How hackers built software to steal naked photos from hundreds of women automatically | ||
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Two men in the US are facing up to 15 years in federal prison in connection to the development of a piece of software that was able to automatically hack into the private online photo albums of women and steal their naked photos. Brandon Bourret and Athanasios Andrianakis were arrested Friday and accused of creating a piece of software named "Photofucket" that looks through private online photo albums on the photo-sharing site Photobucket. They have not yet responded to the charges. The US Department of Justice cautions that "the charges contained in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty." Lots of people use Photobucket to host personal photographs online. It was acquired by MySpace in 2007 for $250 million but eventually sold off to a Seattle-based company in 2010. Though it is less popular than it once was, a lot of people still have photos on the site because they used it for MySpace, while others still use it as a handy place to store their photographs online and share them with others. A giant cache of photos from around the world is an attractive target for hackers. There are plenty of forums online where people buy and sell tools to search through private photos in search of naked women. But most of those tools — like the ones used in a mass release of naked celebrity photos called "the fappening" — require users to hack each account manually. Bourret and Andrianakis are accused of developing Photofucket so it would isolate hidden photographs automatically.
The tool works by "fusking" URLs to expose links to private photos. Fusking is the act of locating a website or account that you know is on the web, and then guessing URL addresses that branch off it until you find pages that are not supposed to be seen. The tool tries lots of different URLs automatically — by sequentially changing plausible dates or numbers in the original URL — until it discovers links to photos that are on the web but posted in a location that is otherwise private. Here's what it looks like when you run the tool on a person's account in search of photos:
Fusking, however, isn't a new exploit. In fact, it has been a known security issue for years. BuzzFeed wrote about Photobucket fuskers back in 2012. Photobucket has tried to shut down fuskers by implementing levels of security, which appears to have infuriated the hackers who were trying to find naked photos. Emails that the Department of Justice says were sent between Bourret and Andrianakis show a constant fight against the site's increased security:
Developing the hacking software was just the first step, though. To make money off an exploit, hackers need to find a willing buyer. Luckily for hacker developers, there are several online forums dedicated to stealing photos of women and sharing advice on how to do it. One of the most famous forums used by hackers to find porn is called AnonIB. You might recognise that name — it's the website where photos of naked celebrities first surfaced after a user named "Originalguy" posted his collection of photographs stolen from Apple's iCloud. That collection quickly spread to the anarchic bulletin board forum 4chan, then to Reddit, as stars like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton saw their private photographs posted online. Niche porn forums have discussed Photobucket exploits for years, but Photofucket managed to monetise that interest by automating the process and marketing the software directly to porn forums. The basic version of the product was available free, but the developers charged $29.99 for a fully upgraded version that could retrieve passwords and automatically scan user profiles.
Other users joined in to the discussion, commenting "any proof? couse i've already heard this story..." so the original poster returns with a link to AnonIB that details the exploit in a specific subforum dedicated to finding naked photographs of women on Photobucket. Photobucket exploits and fusking remain a regular topic of discussion on AnonIB, even after it wiped much of the site following the iCloud hack. Here's a discussion from January 2015 on AnonIB:
One user posted a photo of a woman and her Photobucket URL, then asked for help in finding her private photographs and movies. A more experienced user fusks the victim's profile by manually trying different URLs in the hope of finding photos. The user explains that "some chicks just keep adding -1-2-3" onto photo URLs, making it easy for people to guess the links to their private photos.
Someone else on AnonIB suggested trying to reset her password using Google searches to learn her date of birth and email address. Later comments ask for "any wins?" "Wins" is internet slang for naked photographs, which is what hackers are looking for on Photobucket. The arrests of two men isn't going to stop people fusking for naked photos. The software is still available free online, and exploits are still openly discussed on forums. One Wikipedia user warns that the fusking industry has existed for years: When sites like realwebwhores, navnet, ixtractor, fuskerfind and anonib exist because of photobucket's crap security and millions of unwitting girls are having their images stolen and hidden in rars files on sites like rapidshare I'd call that a "slight" security problem. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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What nearly dying taught Kevin Colleran, a 34-year-old former Facebook exec, about life | ||
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Kevin Colleran has accomplished a lot in 34 years. He graduated from Babson College and joined Facebook as one of the company's first ten employees. While there, he built a great ad sales team, made a lot of money, married his wife Erica and made a lot of friends. Now he's a partner at Slow Ventures, an $80 million startup investment fund. But a few months ago, Colleran almost lost everything. On February 27, Colleran was crossing the snow-filled streets of Boston to pick up breakfast. He saw a truck make a left hand turn and thought: I'm about to get run over. Colleran did get hit, but he walked away from the scene seemingly unharmed. Two hours later, he began to vomit and was rushed to the hospital. CT scans revealed that the former Facebook executive had severe internal bleeding in his brain. If he hadn't admitted himself to the hospital, he would have become brain dead or died within a few hours. The first thing Colleran did when he woke up was take a selfie. With his sense of humor still in tact, he wrote the caption, "Big Day," and posted it to Facebook. Then he turned to his doctors and said, "Hey guys, is this a bad time to mention that I don’t have health insurance?"
"I woke up from surgery and saw my wife and family by my side," Colleran said. "Immediately, I took a selfie (and put it on Facebook, of course), happy to be alive and happier to share my story with all of my friends. Because, as I think about it, there is NOTHING I would change." Colleran realized that feeling, having no regrets, is the best possible measure of success in life. "Now, I would not wish any of you to EVER get hit by a bus," Colleran told the graduates. "But I do hope that you live your life in a way that leaves you without regrets. Build your career and develop friendships and relationships in a way that—when you DO have a reason to look back on it all—there’s nothing you would change."
Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow  | ||
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The 10 highest-paid CEOs of 2014 | ||
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Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav took home more than $150 million last year, making him the highest-paid chief executive in the US. Each of the top 10 highest-paid CEOs of 2014 made more than $50 million, according to a new list from The New York Times. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of the top 10 CEOs are men. Executive compensation data firm Equilar compiled the 200 person list for The Times based on corporate filings. Here's what the top 10 CEOs made in 2014:
SEE ALSO: The 5 highest paid female CEOs of 2014 Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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How a Mormon-made Cold War drama got the attention of Netflix | ||
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On Friday, Netflix premiered “Granite Flats,” a TV series set in 1960s Colorado during the Cold War where not everyone in town is who they seem. The news here isn’t that the streaming service acquired an existing show to make available for its subscribers, it’s where it came from. “Granite Flats” is the first scripted drama series from the thriving cable network BYUtv, operated and funded by Brigham Young University. The channel has been in existence since 2000 and is available on Dish Network, DirecTV, and 900 cable providers. But now being tapped by the most prominent streaming service, the network suddenly has many more eyes looking at it. “I would love to say this was in our master plan, but we just got lucky,” Derek Marquis, BYUtv’s managing director told Business Insider. The first season of “Granite Flats” aired on BYUtv in 2013 and quickly found an audience with its family-friendly values mixed with edgy subjects like the town’s chief of police on the trail of a KGB spy and the local VA hospital experimenting with mind control as a way to defeat the Soviets. They then upped the ante by bringing on veteran characters actors like Christopher Lloyd (“Back to the Future” films) and Parker Posey (“You’ve Got Mail”) the following seasons.
Showrunner Scott Swofford, who is also BYUtv’s director of content, described the show’s draw as: “We wanted to create something where parents and children could share an experience. They are going to watch and then sit down and talk about it.” When BYUtv was putting the final touches on the third season, talks with Netflix began to pick up. In April, the deal was announced that Netflix would not just exclusively premiere season three of "Granite Flats" but also carry the first two seasons — making "Granite Flats" the first show that’s currently on the air on another network to debut a new season on Netflix. Season three of “Granite Flats” will air on BYUtv in October. Marquis wouldn’t go into specifics on who courted who, but he will say the deal was a no brainer for BYUtv. Reports out of Salt Lake City suggest Netflix were the ones who came calling. “People want to watch shows when they want to watch it, where they want to watch it,” said Marquis. “And if you make them wait you’ll lose some percentage of them. This seemed like the natural next step for us.” Brigham Young University — a private university based out of Provo, Utah, owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — has been in the media business since the 1940s when it started its own radio station (which is still on the air). To date, it operates six television stations, a station on Sirius radio, as well as TV stations in Latin America. But in 2000, BYUtv was created with the mission of exporting the BYU experience to their alumni. Soon, according to Marquis, the network started to gain attention from people who didn’t have BYU ties. “We were not out their knocking on cable system doors,” he said. “Dish Network launched us first and literally within weeks we were getting calls from cable operators outside of Utah [wanting to carry us].” The network has their own “Saturday Night Live”-like sketch comedy show, “Studio C,” and reality TV shows like “American Ride,” which follows the travels of a motorcycle-riding history teacher around the US. It also airs BYU Division I sporting events, which includes a deal to air exclusively with ESPN.
And in doing so, led to the network’s most successful show to date. In 2010, senior James Shores was accepted to the university’s class “Writer’s Block,” in which students write and produce a 30-minute short film that then airs on BYU’s public access channel. Shores came up with “Heaven Under A Table,” which follows a young boy who paints art under his school desk. “LDS (Latter-day Saints) people, like any religious group, can be a tad easy to get offended sometimes, but there are fringes everywhere,” said Shores. “So I pictured the story in the '60s. You have cool costumes, we’re trying to get to the moon, and the way people talked was a little more conservative back then.” After Shores graduated, Swofford came across “Heaven Under A Table.” Along with some other ideas Shores had pitched BYUtv, the networked asked him to create a pitch for a show that combined them all. And “Granite Flats” was born. Shores has creator credit on the show and wrote episodes for the first season. He’s no longer actively on the show and is currently working on getting another project off the ground.
"We are not driven by advertisers or ratings,” said Marquis, “so we have flexibility to experiment and be pretty aggressive with the stuff we do.” Watch all episodes of "Granite Flats" now on Netflix. SEE ALSO: This is what will save TV, according to Netflix Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: The trailer for the Wachowskis' mind-bending new Netflix series 'Sense8' has a lot of 'Matrix' in it  | ||
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The 5 highest-paid female CEOs of 2014 | ||
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Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was the highest-paid female executive last year, taking home $42.1 million, according to a new list from The New York Times. However, Mayer's haul still puts her at just 14th overall for highest-paid CEOs. Thirteen male CEOs made more than she did. In fact, of the 200 chief executives on The Times' list, only 13 were women. Additionally, The Times reports, "their average pay, $20 million, is 9.4% less than $22.6 million overall average." The highest-paid CEO overall in 2014 was David Zaslav, who made $156.1 million for leading Discovery Communications. Here's what the top 5 female CEOs made, and how they ranked overall:
Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 6 shortcuts in Excel that will save you a ton of time  | ||
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Apple is secretly building an electric car — and here's the proof (AAPL) | ||
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For several months now, rumours of increasing credibility have circulated that Apple is secretly working on an electric car project. This week, the Cupertino company reportedly will settle a lawsuit brought against it by A123 Systems — a large-battery company that alleges Apple deliberately poached its employees to develop its own car battery technology. Final details of the settlement are yet to be established. But court documents filed in March, when combined with other news that has recently come to light, provide us with a compelling case that Apple is developing its own battery technology — likely in order to build a car. Most obviously, one of the employees Apple is accused of wrongly employing is Mujeeb Ijaz. He was the CTO of A123, where he was making $294,000 per month, and had specific responsibility for producing batteries for Formula 1 racing cars "with unparallelled power density." He previously worked for 16 years at Ford, according to his LinkedIn profile: Mujeeb Ijaz is the CTO of A123 Systems, LLC called where he leads a P&L business unit called A123 Venture Technologies. AVT is comprised of Core Materials Research and New Product Development for the company's leading Lithium Ion Energy Storage technology. The business unit will service internal and external customers with energy storage solutions, engineering services, and advanced Motor Sports Lithium Ion technology for Formula 1 Racing ERS with unparallelled power density. Mr. Ijaz founded the Automotive Solutions Group in 2008 after spending 16 years at Ford Motor Company working on Battery and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle technology. In a court filing, A123's lawyers allege: Upon information and belief, Apple is currently developing a large scale battery division to compete in the very same field as A123. In connection with that development, beginning in or around June of 2014, defendant Apple embarked on an aggressive campaign to poach employees of A123 and to otherwise raid A123's business... ...all of the Individual Defendants [allegedly poached by Apple from A123] are working in a field of battery science, technology, and/or products that is substantially similar if not identical to the field they worked on in at A123. A123 also alleges that Apple has poached employees with battery skills from Toshiba, LG, Samsung, and Panasonic. In short:
The document indicates that Apple is interested in developing some kind of battery technology. It does not specifically say a battery for a car. But it does revolve around a guy who has spent nearly two decades in the electric car battery business. Some naysayers have argued that Apple isn't interested in building a car, just in providing software for them — but the Cupertino recruitment of people with expertise in hardware like batteries suggests otherwise. Another piece of evidence that Apple is working on a car emerged earlier this week. The company is significantly increasing its presence in Cork, Ireland, where it is planning a massive new factory complex. And a job listing for a managerial role at Apple's Cork office requires experience in the "automotive" industry. The CEO of Fiat-Chrysler also recently said that Apple CEO Tim Cook is "interested in an intervention in the car," following a meeting. (It's significant in itself that the CEO met with Cook, as the other two tech companies he met were Tesla and Google, which are both openly highly interested in the automotive industry.) Beyond this, there has been a wealth of rumours, leaks, and allegations about Apple's automotive industry this year. Here are the key details:
Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Steve Jobs' biographer reveals the childhood moment that defined the Apple founder  | ||
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Guy allegedly told the FBI he hacked into a plane's entertainment system to make it fly sideways | ||
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A prominent hacker and security researcher allegedly told the FBI he accessed an airplane's in-flight entertainment system to make it fly sideways, according to a search warrant application filed by the FBI. One World Labs founder Chris Roberts was detained by the FBI in April after tweeting that he might hack into the domestic United Airlines flight he was flying on. According to the FBI affidavit — first put online by APTN News and highlighted in an article in WIRED — Roberts had spoken with the FBI earlier this year about repeatedly hacking into planes' in-flight entertainment systems, and in one instance, using his access to issue a climb command and make the plane turn sideways. After interrogating him, the FBI confiscated two of Roberts' laptop computers, as well as several hard drives and USB sticks, WIRED reports. Below is the tweet the caused Roberts to be detained in April: And here's what the FBI reportedly confiscated: The search warrant application also details how Roberts said he hacked into the plane's in-flight entertainment system — IFE — to change its flight. "He compromised the IFE systems approximately 15 to 20 times during the time period 2011 through 2014," according to the warrant application. "Each of the compromises occurred on airplanes equipped with IFE systems with video monitors installed in the passenger seats." Roberts said he was able to get physical access to the IFE systems by removing the cover of the Seat Electronic Box installed underneath passengers seats, according to the FBI filing. Then, the FBI said, he would use a modified Ethernet cable to connect his laptop to the IFE system, which allowed him to access other airplane systems. "He stated that he then overwrote code on the airplane's Thrust Management Computer while aboard a flight ... [and] successfully commanded the system he had access to the issue the 'CLB' or climb command," the warrant application states. With the command, according to the FBI document, Roberts "caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane." WIRED notes that Roberts' actions, if true, have disturbed many people involved in security research, as evidenced by the below tweet from Alex Stamos, Yahoo's Chief Information Security Officer: However, speaking to WIRED, Roberts said his discussions with the FBI about hacking a flight are taken out of context. "That paragraph that's in there is one paragraph out of a lot of discussions, so there is context that is obviously missing which obviously I can't say anything about," he told WIRED. "It would appear from what I've seen that the federal guys took one paragraph out of a lot of discussions and a lot of meetings and notes and just chose that one as opposed to plenty of others." We sent a message to Roberts through his company and will update this post if we hear back. SEE ALSO: Tech billionaires are paying hundreds of millions for one thing everyone else takes for granted Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Dwight from 'The Office' explains how Twitter has evolved over the years  | ||
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A famous surfer is trying to revolutionize the sport of golf with a new gadget | ||
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GolfBoard is a futuristic device that is a cross between a skateboard and a golf cart. It's the brainchild of surfer Laird Hamilton and Bally Total Fitness founder Don Wildman. The GolfBoard is designed to carry golfers and their gear at speeds up to 12mph. It costs $6,500 per unit. Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press and Caters News. Follow BI Video: On Facebook Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Subscriptions are enjoying a new prominence as a revenue engine for digital content and apps | ||
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Subscriptions are enjoying a new prominence as a revenue model for digital content and apps. Internet companies are exploiting the opportunity to boost ARPU (average revenue per user), thanks to recurring payments from a subscriber base. In this new and exclusive report from BI Intelligence we look at how prominent players in five separate categories have tried to build a subscription-based revenue stream alongside ad-based businesses: the categories are video, music, news publishing, social networks/messaging, and dating apps. Access The Full Report And Data Sets By Signing Up For A Trial Membership » Here are some of the key takeaways:
The report is full of charts, data, and case studies that can easily be downloaded and put to use. In full, the report:
To access the full report from BI Intelligence, sign up for a 14-day trial here. Members also gain access to new in-depth reports, hundreds of charts and datasets, as well as daily newsletters on the digital industry. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Forget Kim Kardashian — the 'butt selfie' queen of Instagram is a 21-year-old from Long Island  | ||
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Many digital media companies have embraced monthly and annual subscriptions 'A COLLEGE CAMPUS ON STEROIDS!' What it's really like to be a Facebook intern (FB) | ||
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Free food, regular cocktail parties, and dodgeball tournaments — these are just a few of the perks Facebook interns get to enjoy. But it's not all about the cool bonuses: Facebook treats its interns like full-time employees, which means it also expects you to work like a full-time employee. Interns work on real projects that are on Facebook's roadmap — not busy work designated for interns. Hyla Wallis, Facebook's university operations lead, said the company views internships as an evaluation program of sorts. "[It's] an opportunity for us to get to know our interns and for our interns to get to know us," she told Business Insider. Three former Facebook interns told Business Insider what it's really like to temporarily join the biggest social network in the world — an internship that career site Glassdoor says is its highest rated this year. It's also one of the highest-paying gigs a college student can land. Facebook interns get paid about $5,600 per month on average. That's $25,000+ more than the average US citizen. A "college campus on steroids"Facebook gives interns a lot of responsibility and independence. Elizabeth Gregory is a former product design intern who worked for Facebook last summer. She says working at Facebook is like joining a "coalition of startups." You hardly notice you're one of thousands of employees. "Each team is working hard on a particular project, and it doesn't really feel that big," she said. Patricia McKenzie, a recently hired software engineer who interned at Facebook last summer, agrees. She used to book conference rooms and share them with five other interns to collaborate even when they'd been given different assignments. "It's a really open work environment," she said. "I worked harder than I ever had before," another former intern said of his time at Facebook.
While Facebook might not feel large from a team perspective, its Menlo Park campus is expansive. It's decked out with bike lanes, cafeterias, coffee shops, ice cream parlors, and barbers. "It totally felt like a college campus on steroids," she said. "But it was so much more fun and well kept." "They had a bartender come in and make cocktails"
McKenzie, who interned in Facebook's Seattle office, said that she's still friends with a lot of the people she worked with last summer. There's a Facebook group for those who work in Facebook's Seattle office called "Seattle Social," where employees post open invitations for events. Facebook organizes its own community-building activities, too. One former intern referenced an outing to a baseball game, and McKenzie described her experience playing dodgeball in a company tournament. "I was able to be on a dodgeball team with my manager, and I don't think a lot of other people can say that," McKenzie said. Facebook also offers free meals for interns and employees daily, possibly the internship's greatest perk. The company brings in bartenders for special happy hour celebrations on Thursdays. "Every Thursday they had cocktail time," one intern said. "Mark Zuckerberg had a desk that looked exactly like mine."
Facebook's billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't hide away in a luxurious office during the workday. He sits with other Facebook employees and kindly greets workers — interns included. "Mark Zuckerberg has a desk that looked exactly like mine," Gregory said. "Same computer, same everything, so that was really nice ... He was a really nice guy, and he always said hi to me walking around even if he didn't know exactly who I was." As an intern, Gregory said she got to sit in on a meeting with Zuckerberg. "I was just observing, but it was cool to see what Zuck was like," she said. "It was very intense because he just spews wisdom at you." In addition to the weekly Q&A meetings on Friday, where Zuckerberg and other executives hold town halls to address employee questions, female interns got to attend a special meeting with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. "All the female interns got to meet Sheryl and talk to her," McKenzie said. "She gave this presentation with a few other female managers and engineers about not just being a woman in tech, but it any field that's underrepresented." What Facebook looks for in its interns
Internships at companies like Facebook are competitive and selective, but Wallis says the company generally looks for candidates that can "tackle really hard problems." If you're applying for a software engineering internship, experience participating in hackathons is a bonus. "If they can display things that they've been working on over time, like apps, those are the things that we'd want to see." And, previous experience isn't always the most important thing. "[We] definitely look for the skills that they have maybe moreso than some of the experiences they have," she said. SEE ALSO: The biggest difference between Google and Facebook — explained by someone who's worked at both Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: REVEALED: Here are all the incredible perks for Facebook employees  | ||
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Pro gamer describes the difference between playing in the US and Korea — the mecca of video games | ||
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Despite its popularity online, professional gaming has yet to break through to mainstream American culture. Compared to sports like football or basketball, it has a tiny fan base. In Korea, the mecca of pro gaming, it’s a totally different story. Korea has had a thriving gaming culture since a government initiative to introduce nationwide broadband internet and the release of real-time strategy game StarCraft in the late ‘90s. Pro gaming is a national pastime in Korea, with pro matches broadcasted on television, teams sponsored by major tech companies like Samsung and HTC, and players with a level of celebrity rivaling soccer stars. "PC bangs" or gaming cafes, pervade Korean youth culture. In recent years, Riot Games’ League of Legends has become the game of choice, overtaking the pro scene and dominating the casual players in the "PC bangs.” The difference between pro-gaming culture in the US and Korea can be startling, even though players in both countries earn similar incomes (estimated around $80,000 to $100,000). Koreans treat their pro gamers like superstars, while US pro gamers have dedicated but niche followings. This difference in status became apparent to 24-year-old professional League of Legends player Christian “IWDominate” Rivera, when he traveled to compete in South Korea back in 2012. At the time, Rivera had primarily competed in the US, which was still forming a cohesive League of Legends pro league. “At that point, I was more famous in Korea than the US,” Rivera said. “My doctor [in Korea] recognized me. People in the airport recognized me. At restaurants, people recognized me. In the US, no one ever recognized me.”
Even three years later, Rivera says, he's still more famous in Korea than in the US. If you walk around with him in his Santa Monica neighborhood, it's highly unlikely anyone will recognize him even though the League of Legends headquarters is only a few miles away. When Rivera strolls around Seoul, on the other hand, many people recognize him — and not just those in the expected 16- to 30-year-old male gaming demographic. One explanation for this difference in status is that pro gaming has had a longer time to make its mark on Korea than it has in the US. Since the early 2000s, Koreans have had an established network of "gaming houses" — dedicated training facilities where players live and practice. Their games are broadcast onto the TVs of everyday Koreans, many of whom have favorite players. The sport is so popular that many Korean companies view pro-gaming matches as a big opportunity to advertise. Americans, on the other hand, are just getting used to the idea of watching pro gaming through features in publications like ESPN and Vice and broadcasts on the popular gaming website Twitch. While players in the US do live in Korea-style gaming houses, they are a relatively new phenomenon. The idea of playing video games for a living in the US is also relatively new. Even just a few years ago, most American pro players only competed part-time, as there was not enough salary or sponsorship money to fully support players.
To be sure, pro gaming has come a long way in the US now that there's a centralized league (for League of Legends anyway) and big-name sponsors like Red Bull and Nissan. Even so, Korea is still ahead. “Everything in the US feels a couple of years behind Korea,” Rivera said. The difference bears out in the game. Korean teams have won two out of the first four League of Legends World Championships, with the other two going to a Taiwanese and a European team. Korea has long dominated StarCraft II, among other games. The two Korean players on Rivera's team, Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin and Kim "FeniX" Jae-hoon, are both known for their intense training regimen, with one player going so far as to say that they practice "25 hours a day." Chae explained the reasoning behind his regimen, which speaks volumes to the Korean approach to pro gaming. “If someone [in the US] plays 30 games a week — that's just a random number — a Korean would play 70-80 games. Take that difference over a week, over a month, over years, and that's going to be a huge difference,” Chae told Business Insider, through a translator. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 5 clever iPhone tricks only power users know about  | ||
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Twitter just stopped reporting a key statistic and the company won't say why (TWTR) | ||
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Twitter has stopped disclosing the percentage of its users who take "no discernable user action" on the app, making it harder for observers to figure out whether Twitter's core user base is growing or dying. The company did not respond to a request for comment. In Q1 2015, Twitter reported 302 million monthly active users (MAUs), up 14 million from the quarter before. Business Insider previously reported that an independent analysis of Twitter's core user-base showed that active users may actually be in decline, and that the number of people signed up for Twitter who don't actually do anything on the app is growing. The general chatter around Twitter, among app developers and stock owners, is that Twitter's user growth has all but ground to a halt. The statistic describing users who don't seem to be doing anything on Twitter was calculated from Twitter's 10-Q filings with the SEC. Those disclosures have all (until now) shown the percentage of users who are only counted as "users" because another application they are logged into automatically pinged Twitter's system, even if they didn't do anything to generate the ping. In Q4 2014, that percentage was 8.5%, or about 25 million of Twitter's roughly 300 million users. Twitter has previously told Business Insider that these are real users who created Twitter accounts with real usernames and passwords, receiving Twitter content through third-party applications. They're not bots or machines, they're real people who want Twitter content. An example would be a screen lock app on a phone that receives a Twitter news feed without the owner having to open Twitter. Twitter reported its Q1 2015 numbers on April 28, and filed its in-depth 10-Q analysis on May 11. But the new 10-Q didn't give an update to the "no discernable user action" stat, as it usually does. Instead, the company repeated the number from Q4: In the three months ended December 31, 2014, approximately 8.5% of users used third-party applications that may have automatically contacted our servers for regular updates without any discernable additional user-initiated action. It is not clear why Twitter didn't update the number, or whether Twitter has stopped reporting the stat permanently. A couple of years ago, Twitter told investors that it expected the percentage of inactive users to decline. Instead, it rose, to a high of 11.5%. In Q2 2014 Twitter changed the definition of those users and reported a smaller percentage, 8.5%. This chart shows the growth of inactive users through Q4 2014:
And this one shows a decline in users who tweet or sign up for new accounts, as measured by a source outside Twitter. The "active" line is the total of the "tweeted" and and "created" line:
Disclosure: The author owns Twitter stock. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Patrick Stewart's Only Rule For Using Twitter  | ||
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The fastest way to figure out if you're doing something truly important with your life | ||
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Think about something you've been working really hard on — a job, a business, a relationship. Now, think about how much money would it take to part ways with that. Is there a price someone could pay for you to give it up? Or, do you love it so much it's not for sale? Asking yourself that question is the quickest way to learn how important something is to you, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel says. On Friday, Spiegel gave a commencement speech to USC's class of 2015. During his ten-minute speech, Spiegel offered advice to his peers about resisting conformity and figuring out how to chase their dreams. He touched on the fact that Snapchat had a chance to sell for billions of dollars and turned it down. It was one of the first times Spiegel talked publicly about his grueling decision not to sell Snapchat to Facebook in 2013. "I am now convinced that the fastest way to figure out if you are doing something truly important to you is to have someone offer you a bunch of money to part with it," Spiegel told the graduates. Whether you decide to take the money or not, you'll learn a lot about yourself in the process. "If you sell, you will know immediately that it wasn’t the right dream anyways," Spiegel said. "And if you don’t sell you’re probably onto something. Maybe you have the beginning of something meaningful." Spiegel says he would have sold his first startup, a college admissions company called Future Freshman, but nobody wanted to buy it. "Don't feel bad if you sell out. Just don't stop there," Spiegel said. "Find something you aren't willing to sell." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch these giant container ships collide near the Suez Canal  | ||
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Google launches its first Apple Watch app as its own smartwatch efforts begin to implode (GOOG, AAPL) | ||
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Google is launching its first app for the Apple Watch— even as it becomes clearer and clearer that Google's own smartwatch platform, Android Wear, is running into serious difficulties. As TechCrunch reports, Google is launching a Google News & Weather app for Apple's debut wearable. It will — as you can probably guess — let users check the news and the weather at a glance on their Apple Watch. Of course, the majority of Google's signature apps are readily available on iOS, which directly competes with Google's Android operating system (OS). Any iPhone user can use Google Maps or Gmail on their device. But while Android and iOS are competing healthily, and have done for years, within a month after launching, the Apple Watch is already wiping the floor with Android Wear. Android plays the numbers gameIn the smartphone market, Apple and Google play two fundamentally different games. Apple concentrates (for the most part) on profits, even at the expense of total units. It's a strategy that has gifted Apple 93% of the profits of the entire smartphone industry, as well as the most profitable quarter of any company ever. Google, meanwhile, plays the numbers game with Android. It offers the OS to handset manufacturers to use for no cost, and as a result more than 1 billion Android smartphones shipped last year. That's a milestone that Apple will take years to reach. This massive install base is what makes Android such a compelling platform to develop for. After all, Apple customers are (on average) richer, spending more money on apps, on in-app purchases, and ad rates on iOS are accordingly higher. And yet many developers still choose to develop "Android-first." Why? Because Google's platform offers them a reach that Apple can't hope to match. Google just lost the one thing it had going for it
Although Apple hasn't released sales figures, researchers estimate that the Cupertino company managed to sell more Apple Watches in a single day than Google managed with Android Wear in an entire year. And respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the Apple secured more than 2.3 million pre-orders, dwarfing Android Wear's 720,000 total sales in 2014. Suddenly, Android (on smartwatches) has become the platform with the far smaller market share — but without the lucrative user base to justify prioritising development for it. (We don't know for sure that Apple Watch customers are, on average, better off than Android Wear buyers. But given the comparatively high price point of the Apple Watch — topping out at $17,000/£13,500 — it's a fairly reasonable assumption to make.) Of course, some developers will still produce apps for Android Wear, especially larger companies looking to maximise their market share. But for smaller studios with limited resources, there's now very little reason for them to focus on developing for the platform. Google has been beaten into submissionSo where do Google's own apps fit into all of this? The Mountain View company's products are some of the best-respected and most widely used on the market. Google Search still dominates (despite some wobbles), and Google Maps is everywhere. As such, if Google launches its other apps on the Apple Watch, it provides consumers with even less reason to consider an Android Wear device. In part, it's a concession that Google has lost this battle, and doesn't want to be cut out of the smartwatch race entirely. But it's also a necessary step to maintain its existing userbase on iOS. As increasing numbers of people buy Apple Watches, they will look for apps compatible with their new wearable device to deliver their notifications and carry out essential functions. And if Google's own apps can't, they'll simply switch to those that can. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how people react to trying on the Apple Watch for the first time  | ||
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When it comes to smartwatches, however, Google has lost this one advantage. This one stat is the whole reason Facebook says it's getting into native content | ||
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This week, Facebook announced details of its highly-anticipated Instant news service along with launch partners that include BuzzFeed and The New York Times. Facebook is asking publishers to write and post articles directly on the social network rather than their own sites. In return, Facebook's algorithm will favor their stories. Additionally, publishers will be allowed to count Facebook article traffic toward their ComScore numbers. The revenue split is generous: publishers can keep 100% of the money if they sell a Facebook Instant advertising campaign and 70% if Facebook sells it. Why is Facebook suddenly so focused on hosting news articles? A lot of publishers believe it's because Facebook is greedy. They think Facebook wants to steal their advertising dollars and make them start paying for the free traffic referral love they've been shown over the past year. Entire businesses have been built on Facebook's firehose of traffic, including Distractify, ViralNova and UpWorthy. Facebook could make many of those websites disappear overnight with just a few changes to its algorithm. But publishers traditionally don't have massive marketing budgets the way major corporations like Proctor & Gamble do. So if Facebook was feeling greedy, media companies would be a pretty small group to go after. Instead, Facebook has hailed one stat as the reason it's launching Instant articles. You can find it in the second paragraph of Facebook's Instant announcement from Monday: "As more people get their news on mobile devices, we want to make the experience faster and richer on Facebook. People share a lot of articles on Facebook, particularly on our mobile app. To date, however, these stories take an average of eight seconds to load, by far the slowest single content type on Facebook." Eight seconds is a long lag time. By hosting content, Facebook thinks it can speed up load times and create a better user experience. Facebook offers a much better mobile browsing experience than many publishers do.
A person familiar with Facebook's thinking told Business Insider that the decision to launch Instant was "100%" dictated by mobile trends. About 60% of online traffic now comes from mobile devices instead of desktop computers. But a lot of online properties haven't adjusted their user experiences accordingly. "Mobile [news consumption] is a terrible experience, and the mobile web is a wreck," this person said. Facebook's Chief Product Officer Chris Cox echoed the same sentiment in Monday's statement. "Fundamentally, this is a tool that enables publishers to provide a better experience for their readers on Facebook," he said. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
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Other big tech companies are putting an emphasis on improving mobile viewing experiences too. Google recently announced a change in its SEO algorithm which the press dubbed A bunch of Clinkle employees just left and the startup apparently tried to sell itself to Apple | ||
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Clinkle, a payment app that raised $30 million then failed to gain traction, lost a chunk of its staff Friday. CEO Lucas Duplan confirmed that a bunch of employees left to TechCrunch's Josh Constine. Duplan says the restructuring was planned, but at least one ex-Clinkler celebrated "quitting" on social media. Other Clinklers told Constine the employees voluntarily left because they were fed up with Duplan. The source of contention, according to Constine, was acquisition talks. Also Duplan reportedly fired two senior executives, Clinkle's CFO and VP of Engineering, which didn't sit well with the team. Constine says Duplan was in acquisition talks with Apple then tried to shop his startup around to other suitors, including Google, Visa, Amazon and Samsung to up the selling price. When executives tried to learn about the talks, Constine says they were canned. It's not clear where Apple and Clinkle stand now. "With respect to [M&A], I can’t confirm or deny that any conversations have taken place or are taking place," Duplan said in a statement. "Secondly, today we indeed did have a planned staff restructuring, and that’s actually part of a greater reorganization and cost abatement plan which we’ve been looking at doing for a while now." Clinkle has been one disaster after another. A few years ago Duplan, who was then 20, announced his startup had raised the "largest seed round in Silicon Valley history." But his team didn't launch a product or reveal what it was working on for more than a year following the fundraise. It's since tried to pivot its way to success but the company has suffered a lot of layoff rounds in the process. Here's a deep dive into what's happened at Clinkle over the past few years. Here's the celebratory Facebook post from ex-Clinkler, Jason Benn. "QUIT CLINKLE TODAY!" He exclaimed.
Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch these giant container ships collide near the Suez Canal  | ||
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An ad agency came up with a genius way to help prevent skin cancer at the beach | ||
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Advertising agency Happiness Brussels came up with a genius way to help raise awareness about skin cancer prevention. Here's the innovative campaign. Video courtesy of Happiness Brussels Follow BI Video: On Facebook Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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What 3 dotcom giants looked like 15 years ago during their heydays | ||
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There's been a lot of talk about bubble 2.0 lately, and one company that was hot in the first bubble — AOL — just got acquired (again). So it seems like a good time to reminisce about the way the web used to be. 15 years ago, smartphones weren't around and PCs were in vogue. Here's what the webpages of three popular AOL competitors looked like back then. This is AOL on May 12, 2000. Notice the first ad tells you you can "find and buy any book" on Amazon.com:
This is eXcite.com, a popular search portal that had a chance to buy Google for $1 million but didn't. It sold itself to @Home for $7.2 billion in 1999 and in 2001 it went bankrupt. Here's eXcite.com on May 12, 2000. Notice the news story, "All hail Napster!"
Here's Yahoo on May 12, 2000, promising "free email for life." It has kept that promise so far. Notice below, there's an offer of "Free 56K ISP and email." That was a pretty fast speed for the dial-up era. It's laughable today, now that household cable will deliver 50M, and, if you're lucky enough to get Google Fiber, you're ISP will deliver 1G.
If you want to keep strolling down memory lane, here's what 23 popular websites used to look like years ago. SEE ALSO: AOL will forever be remembered as the company from this 2003 ad that endlessly mailed CD discs Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
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I'm obsessed with a music streaming service millions of people probably don't know they can use for free | ||
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It only took a few music-less commutes through the subways of New York City before I realized that I needed a replacement source of tunes. Unfortunately, I couldn't just load songs from my iTunes onto my iPhone because of a weird software incompatibility, so I started trying to decide between the wide selection of music streaming services out there today. Spotify? Pandora? Google Play Music? Rdio? Because I wanted to get my music fix underground, I figured that I would have to shell out for a premium version of a service so that I could download songs to my phone for offline listening.
As an ecommerce reporter, I've known about Amazon's streaming service since it first launched last summer. It's only available to people who pay $99 a year for Prime, the membership program that most people join because of the two-day free shipping it offers on a ton of products. Although Amazon refuses to lock down an exact number of Prime subscribers, it says there are "tens of millions" in the US alone. I had downloaded Amazon Music initially for research purposes, but forgot about it soon after. (Those were the iPod days, remember?) While stranded in a music desert, though, I decided to give it another try before dropping $10 a month on Spotify Premium. After all, it was free, since I already pay for Prime for its speedy shipping. I quickly fell in love for a few reasons:
Amazon Prime Music definitely won't be a good fit for everyone. Besides a much, much smaller selection overall, the service doesn't have as much rap and EDM available as other services. And you shouldn't expect to see the latest albums as soon as they drop. (For free at least, you could buy the album on Amazon proper and have it show up in the streaming player.) But because I love indie rock bands and folk music and generally don't care about getting new albums (in part because several of the bands I'm in love with haven't released new music in years), I'm constantly using the app and am absolutely a huge, unabashed fan. I'm not saying that people should ditch their Spotify, Rdio, or Pandora subscriptions if they're already all signed up and digging it. But if, like me, you're one of the tens of millions of people who already pay for Amazon Prime and you aren't an evangelist for any other service, give it a try. Because the key is that if you already pay for Prime anyway, it's free. Here are some of the playlists Amazon Prime Music offers:
Here's what the player looks like when you're offline streaming: | ||
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In the end, I became obsessed with a service that millions of people probably don't know they can use for free: Amazon Prime Music.
Tech billionaires are paying hundreds of millions for one thing everyone else takes for granted | ||
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The purchase included two separate parcels: the Kahu'aina Plantation, a 357-acre former sugarcane plantation, and Pila'a Beach, a 393-acre property with bright white sand. The property is large enough for a set of villas or even a resort. But Zuckerberg apparently plans to only build one home: an ultra-private island hideaway for himself and his inner circle. "When the whole thing is said and done, he might be approaching $200 million on total purchase price," Steve Hunt, a tax manager for Kauai County, said to the Pacific Business News. "This is someone who can afford to buy whatever he wants to buy and he’ll pay the price he needs to get, and privacy is a bigger issue to him than anything else."
Zuckerberg's desire to sequester his family is understandable, given Silicon Valley's generally stifling atmosphere, and, more specifically, a recent lawsuit involving his home in Palo Alto. The suit, filed by developer Mircea Voskerician in May 2014, centers around Zuckerberg's 2013 purchase of four houses adjacent to his home in Palo Alto's Crescent Park neighborhood. At the time, it seemed like an odd splurge, and many wondered if Zuckerberg was trying to assemble a compound of sorts. But there was a reason behind the purchase. Voskerician had reportedly told Zuckerberg that he planned to build a large, 9,600-square-foot house on one of the lots behind his property. The home, Voskerician allegedly said, would have a direct view into the master bedroom shared by Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan.
Zuckerberg paid Voskerician $1.7 million for the rights to the property, and then bought the lot from its owners for $4.8 million, according to county records. But Voskerician says his interest in the property was worth far more than $1.7 million, and that he gave Zuckerberg a discount because of the business his referrals would potentially bring in. Apparently that never happened, hence the lawsuit. Zuckerberg's lawyers have called Voskerician's tactics "extortive" and say that he is "going out of his way to embarrass Mr. Zuckerberg and pressure those around him at every turn." "It’s stuff like this that makes me so sad and angry," Chan wrote in an email unearthed in the lawsuit. Divesh Makan, Zuckerberg's financial adviser, later bought the three other homes around Zuckerberg's house, further guaranteeing his privacy. The homes were purchased for $10.5 million, $14 million, and $14.5 million, according to county records.
According to Arthur Sharif, a realtor who specializes in luxury real estate in Silicon Valley, it's not all that uncommon to see wealthy people scooping up multiple lots to assemble a bubble of isolation around their homes. "That happens all the time," Sharif told Business Insider. "Some people will say to us, 'I don’t care what’s on the market. Just go knock on the neighbor's door, say I like the house, and I’ll pay for the inconvenience of moving.'" In fact, Sharif said, selling a home just to assemble it as part of larger property is actually somewhat easier than your typical home sale. A home that's meant to serve as a buffer doesn't require as much inspection and maintenance. The opportunity can even be attractive to people who are being bought out by wealthier neighbors. "Some people feel like they’ve won the lottery if that happens to them. Usually the house sells for over market value, and maybe they’d want to move in a few years anyway," Sharif said. "If someone is trying to do an assemblage, they don’t even need to see the house. They just need the property."
"For people like Mark Zuckerberg, maybe privacy is necessary, but that's not always the main reason for buying the home next door," realtor Eric Boyenga said. "Some do it to have family members close by, maybe so that the in-laws can watch the kids." Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has deployed similar tactics. In October 2013, she paid a reported $11.2 million for the Roller & Hapgood & Tinney funeral home, located just a few doors down from her home in Palo Alto. Though it's still unclear what exactly Mayer plans to do with the property, the mortuary proved to be the perfect location for her annual Halloween party last year. The former funeral parlor was transformed into a haunted house for the day, much to the chagrin of a neighbor who complained on a local web site.
Elon Musk has done a similar thing in Los Angeles. In November 2013, he paid $6.75 million for a teardown across the street from his $17 million Bel-Air mansion. Still, it's not as if Mayer and Musk are negotiating these kinds of deals themselves. Sharif says that it's very common to have his open houses attended by what he calls a "scout," someone hired by a wealthy individual for the sole purpose of scoping out potential real-estate investments. Homes are often bought and sold under LLCs linked to scouts or business managers. "This is from the very wealthiest people, like [Microsoft cofounder] Paul Allen, all the way down the spectrum. It's because they don't want people to know what they're buying," Sharif said. "That’s part of how we can tell it’s someone notable who's interested in the property." Renovating homesMany wealthy executives buying luxury real estate have a very clear picture of what they want in a home, from custom-built home-automation systems to environmentally conscious sprinklers and pools. Peninsula Custom Homes is a construction firm that specializes in building custom luxury homes in the Bay Area. "These clients are very used to dreaming things up and saying, 'That’s how I want it,'" Bryan Murphy, president of Peninsula Custom Homes, said to Business Insider. "For architects, we have to more creative to accomplish what they want. There’s no manual for this."
As far as the company's clientele, Murphy said the company often builds homes for tech executives, many of whom work in biotech, as well as the VCs who fund startups and the bankers who finance the deals. "Most clients have a Tesla," he said. Energy efficiency is one thing that PCH is consistently asked to consider by clients. As California suffers through a crippling drought, many clients ask what they can do to improve their irrigation systems. He couldn't speak more specifically than that, however, which is consistent across the industry. Most people working for the wealthiest in the tech community are asked to sign nondisclosure agreements that bar them from discussing the details of their employment. This includes everyone who might be involved with the remodeling of a home: architects, painters, carpenters, gardeners, and cleaners, just to name a few. "Privacy has definitely been more of a focus recently, especially with the easy access to information that comes with social media," Murphy said. "Some tech executives are having their own technology used against them in that way." In addition to his homes in Palo Alto and Kauai, Zuckerberg also has a house in San Francisco. It's currently undergoing an extensive renovation, including $65,000 worth of renovation work on the kitchen and bathrooms, $750,000 for an addition to the rear and side of the house, and $25,000 to make the fourth floor "habitable." There's an additional $720,000 for an office, media room, half bathroom, mudroom, laundry room, wine room, and wet bar, in addition to a new second-floor half bathroom and remodel of the second, third, and fourth floors. Each of the construction workers has signed an NDA, according to the New York Times.
Parking in Zuckerberg's San Francisco neighborhood is notoriously difficult. To make sure construction workers would have somewhere to park in the morning — and, presumably, to prevent people from snooping around — the Facebook billionaire allegedly hired pairs of people to sit in cars parked near the house at night. "This is nothing short of a fortress," one disgruntled neighbor told The San Francisco Chronicle in September. Managing the propertiesTech billionaires who've accumulated a number of properties will most likely need help managing it. Family offices — companies that help the wealthy manage their money — have become big, secretive businesses. Google cofounder Sergey Brin has employed as many as 47 people through Bayshore Global Management, a private company that manages his real-estate investments and personal affairs. Current and former Bayshore employees contacted by Business Insider declined to comment on their work. But a scan of LinkedIn profiles show that Bayshore employs a former Navy SEAL, an ex-Secret Service agent, and a former SWAT team leader for his security detail. Brin has a home in New York City's West Village, in addition to the family's Los Altos Hills residence. Each house has a staff managed by Bayshore, which was named for the part of Mountain View, California, where Google is based. He also employs property managers, domestic staff, and a personal shopper. SEE ALSO: How to buy a private island — even if you're not a tech billionaire Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's the dirty little secret contractors don't want you to know  | ||
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In October 2014, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg 
So Voskerician made Zuckerberg a deal: He would sell Zuckerberg the entire property at a discount if the Facebook billionaire would introduce the developer to his important Silicon Valley contacts. 
Acquiring extreme wealth means being able to provide for yourself, but family members usually reap the benefits, too. 
Low interest rates make saving nearly mission impossible | ||
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Paris (AFP) - While borrowers rejoice at the ultra low and even negative interest rates in Europe, savers fret and life insurance companies and pension funds face what is virtually a mission impossible. Despite a spike in sovereign bond yields in the past couple of weeks, levels still remain ultra-low. The rate of return to investors on benchmark 10-year German and French bonds has stayed below one percent in recent months and the yields on long-term Swiss debt even went negative. Sovereign bonds are very important for long-term investors as they are a safe investment that allows them to lock into guaranteed returns. For life insurance companies and pension funds which are investing the savings of others, the safety of sovereign bonds has led regulators to require them to place certain percentages of their investments in bonds. But the unprecedented rock bottom interest rates are posing a problem as many life insurance polices offer guaranteed interest higher than current bond yields. Last year in France, life insurance contracts paid on average 2.5 percent. Life insurance companies can temporarily dig into investment funds to continue to pay high rates and attract investors, but this is a strategy experts said cannot continue if rates remain low. "This drop in rates and the uncertainty that has accompanied it is affecting life insurance returns," said Claude Chassain, an actuarial expert at Deloitte. The level of interest rates has been worrying the industry for months, and analysts and ratings agencies are concerned about the industry. "Low interest rates in the euro area pose substantial challenges to the life insurance industry," said IMF staff in a blog post earlier this month. "Mid-sized insurers with guaranteed returns and long-dated liabilities that are not matched by similarly long-dated assets face a particularly high and rising risk of failure," they said. - Collateral damage - German insurers, which offer much higher guaranteed returns than their French counterparts, have been particularly critical of the European Central Bank's ultra-low interest rate policy, and its 1.1-trillion-euro ($1.2-trillion) bond buying stimulus programme that has driven down bond yields. "The problem with German insurers is that not long ago they guaranteed returns on (products) like long-term euro contracts. These yields must be respected every year, even as rates fall," explains Chassain. According to Karsten Eichmann, president of German insurer Gothaer, that situation has left companies like his caught in an agonising pinch. "The insurance sector in Germany is currently facing a considerable degree of damage, in the order of several billion, provoked by the European Central Bank's policy of very low rates," Eichmann wrote in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung in early May. The result, he noted, is "it is clear that in an environment of rates close to zero, life insurance becomes a money-losing activity in all its forms". Pension funds are also sounding the alarm. PensionsEurope, the trade organisation for European pension institutions, warned regulators in a report in late April that "pension funds can not be considered collateral damage of the ECB's (quantitative easing policy) when the problem involves retirement savings of millions of Europeans". Chassain says low interest rates like those currently in place are destined to make life difficult for any insurer with long-term guarantees on return. "In the United Kingdom, pension funds abandoned fixed-yield agreements quite a while ago in favour of fixed-contribution schemes that allow them to take economic conditions into account at the time (the client) retires," Chassain says. For insurance companies, the strategy is to invest in high-risk assets like corporate bonds, stocks and infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, most also encourage clients towards options that do not guarantee savings invested, such as unit-linked plans. That same trend has already taken hold in Japan, where interest rates have remained low for quite some time. Insurers have restructured their portfolios to reduce investments with fixed rates of return and replaced those with plans tied to demographic risk, such as term life insurance or provident funds, Chassain says. In France, payments into unit-linked plans increased 38 percent in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the same three-month period the previous year. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Europe's low interest rates a headache for corporate pensions | ||
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Frankfurt (AFP) - Historically low interest rates in the euro area are becoming an increasing headache for companies forced to set aside billions in extra cash to meet their pension obligations to employees. The European Central Bank's ultra-easy monetary policy, with record low interest rates and unprecedented bond purchase programmes, has contributed greatly to the decline in yields on bond markets. That is not good news for the in-house schemes that many companies offer employees to help top up their state pensions. Like banks and insurers all across the eurozone, these corporate pension funds usually rely on adequate yields or interest rates to help increase and maximise their clients' investments. But with interest rates in the euro area around the lowest they have ever been, pension funds are finding it difficult to meet those demands. The corporate pension scheme is particularly well-established and popular in Germany. Around 17.8 million Germans had signed up to a corporate scheme at the end of 2013, or 60 percent of people in jobs required to pay social insurance contributions, according to data compiled by the Federal Labour Ministry. Given the low yields, companies are having to dig deeper into their own financial reserves to fulfil their pension obligations. German flag carrier Lufthansa, for example, set aside an additional 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in pension provisions for 2014 in order to meet the returns of six to seven percent it had guaranteed its employees. That burden was one of the factors that drove profits down to just 55 million euros last year. Power giant E.ON set aside an additional 2.2 billion euros in pension provisions last year and carmaker Daimler an extra 2.9 billion euros. According to a study by consultants Towers Watson, the companies that make up the blue-chip DAX 30 stock index saw their pension obligations jump by 25 percent to 372 billion euros last year. "The ECB's policy of low interest rates is having a strong effect on the financing situation for corporate pension schemes in German companies," Towers Watson said. British companies are facing similar problems, including several on London's FTSE 100 index of blue-chip stocks. According to JLT, a pension and benefits consultancy, "a number of FTSE 100 companies will be forced to increase their cash contributions to their defined benefits pensions schemes in 2015". JLT calculated that the total deficit in FTSE 100 pension schemes at the end of last year amounted to £80 billion (110 billion euros, $125 billion) wider than a year earlier. - Dilemma - This places companies in a dilemma between safeguarding their own financial reserves while still offering attractive pension packages to their workforce as demand for top-up schemes increases in the face of dwindling state pensions. "Employees' expectations with regard to corporate pension schemes will continue to rise. Adequate pension provisions will play a key role for companies looking to hire and keep hold of skilled employees," said Thomas Jasper at Towers Watson. "In order to remain attractive as an employer, companies need to offer attractive pension schemes while at the same time managing costs and risks," he said. German airline Lufthansa, for one, is currently looking to re-think its retirement system for employees. "The risks and costs of the existing pension system are jeopardising the airline's future sustainability," argued Lufthansa's personnel chief Bettina Volkens, insisting that pension provisions for all groups of employees needed to be reorganised. But talks on the issue with unions are deadlocked. Lufthansa's pilots, for example, have staged a series of walkouts over the past year in protest over management plans to scrap an arrangement under which pilots can retire at 55 and receive up to 60 percent of their pay until they reach the statutory retirement age of 65. Nevertheless, despite the challenges many companies are facing with their corporate pension schemes, the government is looking at how such programmes can be extended even further to small and mid-sized companies. With state pensions now averaging less than 800 euros per month, private sector employees are being encouraged to take every action to buy additional pension coverage. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Suicide blast near Kabul airport, casualties feared: official | ||
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Kabul (AFP) - A powerful suicide blast struck near Kabul airport during the peak morning rush hour on Sunday, with several casualties feared, an official said. "Three civilian vehicles, one of them belonging to foreign troops are damaged at the site of the attack," Najib Danish, deputy interior ministry spokesman, told AFP. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Troubled Macedonia braces for major opposition rally | ||
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Skopje (AFP) - Macedonia's opposition was set to lead a major anti-government rally on Sunday in the troubled Balkan country, which is struggling through a deep political crisis and an outbreak of violence. The protests are the culmination of months of wrangling between conservative Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his centre-left opponents, which has already sparked clashes on the streets of the capital Skopje. The country's troubles deepened last weekend with a shootout in the northern town of Kumanovo between police and ethnic Albanian rebels that left 18 people dead, including eight police officers. It marked the worst unrest in the former Yugoslav republic since its 2001 conflict between the government and ethnic Albanian guerillas. The opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), led by Zoran Zaev, is calling for the government to resign, accusing the ruling party of wiretapping 20,000 people, including politicians, journalists and religious leaders. Zaev has over recent months released snippets of the alleged recordings that appear to show widespread government corruption, a murder cover-up and other wrongdoings. His party has also boycotted parliament since an election in April last year, in which it claims Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE party committed fraud. "The time has come to show that we no longer want to live in a state led by Gruevski. See you Sunday," said a SDSM statement ahead of the protests, expected to attract thousands. Gruevski however has remained defiant, insisting in an interview late Saturday that he would not resign. His government denies making the phone recordings released by Zaev, but not that the voices are authentic -- although it says some are heavily edited or out of context. The government in turn accuses Zaev and his followers of spying and of wishing to destabilise the country and is due to hold a rival street protest on Monday. - 'Maneuvre of survival' - Gruevski, Zaev and ethnic Albanian party leaders held talks this week under global pressure to resolve the crisis, which could further hamper Macedonia's already stalled bid for membership of the European Union and NATO. All sides pledged to condemn violence and support democratic values, but there was little sign of a serious resolution. Two ministers and the intelligence chief resigned on Tuesday, having all been accused of involvement in the wire-tapping scandal. But Muamer Pajaziti, a Macedonian professor on European integration at Pristina University, said the resignations were only "a maneuvre of survival" by an increasingly unpopular government. "The opposition and the public will not accept it as a solution. There is a critical mass for change led by the opposition. Slowly, on a larger scale, there are preparations for a broad anti-government coalition," Pajaziti told AFP. Thirty alleged gunmen, including 18 ethnic Albanians from neighbouring Kosovo, have been charged with terror offences following last weekend's shootout in Kumanovo. Authorities claim a "particularly dangerous terrorist group" of ethnic Albanians had been planning a major attack. But the opposition and analysts suggested the timing of the unrest was suspicious, given the huge pressure facing Gruevski's government. Ethnic Albanians make up about one quarter of Macedonia's 2.1 million population. Macedonia obtained EU candidate status in 2005, but is yet to begin accession talks due to opposition from Greece. Athens denies its neighbour the right to use the name Macedonia, arguing it implies a claim on the northern Greek region of the same name. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Wine-loving France follows British lead on storing best wines | ||
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Lyon (AFP) - In wine-loving France, owners of fine bottles have ironically adopted a practice started in neighbouring Britain that helps ensure the old French adage, "life is too short to drink bad wine". Britain's connoisseurs have long entrusted their best tipple to private firms for safe keeping. The idea only crossed the Channel to France, which produces much of the great wine that interests collectors, when a well-heeled Asian clientele started driving up prices. One of the pioneers in the business, London wine merchants FINE+RARE, started renting space to customers in 1994 to keep good bottles out of harm's way -- from thieves and other enemies like fickle temperature, light and vibration. "Our storage clients are predominantly private clients, storing fine wine for future drinking or resale," said Joss Flower, the firm's grand cru director. Most live in Britain, with the Far East in second place since the firm also operates in Hong Kong, but customers come from all over the world, Flower said. The firm's vaults are a 40-minute drive downstream from London at Tilbury, a historic port on the Thames ideally placed to ship deliveries worldwide, on the premises of the warehousing firm London City Bond. The storage is "world-class," Flower said, "safe, secure, temperature-controlled" so corks, labels and wine remain in a perfect state for years. - Like cheap insurance - It's no surprise that storing private wines caught on in London, the capital of European finance where almost anything is negotiable, including vintage bottles. France took notice when wine prices began soaring -- first with Bordeaux varieties around 2010 before Chinese buyers also turned to bottles from Burgundy, which are more rare, according to Angelique de Lencquesaing, founder of the online auction site iDealwine. The "WineDexBordeaux," an index established on her Internet site, has climbed by more than 103 percent since 2007, while the "WineDexBourgogne" (Burgundy) has gone up by 113 percent. "The prices of some great vintages are so very high that storage is like an insurance that doesn't cost very much," said Andrew Amiach, who runs the Montquartiers wine cellars, not far from Paris. Twenty metres (66 feet) under the soil, the cellars at Montquartiers were carved out some 20 years ago in chalk quarries about 200 years old. The site is naturally well-suited to preserving bottles, with a temperature of 13 degrees Celsius (55 degrees Farenheit) and the appropriate level of humidity. Big collectors and professionals such as wine sellers and restaurateurs can rent a safe cellar, to which they alone have the key, for 300 euros ($335) a month. They are also given a small wine-tasting salon. But in the past couple of years, low-cost storage has been made available to the general public, such as space for 50 bottles at nine euros per month. - 'Corkscrews are banned' - In such cases, a collective cellar is used, but tight security measures still apply. Of 10 employees in the Montquartiers company, only two have a key. "To avoid the slightest temptation, corkscrews are banned," Amiach said, smiling. Today, the Montquartiers cellars stock 100,000 bottles owned by some 300 clients, including wines fit for well-off epicures such as a 1900 Sauternes and a pallet of Romanee-Conti bottles worth a total 100,000 euros. The same need for new facilities has been felt in the central city of Lyon, long a gastronomic capital, where soaring property prices and a lack of private storage space coincide with a promising market for wine. Businessman Philippe Gangneux founded La Cave Lyon -- modelled on a seasoned storage business in the French capital called La Cave Paris -- in a former factory three years ago, now safeguarding wines some customers don't dare keep at home. "You see here, a client called to ask me to photograph these bottles from the Romanee-Conti domaine, which he wants to sell," Gangneux said as an employee carefully pulled them out of packing straw. "This one... it's worth at least 7,000 euros." Further inside, pallets are well-wrapped. The biggest single client of La Cave Lyon is an Italian businessman who decided to store 13,000 bottles of great vintage wines in France. Like the guardian of a temple, Gangneux knows the stories behind labels, and bottles are synonymous with their owners. "Over here, you have a client who lives in India. Twenty percent of my clients live abroad," he added. "And there is my smallest client, a surgeon who saved somebody's life. The patient, very grateful, gave him two bottles of Chateaux Petrus." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Thousands in Chile's 'March for Equality' to support gay rights | ||
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Santiago (AFP) - Thousands of people, many waving rainbow-colored flags, gathered in Santiago for a "March for Equality," pushing for Chile to acknowledge more gay rights. The boisterous crowds showed their support for equality in the socially conservative South American nation, which has been slower to adopt gay marriage laws than some of its neighbors. March organizers estimated the size of the crowd at 50,000. Couples, some wearing wedding dresses, kissed for the cameras as they marched in downtown Santiago, ahead of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on Sunday. "It was a family-friendly, diverse and colorful event that marks one more step forward in Chile's social movement," a spokesperson for the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh) told AFP. The spokesperson urged Chile's government to do more to support transgender people, which he said face the greatest risk among Chile's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. "Today, it is important to make clear that the Chilean government urgently needs to recognize the rights of the trans community, which is the most vulnerable," he said. On Friday, the rainbow flag was raised at embassies, local government offices and at the headquarters of some political parties to mark Sunday's day against homophobia and transphobia. Chile's Congress in January approved the country's first law authorizing civil unions of gay and lesbian couples. Gay marriage has been recognized in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil and Colombia and Ecuador recognize civil unions or partnerships of same-sex couples. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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European battle brewing over 'blood metals' | ||
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Brussels (AFP) - Europe will consider this week whether to follow the United States by bringing in tighter controls on "conflict minerals" from war zones, but critics say the measures risk being watered down. Armed groups in areas such as the Democratic Republic of Congo often fund their activities through the sale of precious metals and those used in electronic goods such as laptops and mobile phones. The European Parliament will vote on a resolution this week that would force the EU's smelters and refiners to use responsibly sourced minerals, while encouraging other businesses to self-certify their supply chains. The aim is to ensure profits from the key "blood metals" -- tungsten, tin, tantalum and gold -- do not go to warlords. It is inspired by the Dodd-Frank Act, a 2010 US financial reform law under which US companies must inform regulators if they use metals from DR Congo or neighbouring countries. But the conflict minerals have themselves sparked a battle in Strasbourg, the French city that is home to the European Parliament. Leftist MPs and rights groups want the regulation to be compulsory across the board, not just for the 20 smelters and refineries in the bloc that would be affected, and are trying to pass amendments to the resolution. "This is now or never for us. It will be decisive," Maria Arena, conflict minerals spokeswoman for the Socialists and Democrats alliance in the parliament, told AFP. "We want to have a mandatory system for all of the supply chain." But they face stiff opposition from right-wing lawmakers and pro-business lobbyists, who are backing the resolution as it is and favour a more voluntary approach to the regulation of conflict minerals. "The voluntary approach will interest the avant-garde of responsible companies to participate," said Romanian EPP member Iuliu Winkler, who is steering the legislation through parliament.
- Star campaigner Mukwege -
Leading the charge for compulsory regulation is Denis Mukwege, a surgeon in the Democratic Republic of Congo who last year won Europe's top rights prize for his work treating victims of mass rape. "We want the measures to go further," Mukwege last week told the European Parliament, the same venue where he was presented with the Sakharov human rights prize in November. The campaign is also backed by Edward Zwick, the Hollywood producer of the hit Leonardo DiCaprio film "Blood Diamond" about how the gemstones financed the 1990s war in Sierra Leone. Amnesty International, the London-based rights group, said all companies should have to show their supply chains were safe. "We want companies to identify the smelters and refiners they are sourcing from and whether they have put measures in place to identify and mitigate the risk that the trade of gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten is fuelling conflict," Nele Meyer of Amnesty told AFP. Compulsory regulation would also mean that Chinese and other non-EU firms that want to export goods to Europe would be under pressure to check the sources of minerals, said campaign group Global Witness. But supporters of the European Parliament resolution being voted on this week say it is in fact stronger than the original proposal by the European Commission -- the executive arm of the 28-nation bloc -- which would have made all regulation voluntary, including for smelters. Lobby group Business Europe said the voluntary approach encouraged companies to "develop responsible management schemes". Tech giants like Apple and Hewlett Packard have previously made efforts to ensure the traceability of their supplies. There have also been criticisms of the Dodd-Frank act for having unintended side effects, such as causing businesses to pull out of DR Congo altogether, leaving thousands of miners out of work and vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups. After this week's conflict minerals vote, EU countries will have further talks on the issue before working out a compromise with the European Commission, sources close to the matter said.
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Toyota City: symbol of Japan's auto rise | ||
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Toyota City (Japan) (AFP) - Toyota City stands as a testament to the meteoric rise of its namesake, now the world's biggest carmaker with record profits and sales of more than 10 million cars globally last year. But this sprawling city of 422,000 people, just east of the industrial centre Nagoya, was once a struggling textiles town called Koromo whose inhabitants depended on silk production to make a living. Times got tough for the little community as the sector began to decline from the end of World War I, and it was further shaken by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which took 140,000 lives across the country, as well as the Great Depression six years later. By 1933, as Japan focused on bolstering its domestic industries and imperial ambitions, Kiichiro Toyoda decided to build automobiles with the same pioneering spirit as his father Sakichi, who invented the automatic loom. But where could he build a factory big enough to roll out cars? A string of communities were interested. In a stroke of fate, Koromo got the nod for its cheap land and nearby transit links -- and the enthusiasm of the town's then mayor who faced off with sceptical local landowners. "At that time, people didn't really believe in the auto industry but he (the mayor) had the right intuition," a municipal official told AFP, adding that the sector was "crucial for the city's prosperity". And on August 28, 1937, "Toyota Jidosha Kogyo" (Toyota Automotive Industry) was born with a 495,000-square-metre (5.3-million-square-foot) factory big enough for 5,000 workers opened the following year.
- More than just cars -
While the Corolla and Prius hybrid maker now has plants in every corner of the globe, Toyota City still has a total of 10 factories building cars and parts in the city proper and surrounding area. There are about 70,000 local people working for Toyota in the area, many whose parents or grandparents also relied on the giant company for a pay cheque, with about 40 percent of local employees working in the auto sector. So it seemed appropriate that, in 1959, the town changed its name to Toyota-Shi, or Toyota City in English, although that was a controversial move at the time -- and the current mayor says his community is about more than just one industry. "It is true that this is the city of the car --- the name speaks for itself -- but that isn't everything," says Toshihiko Ota. "We are the leading producer of rice in Aichi prefecture and we also grow grapes and pears. Toyota City has many faces, which is sometimes masked by cars." But the reality is, despite efforts to diversify the local economy, it is still heavily dependent on Toyota and local suppliers, with the company's subsidiaries also involved in real estate, tourism, and insurance. "When Toyota coughs, the whole city catches a cold" is a common phrase, a point underlined during the 2008 financial crisis that saw Toyota lay off thousands of temporary employees, while tax revenue from the company temporarily dipped. "The atmosphere was morose, it depressed the entire region," the mayor says. Still, the city avoided the fate of another auto city, Detroit, whose declining fortunes saw it declare bankruptcy two years ago. And with the recovery came a renewed optimism for Toyota City, beefed up by municipal projects including new schools and hospitals... sponsored by Toyota. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Malaysia, Bangladesh foreign ministers to discuss migrant crisis | ||
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Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Malaysia's Foreign Minister will meet his Bangladeshi counterpart Sunday to discuss the crisis involving a surge in stricken boatpeople from Bangladesh and Myanmar flooding to Southeast Asia, state media said. "It is one of the topics and a very important issue in the agenda," Foreign Minister Anifah Aman was quoted saying in a brief dispatch by Malaysia's official news agency Bernama. The meeting with Bangladesh's A.H. Mahmood Ali will take place in the city of Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island. Reports in Bangladeshi media suggested that the country's top diplomat was in Malaysia as part of a pre-planned trip rather than in response to the growing international uproar over the migrant influx. Malaysian foreign ministry officials could not be immediately reached for comment. More than 1,000 migrants have washed ashore in Malaysia over the past week, with hundreds of others reaching Indonesia. Activists say thousands more are feared to be drifting at sea in rickety boats after a Thai crackdown on human-trafficking disrupted busy smuggling routes to Southeast Asia. International pressure on the region to take in the starving migrants arriving in rickety vessels has mounted after Malaysia and Indonesia turned away boats. The arrivals from Muslim Bangladesh are believed to be mainly economic migrants seeking to escape their country's grinding poverty, while those from Myanmar are predominantly members of that country's repressed Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority. Thousands of such migrants make it to Malaysia every year, which is sought after for its relatively prosperous economy and for being majority Muslim. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Has the UK hit 'full employment'? | ||
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"Full employment" sounds like a bit of a pipe dream. But the UK may in fact be approaching it — in fact it may already be there. The economic concept of full unemployment basically means a level where almost everyone who wants to work will be in work — i.e. the supply of jobs is strong enough to meet demand. Zero unemployment is actually undesirable from an economic stand-point as in theory it would allow employs to dictate their own pay and as a result drive inflation. Looked at another way, full employment is basically the sweet spot for the economy and should offer some stability. Employment in the UK is currently at a record high — 73.5% — and unemployment is at its lowest point since 2008. So are we at full employment? Martin Beck, senior economic adviser to the EY ITEM Club, said: "Today’s figures offer the first real hint that the pattern of sharp falls in unemployment and subdued wage growth that the UK labour market has seen for much of the past few year is starting to change. Both of the main measures of unemployment saw smaller falls in the latest data alongside a clear acceleration in wage growth."
One of the knock on effects of full employment is wage growth. With fewer people looking for work, employers are forced to raise pay to attract workers. That's exactly what we're seeing, with wages accelerating at the fastest rate in four years. The UK unemployment rate has also just hit the same level, 5.5%, at which BNP Paribas declared full employment in the US earlier this year. But Alastair Winter, chief economist at stockbroker Daniel Stewart, doesn't think we're in the economic sweet spot. He told Business Insider: "The short answer is no, we are not there yet." Winter thinks more jobs will be created by government initiatives like apprenticeships and small business funding, while public sector cuts and the rise of robots will chip away at employment elsewhere. Winter says: "I see both supply and demand of workers going up, but that does not mean either output or wages may rise much because of the rise and rise of services jobs, which are holding back productivity. The Bank of England sees productivity as a big issue, warning today that the economy is creating the wrong type of jobs. Winters says: "I suspect if the headline rate fell below 4.5% there would be a definite case for calling full employment so maybe the level is 4.5 to 4.8%." The Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility also puts its full employment threshold below out currently unemployment. Both institutions set the level at 5%, using a measurement called the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment, or NAIRU. Still, while we may not be a full employment yet, the signs are the economy is heading towards it. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Forget the Apple Watch — here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants  | ||
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Guatemalans push for resignation of president | ||
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Guatemala City (AFP) - Thousands took to the streets in Guatemala City, demanding that President Otto Perez step down due to a corruption scandal that has shaken his government to its core. Braving rain and a crush of people, demonstrators banged drums and blew whistles calling for Perez to stand down as his now ex-vice president Roxana Baldetti already has done. Prosecutors last month uncovered a customs bribery ring following an investigation by the UN International Commission Against Impunity, accusing top tax officials and an aide to Baldetti, Juan Carlos Monzon, of involvement. Baldetti herself resigned May 8. But Perez has sought to ride it out, saying the investigation was supported by state prosecutors, and has called for peaceful demonstrations. "I have never seen anything like this demonstration in my entire life," Norma Maldonado, a retiree in her sixties toting a sign that read "No more theft NOW," told AFP. "We can't take it any more. We have to do something to stop all this corruption by our thieving political class," said student Isabel Morales, adding that the graft was all the more appalling given extreme poverty throughout much of the Central American nation's countryside. There were demonstrations in 13 cities across the mountainous country of over 15 million. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Clooney goes back to future in 'Tomorrowland' | ||
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Los Angeles (AFP) - Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney straps on a jet pack again for Disney's new movie "Tomorrowland," a retro-futuristic spectacle mixing environmental themes with sci-fi wizardry -- and some good old-fashioned fun. Clooney, who fired up his thrusters only two years ago in Oscar-winning space drama "Gravity," stars as a burned-out engineering genius in the film to be released next week, just in time for the summer blockbuster season. The actor said the movie, which is difficult to categorize, was a courageous gamble by the studio giant, going up against sure-fire box office hits like the latest "Avengers" sequel, "Age of Ultron." "It's a really bold thing for Disney to be willing to do a film that isn't a sequel and isn't a comic book and truly invest in a summer film of this sort of ilk," he said, presenting the film ahead of its US release on May 22. The movie's plot has been shrouded in secrecy and, without giving away spoilers, it certainly provides a rollercoaster cinematic ride worthy of Disney's Tomorrowland theme parks whose name it shares. It tells the story of teenage rebel Casey, played by Britt Robertson, who finds herself sucked into a mission to unearth the secrets of "Tomorrowland," a future realm ruled by a despot played by British "House" star Hugh Laurie. Clooney plays inventor Frank Walker, who found his way into Tomorrowland as a young boy but became cynical and was thrown out by Laurie's character, David Nix. - Eiffel Tower spectacle - The climax comes after some spectacular scenes, including one featuring the Eiffel Tower, showcasing computer-generated imagery by director Brad Bird, who won an Oscar for animated film "The Incredibles" in 2005. It is unclear what Tomorrowland represents -- some kind of collective consciousness of the future might be a best bet -- but the basic theme of the movie is that optimism should overcome cynicism. "What I loved about the film was that it reminds you that young people (are) not... born and start out their lives cynical or angry or bigoted, you have to be taught all of those things," said Clooney. "I watch the world now and think I see really good signs from young people out there, and I feel as if the world will get better," added the actor, whose previous sci-fi outings have included 2002's "Solaris." Robertson said climate change was also a key theme. "It's us that's creating that issue, it's not anything other than the people and the environment and what we're doing to the environment," the 25-year-old actress told AFP. "I do think it's all of these issues that provoke the post-apocalyptic movies you see where the world is ending, whether it be environmental or technological," she added. The Disney film is also a tribute to the studio giant's founder, Walt Disney. "Walt was a futurist. He was very interested in space travel and what cities were going to look like and how transportation was going to work," said Damon Lindelof, who co-wrote the movie with Bird. "Walt's thinking was that the future is not something that happens to us. It's something we make happen. And we really wanted to take that baton and run with it," he told industry publication Variety. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Liverpool prepare for life after Gerrard | ||
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Liverpool (AFP) - Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers braced supporters for a close-season rebuilding process after long-serving captain Steven Gerrard played his final home game for the club. Gerrard, 34, declared himself "devastated" following Saturday's 3-1 loss to Crystal Palace at a sold-out Anfield and must now prepare for his last ever Liverpool appearance at Stoke City next weekend. Gerrard's departure echoes that of his fellow stalwart Jamie Carragher, who bowed out in 2013, and with Luis Suarez still to be satisfactorily replaced following his move to Barcelona last year, Rodgers knows there is a pressing need to bolster his squad. Asked if it would be possible to replace Gerrard -- who joins the Los Angeles Galaxy in July -- with one player, Rodgers told his post-match press conference: "I dont think there is that. "He is a player and a person who is irreplaceable for the club. What he's given over his time here and the standards he's set are second to none. "We'll go forward at the end of the season and we'll have to plot a way to improve in the summer. That's our challenge." Having pushed Manchester City all the way in last season's title race, Liverpool have slipped back in 2014-15 and are yet to secure even the consolation of a Europa League place after missing out on a Champions League berth. But asked if he felt optimistic about the future, Rodgers replied: "We have to (be). "In my time here, we've lost a couple of players with 700-odd games for the club in Jamie Carragher (737) and Steven Gerrard (709). "Those two guys have been monumental players for the club, so losing both of those is a big blow. Throw in a world-class player like Luis Suarez, and of course it's difficult. "This year has been very difficult for us in many aspects. But the players have given everything they possibly can and hopefully in the summer we can add that quality that the group clearly needs and take the opportunity next year."
- Pardew targets top eight -
Should Liverpool falter again next season, they should not necessarily expect Gerrard to appear on a white charger. There is a feeling that Gerrard could return to Anfield on loan -- following the examples of David Beckham and Thierry Henry during their stints in Major League Soccer -- but he told the BBC that he would only consider returning in an "emergency situation". Rodgers's side took a 26th-minute lead when Adam Lallana seized on a misplaced pass from former Liverpool player Martin Kelly before beating Wayne Hennessey. But Palace equalised through Jason Puncheon's free-kick just before half-time and second-half goals from substitutes Wilfried Zaha and Glenn Murray secured a first league win at Anfield since November 1991. Rodgers complained with justification that Zaha had been offside when he tapped in Yannick Bolasie's low cross on the hour and that the foul on Zaha by Lucas Leiva that led to Murray's stoppage-time penalty had occurred outside the box. But he also conceded that his side had been "punished" for committing "poor defensive errors". Former Palace midfielder Alan Pardew has rejuvenated the club since returning as manager in January and he hopes that performances such as Saturday's win will help the club make transformative signings. "For the chairman (Steve Parish) and the board, it must be quite exciting," said Pardew, whose side had lost their four previous games. "We're in a good position financially. Put two or three quality players into that group and we could attack the top eight, top 10. "I want to be knocking on (Parish's) door. He's been receptive to my opinions. It's still difficult to get quality players through the door, and I think today's performance will have helped us. "Players abroad can see we've produced performances against top teams. Now we need that little bit of extra quality. Hopefully we've shown players in Europe that they can come here and have a great future." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Alaphilippe tops field after gruelling Mt. Baldy climb | ||
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Mount Baldy (United States) (AFP) - French all-rounder Julian Alaphilippe claimed his first victory of the season with a powerful finishing kick up Mount Baldy to dislodge Peter Sagan from the Tour of California lead. Alaphilippe, who turns 23 next month, sprinted away from the challengers with about four kilometres to go in the 128 kilometre (80 mile) seventh stage from Ontario to the Mount Baldy ski resort. The Etixx-Quick-Step rider now has a two-second lead over Sagan in the overall classification following a courageous performance from the overnight leader from Slovakia. Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) crossed the finish line, 47 seconds adrift of Alaphilippe after starting the stage with a 45-second lead over the Frenchman. Sagan had nothing left after his storming ride up the out of category switchback ascent, climbing off his bike and collapsing to the pavement at 1,964 metres. He finished sixth in the stage. Pre-race favourite Sergio Henao finished runner-up, 23 seconds behind Alaphilippe in the stage with Sky team-mate Ian Boswell, Joe Dombrowski (Cannondale-Garmin) and Riccardo Zoidl (Trek) rounding out the top five. "I ran out of gas in the last few kilometres," Dombrowski said. Sunday's 105-kilometre eighth and final stage from downtown Los Angeles to the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena should end with another sprint finish. This year's race comprises 13 host cities and eight stages run over a total distance of 1,165 kilometres. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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It looks like bailing out Royal Bank of Scotland could have lost taxpayers £13.5 billion | ||
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George Osborne could be about to admit defeat on the bailout of the Royal Bank of Scotland and swallow a £13.5 billion ($20.89 billion) loss for the UK taxpayer. The new Conservative government is reportedly considering speeding up the sale of shares in both Lloyds and RBS, Reuters reports, even if it means selling RBS shares at a loss. The government, then under Gordon Brown and chancellor Alistair Darling, was forced to bail out both banks at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. The combined cost to the taxpayer was £66 billion ($101.77 billion). The government has since sold around half of its 41% stake in Lloyds, managing to make a profit. But chancellor George Osborne has yet to sell any RBS shares and the government still owns 80% of the bank. RBS shares have sunk below the price at which government injected cash in and failed to recover, leaving it with a loss of around £13.5 billion on paper. The government bought into RBS at an average price of 502p a share. If you take away everything the government has recouped back in fees and dividends, Osborne would have to sell Royal Bank of Scotland shares at an average price of 482p a share just to break even. Royal Bank of Scotland is currently trading well below that level at 354p.
Despite the poor share performance chancellor George Osborne is said to be warming to the idea of cutting the Government's losses and getting out of the bank. The Tories are ideologically opposed to state ownership and are understood to be uncomfortable holding such a huge position in a bank. Osborne will reportedly launch an independent review within weeks into the idea of a share sale. While selling RBS shares is far from set in stone, if the Government does accept that it has lost £13.5 billion bailing out the bank it would not only be a huge cost for UK taxpayers but also be a huge blow to the credibility of both the government and the UK banking sector. The US managed to make a $15.35 billion profit from its bailout of the banking and car making industries through its Troubled Asset Relief Programme, which ended last year. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 'Game of Thrones': The Iron Throne is a terrible investment  | ||
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American Pharoah wins Preakness raising Triple Crown hopes | ||
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Baltimore (AFP) - American Pharoah won a rain-soaked Preakness Stakes, keeping alive his bid to become the first horse in 37 years to claim US racing's Triple Crown. The Kentucky Derby winner, trained by Bob Baffert and ridden by Victor Espinoza, was untroubled by driving rain that turned the Pimlico track to a soupy mess minutes before post time. Taken to the front early, American Pharoah cruised to victory in the 1 3/16-mile race ahead of longshot Tale of Verve, with Divining Rod third. "Just an incredible horse," Baffert said after watching his charge dominate in a race that took on added drama in a deluge that began soon after the horses were saddled. Fans in the Pimlico infield were shepherded into tents as thunder rolled and the horses were loaded into the starting gate. After a little wobble out of the inside gate, American Pharoah was quickly taken to the front of the eight horse field by Espinoza and never looked back on the way to a seven-length triumph. "He broke a little tiny bit slow, and then I pushed him to go to the front," said Espinoza, who hadn't planned to go straight to the front but changed his strategy because of the rain. "As soon as I took the lead, that was it," he said. "A very comfortable cruise around at high speed." - Belmont looms - Now with a victory in the June 6 Belmont Stakes American Pharoah can become the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 to capture the Triple Crown. Pharoah is the 14th horse since Affirmed to win the first two legs of the coveted treble. Baffert has now saddled four of those horses -- including Silver Charm in 1997, Real Quiet in 1998 and War Emblem in 2002. "I don't even want to think about it right now," Baffert said of the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes dubbed "The Test of the Champion." "It's tough up there. I don't even want to think about it for another couple of weeks. We'll see how he comes back -- it's been a great ride so far." Baffert isn't the only member of the American Pharoah team who has seen prior Triple Crown dreams dashed at the Belmont. Espinoza piloted California Chrome to Kentucky Derby and Preakness victories last year before a fourth-place finish in the Belmont. He was also aboard 2002 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner War Emblem, who was denied in the Belmont. "It seems like hopefully the third time is the lucky charm," Espinoza said of his chances of finally finishing off a Triple Crown. In the Belmont, American Pharoah will not only have to get the longer distance, he'll face a field filled with fresh contenders who skipped either the Kentucky Derby or Preakness or even both. Last year, Tonalist, a colt that skipped both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, won the Belmont. Baffert, who has long said the Preakness is the easiest of the Triple Crown races to win, has now won it six times -- tying fellow Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas for the second-most all-time. But he was emotional after the win, offering thanks to the city of Baltimore which in recent weeks saw violent demonstrations over the April 19 death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American who sustained a severe spine injury while in police custody. "I want to thank Baltimore," Baffert said. "You guys have been through a lot." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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'Paddle in Seattle' protesters condemn Artic drilling | ||
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Washington (AFP) - Environmental activists in Seattle paddled out to sea to protest a Shell oil rig moored off the coast of the US city that is headed for Arctic drilling, local media reported. Hundreds of kayaks, canoes, sailboats and a solar-powered barge called "The People's Platform" circled around Shell's massive yellow and white oil rig moored in the city's port, The Seattle Times reported. Protesters held signs reading "Paddle in Seattle" and posted flags from their boats calling for "Climate Justice," condemning Shell's plans to drill in the Arctic. The protest follows an announcement from President Barack Obama this month allowing Shell to drill in the Arctic, a move that has angered environmentalists. "The tiny boats on the water against the backdrop of the giant oil rig... It is a chance to show how much people care," protester Amy McKendry told the newspaper. The 307-foot (94-meter) Shell oil rig has been in Seattle port since Thursday, according to The Seattle Times. The rig is the largest part of the 25-vessel fleet Shell Oil has in the area as it prepares to resume oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic, the newspapaper added. Obama recently called oil production "important," while also asking for a transition towards cleaner energy. Environmental groups oppose the drilling in part because of the threat an oil spill would pose to the region full of vulnerable Arctic animals. Shell put its drilling plans for the Alaskan Arctic on hold in 2013 following multiple problems with two exploration rigs. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Vienna's Life Ball extravaganza draws stars in fight against AIDS | ||
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Vienna (AFP) - From actress Charlize Theron to French fashion icon Jean-Paul Gaultier, the Life Ball, one of the world's biggest AIDS charity events, drew scores of celebrities to Vienna on Saturday. This year's theme was inspired by the ancient Roman festival "Ver Sanctum" or "Holy Spring", turning the neo-Gothic City Hall into a gold-drenched fantasy world teeming with paradise birds, angels and Amazonian beauties. Among the night's shining stars was 2014 Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst, who was welcomed with loud cheers by an adoring crowd on the red carpet. Shortly after her arrival appeared Life Ball debutante Theron with her partner, US actor Sean Penn. "I have no idea what to expect. There is nothing comparable in the US," she said. Other American celebrities included entertainer Paula Abdul and transgender model Carmen Carrera, who wore a heavy gown made entirely of gold chains. Meanwhile British star Kelly Osbourne turned up in a simple black dress, admitting that she had failed to read the invitation properly and did not know "there was a gold theme". The exuberant opening ceremony was crowned with a fashion show by Gaultier. But amid all the glitz and glamour, there was also a stark reminder of the event's actual purpose. Life Ball organiser Gery Keszler revealed in a tearful speech that he himself was a carrier of the HIV virus. "I was one of the first to be infected in Austria," he said at the opening of the ball. "I want to give hope to those affected." The Life Ball, which attracts some 40,000 revellers every year, donates its proceeds to both national and international projects fighting HIV/AIDS. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ecuador breaks Guinness reforestation record | ||
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Catequilla (Ecuador) (AFP) - Ecuador broke the world record for reforestation Saturday, as thousands of people pitched in to plant 647,250 trees in a single day, President Rafael Correa said. "I have just been informed that we have broken the Guinness record for reforestation," the president said in his weekly address. He said several different species were planted and that the reforestation efforts took place all over Ecuador, which boasts varied geography from its Pacific coast, high Andean peaks and low Amazon basin. Environment Minister Lorena Tapia said on Twitter that 44,883 people planted the trees on more than 2,000 hectares of land. The record, set just last year, apparently was taken from a group in the Philippines, Guinness said. Scientists believe planting trees helps offset carbon buildup, as they sequester carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere and help to reduce global warming. Ecuador holds several other world records, including the most plastic bottles recycled in one week and the most people buried in sand simultaneously, according to Guinness. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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How hackers built software to steal naked photos from hundreds of women automatically | ||
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Two men in the US are facing up to 15 years in federal prison in connection to the development of a piece of software that was able to automatically hack into the private online photo albums of women and steal their naked photos. Brandon Bourret and Athanasios Andrianakis were arrested Friday and accused of creating a piece of software named "Photofucket" that looks through private online photo albums on the photo-sharing site Photobucket. They have not yet responded to the charges. The US Department of Justice cautions that "the charges contained in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty." Lots of people use Photobucket to host personal photographs online. It was acquired by MySpace in 2007 for $250 million but eventually sold off to a Seattle-based company in 2010. Though it is less popular than it once was, a lot of people still have photos on the site because they used it for MySpace, while others still use it as a handy place to store their photographs online and share them with others. A giant cache of photos from around the world is an attractive target for hackers. There are plenty of forums online where people buy and sell tools to search through private photos in search of naked women. But most of those tools — like the ones used in a mass release of naked celebrity photos called "the fappening" — require users to hack each account manually. Bourret and Andrianakis are accused of developing Photofucket so it would isolate hidden photographs automatically.
The tool works by "fusking" URLs to expose links to private photos. Fusking is the act of locating a website or account that you know is on the web, and then guessing URL addresses that branch off it until you find pages that are not supposed to be seen. The tool tries lots of different URLs automatically — by sequentially changing plausible dates or numbers in the original URL — until it discovers links to photos that are on the web but posted in a location that is otherwise private. Here's what it looks like when you run the tool on a person's account in search of photos:
Fusking, however, isn't a new exploit. In fact, it has been a known security issue for years. BuzzFeed wrote about Photobucket fuskers back in 2012. Photobucket has tried to shut down fuskers by implementing levels of security, which appears to have infuriated the hackers who were trying to find naked photos. Emails that the Department of Justice says were sent between Bourret and Andrianakis show a constant fight against the site's increased security:
Developing the hacking software was just the first step, though. To make money off an exploit, hackers need to find a willing buyer. Luckily for hacker developers, there are several online forums dedicated to stealing photos of women and sharing advice on how to do it. One of the most famous forums used by hackers to find porn is called AnonIB. You might recognise that name — it's the website where photos of naked celebrities first surfaced after a user named "Originalguy" posted his collection of photographs stolen from Apple's iCloud. That collection quickly spread to the anarchic bulletin board forum 4chan, then to Reddit, as stars like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton saw their private photographs posted online. Niche porn forums have discussed Photobucket exploits for years, but Photofucket managed to monetise that interest by automating the process and marketing the software directly to porn forums. The basic version of the product was available free, but the developers charged $29.99 for a fully upgraded version that could retrieve passwords and automatically scan user profiles.
Other users joined in to the discussion, commenting "any proof? couse i've already heard this story..." so the original poster returns with a link to AnonIB that details the exploit in a specific subforum dedicated to finding naked photographs of women on Photobucket. Photobucket exploits and fusking remain a regular topic of discussion on AnonIB, even after it wiped much of the site following the iCloud hack. Here's a discussion from January 2015 on AnonIB:
One user posted a photo of a woman and her Photobucket URL, then asked for help in finding her private photographs and movies. A more experienced user fusks the victim's profile by manually trying different URLs in the hope of finding photos. The user explains that "some chicks just keep adding -1-2-3" onto photo URLs, making it easy for people to guess the links to their private photos.
Someone else on AnonIB suggested trying to reset her password using Google searches to learn her date of birth and email address. Later comments ask for "any wins?" "Wins" is internet slang for naked photographs, which is what hackers are looking for on Photobucket. The arrests of two men isn't going to stop people fusking for naked photos. The software is still available free online, and exploits are still openly discussed on forums. One Wikipedia user warns that the fusking industry has existed for years: When sites like realwebwhores, navnet, ixtractor, fuskerfind and anonib exist because of photobucket's crap security and millions of unwitting girls are having their images stolen and hidden in rars files on sites like rapidshare I'd call that a "slight" security problem. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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