Man says he's found a way to hack a Starbucks gift card so extra money magically appears out of thin air | ||
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For the second time in as many weeks Starbucks is facing allegations that its payments system is hackable. This latest claim comes from security researcher Egor Homakov. The computer expert performed an experiment on three Starbucks gift cards, reports the Daily Dot. He bought them to see if he could find any holes in the Starbucks gift card and mobile-payments system. Focusing on a common bug in payments software systems known as 'race conditions,' Homakov tried to see if he could figure out a way to hack his gift cards. The researcher calls these race conditions "very common bugs for websites with balances, vouchers or other limited resources (mostly money)" on his blog. While capitalizing on this problem is difficult to explain (it's writing a bunch of code and launching it at a very specific time), Homakov was essentially able to fudge the gift card recharging system and add money to his cards from ostensibly nowhere. It looked as if he was transferring money from one card to another, but because of this vulnerability he figured out how to increase this amount. This bug, if executed correctly, gives people the power to add funds from nothing based on a flaw in the system architecture. It took him six tries to figure out how to exploit the problem, but after all was said and done he had $20 on his gift cards. To make sure it wasn’t some technical error, he went to the closest Starbucks and bought himself a $15 meal. Afterward, to avoid any legal problems, he added $10 to his Starbucks accounts to make up for the money he had hacked. This comes less than two weeks after Bob Sullivan wrote on his blog about an alleged other Starbucks hack that made it possible for hackers to transfer funds from one account to another. For this issue, it seems hackers were able to crack user passwords using a technique known as brute force, and then transfer funds from the hacked accounts into their own card. If autoreload is programmed onto the app, the hackers can automatically withdraw funds from a person's bank account. A woman whose account was hacked reportedly saw more than $100 withdrawn from her account into a ghost Starbucks gift card in less than seven minutes. Both of these alleged hacker attacks take aim at Starbucks’ gift-card program and app. The coffee giant’s mobile-payments system is the biggest payments app on the market currently, and these two issues highlight potential vulnerabilities with its underlying technology. Or, at the very least, with the way it safeguards user accounts from hijackers. Starbucks responded to Bob Sullivan’s earlier allegations via a blog post, denying any formal hacks had happened to its systems. The company explained that it has "safeguards in place to constantly monitor for fraudulent activity and works closely with financial institutions." It added that customers' accounts are likely being hacked because criminals have obtained "reused names and passwords from other sites." This latest issue discovered by Homakov, however, seems to be an actual problem with Starbucks' technology. Business Insider contacted Starbucks about this most recent allegation, which alludes to an actual vulnerability in their gift-card framework. A spokesperson responded: "Like all major retailers, Starbucks has safeguards in place to constantly monitor for fraudulent activity. After this individual reported he was able to commit fraudulent activity against Starbucks, we put safeguards in place to prevent replication." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how much you have to buy to make Amazon Prime worth it  | ||
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Incredible before-and-after photos show how much New York City has changed since the 1800s | ||
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This week, the New York Public Library released an interactive website that allows users to travel back in time using the Library's historical photography database. The site, called OldNYC, features a digital map where users can view photos of the island dating as far back as the early 19th century. There are photos for almost every intersection in the city, so you can see the evolution of historical landmarks and even your own address. Here's a look at the lights of Times Square in 1920. And here is Times Square today. This is an intersection on 8th Avenue in 1925, 25 years before it would become home to one of the city's major transportation hubs. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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There's a new map that will help you chart exactly how much Manhattan has changed over the years. This 23-year-old gave up a corporate job to make $5,000 a month reselling thrift store clothes through an app | ||
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Back in 2012, when she was a student at the University of Arkansas, Alexandra Marquez downloaded the Poshmark app on a whim. She'd seen it mentioned on social media and was immediately intrigued by the concept. While it looks similar to Instagram, Poshmark allows you to sell clothing just like you would on eBay. "I was super addicted from the start," the 23-year-old says. "It was a great way to make money." Although many of Poshmark's 700,000 sellers use the app as a way to clean out their closets, Marquez had always been interested in running her own business. She began searching thrift stores for gently used items from department store brands and buying them to resell on the app. "I'm not going to lie, it was pretty challenging at first," she says. On average, she made $500 a month when she started out — not an insignificant amount, but not enough to live on, either. Initially, she didn't know which brands and styles would sell on the app, and which wouldn't, so she spent time studying what was popular. Then, she'd go out and buy those items. To get her listings noticed, she also focused on perfecting her photography skills. After a year and half, she became a suggested user on the app, meaning that all new users were invited to follow her. That exposure led to more sales, and she began making around $5,000 a month.
By then, she'd graduated from the University of Arkansas and taken a full-time job at a marketing company earning a $50,000 salary. But after a year, she left to focus on her clothing sales full time. "It was a great job, but I decided the corporate world wasn't for me," she explains. Now, she devotes three or four days of her week to shopping, with the goal of posting several new items every day. Local boutiques in Bentonville, Arkansas, where she lives, often sell their overstock to her at a discount. In addition to making regular visits to thrift stores, she also buys gently used clothing and accessories directly from women in her area. Most of the clothing and accessories she sells are priced from $40 to $250, and she determines her prices by seeing what similar items have sold for on the app. Besides buying clothing that she'll later resell at a profit, Marquez doesn't have many costs that go into her business. She doesn't have the overhead of a bricks and mortar store, and doesn't even need to have her own website. Poshmark covers the shipping costs and credit card fees for each transaction, so she just pays a commission on each sale: $2.95 for anything under $15, and 20% on anything over $15. After that, she's left with a take-home pay of around $5,000 per month. Though being self-employed gives her the flexibility to work from anywhere and choose her hours, she admits that she's constantly on the app, no matter where she goes or what time of day it is. "I look at my phone from the time that I wake up until the time that I go to bed … and sometimes also when I get up in the middle of the night." Typically, she lists around 75 new items each month, and ships out anywhere from 15 to 40 sold items each week. After her bills are paid, Marquez puts most of her extra money back into her business by buying more inventory to sell on the app. She doesn't live extravagantly, since her income isn't as predictable as it was in her corporate job, and she can't count on making the same amount of money each month. "The only downside is the unpredictability of sales," she says. Like any retail business, hers has seasonal fluctuations, and a slow month could mean she takes home $3,000 instead of $5,000. But for now, she's happy to trade some stability for the chance to be her own boss. SEE ALSO: 11 tips to start earning money doing what you love, from people who have done it Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 70 people were injured while filming this movie with 100 untamed lions  | ||
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Teenage hacker admits to stalking and 'swatting' female gamers who turned him down | ||
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A 17-year-old hacker from British Columbia, Canada, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to 23 charges of extortion, public mischief, false police reports, and criminal harassment. The teen had been targeting "mostly young female gamers" who had resisted his advances and denied his friend requests on the popular video game "League of Legends." The hacker, whose name has not been released because he is a minor, had been shutting down the internet access of those who rejected him, as well as posting their personal information online and calling them repeatedly. According to The Tri-City News, the teen would tell the police he was holding a family hostage, had napalm bombs, or had killed someone in the house, sometimes demanding ransoms. The teen would do this to force the police to send SWAT teams and police helicopters to his victims' homes. The practice, known as "swatting," has become prevalent in the gaming community, and it often targets those who are live-streaming their game-playing sessions, allowing an audience to see the SWAT team arrive.
The hacker would brag about the pranks on social media, streaming himself carrying out many of them. The most egregious case involved an Arizona woman who withdrew from the University of Arizona after the hacker threatened her and her parents. The hacker called the Tucson police, claiming he had shot his parents with an AR15 rifle, had bombs, and would kill police officers on sight. This prompted a SWAT team to raid the woman's home. He pulled the same prank five days later while the woman's mother was visiting and then again on her parents' house, where her father and brother were dragged out at gunpoint. His harassment didn't end there. He posted the woman's parents' credit-card information online, sent his victim 218 simultaneous text messages, and hacked into her email and Twitter accounts. His reign of terror peaked when he posted an eight-hour live stream on YouTube under the usernames "obnoxious" and "internetjesusob" of his swatting and harassing a victim in Ohio. People watching the stream notified the police. After the hacker was arrested, the police uncovered numerous other false reports sent out by the hacker, including a 2013 bomb threat to Disneyland. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Apple has a crazy idea for the iPhone's home button that could make it much more powerful and useful (AAPL) | ||
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The iPhone's home button is already a crucial part of the experience — in addition to using it when you want to exit an app, the fingerprint sensor in newer iPhones lets you unlock your phone and verify your identity. Now, a recently published Apple patent application provides more evidence that the home button probably isn't going away anytime soon. The patent application, published on Thursday, describes a system in which you could use the iPhone's fingerprint sensor to actually navigate your phone. Apple highlights a few specific-use cases in the images included with the document. The idea is to expand the functionality of the home button by incorporating Touch ID into other use cases beyond verification and unlocking your phone. For example, pressing down or holding the home button could launch the search function from the home screen. And, at the same time, the fingerprint sensor in the home button could be incorporated into games. Imagine you're playing a game that requires you to aim. Instead of pressing and dragging on the screen, you could rotate your thumb on the home button to adjust your aim, in turn preventing your fingers from obscuring what you're looking at on your screen.
Apple also mentions the idea of locking your iPhone into either portrait or landscape mode depending on which way your fingerprint is facing.
On the iPhone, you can currently hold down the home button to activate Siri, double press it to see which apps are open on your phone, press the home button to return to the home screen, or hold your finger over it to authenticate iTunes purchases. Apple has clearly already expanded the home button's functionality beyond its basic purpose, but the new patent application describes technology that would be able to read the intricate movements of your finger — not just how hard you're pressing. It's just a patent application, which means it's not guaranteed to ever become part of Apple's products. Still, it comes at a time when Apple has been experimenting with new ways to interact with gadgets. The Apple Watch and new MacBook both come with a technology Apple calls Force Touch that can tell how hard you're pressing rather than just where you're pressing. On the Apple Watch, this tech is integrated into the screen and on the new MacBook it lives in the trackpad. That being said, Apple has patented all kinds of eccentric ideas pertaining to the iPhone's home button that probably won't become a reality. Earlier this year, an Apple patent described a home button that could pop out like a joystick to be used with mobile games. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How to build an iPhone projector for less than $10  | ||
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Elon Musk is terrified that Google CEO Larry Page will accidentally create 'evil' robots that take over the world | ||
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One of the biggest things that keeps Elon Musk up at night doesn't have anything to do with Tesla or SpaceX — in fact, it's a fear that sounds like something from a science fiction film. In his new book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," Bloomberg reporter Ashlee Vance writes about what Musk is truly afraid of. Here's Vance's account of a conversation he had over dinner with Musk, as it appears in the book: He opened up about the major fear keeping him up at night: namely that Google's cofounder and CEO Larry Page might well have been building a fleet of artificial intelligence-enhanced robots capable of destroying mankind. "I'm really worried about this," Musk said. It didn't make Musk feel any better that he and Page were very close friends and that he felt Page was fundamentally a well-intentioned person and not Dr. Evil. In fact, that was sort of the problem. Page's nice-guy nature left him assuming that the machines would forever do our bidding. "I'm not as optimistic, Musk said. "He could produce something evil by accident." This is not the first time Musk has spoken on the topic of artificial intelligence. He even said it could be the "biggest existential threat to humans" if it's not regulated properly when speaking at MIT's annual AeroAstra Centennial Symposium in October. "With artificial intelligence we're summoning the demon," he said at the conference. According to Vance, Musk has always kept tabs on the development of artificial intelligence. "He's always had an eye on artificial intelligence because he's totally into sci-fi and he reads all of these books," Vance said in an interview with Business Insider. "And I think he's been investing in a lot of AI startups to keep an eye on them." But Larry Page, a longtime friend of Musk's, views artificial intelligence differently. He thinks there's an inevitable shift coming in which computers will be much more well-equipped to take on most jobs, and we should embrace it, as he said in an interview with The Financial Times last year. "Their relationship is getting more complex, because Elon thinks Larry's a good guy in his heart, but he's worried he's making an artificial intelligence that can take over mankind and destroy it," Vance said in an interview with Business Insider. "And I think he feels on some level that Larry is naive in the sense that he thinks this will go right." Musk isn't the only figure in science and technology that feels strongly about the idea that artificial intelligence should be approached with caution. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking have both voiced similar opinions. SEE ALSO: 11 fascinating things Tesla billionaire Elon Musk said in the new book about his life Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How Elon Musk saved Tesla in just two weeks when Google was about to buy it  | ||
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An artist is selling other people's Instagram photos for $100,000 each | ||
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The latest exhibition by New York artist Richard Prince is raising ethical questions in the art world. The reason? He's selling canvases that feature other people's Instagram photos. "New Portraits," first exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in New York last year, features portraits of subjects that were not shot by Prince himself. Rather, they are screenshots of images other people have uploaded to Instagram. Prince has added his own comment below those already there, and printed the entire work on large canvasses. The artworks are now selling in New York this weekend for around $100,000 (£64,000) each, Gothamist reports. One subject of the photos, DoeDeere, confirmed on Instagram that Prince did not seek permission before re-purposing one of her images. She posted on Instagram: "yes, my portrait is currently displayed at the Frieze Gallery in NYC. Yes, it's just a screenshot (not a painting). No, I did not give my permission and yes, the controversial artist Richard Prince put it up anyway." She said the canvass featuring her portrait sold for $90,000 (£57,500). So is Prince actually breaking the law? It's a gray area. If he were to make perfect replicas, it would be a clear infringement of the original artists' rights. However, fair use may apply if the work is "transformative." According to Stanford University Library: "At issue is whether the material has been used to help create something new or merely copied verbatim into another work." The minor changes Prince adds to each original Instagram photo help each work to meet the requiements of fair use. (To take a different example, when an author quotes another author in their book, they don't have to ask for permission because the excerpts are essentially source material). Similarly, parody is generally protected from claims of copyright infringement under US law. The scenario is a good example of the new legal issues that "remix culture" have created. The internet is awash with altered, reposted, and aggregated content taken from other sources, frequently without permission. It has produced a huge wave of creativity — but also raises thorny questions about attribution and ownership. Sometimes the transformative fair use is clear, while at other times the "remixing" seems little more than theft.
One of the photos already included in Prince's show, for example, originally came from artist Donald Graham, who subsequently sent a cease-and-desist letter. But Prince sourced it from a different Instagram account, @rastajay92, which had sourced it from another Instagram account, @indigoochild. And yet Prince was hit with the cease-and-desist while the two Instagram accounts weren't, despite being the the only one of the 3 appropriators to have made any changes to the photo. We won't know for sure about the legality of Prince's "New Portraits" unless he's formally challenged in court. (And even a ruling could later be appealed.) DoeDeere said she's "not gonna go after him." But he has run into legal trouble before — and won. In 2013, a US court ruled that his "Canal Zone" artworks, which were based on earlier photos from photographer Patrick Cariou, constituted fair use. Here's an example of the alterations Prince had made, from Art in America magazine:
For now, Prince has both fans and enemies. When "New Portraits" first exhibited last September, Jerry Saltz gushed in Vulture that "it's what [Prince] does in the comments field that is truly brilliant, and which adds layers on top of the disconcerting images. Here he is delving as deep as he ever has into privacy, copyright, and appropriation, twisting images so that they actually seem to undergo some sort of sick psychic-artistic transubstantiation where they no longer belong to the original makers." Art Net's Paddy Johnson took a different view with an article titled: "Richard Prince Sucks." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This artist just did something incredible with clay  | ||
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The people who control the internet got together in a room and this is what they're worried about | ||
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On Thursday, in a large Romanesque ballroom on Manhattan’s Amsterdam Avenue, the people who make the big decisions relating to the underlying technology of what we call the "internet" sat discussing the future. There's a huge power shift happening in this world, away from US control and toward a more international approach. Most of the world-leading experts in this field were OK with this. But at least one internet pioneer, Vint Cerf, who now works for Google, worried that this could break the internet into warring fiefdoms that won't work well together. This conference on Internet Governance and Cyber-Security, held at at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, invited some of the best-known internet scholars and policymakers to discuss the technical and meaty topic known as "Internet Governance." Looming in the background was last year's announcement that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a US government agency, would relinquish its oversight of the global internet naming authority — the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). While this issue isn’t making the front pages, it is a huge shift in power for the bureaucracies keeping the internet afloat. ICANN is the private nonprofit organization that oversees how domains are named and assigned. Up until now, the US has had formal oversight.
Despite this shakeup, Fadi Chehadé — the president and CEO of ICANN — assured the room that everything was okay. "The logical infrastructure of the internet is safe, resilient, and well governed," he said. "Most of the world now agrees on that." Sitting in the same row with Chehadé was former ICANN chair Paul Twomey, along with the president and CEO of the Internet Society, Kathryn Brown, and Beth Noveck, who runs New York University’s GovLab. With the upcoming NTIA transition, they said, officials are scrambling to figure out how every country with a stake in the internet will get its voice heard. The term "multistakeholder internet governance" was the key buzzword, referring to a process of policymaking that attempts to include all involved parties using a consensus-based model. While this sounds like a logical way for governing technology used by the whole world, not everyone is thrilled. Google’s chief internet evangelist, Vint Cerf, said during his opening remarks that a multistakeholder model could lead to some tension, and perhaps fragmentation of the internet. For example, one country's laws may not coincide with other perceptions of how online content should be disseminated. This could lead to localized data storage and perhaps even halt cross-border data flow. Germany is a great example of a country taking measures to keep its data within its borders. To Cerf, this is a frightening prospect. Brown, on the other hand, believes that the multistakeholder model is just what is needed. "We’re not looking for global agreement," the Internet Society president said. "We’re looking for agreements; we’re looking for consensus where it needs to happen." This model is a way to reach decisions "that are sustainable, that are trusted, that are transparent," she added. Next goal: Improving the integrity of information online Chehadé believes the next hurdle for the global internet community doesn’t relate the underlying infrastructure of the internet. Instead, he thinks it's time to focus on "what happens on the internet." He called this "internet integrity." He went on, "When I see something on the internet written about me ... How do you know it is a high integrity item? How do you know this is the truth?" Chehadé believes that the next issue to be tackled is not how the internet works (which is the infrastructure that ICANN has been overseeing for decades), but how to create a better way to ensure and protect the content disseminated on the internet. Even with this seemingly gargantuan project, the attendees seemed pleased with future prospects. In years past there were questions about how associations like ICANN could make proper internet decisions that relate to the global user base. That’s no longer the case. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how much you have to buy to make Amazon Prime worth it  | ||
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Everything we know about Google's next massive Android update (GOOG) | ||
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It's been almost one year since Google officially unveiled its current version of Android, called Lollipop, which means it's just about time to see what the next major update will bring. Google is holding its annual developer conference next week, which is where it usually spills some details on the next version of Android. We probably won't see the final product — usually Google just gives developers a taste of what's to come — but we'll likely get a good idea of what the most important new features coming to Android will be. Last year, Google gave Android a huge makeover with its new Material Design interface, which makes the software look more colorful and a bit smoother to use. Here's what we think may be coming in the next version of Android, based on various rumors, reports, and leaks. It will probably be called Android M ... for now.Google usually picks a treat-themed name for its new versions of Android, and there's an alphabetical trend to each name. For example, Android 4.0 was called Ice Cream Sandwich, while Android 4.2-4.3 was called Jellybean, Android 4.4 was named KitKat, and the current version, 5.0, is called Lollipop. This means the next version will start with an M, although we don't know exactly what type of dessert Google will choose. They will probably just refer to it as M for the time being. Google accidentally confirmed this in a description for an "Android for Work Update" event at Google I/O, writing: "Android M is bringing the power of Android to all kinds of workplaces." Google has since removed the listing.
It may let you login to apps without typing in a password.The next version of Android, which we'll call Android M for now, will reportedly come with a feature that lets you login to certain apps with your fingerprint without typing in a password, according to BuzzFeed News' Joseph Bernstein. Google is expected to announce the new feature at its event next week. This feature probably wouldn't work on all Android phones though — it's worth noting that only a few devices actually have fingerprint sensors. These include the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S5, and HTC One Max among others. If this feature does come to the next version of Android, it seems like a clear indication that many more Android phones, including Google's own Nexus phones, will come with fingerprint sensors too.
The next version of Android will likely focus on smart home features, too.Google is reportedly working on new software that could power the next wave of "smart" refrigerators and light bulbs, according to a recent report from The Information. It will probably be part of the Android brand, the report says, which makes it sound like Google is developing a new type of Android specifically for the connected home, kind of like how Android Wear is a version of Android optimized just for wearables. If this turns out to be true, there's a chance we'll see some new features that tie your phone closer to the appliances in your home within the next version of Android. For example, Google showed off a new feature in Android Lollipop that automatically unlocks your phone if you're wearing an Android Wear smartwatch. It wouldn't be surprising to see some small features such as these related to the smart home appear in Android M. There will probably be more integration with Android Auto.
Google is reportedly planning to make some big announcements around its connected car platform that will coincide with Android M's unveil, as Reuters reported in December. This hints that we'll see more functionality in the operating system that's optimized to work with Android Auto, which Google announced last year. Currently, Android Auto runs on your phone and then communicates with your car's infotainment system. That could change if Google decides to build an entire platform for cars. Notifications will become more intelligent.Google may be working on a new notification system that would unify alerts across all platforms, blog Android Pit reports. If you see a notification on your desktop or laptop, for example, it will automatically disappear from your phone so that you're not looking at old information. It's a small change, but one that could be really useful. SEE ALSO: The real story behind Android's little green robot mascot Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Kids settle the debate and tell us which is better: an Apple or Samsung phone  | ||
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8 charts reveal everything you need to know about the monster rocket NASA is building to shuttle astronauts to Mars | ||
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Right now, NASA is constructing a monster rocket, called the Space Launch System, that will be the most powerful rocket ever built. This rocket is designed for NASA's future deep-space missions to an asteroid, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Taller than the Statue of Liberty and capable of carrying more than twice the payload weight of any of NASA'S former space shuttles, the Space Launch System will transport four astronauts at a time on board the agency's Orion spacecraft farther into space than any human has ever ventured before. The first unmanned test flight of this rocket is scheduled for September 2018. NASA's Marhsall Space Flight Center has created a series of charts and infographics that show just how revolutionary this rocket will be for the future of spaceflight. NASA will have to step it up to get a human into deep space — something they haven't done for more than 40 years. Here's where they're starting from: Check out past achievements for how far humans have ventured into space and where the SLS will take us next: And here's how the SLS compares to its predecessors: See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Apple has an ambitious plan to take over your entire home — but it's been a challenge for some developers (AAPL) | ||
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Almost one year ago, Apple announced HomeKit — a framework that allows people to develop home appliances that they could control using the iPhone. These can include smart door locks, light bulbs, garage doors, and other otherwise ordinary home products that can perform tasks based on commands issued from your iPhone. Apple and Samsung are both buying into this concept that we should be able to manipulate the objects around us using the tiny computers in our pockets and on our wrists. But, while they're all betting big on the so-called "Internet of Things" trend, none of these devices have really taken off yet. They're often more expensive than ordinary household products, and most people don't really feel like they need them yet. Apple could change that, but devices powered by HomeKit haven't even hit the market yet. We caught up with some developers and companies working on HomeKit products to learn about the types of challenges they've been facing so far and why they think a technology like this could be revolutionary.
Despite these obstacles, it sounds like Apple created a system that saves developers a ton of work. The HomeKit framework handles all of the communication between devices, which means developers don't have to worry about doing it. Before HomeKit was released, developers had to create their own protocols to determine how something like a smart light bulb would communicate with your iPhone. "[It] gives developers a common language to work with," McGraw said. "To develop a means [of communication] between the device you're building and your iPhone, that's what takes a serious amount of time and investment." We also reached out to Apple to learn about the type of feedback they've received from developers regarding HomeKit; we will update this post accordingly if we hear back. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How to build an iPhone projector for less than $10  | ||
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11 fascinating things Tesla billionaire Elon Musk said in the new book about his life | ||
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Like most high-profile CEOs, Elon Musk closes himself off from the outside world for the most part. While the public is familiar with the serial entrepreneur's professional life, we rarely get to see what he's really like. That's why Ashlee Vance's new biography about Musk is so captivating — it dives into some of the most personal moments of his life. We often hear that entrepreneurs dedicate every waking moment to their business, and Musk takes that concept to an entirely new level, as Vance's book illustrates. Here are some of the most impactful quotes that provide some insight into the mind of the man that created Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal. On colonizing Mars: “I would like to die thinking that humanity has a bright future. If we can solve sustainable energy and be well on our way to becoming a multiplanetary species with a self-sustaining civilization on another planet — to cope with a worst-case scenario happening and extinguishing human consciousness — then, I think that would be really good.” On innovation: “I think there are probably too many smart people pursuing internet stuff, finance, and law. That is part of the reason why we haven’t seen as much innovation.” On competition within the space industry: “The list of people that would not mind if I was gone is growing. My family fears that the Russians will assassinate me.” See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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How Jennifer Lopez's infamous 2000 Grammys dress inspired Google image search | ||
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It was the year 2000 — seven years before anyone had even heard of Kim Kardashian or before Beyoncé walked red carpets nearly nude. Up until this point, red carpets were fairly tame, fully-clothed affairs. That is, until Jennifer Lopez arrived to the 2000 Grammys in that now infamous green Versace gown with a neckline that plunged down to her naval and was held together simply by fashion tape.
In an essay published in January on Project Syndicate, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, writes: "At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J.Lo wearing that dress." As a result, Schmidt says, "Google Image Search was born." Schmidt further explained how Google expanded from just text to images: Our co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin – like all other successful inventors – kept iterating. They started with images. After all, people wanted more than just text. This first became apparent after the 2000 Grammy Awards, where Jennifer Lopez wore a green dress that, well, caught the world’s attention. E! News recently asked Lopez if she knew she inspired the photo-based search tool, to which she responded, "I heard that, who knew?!" But Lopez has yet to receive any compensation for her contribution. "I'm a little bit upset about it," she joked. "I'm sure Versace's in on it as well." When asked whether or not she wished she had gotten something from it, she teased, "Just a small part of it... a truck full of money." Today, Google has thousands of options when looking for J.Lo's Grammys dress.
SEE ALSO: Here's The Critical Money Lesson That Shaped Jennifer Lopez's Career Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How Elon Musk saved Tesla in just two weeks when Google was about to buy it  | ||
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This is the most common mistake made during tech job interviews | ||
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We're all guilty of it — exaggerating some of the skills on your resume to catch the eye of a potential employer. But some developers may be amplifying their skill sets a little too much, according to one recruiter. Developers and engineers will often list skills on their resume that they can't really back up with solid experience, Tyler Mikkelson, a team lead for recruiting firm Mondo, told Business Insider. So, for example, a candidate may list a particular skill or type of technology that he or she has worked with 10 years ago, or has maybe been exposed to but hasn't really worked with in-depth. "If that technology does appear on a job description that you're applying for, you have to be willing to discuss it," Mikkelson said. "Even if it's not maybe in your bread and butter tools that you're using now, it's still something that you should brush up on prior to interviewing." It's not a tactic that applies to the tech industry specifically, but Mikkelson says it's prominent in tech because candidates know that recruiters are looking for hot buzzwords pertaining to specific programming languages or skills. "If they put certain trendy technologies on there, they’re more likely to get interviewed," he said. "They’ll maybe include it in the technologies used section or technology skills section, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve used it in depth." There's another red flag Mikkelson notices among tech job candidates that isn't quite as common, but still noteworthy. "You'd be surprised at how many candidates don't brush up and do a lot of research on the company at which they're interviewing," Mikkelson said. This is largely because engineers and developers are in such high demand that they often feel like they're a shoe-in. "At times, a client may pass on a candidate because they didn't come off as overly interested in the interview," he said. Programmers and developers are certainly in high demand — in November, the average base salary for a developer in the United States hit an all-time high. A study from The Brookings Institute that was published last summer provided some insight as to which programming languages are in the highest demand. SEE ALSO: 11 common tech myths you should stop believing today Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how much you have to buy to make Amazon Prime worth it  | ||
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Inside Tony Hsieh's radical 'self-management' experiment at Zappos, which caused 14% of employees to quit | ||
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On March 24, Zappos' 1,500 or so employees got a memo from CEO Tony Hsieh. "This is a long email," it began. "Please take 30 minutes to read through the email in its entirety." It concerned the retailer's transition to "Holacracy," a manager-free operating structure that is composed, in theory, of equally privileged employees working in task-specific circles, often overlapping. Hsieh began experimenting with Holacracy in 2013 as a way of maintaining Zappos' lauded employee-centric culture as it continued to grow. The transition was supposed to have finished within a year. But by March 2015, only 85% of Zappos employees had begun the process. "Having one foot in one world while having the other foot in the other world has slowed down our transformation towards self-management and self-organization," Hsieh wrote. He offered an ultimatum: Embrace self-management by April 30, or we'll give you a three-month severance package to leave. By May, 210 Zappos employees, or 14% of the company, had taken the offer. What's going on inside the Amazon-owned Zappos? Hsieh is conducting one of the biggest experiments in management history, but one in seven employees didn't want to take part. Hsieh has always proudly kept Zappos weird. But is he at the forefront of a workplace revolution that could shape the future of companies or taking the counterculture approach too far? We spoke with Hsieh, Zappos leadership, Hsieh's self-management advisers, and some employees to find out. Current employees asked not to be identified by name to protect their standing at Zappos, as did those who took the severance package, to uphold their nondisclosure agreements. What became clear in our reporting is the all-in approach to Holacracy divided the company. There are many employees who feel that Hsieh's memo was a chance to refresh Zappos and begin a transformation into a leaner, more innovative business. Others worry about the direction of the company. Can Zappos thrive without a traditional hierarchy? Or will it self-destruct? A visionary leader
Hsieh, who grew up in the Bay Area as the son of Taiwanese immigrants, has always been interested in experimenting with businesses. As Harvard undergraduates in the early '90s, he and his friend Alfred Lin would discuss what it would be like to run their own companies, Lin told Business Insider. Lin later became Zappos' first COO, CFO, and chairman, and left in 2010 to join the prestigious Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital. In 1997, Hsieh persuaded Lin to abandon the pursuit of a statistics Ph.D. from Stanford and join him in San Francisco to become the VP of finance of his first company, internet ad co-op LinkExchange. Hsieh and his cofounders sold LinkExchange to Microsoft a year later for $265 million. With money in the bank, Hsieh, Lin, and some friends from LinkExchange moved into the same building and built Venture Frogs, an investment fund and incubator. In 1999, they were approached by Nick Swinmurn, founder of shoesite.com. He wanted to create the Amazon of shoes. Hsieh and Lin decided to invest $2 million in the site, which Swinmurn soon renamed Zappos, a play on the Spanish word for shoes, "zapatos." After the dot-com crash in 2000, Venture Frogs lost all of its investments, except Zappos, and couldn't get Sequoia to pump money into it. Inspired by his position as the underdog, Hsieh committed to Zappos full-time as its CEO. "I decided that Zappos was going to be the universe that I wanted to help envision and build," Hsieh wrote in his 2010 book "Delivering Happiness." "I was passionate about proving everyone wrong." At the end of 2003, Zappos brought in $70 million in revenue and flew employees to Las Vegas to celebrate. After the trip, Hsieh decided that Vegas was the perfect destination to grow the company: The city would be able to provide plenty of call-center talent trained in Vegas' entertainment and hospitality industries, and the lower cost of living could foster accelerated growth. Within a month, Zappos moved its headquarters to Las Vegas. The lack of a startup scene in downtown Vegas, combined with the reality that Hsieh and 70 employees had uprooted to a location where they had no ties, presented Hsieh with the perfect opportunity to develop a unique culture. Hsieh developed 10 core values. The third: "Create fun and a little weirdness."
If a potential employee or journalist took an office tour at the right time of year, they would come across the "Bald and Blue" event, a day where the Blue Man Group shaves employees heads and legs and eyebrows, in addition to back and chest waxing for the guys. It's become a charity event for various cancer foundations, but began in 2005 as the bizarre idea of an employee. All-hands meetings are spectacles that include comedians, live music, themed costumes, and possibly the appearance of Hsieh's favorite animal, the llama. According to Hsieh's philosophy, employees perform best when they're happy, and letting them comfortably express themselves in a fun way results in a stronger company. It's why he's long encouraged employees to walk away if the Zappos approach is not for them. After a week at Zappos, an employee has three weeks to quit and take $2,000 with additional compensation for however much time they worked after the first week. The buzz around Zappos' quirky employee-centric culture reached a new high in 2009, a crucial year for the company. Zappos not only brought in $1 billion in revenue but was also acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion in an all-stock deal. Hsieh had also started planning the Downtown Project, his ambitious plan to reimagine a sparse landscape as a city bristling with entrepreneurial energy. Around this time, Hsieh was studying urban development and was especially influenced by Harvard professor Edward Glaeser's "Triumph of the City." He was taken with the finding that when a city doubles in population, innovation or productivity increases per capita by 15%, which is the opposite of what happens when a company doubles. In the years following the Amazon deal, Hsieh searched for a way to make Zappos more like a city than a company. Per the agreement he made with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Hsieh had the full support of Amazon to undertake this project. Soon he found a way to do it. Designing HolacracyHolacracy is the brainchild of Brian Robertson, a former software developer and entrepreneur turned management guru. Robertson worked his way up the ranks in the software world during the dot-com era, and left in 2001 to start his own company, Ternary Software.
As he was growing Ternary, he said, it became clear just how limited the management-hierarchy system was. "It wasn't agile. It wasn't adaptable. It was crushing the ability in people to actually contribute and use their gifts," Robertson said. Forms of "self-management," where employees make most decisions without the approval of a manager, have been practiced for decades. But Robertson was most inspired to create his management style by the agile software development movement of the late '90s, which advocated a workflow that allows engineers to develop ideas without the direction of a manager. Robertson studied as much self-management theory as he could, drawing lessons from a variety of techniques and philosophies. He collected these practices together as Holacracy in 2007 and left Ternary in 2010 to found HolacracyOne, a company that provides tools and coaching to companies that adopt its management principles. The system derives its name from "holarchy," a term coined by the writer Arthur Koestler in his 1967 philosophical psychology book, "The Ghost in the Machine." It refers to a collection of holons, which simultaneously function as parts and wholes, like organs in a body. Robertson gave a presentation on Holacracy at the 2012 Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit in Austin. After presenting, a man distinguished from a sea of business attire by his T-shirt and jeans approached him and told him that he had been thinking of ways companies could be run like cities. Robertson impatiently answered the man's rapid-fire questions and left as quickly as he could to get to the next presentation, not bothering to get the man's name. "Later in the evening," Robertson said, "he gets on stage to do the keynote, and that's when I realized who the guy was." It was Tony Hsieh. Robertson, embarrassed, reconnected with Hsieh at the end of the conference, and Hsieh invited him to meet his Zappos executive team in Vegas. Hsieh was increasingly confident that Holacracy held the solution to his problem. Hsieh brought Robertson to Vegas in March 2013 to run a Holacracy pilot program with the HR team, about 100 people. The employees were introduced to the fundamentals of Robertson's system — covered in detail in "Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World" — including giving up traditional job titles and working on multiple tasks rather than at a specific job. HolacracyOne provided this graphic to show the workflow that replaces traditional top-down management:
Rather than having static jobs, work is processed through "roles" that are always subject to change. For example, an employee wouldn't be a marketer but could take on the marketing role, in addition to several other roles. If tensions arise between employees over how work is being done, they can raise their concerns at a regular governance meeting, which covers big-picture ideas on accomplishing goals. Meanwhile, tactical meetings are meant to quickly get every member of a particular team on the same page. The meetings give every member a chance to speak. Here's an illustration of the structure that replaces the traditional pyramid hierarchy, and is tracked by HolacracyOne's organizational software GlassFrog:
Each circle is made up of smaller circles that operate on their own but must coordinate with other circles. While Holacracy doesn't have managers per se, there are "lead links" who are responsible for assigning roles to their circle and representing their circle's overall role. The difference is that lead links are not responsible for individuals. Technical adviser John Bunch, who is in charge of the transition to Holacracy at Zappos, said it's important to understand that the system functions on "distributed authority," not a total lack of authority. Holacracy provides a structure but leaves circle and role creation entirely up to individual companies. This means that corporate leadership must determine how much each role is worth to them and how that factors into compensation. Bunch said that Zappos is still figuring out a suitable pay model, but will not adjust anyone's salaries during the transition process. Distributed authority also means that actions like hiring, firing, and the approval of expenditures cannot be determined by an individual but are decided by a committee. The initial transition at any company is always "painful and uncomfortable," Robertson said, and it was no different at Zappos. In weekly coaching sessions, there was plenty of "resistance, frustration," and "people upset and angry" at having to rescind the power and workflow that in some cases they had spent long careers developing. Generally, some managers refuse to help their former employees after adopting the system, citing their newfound freedom, while others flail about, frightened and confused by the idea of self-management. At Zappos, there was a turning point three months in, Robertson said. Weekly meetings had become times to vent complaints and work through challenges regarding Holacracy, but this one was different. "Instead of people challenging it, they were sharing what they were learning — they were talking about how they liked it," Robertson said. "Multiple people came up afterwards to hug me, some with tears in their eyes — often the same people who were yelling at me and disliked it in the beginning."
It was around this point that Zappos' leadership decided they would unroll Holacracy throughout the company, according to former Zappos organizational design lead Alexis Gonzales-Black. Gonzales-Black was responsible for leading the transition alongside Bunch. (Gonzales-Black left the company shortly before Hsieh's March 2015 memo to start a Holacracy consulting firm in San Francisco, Thoughtful Org Partners. But she said that her departure was unrelated to Hsieh's decision and that she remains on great terms with Zappos.) Robertson and HolacracyOne coaches continued to take a hands-on approach with the pilot group for several more months. By the end of 2013, Hsieh was confident that it was time to announce the plan that Zappos was going to transform into a Holacracy. At the company's fourth-quarter all-hands meeting in November 2013, HR director Hollie Delaney stood between Hsieh and Zappos veteran executive Fred Mossler with tears in her eyes, Aimee Groth reported for Quartz. They announced the new direction. Delaney cried, she said, because she had learned to let go of power and achieve breakthroughs with her employees for the first time. "The auditorium filled with Zappos employees — dressed up in animal costumes in the spirit of the meeting's theme, 'Gone Wild' — fell silent," Groth wrote. A month later, Zappos announced publicly that it planned on relinquishing all manager roles and job titles by 2015. With the transition underway, Hsieh became further inspired by Frederic Laloux's book "Reinventing Organizations." He would later refer to it in his memo, recommending that all Zappos employees read it before deciding whether they wanted to remain in a self-managed system. Laloux is a former McKinsey junior partner and private consultant who decided to commit full-time to spreading the gospel of self-management in 2011. He said that he reached a point where all he could see was how so many of the problems he addressed at companies were due to managers who stifled progress. He began researching development theory in tandem with self-managed organizations around the world, such as The Morning Star Co. in California, which has used self-management for decades to become one of the leading tomato producers in the US. Laloux concluded that self-management was just one element of a new type of organization that represented the direction humanity was heading in — away from absolute leaders and toward empowered individuals.
In Laloux's terms, Zappos pre-Holacracy was a Green organization that operated with a traditional pyramid structure but focused on culture as a means of empowering employees. Green organizations are like families. Teal organizations, on the other hand, are like bodies, where every system works together to support the whole. Both Bunch and Hsieh read the book in late 2014. Hsieh determined that Zappos was going to become a Teal organization. "As I read through the book," Bunch said, "it really struck me as, 'Hey, this is saying everything that we were already saying, and it's saying everything we want to do.'" The main difficulty with the transition to Holacracy, Bunch said, is that fewer than 1% of companies in the world don't have a traditional hierarchy. "That set of rules and those thought processes are so ingrained in society today that it's hard to communicate exactly what the vision is, and I think 'Reinventing Organizations' does a better job than any other book on communicating that vision and communicating that this is not just a hypothetical like, 'Oh, wouldn't it be cool if we did this,'" Bunch said. Bunch briefly met Laloux at a conference last November and put him in touch with Hsieh. Hsieh soon made a Skype call to Laloux, who lives in Belgium. They chatted for a half-hour with Hsieh eagerly asking about the mechanics of Teal organizations. Laloux said that he finds the situation at Zappos to be especially interesting, because while he's studied some very successful self-managed companies around the world and across varied industries, there's never been an attempt by a company as large as Zappos at making a transition to becoming one. "I expect quite a bit of confusion and chaos," Laloux said. Struggles with self-managementFortune's annual list of "Best Companies to Work For" is certainly not a definitive assessment of a company's workforce, but it's significant enough that Hsieh mentioned Zappos' rise up its ranks in the second edition of his book. Zappos appeared on the list in 2010 at No. 15. In 2011, it jumped to No. 6, and in 2012 it dropped slightly to No. 11. In 2013, it went to No. 31, in 2014 it dipped to No. 38, and by 2015 it fell all the way down to No. 86. Was employee enthusiasm slipping? The difficulties that come with radically restructuring a company seemed to be taking a toll. In the fall of 2014, the fallout of a 30-person layoff at Hsieh's Downtown Project, which was also structured as a Holacracy, was a blow to his public image. An open letter to Hsieh from a former Downtown Project employee who resigned because of a loss of faith in the direction it was taking, in addition to a scathing report from Re/code's Nellie Bowles, called into question the entirety of Hsieh's vision. A former Downtown Project employee told Business Insider that it was easy to game the system of Holacracy, using its project-driven circle structure to essentially create a layer of middle management, which Holacracy is meant to replace. This person also found the meeting system, which includes giving everyone present a chance to speak uninterrupted in succession, to be grueling. Meanwhile at Zappos, an employee whose team recently adopted Holacracy said that the lack of team managers has caused them to drift helplessly, and that they find support with the transition to be lacking. Stanford Business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer said that there are plenty of examples in the business world in which self-management indeed leads to more efficient and productive companies, but Hsieh's March 2015 memo is an example of how he's going about things the wrong way. Rather than see from the beginning if employees wanted to embrace self-management, he declared that they had to or else leave. "It's kind of deliciously ironic that self-management is being decreed from above," Pfeffer said. Robertson, the founder of Holacracy, countered, "Imagine a country that's going to move from a dictatorship to a democracy. The easiest possible path is for the dictator to autocratically decree that this is now our constitution." "It's ironic in that you now have a dictatorial decree to move to a democracy," he said, "but it's actually the smoothest, most powerful path to get there. And the same is true in an organization."
Employees dividedWhen the email hit inboxes on March 24, it split Zappos into three camps: the believers, the nonbelievers, and those who decided to remain out of convenience despite their reservations. The believers read it as an opportunity to be at the forefront of a workplace revolution. For the nonbelievers, the email was a welcome opportunity to leave an experiment they were not enjoying. We spoke to employees who validated recurring points in recent reviews on Glassdoor, a site where current and former employees can anonymously rate their employers. Each reviewer is screened to assure that they actually work or have worked at the company they review. The current overall Glassdoor rating for Zappos, based on 209 reviews, is 3.7 out of 5. Yet only 44% say they have a positive outlook for the business. One employee, who gave a two-star rating, wrote on April 3 that their advice to management was, "Remember that human capital is valuable rather than allowing great talent to leave." A former employee gave the company three stars and wrote on April 28: "Employees are in constant fear of losing their jobs for saying or doing something that proves to management that they aren't a 'culture fit.'" "With a company of our size it's easy to find people with negative perspectives," Hsieh said. Rather than zeroing in on a specific review, "we look at our overall data, including internal and external surveys on employee happiness, turnover rates, et cetera." Another former employee told us that some employees who took the severance package offer, even those who knew immediately they would take it, waited to confirm their decision until April 30 to avoid having to deal with the scrutiny of Zappos leadership. Hsieh, however, said "the vast majority of people did not wait until April 30." He, along with his inner-circle members Fred Mossler, Arun Rajan, and Hollie Delaney, held four town halls the day after employees received the email in order to field questions. Some in attendance expressed their anger with the suddenness of the email and its month-long deadline, a former employee said. "Most of the employees had not had a chance to read or watch any of the materials that described our new direction," Hsieh said, "so the questions lacked the proper context and background." He also noted that it shouldn't have been a surprise. "We've been in the process of transitioning to Holacracy for 1.5 years, so the part about no more people managers really should not have been news." "Nobody was forced to take the offer," Hsieh said. "Any employee was free to just ignore the offer, and life would have been no different than the week before the memo came out." Those in good standing who decided to leave were entitled to at least three months' severance pay and to three months of COBRA healthcare reimbursement benefits. Both a former and current employee said that despite the offer, some Zappos employees who had uprooted their families to Las Vegas for the job did not feel like they had adequate time to figure out a new plan. One employee told us that they strongly considered taking the offer out of unhappiness with the direction but ultimately declined out of fear of letting go of the lifestyle they had become used to. And for some employees, the weirdness of Holacracy at Zappos is a step too far, even for a company with a long tradition of weirdness.
For example, although official titles were abolished, Zappos employees could choose how to represent themselves outside of the company. It now has roles like Time Sorcerer and Agent of WOW. For many of those at Zappos, these names represent a self-aware silliness that makes the workplace more fun. Others worry how they're going to explain them on a résumé. "The difference is that in the old world, a title implies certain authorities," said Hsieh. "In the world of Holacracy, titles by themselves hold no authority." An employee who decided to stay at Zappos wrote on Glassdoor on March 31 that Zappos is "still a great place to work" on account of its benefits, pay, and its employees, but that it's necessary to deal with a "disruptive atmosphere" and "bothersome social experiments." A former employee who doesn't like the direction of Holacracy told us that they still think the system will end up working. They find that most of those who remained at the company are passionate enough to stick through challenges and young enough to find the challenge exciting. A former Downtown Project employee who was laid off last fall said, from their experience with Holacracy and Hsieh, they think he can pull it off and that Zappos will be better off for having the 210 employees leave. "Those were the people that didn't belong in the company anyway," the ex-employee said. "Not to say they're not good at their job or that they're inferior in any way, but they don't fit in that particular corporate culture." Holacracy founder Robertson said he was disappointed with the way some media outlets characterized 14% of the company leaving as a sign of failure. He said that more people should consider that 86% of the company "turned down a lot of money to be part of the transition to a self-organizing enterprise." Hsieh firmly denies that his severance offer was a cost-cutting effort. "This was a misalignment-cutting effort," he said. "We're headed in a new direction … and want to ensure as much alignment as possible, since not everyone is comfortable with the concepts of self-organization and self-management that were outlined in the memo." The new ZapposWhile it remains to be seen how this recent exodus will affect the bottom line, Zappos announced in February that its expected operating profits for the year are $97 million, an increase of 78% from 2014, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
They still need to determine salary processes and fine-tune tools to assign and approve projects throughout the company. Hsieh said they're making good progress. And while Hsieh will still be in charge of the Zappos vision, he will have to learn how to evolve his role. "In the old world, many decisions would have to come to me for final approval," Hsieh said. "Under Holacracy, authority and decision makers are distributed throughout the company in multiple roles and circles as we move more into self-management and self-organization, and there are clear boundaries of what I can and cannot make decisions about." Robertson said that it can be useful to think of Holacracy as an operating system. Zappos still needs to work out the bugs in its apps. If it works, he thinks Zappos will become more agile and thus more profitable. And if it doesn't, it will still benefit from lessons learned. If they stick with it, Robertson said, they're in for a "multiyear journey" before they'll know if it truly works or not. Bunch said that the 210 employees who took Hsieh's severance-package offer made the right decision for both themselves and the company. He will be monitoring Zappos' progress in real time, he said, rather than seeing if it meets certain benchmarks. They still need to introduce a few hundred employees to Holacracy in their Las Vegas headquarters and Kentucky offices. Bunch said that he believes a fully functioning Holacracy will make Zappos employees happier and the company more innovative, but he's looking at it as a long-term project. "There are going to be a lot of bumps along the way, and we're going to have to get through it together," Bunch said. In his memo, Hsieh wrote that after April 30, transforming Zappos would feel like upgrading an airplane as it flies through the air. "Like all the bold steps we've done in the past, it feels a little scary, but it also feels like exactly the type of thing that only a company such as Zappos would dare to attempt at this scale," Hsieh wrote. "With our core values and culture as the foundation for everything we do, I'm personally excited about all the potential creativity and energy of our employees that are just waiting for the right environment and structure to be unlocked and unleashed." SEE ALSO: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to employees: Embrace self-management or leave by the end of the month 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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Not everyone was on board, Robertson said, but he had finally converted the majority of the pilot group to his way of thinking.
He borrowed color labels from 
Questions remain on how Zappos will operate on a day-to-day basis. What it's like to be a Google intern, and how to get a job there when you graduate | ||
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Rohan Shah is 22, and he's a software engineer at Google. He was offered the job just before his senior year of college at the University of Illinois. But his career with Google started six months prior, in January 2013, when he was 20. Shah remembers receiving an email from his dream employer. The search giant — the best company to work for in the world! — was interested in interviewing him for one of its coveted internship positions. It had been weeks since Shah filled out the online application following a career fair at his college, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He had already accepted another summer internship at Qualcomm one month earlier. But this was Google! And Shah couldn't let the opportunity slip by. A Google spokesperson told Business Insider the company accepts only 1,500 interns out of about 40,000 applicants every year in the United States. Earning a spot at Google is so competitive, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn starred in a movie about it. Shah went through with the interview process, which spanned more than one month. By the end of January, he was offered an internship position. Instead of canceling his summer plans with Qualcomm, Shah called his school and took a leave of absence. He flew to Mountain View, California, and became one of about 50 interns during the spring of 2013. What was the interview process like? What's it really like being a Google intern? And how does a Google internship turn into a job? Shah and other interns recount their tales. Getting the interview: a slow and tedious processThe Google interview process, whether you're applying for an internship or a full-time position, begins with an online application. The hopeful candidate fills out forms that inquire about his or her grade point average, past experiences, extra curricular activities, and more. Shah didn't do anything fancy with his resume to attract attention. But he can speak three languages; he has received a volunteering medal of honor, and he was on his school's dean's list. In addition, he was a teaching assistant; he held previous internships and, just for fun, he created Android apps. Still, it took multiple weeks for Google to respond to his November application. When the company finally did, it sent him an email. Another intern candidate, Evan Carmi, said he waited a month and a half before hearing from Google HR when he applied in 2010. The email correspondence between Google HR and the candidate leads to two phone interviews with current Google employees. That's when the process really begins. A series of 'highly technical' 45-minute interviewsGoogle was once infamous for asking tough brainteasers during its interview process. After a bout of negative press, Google forbid its staff from asking candidates questions like "How many cows are in Canada?" Still, the interviews — even for interns — are highly technical. "It was essentially applying your knowledge in a very practical situation," Shah explains, which is about as in-depth as Google will let him go. Google has a strict policy against sharing company information, although it allowed our interview with Shah. "It's figuring out if you can scale a system, or you can make something much more efficient," he says. The best applicants are able to apply those concepts quickly throughout the entire 45-minute process. Carmi's interviews were equally technical, and he wrote freely about them in a 2010 blog post. His first of the back-to-back calls was from a Site Reliability Engineer at Google. He asked Carmi questions pertaining to Python, such as "Write a function with the following specification: Input: a list. Output: a copy of the list with duplicates removed." Carmi's second interview was with a Carnegie Mellon graduate on Google's Webmaster Tools Team who asked him to write actual code. A single question took up the vast majority of the 45-minute slot and caused Carmi to all but break a sweat. Carmi was asked to do a third technical phone interview and his dreams of becoming a Google intern died there. Shah was more fortunate. One week after his two phone interviews, he received an email from HR: "You did well in the interviews, we want to continue the process," he was told. The Google recruiter then helped him figure out which department he'd like to intern for, and more interviews followed. "I had interviews with around five different teams," he says. Unlike the phone interviews, the team interviews aren't technical. They help the potential interns get to know the different groups within Google and learn if they'll like working in one over another. By late January — three months after submitting his application — Shah was officially a Google intern. He'd be joining Google's Android department. His next stop: Mountain View. Housing, roommates, and commute, all covered by GoogleIt may seem impossible to get an internship offer across the country and start working there two weeks later. But if you're a Google intern, the company solves all of your housing and travel logistics for you. Shah was put up in Google-paid corporate housing in San Jose's North Park with fellow Google interns for roommates. Shah was assigned three roommates, two from Argentina and one from Ukraine. "I got to meet people from a completely different culture. I got to learn from them and picked up a bit of their languages as well," says Shah. "It was a great housing experience for me." Shah describes the apartment as "very nice" with a train station close by for easy access to most places in Silicon Valley. There's no need for a car or a bike when you're a Google intern. Google sends free shuttles throughout the entire Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto and Berkeley, to take employees to work and home at night. Bikes are available on Google's campus for long-term rent, or for hopping from office to office around the 'Plex. A week and a half of orientationThe intern orientation process goes on for a week and a half. Interns are taught how the data centers work, how the company functions, and what Google's goals are. They also meet all the other new Googlers. "Just in the first week you feel like you've been an employee for a year," Shah says. "You get acclimated with the company very quickly." From the moment he stepped onto Google's grassy campus, Shah was in love. "My first day was amazing," he says. Making the moneyGoogle interns get paid more than most full-time employees across the country. According to Glassdoor, the average Google intern makes $5,678 per month, or $68,136 per year. Shah's pay was slightly more at about $6,100 per month or $80,000 per year. Take into account all of the perks, including free rent, transportation, gym membership, and food, and a Google intern is living large. "I didn't find myself wasting any money, except on weekends when I went exploring," says Shah. "It was a great semester." So what do Google interns do all day?A lot of work and a lot of team building activities. Shah recalls trips to museums, movies, hiking and biking excursions, as well as several trips to San Francisco, all organized by Google. He was the only intern on his Android team, and there were a lot of team dinners, including one on his 20th birthday. Unlike most other internships, where the underlings send faxes and grab coffees, Google interns work on real products that will be used by the world. Each intern is assigned a project within his or her group. They're also assigned a mentor who will chat with them weekly, or as frequently as the intern needs, and give feedback on their progress.
"It was a great sense of satisfaction," Shah recalls. A current Google software engineer, Kitt Vanderwater, had a similar experience when she interned in the Google+ department. "I had a lot of responsibility," she says. "It was a little overwhelming because I was doing all these things I had never done before. I was the one who was driving a lot of the decisions we were making, I ended up making the page for signed-out search, which was the first experience anyone got in the new Google+ search. So basically I owned this page that tons of people were going to land on when Search was actually launched." What Googlers are really likeGooglers aren't a bunch of social misfits, although that's how they're occasionally portrayed. Shah was surprised how normal and nongeeky everyone at Google was, engineers included. "One thing that really surprised me working at Google was that every single employee is extremely creative and extremely active," Shah says. "There's a very clear divide between work and life. Google engineers are very well-balanced. I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google." "I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google." Meeting Sergey BrinInterns aren't all introduced to Google's top executives. Nor are they allowed to test out all of the cool new devices that Google is building. Shah never zipped around in a driverless car or wore Google Glass while he was there. But he did run into Google cofounder Sergey Brin once. "The one time I did meet Sergey, three intern friends and I were going bowling," Shah explained. (But not bowling off campus, of course. Google has its own alley.) "Sergey happened to be passing by, showing his friend around the place. That's actually as much as I saw of Sergey." The perks: 24 cafes, multiple gyms, a wellness center and moreYou won't starve working for Google. Like most Googlers, Shah says the food was "probably the biggest perk." He estimated the Googleplex had 24 cafes with a wide variety of cuisines to choose from: Mexican, American, Indian, salad bars, pizza shops, and burger joints. Gyms are located close to cafes for anyone feeling over-fed. The gyms are well equipped and are often completely full, says Shah. If you get sick, you just go to Google's wellness center. Feel a knot in your back? Go to the on-campus masseuse. All are available for interns as well as employees. "Free food and refreshments, free gym membership, laundry, dancing lessons, etc," Paul Baltescu, a two-time Google intern, rattles off perks on Quora. "Intern events are also loads of fun: you may go to paintball, laser tag, watch a SF Giants game and all summer interns go on a luxury boat trip on the San Francisco Bay. Also, depending on your team you may attend other fun events like white river rafting, a three days trip to Lake Tahoe or may get to visit other Google offices." The cons of being a Google intern? There are noneIf there are any downsides to being a Google intern, Shah can't recall any. His only complaint is more of a frustration with himself. Shah wasn't as experienced an Android developer as Google's full-time engineers, so it took him some time before he could fully contribute to the team. But he says his coworkers were understanding and his mentor was always there for encouragement. Like Shah, Baltescu can think of only pros when he recalls his internship experience. "Both internships helped me develop basic software engineering skills that I wouldn't have otherwise learned from school projects (how to code search efficiently, how to unit test properly, how to use version control systems, etc.)," he writes on Quora. "I also learned some new technologies like python and App Engine and brushed on my JavaScript and C++. I'm very grateful for what I've learned at Google and I strongly recommend their internship program to any student wishing to become a software engineer in the near future." Life after a Google internshipFor Shah, one internship (Google's) led right into another (Qualcomm's). But at the end of his Google internship, he was able to interview for a full-time job that would be waiting for him when he graduated in 2014. Google interns can interview before their departure, and their mentors can help them prep. That summer, a few months after the interview, Shah was told he could become an official Googler. Jenna Wandres, Google's communications associate who oversees all things culture, told Business Insider, "We rely heavily on those interns when we're thinking about hiring." Shah's advice to other hopeful Google interns? "Google is really looking for experience," he says. "They want to find engineers who are motivated, so activities outside of school really help. At the same time, you need to know your basics. You need to understand simple algorithms and how to apply them. Google is all about application." The best piece of advice comes from Shah's Google mentor: stay calm. "I know every interviewer says that, But Google interviews are kind of unnerving because they're highly technical. Calming down was what really helped me through." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: We did the math: Is Uber really cheaper than a taxi?  | ||
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Shah's project involved working with old Gmail code and launching a new, top-secret feature. His favorite memory from the internship is the day he rolled out the Android feature internally. He received tons of feedback from his peers, and then it hit him: The work he had done at Google was going to impact millions of people. An SEC lockdown almost killed this startup right after it launched — now it's worth more than $6.5 billion (LC) | ||
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But founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche isn’t the type of leader who likes to go around telling the world about his success. He’s more reserved and humble, merely calling his accomplishment, “A big honor for sure…but outside of that particular [IPO] week, it’s really business as usual.” But one thing Laplanche doesn’t mind talking about is the challenges his company, founded in 2007, had to overcome to get to where it is today. In 2008, for example, it had to cease operations for 6 months —right in the thick of the financial crisis — because of an SEC registration process. “It was a pretty stressful and uncertain time,” Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche told Business Insider. Back in 2008, Lending Club was a scrappy startup with a disruptive idea. Its online software significantly dropped the cost of vetting and matching borrowers with potential lenders, creating an alternative to physical banks who typically charged a lot more to facilitate loans.
But it didn’t catch on right away. The idea of lending money to strangers over the internet was too risky at the time, especially when Lending Club didn’t have a track record just yet. And, Lending Club needed an SEC registration for the loans it was facilitating. Laplanche's company operates a bit differently that most online lending marketplaces: its model allows it to split up loans in pieces as small as $25, so investors could spread their risk across multiple borrowers. The problem was that the SEC didn’t have a registration framework for these kinds of loans and required Lending Club to register it as a new type of security. “There was no precedent for the type of registration we were trying to get,” Laplanche said. So, about a year following its launch, Lending Club had to suspend all new lender signups, essentially stalling its growth for six months - without knowing if it would ever get SEC approval. It was still allowed to run its lending market, but there was no new capital flowing in. Worse, Lending Club was running out of money. And the economy was heading to the bottom, with large financial firms like Lehman Brothers going out of business. “There were headlines in the newspaper of people defaulting almost every day,” Laplanche recalls. Things couldn’t get more bleak at that point. But Laplanche didn’t lose his composure and still believed that he’d eventually turn things around. “I was confident that we’d get it done, but there was a lot of uncertainty around us,” he said. Luckily, Lending Club’s early investors, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, saw Laplanche’s confidence and remained as strong supporters. Even with all the uncertainty, they ended up doing a Series A follow-on round under the same terms as the Series A round. “Who would invest in a company that was stuck in limbo negotiating for its life with the government while the rest of the country was in an economic crisis?” Jeff Crowe, Managing Partner at Norwest, wrote on LinkedIn. “But we still thought that marketplace lending was a hugely important idea, and we continued to believe in Renaud.”
From 2012, Lending Club has been on a true hockey-stick growth, facilitating more than $9 billion in total loans so far. And in December 2014, Lending Club had its historic IPO, raising almost $900 million. Looking back, the 6-month freezing period couldn't have happened at a better time for Lending Club, says Laplanche. Right when it got the SEC approval in late 2008 and started to really accelerate its growth in early 2009, large banks were starting to pull back, making credit unavailable because of the financial crisis. “In hindsight, it was good timing,” Laplanche said. And Laplanche believes things are only going to get better. “Nobody ever looked at banking as an engineering problem,” he said. “We believe we can set up a marketplace where the banks become participants, and that process has already started.” Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow  | ||
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Lending Club, a company worth over $6.5 billion, is one of the biggest online lending marketplaces in the world. Its IPO last year was 
Finally, in October 2008, Lending Club gained approval from the SEC and returned to normal operations. From there, things started moving fast: within a few months, it received its first $50,000 unsolicited check by mail, and a couple of years later, it saw the first $5 million institutional investment made on its platform. There is a crazy theory going around Prague that says Google will acquire Twitter (TWTR, GOOG) | ||
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About 1,000 social media executives from around the world attended the Engage 2015 conference in Prague last week, hosted by Socialbakers, the big Czech startup that handles a huge chunk of Facebook's international marketing clients. Outside the main conference sessions much of the chatter among attendees was about whether Facebook or Google was more powerful in terms of reaching the audiences they need. Both have audiences in the billions, but Facebook seems to be innovating faster than Google right now. There was less talk about Twitter. That was partly because Twitter did not present at the conference (Google did), but it's also because Twitter's logged-in audience seems to have stalled at around 300 million monthly average users — making it a far smaller platform than Google or Facebook, despite its high profile in the media. (Nearly every TV show wants you to tweet, right?) I own a little bit of Twitter stock. Like a lot of TWTR holders, I have been depressed about the company's prospects recently after its disastrous last earnings call, when revenue expectations came in lower than expected. Chris Sacca, a big investor in Twitter, just said the time for being gentle with Twitter is over. He says he will start to air his complaints about the company more publicly from now on. I suspect that Twitter's user-growth problem will be one his main issues. So, I asked one of the more important executives at Engage, should I sell my Twitter stock? His answer surprised me: No, definitely keep it, because it looks like Google might acquire Twitter. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at this idea when he first said it. But as this executive talked his theory sounded so crazy ... it just might work! Here is why such a deal makes sense. The caveat here is that this is speculation. Speculation by a guy who happens to be intimately familiar with both companies but who has no specific knowledge that either one would even consider such a deal. Because this exec does business with both companies I decided not to name him here. But his Google-Twitter theory was so interesting it's worth airing. Here goes: There are a couple of "catalysts" coming up soon that might help Twitter regain momentum in the short term. ("Catalyst" is the word Wall Street types like to use when they mean "event that might move the stock upward.") The first is upcoming presidential elections in the US, and an in-out European Union referendum in the UK. A lot of the news and debate is going to break on Twitter first, so the platform is going to feel a lot more useful through November 2016. The second is that Twitter has a new deal with Google in which Google will display tweets as part of search results, allowing those search results to feel much more newsier and relevant — down to the last few seconds — than current news results, which may be minutes or hours old. At the same time, ad clients using Google's Doubleclick buying system will now be able to buy ads on Twitter through that platform. You can see there might be a virtuous cycle here: Google search results driving traffic to tweets on Twitter, and Twitter selling ads via Google against those eyeballs. "Google should buy them," my exec says. "Twitter could give them a real-time element to search." The Twitter history, the time-line — that's an irreplaceable (or nonreplicable) asset that Google doesn't have and cannot use without Twitter's permission, this guy says. The deal with Google can be seen as a test — if Twitter makes Google search better, and Twitter can generate meaningful revenue by selling ads via Google/Doubleclick, then Twitter becomes much more attractive for Google. "That looks like Google is trying to buy them," my source says of the new Google-Twitter experiment. Twitter's location features are now powered by Foursquare's check-ins, making its local targeting more accurate, too. And when Twitter users receive a direct message on Twitter, it can feel more important than other messaging platforms because that message is coming from someone with a public profile who may be more important or more famous than you, my man argues. We all get messages via text or Messenger, and your phone's notification panel acts as a central message service for you so it doesn't matter which app the message arrives on. Except Twitter: That might be a more important message than a work colleague saying "hi." "Google should buy Twitter no question. I'd offer two to three times the market premium for it," he says. Obviously there are a number of difficulties with the idea of a Google-Twitter deal. Too many to list here. (Feel free to use the comments to critique the theory.) But some parts of this "Twoogle" merger do fit together. It's crazy but ... Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 5 clever iPhone tricks only power users know about  | ||
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People are worried about Apple for the silliest possible reason (AAPL) | ||
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As we head into the second half of the year, there's a creeping concern amongst Apple analysts that investors are going to bail on the company. The reason for concern is silly. Basically, Apple has been doing too well. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been absolute juggernauts outperforming even the most optimistic analysts' expectations. Those iPhones, which have bigger screens than Apple's previous phones, have driven Apple's earnings to record-breaking highs, which has driven the stock to new high points. And that can only mean one thing to some people: Apple can only go downhill from here. Andrew Uerkwitz at Oppenheimer, for instance, relays the following in a new research note on Apple: Over the next nine months, we expect investors to doubt if Apple can deliver the same growth with quarters of tough comps ahead. In fact, we believe some will argue that Apple will record its first year-over-year decline of iPhone sales in FY15. This could put pressure on the stock as investors may start to believe that the iPhone growth story has run its course. What he's saying is that people think it's going to be hard for Apple to beat its record breaking performance. Apple sold so many iPhones, it's hard to imagine it can sell even more phones. As a result, investors expect a year-over-year drop in phone sales, which would likely lead to a year-over-year drop in earnings, which would hit the stock.
After Apple's most recent earnings report Gene Munster, Apple analyst at Piper Jaffray, forecasted a drop in revenue growth for the end of the year. Our emphasis added: The nagging question over the past year has been what happens when we comp the iPhone 6 launch? We are modeling for overall growth of 28% in the Jun-15, 11% in Sep-15, and down 1% in Dec-15. For 2016 we are modeling for 2% revenue growth. Any way you cut it, comps will get more difficult. We expect market share gains will improve these growth rates, but will still show a revenue growth slowdown. Our take on the comp question is investors (and analysts like myself), were reminded of the painful comp topic in the iPhone 5 cycle in 2013. Shares declined 44% in the 7 months after the iPhone 5 launch. We believe this dramatic drop two years ago reduces the risk of shares hitting the wall exiting the iPhone 6 cycle because most investors who have been buying shares of Apple over the past four months (stock up 22%) are aware of the upcoming comps. We believe the comps will soften the near term upside to AAPL shares, but still expect upside from current levels. Again, the primary reason investors might get skittish about Apple is that it's going to have a tough time outperforming itself. During the biggest three month period of Apple's year, the holiday quarter which runs from October to December, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones, generating $51 billion in revenue. To put that number in context, it's more than Facebook, Google, and Microsoft generated in revenue combined.
However, Uerkwitz from Oppenheimer thinks that Apple will be able to easily grow this year. He thinks the iPhone is just getting started: We believe investors’ fears of declining iPhone sales are premature, and Apple’s market share gain and sales momentum in China will allow the company to beat the tough comp this December quarter. Moreover, we believe Apple’s ecosystem, new product categories, and shareholder friendly actions will keep its earnings growth trajectory above consensus expectations while new revenue growth engines emerge to replace the iPhone. Let's break down each of those points. On Apple's most recent earnings call, Cook pointed out iPhone sales are outpacing the overall smartphone market. "We grew iPhone 40%," said Cook. "And IDC’s estimate of the market for last quarter is a 16%, so we grew two and a half times. And if you kind of look through at the different countries, in almost every country, we grew at a multiple of the market."
As the iPhone outpaces the overall market, it's going to take share, mostly at the expense of Android-based phones. Apple has also said that only 20% of the company's active installed based of users have upgraded to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. That means 80% of iPhone users are due for a new phone in the next 2-3 years.
One big driver of growth for Apple is China, which saw iPhone sales grow by 70% in the first calendar quarter of 2015. Uerkwitz says, "We believe China has more untapped growth potential for Apple in 2015 and beyond. We expect 20M incremental iPhone unit growth from China in 2015." Why is the iPhone doing so well? Uerkwitz credits the widening "ecosystem gap": It is well known that an upgrade to large display size of the iPhone 6 Plus sparked a wave of Android users to switch to iPhones. But we see that only as the first stage of Android share loss. What we have not expected at the start of iPhone 6’s launch, is how the “ecosystem gap” between iPhone and Android phones would widen quickly over the past nine months, which constitutes a substantial advantage of iPhones over Android phones, in our view. Take Apple Pay and Apple Watch, for example; those are completely new features and hardware (accessory) apart from the known Apple ecosystem, and yet we believe Samsung and the Android camp as a whole are unable to offer any competent, competing solutions. The likes of Apple Pay and Apple Watch provide small convenience to user experience that will make a big long-term difference in our view. We expect the widening ecosystem gap to steadily chip away Android installed base in the next few years, even after the "size gap" is completely filled, keeping iPhone unit shipments at an elevated level. It also helps that Samsung, and Android, have basically gone sideways. Samsung has failed to deliver compelling software. Android, because it's fragmented, can't offer the same sort of all-in-one solution that Apple offers with its completely controlled products. But, let's say this isn't enough. Let's say the iPhone slows down considerably, Uerkwitz thinks Apple has other ways to continue growing its earnings, and its share price.
Then, there's Apple's massive pile of cash. One way to increase a company's share price is to... buy more shares. Apple has one of the biggest share buyback programs in history.
And, finally, what Uerkwitz doesn't mention is the wild card stuff like new products. Apple is widely rumored to release a streaming music service to compete with Spotify. It is also expected to do a streaming TV service That should help get some growth back in the iTunes business. If those services work, they won't be immediately massive businesses for Apple, but they will get investors salivating at their prospects, which should drive the stock higher. In short: While there's an argument to be made that Apple can't outdo itself, the truth is that it's positioned to continue its incredible run thanks to a broad base of new products. Apple is just getting started. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 5 clever iPhone tricks only power users know about  | ||
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Uerkwitz isn't the only analyst floating this possibility. 
So, it's somewhat understandable that people are worried Apple can't grow this year! It has a tough comparison for year-over-year growth. 
Apple Watch estimates are all over the place, but they're generally high. Ming Chi Kuo, one of the most accurate analysts in the world, is forecasting 15 million units in the first 12 months of the product. Katy Huberty at Morgan Stanley recently upper her forecast to 36 million units. If we conservatively assume a $500 average selling price, then Apple is getting an extra $7.5 billion in revenue (on the 15 million units) or an extra $18 billion (on the 26 million units). Apple says the margins on the watch are below its corporate average, so it's possible Apple is losing money on the watch now, but odds are that it's profitable and will kick in more money to the bottom line.
Samsung is going into total meltdown (AAPL) | ||
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Samsung is "placing the wrong bet" on the hardware of its latest flagship phone, and now its business is imploding, according to a new research note from the investment bank Oppenheimer. Over the past year, the South Korean company has seen a catastrophic collapse, with sales in China dropping by more than 50%. Now shipments of its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6, are also down, while the iPhone soars to unprecedented heights. So what's the issue? The Galaxy S6 is Samsung's big push — but it's not workingIn April, Samsung released the Galaxy S6, its latest flagship phone intended to help revive drooping sales. The company ditched its traditional plastic casing in favour of a higher-quality metal-and-glass design and stripped back the features to the basics, removing previous selling points like waterproofing.
In the month since the phone's launch, however, the response has been lacklustre. The Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency reports that the device has seen 10 million shipments so far. For comparison, Samsung's previous model, the S5, shipped 11 million units in the same time frame a year ago — the year in which Samsung's sales collapsed. These are shipments, not sales, so the number of devices sold could be even lower. In a research note on Apple, Oppenheimer thinks Samsung's strategy is fundamentally misguided: When we look at Samsung’s flagship in 2015, the Galaxy S6 Edge, almost all of its differentiators fall back to hardware: a cutting-edge CPU, curved display, iPhone-like metal casing, front area fingerprint sensor, and camera with OIS. At the same time, we see little improvement in Samsung's software user experience, and no value-added to existing Samsung users who are on prior generations of devices. In short, there's no standout reason to buy a Samsung device specifically. Previously, it stood apart with a high-end, big-screen device that appealed to wealthy consumers. But now Apple has caught up, offering the iPhone 6 in equivalent sizes. Samsung has lost that edge. Meanwhile, at the low end Samsung's lack of differentiation leaves it vulnerable to smartphone makers like Xiaomi, which can offer equivalent products for far lower prices. Android devices on average are cheaper than ever before, but Xiaomi's phones retail for even less than that average at $220 to $254. Oh, how the mighty have fallenJust a few years ago, Samsung was all but untouchable, providing a (seemingly) desirable high-end Android handset. But everything changed with the launch of the iPhone 6. Released in autumn 2014, the larger-screen device set up Apple to have the most profitable quarter of any company ever. The Cupertino company has enjoyed record shipments, especially in Asian markets in which it previously had relatively low penetration. As Apple grew, Samsung plummeted. The profits of the South Korean electronics company collapsed, as the high-end market turned to Apple's latest handset. And Xiaomi has come from nowhere to become the most valuable startup in the world in just five years. Apple is No. 1Data from the research company IDC published earlier this month shows just how massive Samsung's collapse has been in the key market of China. In a year, the company has dropped from first place to fourth in terms of sales, while Apple has leaped into the lead.
The data is even more striking in this graph from Leon Markovitz at Dadaviz:
It's not just SamsungOppenheimer argues that it's not just Samsung that has this problem: It's the entire Android ecosystem. "In the past nine months, Android OEMs were unable to offer any competent competing solutions that may help reverse the share loss trend" to the iPhone, it says. It's true that Apple is seeing furious gains in smartphone market share, as it increasingly focuses on encouraging "switchers" to make the leap to iOS from Android. Realistically though, vast numbers of people can't afford to switch anytime soon, meaning low-end Android handset manufacturers are safe (for now). Samsung, however, isn't so lucky. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why Samsung's most gorgeous Galaxy phones yet will leave you with mixed feelings  | ||
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Israel ex-PM Olmert gets 8 months for corruption: reports | ||
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Jerusalem (AFP) - A Jerusalem district court sentenced former prime minister Ehud Olmert to eight months in prison on Monday, after convicting him of corruption in March, Israeli media reported. Lawyers for Olmert, who served as premier from 2006 to 2009, immediately announced that they would appeal. The 69-year-old already faces a six-year prison sentence handed down in a separate corruption case which is currently the subject of an appeal to the supreme court. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Hobbled LeBron James helps push Hawks to brink of elimination | ||
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Cleveland (AFP) - LeBron James played through a myriad of injuries as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Atlanta Hawks 114-111 in overtime to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals. James recorded his first triple double of the playoffs, finishing with 37 points, 18 rebounds and 13 assists as Cleveland pushed the Hawks to the brink of elimination in the best-of-seven series. "No matter how I am feeling I have got to try and make some plays," James said. "I felt like I couldn't give more, but then it was mind over matter. I was able to push through." The banged up Cavaliers can advance to the NBA finals with a win in game four on Tuesday. A hobbled James thought about taking himself out of the game in overtime but changed his mind. The pain on his face was plain to see when he drained a three pointer with under a minute left to give the Cavaliers the lead. Exhausted and sore, James then dropped to the floor after Sheldon Mack's potentially tying shot from beyond the arc bounced off the rim and out of harm's way as the final buzzer sounded. "You name them. We could play doctor right now with how many injuries I got," James said. "We are a desperate team. We are a banged up team and if we come out and play as hard as we can, we defend on a high level and we share ball offensively then we will give ourselves a chance to win." James, who missed his first 10 shots, ended 14-of-37 from the field. His shot to give Cleveland a 112-111 advantage with 36 seconds left was his only three pointer of the contest in front of a crowd of 20,500 at Quicken Loans Arena. He banked in a field goal with 12 seconds left just one possession later, and Mack missed a pair of three-point attempts in the final five seconds. - Battles through cramps- Cavaliers coach David Blatt said James was dealing with cramps. "He played through pain, he played through cramps and he just would not let us lose. He wouldn't let us lose, amazing," Blatt said. James has had dehydration problems throughout his career. He had to leave game one of the 2014 NBA finals while a member of the Miami Heat with painful and debilitating leg cramps. Already without Kyle Korver on Sunday due to an ankle injury, the Hawks lost all-star forward Al Horford during the final minute of the opening half following a dust up with Cavaliers Matthew Dellavedova. The incident occurred after Horford and Dellavedova were fighting for a loose ball rebound. Horford was assessed a foul and was thrown out of the game. He had scored 14 points on seven-of-10 shooting before leaving the contest. "He was carrying us," Hawks guard Jeff Teague said. The scrappy Dellavedova, who was handed a technical foul on the play, injured Korver Friday when he dove into his legs going for a loose ball. Horford retaliated against Dellavedova after a similar aggressive low dive. "There has just got to be a line at some point," Horford said. "He is a competitor. But he has to learn that at end of the day it is a big brotherhood. Guys look out for each other." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Cannes winner puts refugee issue up on the screen | ||
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Cannes (France) (AFP) - The debate around the world about what to do with growing waves of desperate migrants will be spurred by a Cannes Film Festival triumph for a movie that looks at the plight of a refugee hero. "Dheepan", a French movie about a Sri Lankan former soldier's struggles in a Paris ghetto in the grip of narco-gangs, didn't set out to tackle that wider thorny issue. But the fact that the film's win comes as refugee boats set off across Asian waters and the Mediterranean -- the same sea lapping at glittering Cannes and its super-yachts -- inevitably means it will figure in that context. "It's important to reflect on the situation," the movie's director, Jacques Audiard, admitted to reporters insistently raising the question. But he stressed, "I started writing the screenplay four or five years ago and the situation wasn't as critical as it is now". Nevertheless, "if it helps the situation, then so much the better". - Authenticity in role - The movie won't begin its release in cinemas for another three months. Its Cannes win will no doubt take it to countries that might otherwise have not seen it. Some of those countries are ones grappling with the problem of immigrants. Europe is experiencing a huge surge, particularly from Syrians fleeing the vicious four-year-old war in their country. States bordering Syria -- Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon -- are already saturated with refugees. Thousands of Bangladeshis and ethnic Rohingya leaving Myanmar are also posing a challenge for Asian nations, especially after a Thai crackdown early this month on human trafficking threw the illicit trade into chaos. "Dheepan" keeps its action centred on its central character, a former Tamil Tiger fighter who escaped the mayhem of his war-ravaged homeland and teamed up with two strangers, a woman and a girl, to pretend to be a family to win refugee status in France. The actor, Anthonythasan Jesuthasan, brought authenticity to the role, having actually been a teen fighter for the Tamil Tigers who escaped to Thailand, made his way to France in 1993 and eventually got political asylum. The character, he said, is "50 percent" himself. Presumably the part of the movie where he uses his battle skills to explosively confront the Paris drug gangs is the other, fictional half. Some of the other awards handed out at Cannes by a jury headed by the Coen brothers and including Jake Gyllenhaal nodded to different perplexing real-world issues. A Hungarian movie taking viewers inside Auschwitz, "Son of Saul", picked up the runner-up Grand Prize for its narrow but powerful look at the Holocaust. And the best actor trophy went to Vincent Lindon, the star of another French movie, "The Measure of a Man", which presents a jobless man struggling to maintain his dignity. - Intense experience - Joel Coen, sitting next to his brother Ethan in a post-awards press conference, said of the jury duty: "Any experience as intense as this changes your life and your perspective." Gyllenhaal explained the appeal "Dheepan" held for him. "We watch three strangers, forced to travel to a foreign land, essentially learn to love each other, which is something I've never really seen done in the way it is in that film," he said. The third-placed movie was "The Lobster", a Greek-directed dark comedy set in southern Ireland and starring Colin Farrell that imagined a society in which single people must find a mate or be transformed into animals. The best actress award was something of an upset, confounding critics who had thought Australian star Cate Blanchett was untouchable for her turn in an American period lesbian drama, "Carol". Instead Blanchett's co-star, Rooney Mara, and an actress in a French relationship drama called "Mon Roi", Emmanuelle Bercot, ended up sharing the trophy. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Fukushima operator wins Qatar utility contract | ||
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Tokyo (AFP) - The operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has jointly won a large power and water infrastructure contract in the desert state of Qatar, it said Monday. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp have been selected by a company backed by the Qatari government to build and operate power and water plants for 25 years, in a project worth some $2.5 billion. The announcement will be welcome news for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has led the drive for Japanese companies to sell their technology abroad and represents TEPCO's biggest foreign commercial success since the triple meltdowns at Fukushima in 2011. However, the new agreement does not include nuclear technology. The deal, sealed between K1 Energy, a joint venture established by Mitsubishi and TEPCO, and Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (KAHRAMAA), "is the result of an international tender issued by the KAHRAMAA in May 2014", the Japanese companies said in a statement. The final purchase agreement will be concluded between KAHRAMAA and a special purpose company established through a partnership among K1 Energy and three other Qatar companies, it said. "The special purpose company will construct, own and operate a gas-fired power generation plant with the capacity of 2.4 gigawatts and a water desalination plant with the capacity of 590,000 cubic metres per day in Qatar over 25 years," it said. Operations at the site, located 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of the capital Doha, "are scheduled to commence in 2017", it said. K1 Energy will hold 30 percent of the special purpose company, while Qatar Electricity and Water Company will hold 60 percent, with Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Foundation each holding 5 percent. Mitsubishi and TEPCO hold an equity share of 98.5 percent and 1.5 percent of K1 Energy respectively, but the companies are discussing "raising TEPCO's ratio of share holding to a maximum of 33.3 percent" by the end of September, the companies said. The project, which a TEPCO spokesman said will cost a total of 300 billion yen ($2.5 billion) "will also enhance TEPCO's business base as it seeks to increase operating revenue towards revitalisation in Fukushima", the statement said. TEPCO is battling with the spiralling costs of a technically complicated clean-up at Fukushima, where three reactors went into meltdown after their cooling systems were swamped in the March 2011 tsunami. The world's worst nuclear disaster in a generation forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, many of whom remain displaced amid warnings that some areas may have to be abandoned.
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139 grave sites, 28 trafficking camps found in Malaysia | ||
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Wang Kelian (Malaysia) (AFP) - A total of 139 grave sites and 28 human-trafficking camps have been found in a remote northern Malaysian border region, the country's top police official told reporters Monday. "(Authorities) found 139 suspected graves. They are not sure how many bodies are inside each grave," national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said. Khalid also said the largest of the camps could have housed up to 300 people, as he announced details of the first such sites to be found on Malaysian soil since a regional human-trafficking crisis erupted earlier this month.
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Malaysia PM 'deeply concerned' by mass graves | ||
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Wang Kelian (Malaysia) (AFP) - Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Monday he was "deeply concerned" by the first discovery of mass graves of suspected illegal migrants in northern Malaysia and vowed to find those responsible. "I am deeply concerned with graves found on Malaysian soil, purportedly connected to people-smuggling," he said on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. "We will find those responsible." Malaysia's home minister announced Sunday that mass graves were found near jungle camps along the border with Thailand, further evidence of the lethal nature of a human-trafficking trade that has blown up in to a regional crisis. Police in neighbouring Thailand in early May had found secret human-trafficking camps on their side of the border and dozens of shallow graves. These are the first found in Malaysia. Officials have yet to say how many bodies are in the Malaysian graves or their precise locations, but the country's police chief was expected to hold a press conference at 11:00 am (0300 GMT). There may be dozens or even hundreds of corpses in the graves, Malaysian media reports have said, citing unidentified sources. Malaysia's Perlis state, where the graves were found, is near where Thailand found its graves. The area is said by anti-trafficking groups to be a key stop on a route that funnels migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar into Malaysia and beyond. Thailand launched a crackdown on human-smuggling following the discovery of its mass graves. The move appears to have caused nervous traffickers to abandon their human cargo at sea, leaving boats filled with hundreds of starving migrants seeking to land in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. After initially turning them away, Malaysia and Indonesia last week bowed to international pressure, saying they would admit boat people pending their repatriation or resettlement elsewhere. Rights groups have long accused Malaysian authorities of not doing enough to contain human-smuggling. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Sharapova, Murray get French Open bids underway | ||
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Paris (AFP) - Defending champion Maria Sharapova and men's third seed Andy Murray get their French Open campaigns underway on Monday. Sharapova, second seed behind Serena Williams, tackles experienced Estonian Kaia Kanepi who was a quarter-finalist in 2012. Despite a healthy 4-0 career record over the world number 49, Sharapova will not underestimate a player who she also defeated in Paris seven years ago. "She's played really well here at the French Open. She's capable of playing good tennis. She's a big hitter and great server," said the Russian star. "It's a tough start for me, but I don't know when it's ever really an easy one at a Grand Slam." British third seed Murray may be able to count on some Paris support as he is coached by former French world number one Amelie Mauresmo. Murray comes into Roland Garros having picked up his first ever titles on clay this year in Munich and Madrid where he beat Rafael Nadal in the final. His claycourt record this season reads 10-0. Murray, twice a semi-finalist, tackles Argentine qualifier Facundo Arguello who reached the main draw as a lucky loser having lost in the final round of qualifying. Ranked 139 with a career high of 104, the 22-year-old from Cordoba is a pupil of 2004 Roland Garros champion and former world number five Gaston Gaudio. "It's probably the best I have played on clay, for sure. I mean, I never really felt particularly comfortable on the surface," said Murray who has been drawn in the same section as nine-time champion Nadal and top seed Novak Djokovic. "But winning tournaments and beating good players helps with the confidence. I just feel like I have an idea of what I'm doing on the court sometimes. "In the past I have not really known what was happening on the court and felt like I was struggling with my movement."
French Open order of play on showcourts Monday, the second day of the 2015 tournament at Roland Garros (x denotes seeded player; 0900GMT start):
Court Philippe Chatrier Alize Cornet (FRA x29) v Roberta Vinci (ITA) Lucas Pouille (FRA) v Gilles Simon (FRA x12) Kaia Kanepi (EST) v Maria Sharapova (RUS x2) Andy Murray (GBR x3) v Facundo Arguello (ARG)
Court Suzanne Lenglen Yoshihito Nishioka (JPN) v Tomas Berdych (CZE x4) Virginie Razzano (FRA) v Veronica Cepede Royg (PAR) Gaël Monfils (FRA x13) v Edouard Roger-Vasselin (FRA) Sloane Stephens (USA) v Venus Williams (USA x15)
Court One Carla Suarez Navarro (ESP x8) v Monica Niculescu (ROM) Gastao Elias (POR) v Benoît Paire (FRA) Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor (ESP) v Victoria Azarenka (BLR x27) Adrian Mannarino (FRA x30) v Jurgen Melzer (AUT) Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Nigeria's leading cellphone provider is going to shut down if it doesn't get more fuel | ||
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Many aircraft have been grounded with foreign airlines diverting to other African countries to fuel for flights abroad. Some radio stations have been silenced. Nigeria's woefully erratic electricity supply keeps businesses dependent on diesel generators. Nigeria produces more than 2 billion barrels of petroleum a day, but imports almost all refined fuel because its refineries aren't maintained. The party of President-elect Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday accused President Goodluck Jonathan's government of deliberately wrecking the economy. "The whole scenario reeks of sabotage," spokesman Lai Mohammed said in a statement. "Never in the history of our country has any government handed over to another a more distressed country: No electricity, no fuel, workers are on strike, billions are owed to state and federal workers, 60 billion dollars are owed in national debt and the economy is virtually grounded." Buhari takes office on Friday. MTN Nigeria, which has 50 million-plus customers, tweeted that cellphone service will start deteriorating in 24 hours if it doesn't find diesel. Some customers already are experiencing problems and Nigeria's landline network collapsed years ago. "MTN's available reserves are running low and the company must source for a significant quantity of diesel in the very near future to prevent a shutdown of services across Nigeria," corporate services executive Akindale Goodwill tweeted. The crisis began when oil suppliers, hit by tightened credit lines and unpaid interest, said the government owes them as much as $1 billion for fuel and subsidies going back to October 2014. They said they could no longer afford to supply fuel. Oil tanker drivers unpaid by the suppliers started striking last week and were joined Thursday by other oil workers. The government, reeling from halved international prices for petroleum that provides more than 80 percent of its revenue, is so cash-strapped it is borrowing to pay salaries, the finance minister said earlier this month. Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala denied the debt on Friday, telling journalists the suppliers are asking the government to pay their foreign exchange differential losses caused by the naira's slump from about 160 to the dollar in December to today's 218. She accused oil suppliers of holding Nigerians to ransom and said she has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to verify the figures because "there has been so much fraud allegations and scams in this business of oil marketing."
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LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's leading cellphone provider said Sunday it urgently needs diesel to prevent shutting down services countrywide — the latest business hit by a months-long fuel crisis in Africa's biggest oil producer. Conservative newcomer Duda wins Polish presidential cliffhanger | ||
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Warsaw (AFP) - Conservative opposition challenger Andrzej Duda on Sunday won Poland's presidential run-off, exit polls showed, trumping incumbent centrist Bronislaw Komorowski on promises of generous social spending. An MEP and lawyer with a populist streak, Duda scored 53 percent support ahead of Komorowski, who mustered 47 percent, exit polls showed, giving a key indicator of the national mood ahead of an autumn parliamentary election. Analysts said voters hungry for change in the EU and NATO member state could oust the governing centrist Civic Platform (PO) in this year's parliamentary polls and return the controversial Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party to power after eight years. Speaking to wild applause at his Warsaw campaign headquarters, Duda said: "Thank you, President Bronislaw Komorowski for the rivalry of this presidential campaign and for your congratulations." "Those who voted for me, voted for change. Together we can change Poland." Komorowski was quick to concede defeat and said his loss was also a warning signal to his political allies in government. "This is the decision of the citizens of a free and democratic Poland, so I congratulate my rival, Mr Andrzej Duda and I wish him a successful presidency because I wish Poland well," he told supporters in Warsaw. - 'Velvet road to dictatorship' - "Duda's victory signals a dramatic change on the Polish political scene," legendary communist-era dissident Adam Michnik said, warning that a potential victory of Kaczynski's PiS in parliament could mean that "Poland embarks on a velvet road to dictatorship." The Polish president has limited powers but is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, steers foreign policy and has the right to introduce and veto legislation. Duda has called for NATO to station its troops on Polish soil, amid heightened tensions with Soviet-era master Russia over the Ukraine crisis. But he has been less enthusiastic about Poland entering the eurozone, which he believes Warsaw should only do once the European single currency has solved all its debt woes. If official results on Monday confirm a Duda victory, he will take up his new office in August. Given his close affiliation with Kaczynski and the PiS opposition party, Duda's cohabitation with the PO government of Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz is expected to be difficult. A former defence minister who has been president since 2010, the 62-year-old Komorowski is allied with the PO. A largely lacklustre campaign for the presidential race focussed on security and social issues and saw Komorowski's initially strong lead melt away. Duda gained steam on promises of generous social spending as well as lowering taxes and the retirement age, measures analysts say Poland can ill afford. Despite consistent economic growth, high longterm unemployment has limited opportunities for young Poles and drained the government's popularity. "I voted for Duda because I want change," public sector worker Wieslawa Lorenc, 46, told AFP after casting her vote. "The retirement age just isn't right. Miners, nurses, teachers, they're not earning enough and the job market's bad." Komorowski had won backing from Polish-born former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski as well as a bevy of actors, athletes and other personalities. Some supporters said they simply wanted to avoid an "unpredictable" PiS presidency. "With a very heavy heart, I voted for Komorowski," Warsaw voter Alicja, 34, told AFP. She had backed the anti-establishment rock star Pawel Kukiz in the first round to protest the "lack of opportunity for young people on the job market". - Power play - Analysts said Komorowski's defeat was in large measure a signal from voters to the PO. The party has lost support over its failure to boost employment and keep its promises in key areas like administrative and tax reform. Ex-premier Kaczynski and his PiS party believe winning over disillusioned voters is key to making a comeback in both the presidency and parliament. Kaczynski -- whose twin brother, the late president Lech Kaczynski, died in a 2010 plane crash in Russia -- makes no secret of his wish to return to power. After losing to Komorowski in the 2010 presidential election, the 65-year-old Kaczynski floated Duda for president. Capturing the support of people who voted for Kukiz, the firebrand novice, in round one was key. The country of 38 million people has avoided recession over the last quarter of a century. The economy is set to expand by 3.5 percent this year, but joblessness is still high, standing at 11.3 percent in April. Voter turnout on Sunday hit a high 56 percent. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Juan Pablo Montoya wins second Indy 500 in spectacular racing duel over final laps | ||
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It's easy to forget that the Indianapolis 500 is the greatest race on Earth, combining the best of oval-track racing like Nascar with F1-style open-wheel cars that can turn laps of 225 mph. Then the 2015 race rolls around, takes over Indianapolis for Memorial Day weekend — and sees a shootout among three drivers for victory. Juan Pablo Montoya took the checkered flag, claiming his second Indy 500 (the first was in 2000). The 39-year-0ld Colombian started the race well back in the 30th position, but ended up in a duel with Team Penske compatriot Will Power and pole sitter Scott Dixon over the final 10 laps. A final pass after several lead changes gave Montoya the win, with Power coming in second. The Indy 500 is a unique race — a strategic, team-oriented contest that can often come down to pure driver boldness at the end. A missed pass can drop a competitor back and crush 190 laps of hard work. Montoya had his work cut out for him: Power was last year's second-place finisher, and Dixon won in 2008. The concluding laps, after a number of crashes had put the race under the yellow flag, were everything a fan could want. Montoya, Power, and Dixon screamed around the turns and straightaways in a tightly packed trio, swapping leads. Montoya found some daylight with three laps to go, and Power couldn't edge out his teammate. It was then Montoya's turn to head for the victory circle and, for the second time, to drink the traditional milk that comes with an Indy 500 win. We're willing to bet it tasted very sweet. SEE ALSO: Motorsports Tuesday: Mercedes-AMG and Nico Rosberg dominate in Spain Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This new version of Google's self-driving car will hit the streets of Mountain View this summer  | ||
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How a Japanese clothing brand got men to love shopping | ||
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Japanese clothing giant Uniqlo has plans to take over America. To accomplish this goal, the brand, which has 1,500 stores around the world, is going to great lengths to attract male shoppers. Apparel retailers have traditionally gone after women, who tend to shop more often and seek out trendy designs. "We take the men's business not as a secondary business, but a primary one," Steven Sare, chief merchandising officer, told Business Insider. While the brand is already the biggest apparel chain in Asia, executives are currently going after the Western market and have opened nearly 40 stores in America. That number could eventually expand to 1,000. Sare said that half of Uniqlo's customers are men, while its specialty retail competitors tend to have more female customers. Here are a few reasons why men love shopping at Uniqlo. Not trendyUniqlo started in Hiroshima, Japan in the mid-1980s as a unisex clothing company. As a result, many of its designs are simple and classic. Tadashi Yanai, Uniqlo's founder, reportedly studied and emulated Gap's business model. But while the American retailer has tried to market trendy clothing as of late, Uniqlo stuck to the basics. "The clothes are fairly basic and you don't have to be a fashionista to figure out how to wear them," Laura Gurski, a partner of the Retail Practice at consultancy A.T. Kearney, told Business Insider. "Men like this because they can mix and match fairly easily, and don't have to think too hard about it." Uniqlo offers the same men's shirts in dozens of different colors to simplify the process for men, Sare said. "Men can find a work shirt that fits, buy it in a couple of different colors, buy some jeans, and be done," he said. He said that male shoppers tend to come in less frequently than women, but spend more money per trip. Business Insider technology editor Steve Kovach said the simplicity of the store has made him a loyal Uniqlo customer. "I know my size, and can blast through the store in 15 minutes and get the same shirt in just about every pattern," Kovach said.
Performance fabricsMany athletic-wear companies say their products are sweat-wicking, cooling, or thermal. But Uniqlo was the first company to market the performance qualities of its workwear. Uniqlo sells work pants that are guaranteed to keep men cool. It also sells a polo with "technology so sweat dries for a smooth, dry, and comfortable feel." Men are often persuaded to buy this type of clothing because it is practical and solves a problem, according to Sare. "Having a product with value and functionality is something that appeals to men over fashion," he said. It also resonates with what many of Uniqlo's male customers have been doing for decades: shopping for performance clothing. "Many men spend their teens and 20s in sports clothes, so this language is very familiar to them," Gurski said. "Ultimately, this makes purchasing Uniqlo a familiar experience." Just as sportswear brands like Nike and Under Armour sign endorsement deals with celebrity athletes, Uniqlo has paid athletes like tennis star Novak Djokovic to tout its products.
Value propositionA core tenet of Uniqlo's business strategy is to market high quality and low prices. The brand's inexpensive clothing rose to prominence in Japan during an economic slump in the early '90s. "Our prices are incredible," Sare said. "They're really wonderful prices given the quality." A typical cashmere sweater at Uniqlo costs $89.90. A similar cashmere sweater at J. Crew costs $225. The brand can afford to offer lower prices because of its limited clothing selections, according to New York Magazine. By offering huge quantities of a few items, Uniqlo can better negotiate on the price of the fabrics it uses. The company can then pass that cost savings on to consumers. Low prices particularly interest men, because they care more about practicality than fashion when shopping.
Tailored looksUniqlo's research and development department tirelessly works to improve the fit of its clothing, Gurski said. "Uniqlo's clothing is often more fitted than [offerings from] many competitors, because they have done extensive research on what male shoppers want to wear," she said. "The company has realized that a significant segment of men don't want to wear a shirt that looking like a box; they want fitted clothes." Uniqlo also offers complimentary tailoring on its jeans, a great perk considering most of the brand's pants cost less than $50. Business Insider lifestyle reporter and Uniqlo customer Dennis Green says the fits at Uniqlo are better than they are many comparable retailers. "Their typical fit is much more flattering to the average male on the skinny side compared to anything from a similar retailer like Gap or department stores, which frequently design their clothes with much more generous cuts," Green said. SEE ALSO: 25 companies revolutionizing retail Follow Us: On Facebook Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: It's official: Michael Kors isn't cool anymore  | ||
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Queen Elizabeth II owns every dolphin in Britain | ||
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Here's your complete preview of this week's big economic events | ||
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It's a short week in America as everyone takes Monday off to celebrate Memorial Day and enjoy some barbecue with their friends and family. Surely, they'll also be talking about the economy. But what'll be the topic of discussion? Signs of wage growth? Low gas prices? The all-time-high stock market? Or perhaps the government-produced economic data that appear to be telling us the economy has hit a lull. Here's your Monday Scouting Report: Top Stories
Economic Calendar
Market Commentary The stock market is at all-time highs in what has been a pretty epic six-year-old bull market. One of the most remarkable characteristics of this bull market has been how little volatility it has experienced. Deutsche Bank's David Bianco notes that it has been years since we've seen a 10%+ correction in the S&P 500. From his note on Friday: "We believe the probability of a 5%+ dip is high this summer and our tactical call remains Down given the S&P now at an even higher PE than a year ago, heightened uncertainty in 10yr yields, weak earnings growth and continued soft economic data. We haven’t had a 5%+ dip this year. Historically 5%+ dips are common and happen at least once a year since 1960, except 1964, 1993 & 1995. It has been 916 trading days (3.6 years) since a 10% correction. Selloff triggers could be a further rise in 10yr yields especially if UE keeps falling amidst slow economic growth and Fed remains unclear on first hike timing, or a jump in the dollar upon the Fed expressing firm intentions to hike in Sept."
For more insight about the middle market, visit mid-marketpulse.com. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How to invest like Warren Buffett  | ||
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Exit polls give 'Indignados' possible lead in Madrid, Barcelona | ||
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Madrid (AFP) - Exit polls in Spain's local elections Sunday gave the "Indignado" protest movement a possible lead in a tight race for control of Madrid and Barcelona against governing conservative parties. A poll by TNS Demoscopia put the protest movement slightly ahead in Madrid and Barcelona, while another by GAD3 put them slightly behind but still breaking the ruling parties' majorities. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The genius 'A Beautiful Mind' mathematician who just died made all of his discoveries before he was 30 | ||
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When mathematician John Nash received a Nobel Prize for economics in 1994, there was a certain tragedy to the award. He hadn't published a scientific paper or held an academic post in nearly 40 years, according to a New York Times article from that year. Nash died Saturday with his wife, Alicia, following a taxi accident on the New Jersey Turnpike. He will likely be best remembered from Sylvia Nasar's bestselling 1998 biography titled "A Beautiful Mind" and the 2001 Academy Award for best picture winner of the same name, both of which documented a battle with paranoid schizophrenia that kept Nash out of academia for decades. "For the better part of 20 years, his once supremely rational mind was beset by delusions and hallucinations," The Washington Post notes in their obituary of Nash. "By the time Dr. Nash emerged from his disturbed state, his ideas had influenced economics, foreign affairs, politics, biology — virtually every sphere of life fueled by competition." When he won the Nobel, Nasar reported in The Times in 1994, Nash "was being honored for a slender 27-page Ph.D. thesis written almost half a century ago at the tender age of 21." Before the award was announced, many scholars assumed he was dead. Written while a graduate student at Princeton University, Nash's thesis would spawn what became known as the "Nash equilibrium," a central tenet of game theory. As a student and later a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nash became known for approaching problems in a way no one else could. "His graduate professor, R.J. Duffin, recalls Nash as a tall, slightly awkward student who came to him one day and described a problem he thought he had solved. Duffin realized with some astonishment that Nash, without knowing it, had independently proved Brouwer's famed theorem," Nasar wrote in 1994. "The professor's letter of recommendation for Nash had just one line: 'This man is a genius.'"
In many cases, these ideas seemed to appear out of thin air. "Nash was described as having insights before he could hammer out the proofs of their accuracy, the ideas coming to him more like revelations than like scholarly findings," according to The Washington Post. Nash was aware of his unusual process, even as his illness got worse and he began to display irrational behavior, such as believing he was communicating with aliens. In her biography, Nasar describes a meeting between Nash and a former colleague who came to visit him at a mental institution. "How could you, a mathematician devoted to reason and logical proof ... believe that extraterrestrials are sending you messages?" a visitor asked, according to Nasar. "Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did," Nash reportedly replied. "So I took them seriously." SEE ALSO: 'A Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash killed in car crash Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 70 people were injured while filming this movie with 100 untamed lions  | ||
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Chevron CEO John Watson on oil prices, what makes America No. 1 in energy, and why he wants to keep his company in California | ||
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America's oil giants are unparalleled in their power, complexity, and centrality to the American standard of life. With 30-year time horizons and international ties that go back decades, they see the world differently than virtually any other entity, public or private. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with John Watson, Chevron's CEO, for a wide-ranging conversation. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Henry Blodget: Ten years ago, nobody was breathing the possibility that the United States would become the world's No. 1 energy producer. How did that happen? John Watson: Our industry tends to be viewed as static because the end product doesn't change very much. It's gasoline you put in your tank. But we're really a technology industry that produces oil. It's a very innovative business. There are a number of players, very big and very small, and they're constantly innovating, constantly competing. So I think there's a tendency to underestimate the incentive that is out there to innovate and do things in a different way. Hydraulic fracturing is not new, directional drilling is not new, but putting them together the way that some of the innovators in our industry did — and it wasn't my company. A number of small entrepreneurs, some of them down to their last nickel, literally, were looking for a way to try to develop resources. And so that innovation, and the incentive that the marketplace provides, has fostered this environment. And it's happened in many ways. Shale is the most visible and surprising. But when I joined the company in 1980, a couple of hundred feet of water was deep water. Now we're doing work in 10,000 feet of water. Tremendous advancements in technology have taken place. HB: And two or three years ago, all you heard was 'peak oil' in certain circles. Who is right? Are we going to run out, or is it infinite? JW: There's plenty of oil in the world. The limitation on producing oil and gas is not the amount of oil and gas in the earth. It's the technology you apply get it out, the fiscal terms that are in place, the stability of the governments in place. And a variety of other above-ground risks, security amongst other things, that limit what can be produced and developed. In the United States, despite some restrictions, we have an environment in which the private sector has been allowed to innovate and develop resources. All the increase in production has taken place on private lands. Not on public lands. Not every country has that. Not every country has rule of law. There is a limit at some point [to the availability of oil in the world], but we're a long way from it.
HB: The other thing that happened in the last year or two is that we've gone from people believing we're in an era of $100-plus oil and suddenly it was cut in half, $50 a barrel. Why didn't anybody see that coming? JW: That's a good question! We've been introspective about that ourselves. In one sense, we should have seen it. I've been at Chevron for 35 years, and this is the fifth time I've seen a 50% or more reduction. So why didn't we see this one? I think the answer is that if you go back a year or so, supply and demand was in reasonable balance. Then the world economy slowed a little bit, a little bit more production came on from Iraq and Libya. Shale started producing a little better and you got out of balance. What happens in our business is in general you put a lot of money in and then you produce. And if you misgauge that and you're producing too much, literally prices can fall to cash costs. But if you've already made the investment, you're going to keep producing. The operating cost to keep something running can be very low. So it really amounts to a very steep supply-and-demand curve where once you get out of balance, prices can rise fast and they can fall fast. And typically in the past, OPEC or the Saudis would step in and make some production cuts. They've chosen not to do that. They've chosen that because their market share has gone from 50% 30 years ago to a third, OPEC as a whole. So they've chosen not to do that, so natural market forces are going to have to work. It will happen in due course, and the debate is how fast it will happen and where it will settle out when they rise. HB: What's Chevron's best guess over the next few years? Are we staying at $50, back to $70, way over $100 again? JW: Well, remember I was the one that wasn't able to predict the last decline? (Laughs) HB: Absolutely! (laughs) JW: I'll just say that the forces are at work now both on the cost side and on the price side to come into a better equilibrium. I expect this year to be a big shakeout year. This is a tough year because there's been momentum in the spin but you're seeing rig counts drop. You're seeing activity slow down. So 2015 is likely to be pretty choppy, and you've seen that. I think that we'll get into better balance in 2016, and I think you'll see some price recovery. Where it ends up ultimately reasonable people could disagree on. What I'll tell you is a lot of the big projects aren't going to get started with the current cost/price relationships that we're seeing. Once that momentum works through the system and the spending effects start to be felt, you'll see prices recover.
HB: The big projects that you refer to — how long do they take to come online? JW: A deepwater development can take seven to 10 years, and then it produces for 20 or more. We've spent five-plus years building a big liquefied-natural-gas project in Australia. That will produce literally for 30 or 40 years. You do have to take a long-term view. We're still spending $35 billion this year on new projects. We are continuing to spend, but we all have to strike that balance between what you want to do to invest through the cycle and what you need to do to balance the near-term financial priorities. We're continuing shale drilling, for example. We have a great position in the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico and we're continuing to invest when others are cutting back because we think it's economic to do so. HB: Let's talk about energy in general. Is Chevron in the camp that believes global warming is a hoax, or is it real? And if it's real, what is the responsibility of an oil company in that? JW: We're certainly not in the former camp. I wouldn't want to leave you with that impression. One of the challenges in talking about this subject is that we tend to jump right into that instead of stepping back a minute. I start from a more basic premise. Everything you have in life — light, heat, mobility, the food you eat, the clothes you wear — every single thing you have is dependent upon fossil fuels. Eighty percent of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels. For most of the world, their priority is affordable energy. We are the envy of the world because we have tremendous diversity. We have renewables in this country. We've had hydropower for a long time, nuclear, oil, and gas and coal. We are the envy of the world because we have tremendous diversity. We have renewables in this country. We've had hydropower for a long time, nuclear, oil, and gas and coal. Most of the world is just trying to keep the lights on. We have this diversity. We have a rich portfolio of energy that we can choose from. Most of the world is just trying to keep the lights on or put the lights on. When you start from a policy point of view, you have to ask: What are your priorities? The overwhelming priority is to sustain the quality of life that we have and for most of the world to achieve some semblance of the life we have. With that as a background, fossil fuels are essential to our life. Then you say, "OK, what are the effects, and what should we do about them?" That's where we need to strike the balance. My general view is before we can replace fossil fuels we are going to have to have an affordable alternative. There was a big study for Secretary Chu that laid out a blueprint. Don't spend a lot of money subsidizing technologies that are not going to solve the problem. Invest in early-stage technologies, and we've identified about a dozen of them that may produce a step change in technologies. No. 1: Husband the scarce resources that you have carefully. No. 2: There is low-hanging fruit that is economic to do in the way of energy conservation that we can put in place today. [No. 3:] we are blessed in this country with natural gas. It is naturally displacing coal and so it's a blessing. Enable that development. I don't mean subsidize it, enable that development, and that right there gets the United States on a pretty strong pathway. Every country has its own energy objectives. I think most countries are going to continue, certainly in Asia and Africa, the developing nations, are going to continue to produce fossil fuels for a long time because it's all they can afford. That's certainly what China is going to do. I think that it is becoming apparent that the cost of a rapid transition when you don't have an economic alternative is going to be expensive. In Germany and Denmark electricity costs are triple the average in the United States. If policymakers in our country want to impose additional costs on American consumers and business, just be transparent about it and tell the American people what the benefit is going to be versus the costs. What I think we tend to not do well in this country is talk candidly about those choices that we're making. [For example,] in the Northeast, if you're going to shut down coal plants and nuclear plants, you better build pipelines through the Northeast so you can get natural gas in, right? HB: And so why aren't we doing that? Is it local, national? JW: It's both. At a federal level the Keystone Pipeline gets all the attention, and certainly that sets a very bad example from a policy point of view with a key ally to the north. It happens on a local level and at the state level as there has been some difficulty permitting natural-gas lines. My industry has to do its part, don't get me wrong. We have to be sure that we have the latest technology on pipelines. We have to be sure we work with the rail industry to be sure we keep the trains on the tracks and have the right sort of cars on the tracks. We have to be sure that we're listening to the public and we're out ahead of the concerns that are out there. But fundamentally we have a great opportunity in this country and we just need to be sure we take advantage of it. I'm not in the coal and nuclear business. I think we're gradually dissipating our advantage in those areas, and I think there's probably an opportunity — even though it competes with my products.
HB: Do you think America's energy independence represents a fundamental change? Is this going to be true for generations to come, or is this more of a temporary state of affairs? JW: Oh, I think we will have a competitive advantage as long as we continue to exercise that competitive advantage. I think we have a very secure system of energy supply. I think Americans should view it as a blessing. We have opportunity to take advantage of it and I think we've been able to do that largely on private lands. [In terms of prices,] I think there are real benefits to consumers. The way I describe it is when prices were high, our industry was investing very heavily and there were lots of jobs at a time when the countries needed it. Now prices are down and it's tough times for the oil patch, but consumers are benefiting and there's a stimulus effect from low prices. There's a benefit either way. That's the lens I look through. When I go overseas people say, 'You are so lucky.' Americans, you are so lucky. You have it all and I think we just have to be sure that our policies are consistent with that. [In America], we get some things right, and I think that's why we're succeeding. HB: How is what is happening in Russia affecting the global market? Are you as worried — as a lot of ordinary citizens are — watching what appears to be a return to the Cold War? JW: Well, we don't produce oil and gas in Russia. We do have a relationship with the government. We are partners with them in a pipeline that runs from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea across Russian territory. One of the things that makes American companies successful is that we're not political agents of our government. We play it straight. We were the only American company in Myanmar when it was a sanctioned country. We were one of the few American companies in Angola when they were at odds with the US government.
HB: Chevron has moved a bunch of people from California to Texas. Is Texas better? JW: Well, our headquarters is based in California and in fact our biggest position in the refining marketing business is in California. That's where headquarters is and that's where a lot of people are based. The epicenter of the exploration business, the upstream business, is Houston, and so over time we've gradually migrated a lot of our headquarters-type activity closer to there. We've got a big presence in Midland, and we have one in Bakersfield, southern California. We go where the work is. I think there are advantages to being in California. I think there are advantages to being in California. There's a big environmental community. There's a big tech community. I think we've been out ahead of some in the industry thinking through some of the issues are where the sensitivities are with the American people. We used to be called the California Company, so we've been here 135 years and I think we'll be here a lot longer. One of the advantages to being in California is that it's a little unusual for an oil company. There's a big NGO community. There's a big environmental community. There's a big tech community, and I think California as a leader in trends there are benefits to being close to that. Some people think of it as a disadvantage. I don't because I think we've been out ahead of some in the industry and thinking through some of the issues and where the sensitivities are with American people and environmental groups and others. HB: So it's not a function that California's laws and taxes have just become egregiously restrictive and high? There are plenty of people in the finance industry who are moving across the border to Arizona. You've got people in Silicon Valley doing the same thing — if not Arizona, Nevada. It doesn't have anything to do with that? JW: I am concerned about the fiscal direction of the state. The governor is working on a number of initiatives. I think we have a tax system that's very top heavy. I do think there's risk that a lot of high-income earners are choosing to leave the state. I try not to whine about it because every company has a choice. We've chosen to stay, but I hope the governor and the legislature and others will be responsive because it is a costly place to do business. Not just from a tax point of view, but from a regulatory point of view and otherwise. The state has some very successful areas. Silicon Valley gets a lot of attention. Hollywood gets a lot of attention. You've got depression in the central valley of the state, and so it's a state of haves and have nots. It's going to need to be addressed in due course. I'm a lifer in California. I was born and raised here, fourth-generation Californian. HB: What keeps you up at night now? What is your greatest worry? JW: Frankly, the biggest thing I worry about every night is will our employees be safe, and the contractors. We have 60,000 employees, but 300,000 people work on our job sites every day, contractors and others, and I want to be sure they're safe. I think a lot about that, and I feel good about the position that we're in. There are a number of business issues that I think about. I won't say price, per se. I think more about how we execute the work that we're doing. I want to be sure that in a price downturn we're still doing the right things in developing employees. One of the reasons the industry was in short supply of people is because during the '80s and '90s when prices were down we didn't hire very many people. We're going to continue to be on college campuses and hiring. HB: You have this extraordinary statistic at the company: The average employee tenure is 31 years. People seem to join as 20-year-olds and work for Chevron forever. How do you do that in this day and age? JW: I think our average employee is in their 40s now, but we've been going through what we call a crew change where a lot of people of my vintage, they're starting to cycle out and we're bringing in a lot of people off college campuses and otherwise. I live in California. I'm from Silicon Valley. I have a lot of tech friends and the common view is that jobs are portable. You build your skillset. You can't trust the company you're with and you move on. That may be true in some business, in some careers, in some technologies. That is not what we tell the people we hire. I just described we're in a long-cycle business, and we don't hire people knowingly that we don't think can stay with us. I have a lot of tech friends and the common view is that jobs are portable. You build your skillset. You can't trust the company you're with and you move on. That is not what we tell the people we hire. We're in a long-cycle business, and we don't hire people knowingly that we don't think can stay with us. Obviously some choose to and some don't, but my view is people leave a company when they don't think they have opportunities. We have tremendous opportunities for people. HB: How do you differentiate? When you're on a college campus pitching Chevron, what are you saying? "Oh, you don't want to go work for Exxon. You want to come to Chevron because ..." Why? JW: I've never believed in negative marketing. It may sound corny in this day and age, but we talk about values. You go back to the '60s and '70s — we thought we were idealistic in those days. Well, the kids are really idealistic today, whether it's on environmental issues or otherwise. You have to be progressive in your views and prove you live up to your values. A lot of people we hire start with internships, and we have an incredible retention rate after they've been inside and they see that we do a pretty good job, not perfect, but a pretty good job of living up to those values. They like the culture in our company. Then you have to have an offering that's competitive when it comes to training and development. For most disciplines we have a five-year period where they're guaranteed several different assignments, training, development, and mentoring. I think the great fear for a young man or woman is that they're going to get pigeonholed and they're going to get lost inside a big company. By ensuring some mobility, some training, some interaction with others, I think you can get them off to a good start in their career. HB: What's the life like for young employees at Chevron? You go to Silicon Valley it's all about free food and slides and scooters going all over the place and riding around the campus in self-driving cars. Do you have all that stuff? JW: That is not our culture. I think it's about a challenging career. We have to pay competitively. It may be that in some markets you have to have free food and all those things to retain people. I don't think that's really key in the long run to retaining good people. Those same companies that have all those things have ultra-high turnover. HB: Can you talk about the challenges of finding science and engineering talent. How hard it is to find great people? JW: We recruit globally, and certainly we recruit at a broad range of schools that offer the degrees in engineering and technical degrees that we need. We do a lot of things to be sure that we're connected well with the academic community so we know who the promising students are. We also recruit internationally. In many countries where we operate we're one of the largest employers, and jobs with our company are highly desired, whether it's Thailand, Indonesia, Nigeria, Angola, we're a good draw. We would love to see more young people going into science, technology, engineering, and math, and so we do a lot of work starting at the elementary-school level. We can't be everywhere, but we do work with STEM-related programs, Project Lead the Way, supporting curriculum in STEM, things of that sort. We try to help with the feeder pool, but it's a national issue and I would love to see greater diversity. Right now less than 10% to 15% of the graduates of the big engineering schools are women. I'd love to see more women. I'd love to see more underrepresented minorities in that group. We're getting better. As a company our visible diversity is rising, but I'd love to have a broader pool to draw from in total and from a diversity perspective. HB It's hard to be the guy at the top. Who are your sources of inspiration, or whom do you turn to for advice? JW: I've been very fortunate inside the company. From the day I joined, I have had people who have been willing to take the time to talk to me and to help me. Some of those are peers. Some of those have been a very senior level. Certainly my two predecessors helped me quite a bit. Outside the company I draw inspiration from a lot of places, from a pure admiration point of view. You know, Lee Kuan Yew just passed away and I've had a chance to meet him. Certainly if you think about trying to create prosperity around the world, taking Singapore from where they were to where they are today is a modern-day miracle, and whatever the criticism might be it's a tremendous accomplishment. I think in my industry we're looking to create prosperity. A better way of life comes from having affordable energy, and that's what we're trying to do. I admire people that have created that prosperity. In his case energy wasn't the issue, but he put in place a whole system that did just that.
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Our view is that Chevron and American companies can do a lot of good in these countries starting with our ethics, but extending into technology and development. At times when you have 30- and 40- or 50-year relationships with governments, you'll have ups and downs in the political cycle. I try not to enter that fray. We abide by the laws that the US has. We cannot do business with Iran today. So we don't do business with Iran.
Watch this guy attempt to eat 9,000 calories in one sitting for this over-the-top British food challenge | ||
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The Ambrosia "Food of the Gods" challenge, hosted at Huckleberry's American Diner in York, England, tasks competitors with consuming over 9,000 calories in less than 60 minutes. That's almost 14 pounds of food and over three times the recommended daily caloric intake. The meal includes pulled turkey, pulled pork, sticky bourbon beef, slow cooked beef brisket, BBQ pork ribs, and mashed potatoes. Someone has yet to complete the gluttonous challenge. 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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Here’s my strategy for securing the best seat on every flight | ||
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French immigration thriller bags Cannes Palme d'Or | ||
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Cannes (France) (AFP) - A French thriller spotlighting the plight of traumatised refugees building new lives, "Dheepan", captured the Palme d'Or top prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday. As countries around the world grapple with an influx of people fleeing global crises, a jury led by Hollywood filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen chose the gritty picture about Sri Lankan asylum-seekers by acclaimed French director Jacques Audiard among 19 international contenders. "To receive a prize from the Coen brothers is something pretty exceptional," Audiard said, clutching the trophy. "I'm very touched," he said. The harrowing Holocaust drama "Son of Saul" by Hungarian newcomer Laszlo Nemes, offering unflinching depictions of the gas chambers of Auschwitz, claimed the Grand Prize, runner-up for best picture. "This continent is still haunted by this subject," Nemes said. And "The Lobster", a surreal, pitch-black comedy about modern love by Greece's Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, bagged the third-place Jury Prize. Best director honours went to Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-Hsien for the visually lush, slow-burn martial arts film "The Assassin". The nine-member panel handed the best-actress trophy to two winners: US star Rooney Mara for the lesbian love story "Carol" which also stars Cate Blanchett; and France's Emmanuelle Bercot, in the doomed romance "Mon roi" (My King) by fellow actress-turned-filmmaker Maiwenn. "I am thrilled to share this with another actress because it's a bit too big for me to carry alone," said Bercot, who had opened the 12-day festival with French social drama "Standing Tall", which she directed and co-wrote. In a strong night for the host country, France's Vincent Lindon won best actor for his moving turn as a job-seeker standing up for his dignity in "The Measure of a Man". Mexican director Michel Franco clinched best screenplay for "Chronic" starring British actor Tim Roth as a nurse caring for dying patients. - Fresh starts - Audiard, a Cannes favourite, specialises in films about broken people looking for fresh starts, as in critical triumphs such as "A Prophet", "Rust and Bone" and "The Beat That My Heart Skipped". In "Dheepan", novelist and former child soldier Antonythasan Jesuthasan plays an ex-Tamil Tiger fighter escaping Sri Lanka's brutal civil war. He and two strangers -- a woman and a nine-year-old girl -- pretend to be a family to make it to France on fake passports. Once they arrive in a rough housing estate on the outskirts of Paris, the makeshift family begins to bond and Dheepan must use his battlefield experience to keep the three of them safe from drug gangs waging a turf war. Antonythasan himself fought for the Tamil Tigers from the age of 16 before making it in 1993 on a fake passport to France, where he was granted political asylum. Audiard, who spoke to his actors through an interpreter on set, told reporters during the festival that he "couldn't have placed Sri Lanka on a map" when he started working on the screenplay. He had rather sought "to approach a love story from a completely different angle" and offer a portrait of his country from the perspective of outsiders looking in. - Booing makes a comeback - This year's selection divided reviewers, with a few stand-out pictures mitigated by a clutch of flops. Booing made a big comeback as hot-blooded critics made their feelings about the duds known to the world's press. Matthew McConaughey's mystical new movie "The Sea of Trees" directed by Gus Van Sant was loudly jeered as trite and syrupy. A French "fairytale" about brother-sister love "Marguerite and Julien" was also booed. And the hottest ticket at the glamorous 12-day event on the French Riviera, the ultra-graphic 3D sex film "Love", left viewers cold. Cannes would not be Cannes without a dose of offscreen controversy and this year it came in the form of a high-heeled shoe. Complaints by some female cinema-goers that they were turned away from gala premieres for wearing flat footwear drew charges of sexism and a "stiletto-gate" storm of protest on social media. Festival director Thierry Fremaux later apologised for "overzealousness" on the part of some security personnel in enforcing the strict Cannes dress code. The row undermined efforts at Cannes to redress a much-criticised neglect of female filmmakers in its official selection. Two of the 19 movies in competition for the Palme d'Or were made by women. Last year the top prize went to an epic drama about Turkey's internal tensions, "Winter Sleep" by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Apple has a crazy idea for the iPhone's home button that could make it much more powerful and useful (AAPL) | ||
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The iPhone's home button is already a crucial part of the experience — in addition to using it when you want to exit an app, the fingerprint sensor in newer iPhones lets you unlock your phone and verify your identity. Now, a recently published Apple patent application provides more evidence that the home button probably isn't going away anytime soon. The patent application, published on Thursday, describes a system in which you could use the iPhone's fingerprint sensor to actually navigate your phone. Apple highlights a few specific-use cases in the images included with the document. The idea is to expand the functionality of the home button by incorporating Touch ID into other use cases beyond verification and unlocking your phone. For example, pressing down or holding the home button could launch the search function from the home screen. And, at the same time, the fingerprint sensor in the home button could be incorporated into games. Imagine you're playing a game that requires you to aim. Instead of pressing and dragging on the screen, you could rotate your thumb on the home button to adjust your aim, in turn preventing your fingers from obscuring what you're looking at on your screen.
Apple also mentions the idea of locking your iPhone into either portrait or landscape mode depending on which way your fingerprint is facing.
On the iPhone, you can currently hold down the home button to activate Siri, double press it to see which apps are open on your phone, press the home button to return to the home screen, or hold your finger over it to authenticate iTunes purchases. Apple has clearly already expanded the home button's functionality beyond its basic purpose, but the new patent application describes technology that would be able to read the intricate movements of your finger — not just how hard you're pressing. It's just a patent application, which means it's not guaranteed to ever become part of Apple's products. Still, it comes at a time when Apple has been experimenting with new ways to interact with gadgets. The Apple Watch and new MacBook both come with a technology Apple calls Force Touch that can tell how hard you're pressing rather than just where you're pressing. On the Apple Watch, this tech is integrated into the screen and on the new MacBook it lives in the trackpad. That being said, Apple has patented all kinds of eccentric ideas pertaining to the iPhone's home button that probably won't become a reality. Earlier this year, an Apple patent described a home button that could pop out like a joystick to be used with mobile games. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How to build an iPhone projector for less than $10  | ||
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