many applications (including how to choose the best secretary), but this one is the most fun. Produced by Sara Silverstein and Sam Rega. Follow BI Video: On Facebook NOW WATCH: The Monty Hall Problem: There's A Right Answer But Even Genius Math Geeks Get It Wrong Follow BI Video: On Twitter Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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HP Has Over 400 People Working Full Time On Carving Up The Company (HPQ) | ||
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By this time next year, HP expects to have cleaved itself into two huge, publicly traded companies. On Tuesday, HP CEO Meg Whitman talked about how she and her team plan to do that while keeping customers calm, happy and willing to sign big contracts. "This is a big and complicated separation," Whitman told analysts on the company's quarterly conference on Tuesday. "It is the biggest separation that's ever been done and it's not a typical spin-off, where you've got one big company spinning off a little part of the company. These are two Fortune 50 companies that both have about $57 billion of revenue." So she formed a new "separation" group. "We have some of our most talented executives running the separation and that is what they are doing full time. At its peak, that will probably be between 400 and 500 people," Whitman said. "The rest of HP, all 275,000 of the rest, will be in fact, focused on running the business. I have a lot of confidence we'll be able to deliver [a good] FY15, which is critical." What will those 400 to 500 people be doing? She explained: There is one central "corporate separation management office," she said. They are creating three years of historic financial records for each of the different businesses. They are also doing a "very detailed analysis of tax and legal separation. We have over 786 legal entities at this company." This group will be analyzing all 786 to see where they belong or if they should be kept as they are at all. There is also a "separation management office" for both of the new companies: HP Enterprise and HP Inc. "Their job is to make sure we have the right strategy with the right cost structure as we head into being two separate companies," she explained. And there's a group of people working on the separation of HP's information technology: servers, networks, data centers, software licenses and the like. The good news here is that HP is going to reboot its IT infrastructure from scratch. "That is an opportunity to create an IT infrastructure for each company that isn't based on our legacy system or isn't based on a manufacturing system, which for so many years it has been," Whitman said. Building IT from scratch for two huge companies is going to be expensive and HP hasn't said how much it plans to spend on this separation. But if your goal is to create two huge new tech companies, it only makes sense that they eat their own dog food and use all the latest, greatest tech. All of this has already begun. "We have deadlines every month. Things that have to be decided, operations that have to be changed," she said. Whitman said that she'll be providing investors with progress reports every quarter. SEE ALSO: How Dion Weisler Rose To Become One Of HP's CEOs In Just Three Years Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Obama Just Confronted His Hecklers During An Immigration Speech | ||
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President Barack Obama's speech in Chicago, Illinois, Tuesday night was interrupted by hecklers who confronted him for failing to take sufficient action on behalf of undocumented immigrants. Obama was discussing the executive actions he signed Friday that will shield some undocumented immigrants from deportation when multiple protesters began shouting. He initially allowed them to speak before asking them to "stop yelling." "Nobody's removing you, I've heard you, but you've got to listen to me too," he said. Obama seemed perplexed by the criticism. He argued supporters of immigration reform should be satisfied with the executive actions he took last week. "I understand why you might have yelled at me a month ago," said Obama. "It doesn't make much sense to yell at me right now when we're making changes." In June, Obama promised to take executive action on immigration by the end of the summer if Congress was unable to pass an immigration reform bill. He ultimately retreated from that self-imposed deadline and waited until after the midterm elections to take action. Since Obama's deadline passed, Democratic candidates have been repeatedly heckled by pro-immigration reform activists. After he managed to quiet the hecklers, Obama resumed discussing his executive orders. He reiterated comments he made in a primetime speech last week where he described the steps he took as "commonsense" measures. As he concluded Obama, who has a home in Chicago, joked about the interruption. "It's good to be back in Chicago because everybody's got something to say," he said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Source Close To Obama Shoots Down Billy Joel's Story About Smoking Cigarettes With The President | ||
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Barack Obama has said he quit his cigarette habit, but a report published in The Hill on Tuesday said "Piano Man" singer Billy Joel claimed the president offered him a smoke at the White House last year. However, a source close to Obama told Business Insider there's no way that story is true. "This is ludicrous. When it comes to his promise to kick the smoking habit, the President has been keeping the faith," the source said. The Hill based their report on a person who said they saw Joel on Nov. 19 at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, D.C. Joel was in the nation's capitol to collect an award. While he was there, Joel also visited House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) at his office. According to The Hill, while at the hotel, Joel described being offered a cigarette by Boehner, who is a smoker. Joel also allegedly said Obama once tried to smoke with him. "I was at the White House recently, and President Obama did the same thing. He said, ‘I’m going out on the North Portico to have a smoke. Do you want to come with me?'" Joel was quoted as saying. The Hill reported Joel responded that he had not smoked in a long time, but "ultimately couldn’t turn down a cigarette offer from the president." Joel visited the White House in December 2013 after receiving Kennedy Center Honors. When he took office in 2009, Obama admitted he smoked occasionally. "Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No," the president said at a press conference that year. In 2011, the White House physician, Navy Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman, urged Obama to continue "smoking cessation efforts." The following year, First Lady Michelle Obama told iVillage the president had been able to "kick the habit." "I think that he didn't want to look his girls in the eye and tell them that they shouldn't do something that he was still doing," she said. Last year, Obama was caught on an open microphone at the United Nations General Assembly discussing his smoking habit. “I haven't had a cigarette in six years ... that's because I'm scared of my wife," said Obama. A spokeswoman for the first lady declined to comment on The Hill story about the president allegedly offering cigarettes to Joel. Update (7:11 p.m.): Joel himself denied the story as well, according to a new report in the Daily News. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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17 Shocking Photos That Show How Global Warming Is Everywhere | ||
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Concerns over global climate change have never been higher — and with good reason. For decades, scientists have been watching warming-related trends on Earth. Increases in fires, floods, droughts, severe storms, and sea levels are just some of the consequences that researchers have observed as companions to the planet's rising temperatures. Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the fourth and final installment in its Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change, which synthesizes and summarizes the best and most current climate science. Its projections for a future wrought with extreme weather events, famines, and extinctions is a grim look at what's ahead if humans don't implementing better climate policies immediately — but the report also acknowledges that many of these consequences are already occurring around the world. We've put together a set of photos that show stark examples of climate effects occurring all over the planet. No individual event can be taken for proof of climate change — but collectively, along with the millions of other climate-related events scientists have kept track of over the years, they illustrate a frightening pattern and point to an even more concerning future. Leslie Baehr contributed to this post. For many people, the first thing that springs to mind when they hear the phrase "global warming" is melting polar ice, like the melted snow forming this turquoise lake on Antarctica's Budd Coast.
Glaciers around the world are losing ice at unprecedented rates thanks to rising global temperatures. Here, the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina experiences an unexpected rupture.
Melting ice is a major problem because of its contribution to sea level rise, but it also affects wildlife in all kinds of ways. Polar bears are the poster child for changing conditions in the Arctic. As their frozen hunting grounds melt away, some polar bears — like this one — are turning to cannibalism and eating their own cubs.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Obama Calls For Violent Ferguson Protesters To Be Prosecuted | ||
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President Barack Obama strongly denounced violence that occurred during demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, and called for prosecutions against those committing "criminal acts" Tuesday night. "Burning buildings, torching cars, destroying property, putting people at risk — that's destructive and there's no excuse for it. Those are criminal acts. And people should be prosecuted if they engage in criminal acts," Obama said before giving a speech on immigration in Chicago, Illinois. Protesters stormed the streets of Ferguson Monday night, after a grand jury declined to indict the white police officer, Darren Wilson, who killed 18-year-old Michael Brown last August. Wilson has said he acted in self-defense, but protesters disagree and argue the killing is part of a larger problem of police discrimination. The demonstration quickly turned violent with numerous businesses and cars torched by the crowd. More than 60 protesters were arrested and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced he would deploy over two thousand National Guard troops to keep order Tuesday evening. Obama said it would be inappropriate for him to address the specifics of Wilson's case. However, as he did in a speech following the verdict, Obama spoke generally about his sympathies with the community's broader frustrations. He said he ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to look into improving police training and diversity across the country. "The frustrations that people have generally, those are rooted in some hard truths that have to be addressed. And so those who are prepared to work constructively, your president will work with you. A lot of folks, I believe, in law enforcement, and a lot of people in city halls, and governors' offices around the country want to work with you as a well," Obama said. While he noted he understands why many are upset by the situation, Obama said he has "no sympathy at all for destroying your own communities." "The bottom line is nothing of significance, nothing of benefit, results from destructive acts. I've never seen a civil rights law, or a healthcare law, or an immigration bill result because a car got burnt," he said. "Take the long-term, lasting route of working with me and governors and state officials to bring about some real change. And to those who think that what happened in Ferguson is an excuse for violence, I do not have any sympathy for that." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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BAML: US Stocks Will Squeak Out A Tiny Gain In 2015 (DIA, SPY, QQQ, BAC) | ||
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Wall Street's predictions for 2015 have been rolling in fast and furious over the last few weeks, and the latest firm giving its projection for the S&P 500 is Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Savita Subramanian and the equity strategy team at BAML see the S&P 500 rising to 2,200 in 2015, a modest 6% return. Subramanian notes that this is the lowest forecasted S&P returns since her team took over the year-end forecast role in 2011. "Stocks certainly look more attractive than bonds," Subramanian writes, "[but] the case for stocks versus other asset classes is less clear." Subramanian notes that gold and oil are now particularly cheap against stocks on a historical basis, and she expects that stocks will rise in-line with earnings growth. But similar to the forecast from David Kostin and the equity team at Goldman Sachs, Subramanian sees no multiple expansion for the S&P 500 in 2015. Despite the modest upside forecast, Subramanian still sees plenty of reasons to buy US stocks. "[Bank of America Merrill Lynch's] Sell Side Indicator, which tracks Wall Street Strategists' average recommended allocation to US equities, currently sits at just 52%," Subramanian notes. "This is up from the all-time low of 43% we observed in July 2012, but well below the historical strategic equity allocation of 60-65%." And so with investors likely underinvested in stocks, this is a bullish sign.
To this end, Subramanian sees "big, old and ugly" stocks as potential leaders in 2015, and says investors ought to consider leaving the "new, shiny, exciting IPOs alone." And overall, though Subramanian expects more modest gains in 2015, she says the bull market is still in tact. "So while returns may compress from the outsized gains we have seen over the last several years, we remain constructive on equities. The bull market in stocks is not over, in our view." For some perspective, here's what some of Wall Street's other top strategists have predicted so far:
SEE ALSO: One Wall Street Bull Expects Another Year Of Double-Digit Gains Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Subramanian also says that though the aging — and retiring — US population is often cited as a negative for stock, Boomers will need both income and capital appreciation, making the S&P 500's dividend-paying members attractive to these investors. The Chicago Bulls' Breakout Star Went All Summer Without Cable And Internet So He Would Train More | ||
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The Chicago Bulls are a solid 9-5 this season, despite Derrick Rose once again missing games with injuries. Fourth-year wing Jimmy Butler has emerged as the Bulls' best player. Butler is posting career-highs of 20.8 points on 49.7% shooting with 5.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. He's also playing an absurd 39 minutes per game. Butler was ready for a breakout season this year. In a profile on Butler from Sports Illustrated's Ben Golliver, Butler said he went the entire summer without cable and Internet so he would be forced to work out more: Butler and his friends rented a house for the summer so that they could spend time together, but he says he purposefully chose not to furnish it. “I wanted to be so good at the game that we didn’t have cable, we didn’t have the Internet,” he recalled. “Whenever we got bored, all we would do is go to the gym. We’d eat, sleep and go to the gym. We’d go three times a day because we didn’t have anything else to do. We were sitting on the couch, looking at each other, saying, ‘What the hell are we going to do all day?’” Butler struggled last season, shooting just 39% from the field, 28% from three-point range, and posting a 13.5 PER, which is below the league-average 15. Butler also played extended minutes last season — 38 per game — but says he wasn't physically right: “I was hurt, I was moving sluggishly, I was heavier.” This season, Butler says he's down 12 pounds from last year after he had previously tried to bulk up to guard bigger players. His offseason regimen included 7 a.m.-to 8-p.m. days, lifting, running on the track, doing individual skills work, yoga, Pilates, and breaks for meals and a nap. Butler will be a restricted free agent this summer after turning down a four-year, $40-million extension from the Bulls. At the rate he's going, he may very well trump that offer, thus dignifying a strict offseason. SEE ALSO: The Derrick Rose Contract Has Become A Nightmare For The Chicago Bulls ALSO READ: A Chicago Bulls Announcer Went Absolutely Crazy After Jimmy Butler's Game-Winning Three-Pointer Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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