Two start-ups that are trying to destroy the banks just joined forces | ||
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Bad news for banks — two start-ups trying to reinvent finance and destroy traditional lending just teamed up. Challenger bank Metro Bank has just struck a deal with Zopa, one of the UK's biggest peer-to-peer consumer lenders, to lend money over Zopa's platform. The amount lent wasn't disclosed but a source told Business Insider that it was around "millions a month". The pair signalled their ambition in the release announcing the deal, writing: "Zopa and Metro Bank believe this partnership is a great example of how disruptive financial challengers can collaborate to provide additional value and revolutionise the UK banking sector." Both companies want to not only steal market share from the UK's traditional banks but also force them to reinvent their business by doing so. Management at both Metro Bank and Zopa have in the past said traditional banks do not to enough to cater to customers' needs. Metro Bank, known for its strong customer service focus, has in the past labelled the UK's five dominant high street banks "a cartel" and Zopa's boss Giles Andrews has chided banks for overlooking customers. Clearly these are two companies that aren't just happy to work alongside traditional lenders. Zopa's CEO Giles Andrews said in a statement: "This partnership brings together two key challengers to the traditional financial services landscape and signals our intent to become a mainstream service.” Metro Bank's CEO Craig Donaldson echoed Andrews' sentiment, saying: "At Metro Bank we’re committed to revolutionising UK banking and we’re delighted to have partnered with Zopa, a fellow financial challenger." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what 'Game of Thrones' stars look like in real life  | ||
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Hello! Here's what you need to know for Tuesday.
Jawbone's last $300 million loan came with harsh terms, says report | ||
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Fitness-tracking device maker Jawbone has had its fair share of recent troubles, including a delayed launch of its latest product, the Up3. In an analysis of startups conducted for Business Insider by Mattermark, Jawbone was one of the "unicorns" — companies with private-market valuations of greater than $1 billion — seen to be at the greatest risk of failure. The company raised $300 million in February, but a new report from Bloomberg View suggests that the investment by financial management giant BlackRock was a loan, not an equity investment. And that loan came with some pretty strict terms: In the event of a sale, BlackRock will get paid before the investors who went into earlier rounds, and BlackRock will also have significant say in executive makeup and how the company spends its money, according to the report. So Jawbone lives, but life is getting harder. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how people react to trying on the Apple Watch for the first time  | ||
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Apple gave up on making a TV a year ago | ||
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Despite superstar investor Carl Icahn's best guess, Apple gave up on any plans to make its own television as long ago as last year, according to a Wall Street Journal report. In an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook today, Icahn wrote that he expects an Apple car and an Apple television — two rumored projects which have never been officially confirmed or announced by Apple — to hit the market next year. But while the jury's still out on any Apple car, that report indicates that Apple's television dreams may have come to an end a year ago, after over a decade of internal research and development. Basically, Apple reportedly found the higher-end television market to be way too competitive to go head-to-head with the likes of Samsung. The rumors held that the Apple television would sport an insanely high video resolution (four times as many pixels as HDTVs), and that it would include cameras and sensors to make video calls straight from the set. In his letter, citing "many years of rumors, Icahn said that he assumed it would ship in 55" and 65" models. But ultimately, Apple decided that nothing they could come up with was good enough to really make a splash in the market, especially given the fact that high-resolution TVs are only going down in price, the Journal reports. It's a shame, because Apple had reportedly been working on plenty of crazy ideas, including a transparent pane of glass that would use lasers to project the TV image. But on that idea in particular, the prototype had poor image quality and worse power efficiency. Apple hasn't given up on TV entirely: The rumor is still that we'll see a new Apple TV console before the year's out, with a new design and remote control. And Apple is still working with partners like HBO to build an online television service. Just don't hold your breath waiting for a big-screen Apple television. SEE ALSO: CARL ICAHN: Apple is worth $240 per share MORE BACKGROUND: Apple's new TV service will have the one feature that will scare the heck out of cable companies Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how to get HBO Now on your TV without Apple TV  | ||
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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff finds a way to take a jab at Oracle during a Berkeley graduation speech (CRM) | ||
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Benioff mocked Oracle’s cloud product “Fusion” as an underperforming “Confusion” in February, while Ellison didn’t even wait until the call to start to trash-talk Salesforce’s cloud business in March. And on Saturday, Benioff took another potshot from a new venue: a college campus. During his commencement speech at UC Berkeley, Benioff talked about his first full-time job at Oracle, and how the company grew tenfold within three years of his joining the company. But after 13 years at Oracle, Benioff says he wasn’t feeling fulfilled anymore. “After 13 years, I wanted to start my own company. I felt strongly in my heart that there must be more to the values of business than what I was experiencing at Oracle,” Benioff said. “I came to the realization that companies can do much, much more than just build and sell products,” he added. So in 1999, Benioff left Oracle and started a company called Salesforce. As the story goes, Benioff made three commitments when he started his own company. The first one was to build a truly “cloud” product, where you didn’t need to buy and install a physical product to use the software. Secondly, he wanted to build a subscription business, where companies would pay on a monthly-basis, as opposed to paying a huge, one-time upfront fee. The last one was to build a philanthropic culture where the company would give 1% of equity, 1% of employee time, and 1% of profit to build Salesforce Foundation. At the time, all three ideas were rather unconventional. Taking software to the “cloud” and getting paid monthly was unheard of, and a company-wide philanthropic effort was not considered a priority in the corporate world. To his credit, Benioff was an early pioneer in carrying out these initiatives, and has been one of the most vocal proponents of giving back to the society. Despite all this, however, a lot of the Berkeley students in attendance seemed clueless about who Benioff was, according to the San Jose Mercury News. So towards the end of the speech, Benioff took it as a chance to recruit talented Berkeley students to his company: “You can email me at ceo@salesforce.com or tweet me @benioff.” You can watch the full commencement speech below (Benioff's talk starts at around 1:47:00): Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch these giant container ships collide near the Suez Canal  | ||
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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison have taken their back-and-forth war of words up a notch recently, with each slamming the other’s company during their quarterly earnings calls. There's a crazy new wrinkle in HP's $5 billion lawsuit against Autonomy (HPQ) | ||
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Earlier this month, HP released a massive document spelling out its case in its $5 billion lawsuit against Autonomy executives. In it, HP said a software reseller called MicroTech was involved in a bunch of questionable transactions with Autonomy. Now, MicroTech is suing HP for $16.5 million, claiming it was duped by Autonomy, now owned by HP, into paying for product it never received. HP's case was spelled out in a 134-page document in which it claimed that Autonomy execs used financial tricks (HP called it fraud) to make it look like Autonomy was earning more revenue than it was. HP bought the company for $11 billion in 2011 and, less than a year later, wrote off $8.8 billion. Autonomy execs have categorically and repeatedly dened all of HP's charges and say HP's own mismanagement of the company caused the write-off. HP says that one of the alleged schemes involved five of Autonomy's sales partners, known as "value-added resellers" (VARs), who, HP says, were involved in various "contrived" transactions. It offered a few examples, including a deal between Autonomy and MicroTech in which MicroTech paid Autonomy $9.6 million for software for a customer contract that allegedly never materialized, HP says. And Autonomy paid MicroTech $9.6 million to build a new customer sales center, HP says. MicroTech claims that it had another such multi-million dollar contract with Autonomy that went south, in which HP itself was supposed to be the final customer for Autonomy's software. Now, MicroTech believes HP needs to pay back $16.5 million as a refund, or send MicroTech $16.5 million worth of Autonomy software. The courts will ultimately untangle all the lawsuits and counter-suits and declare the winners. But we have to say one thing: all the parties involved have plenty of chutzpah. And none of this is likely to be resolved before HP splits itself in two later this year. HP declined to comment. Autonomy has released multiple documents that refute HP's accusations point-by-point. SEE ALSO: 23 of the most powerful women engineers in the world Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow  | ||
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These descriptions of fictional techies for a TV show are totally absurd | ||
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The original casting call for the show about "six leading technology executives living, learning and loving together in San Francisco's Mission District, 94110" left many local residents scratching their heads as to what this was all about. The show's producers concluded auditions this weekend and posted the screen tests online, so now we know a little bit more about what these six fictional tech executives will look like. There's a B R O. And an engineer "kinda." And "one of the gang and has alcohol-fueled bro-downs for brainstorming sessions." Here are the descriptions for the characters that will appear on the show, along with some of the lines that each character read for the screen test: Lead A “Move fast and break stuff. I think if you’re not like breaking anything, you might not be moving at a good speed, you know? It’s not about winning and losing though. It’s about doing something valuable. I’m not really here to manage day-to-day; I’m more into strategy. People really undervalue that kind of flexibility, exploring what you want before committing all the way. I want to shop around first.” Lead B “What’s work-life balance? Uh, no such thing. Well, there’s no balance, but there sure is work and life. You have to figure out your own type of ambition and progress. That’s why I’m pragmatic. It’s not always easy. For instance, I think, if you’re a woman, you have to be more careful. Like, you have to say, well, “yes” a lot more than men do. But once there’s enough women around, that can change. Of course I have faith in the system. You have to.” Lead C “Uh, I wanna simplify complexity. Strip things down to the essentials and start again. Building stuff that like, really, simplifies our basic social interactions. Like, take money — that touches everyone in the world. And like, you’re taught to feel bad about money — because maybe it is bad, who knows? So uh, it feels dirty to hold onto — but great when it goes away. Real great. You’re being taken care of, like the world is finally working the way it’s supposed to. Yeah, I guess that is what I look for or want, y’know, when something simple can make a deep impression on you. Like the raw denim thing? It’s cool — all the designs or whatever — pressed into your jeans from the way your life moves.” Lead D “It was awkward— going from engineer to entrepreneur, having to get people behind your dreams and ideas. But it’s not a bad thing to get people to trade their time for some cash, right? And so, I wanna believe I’m a people person, but at the of the day, actually, I’m just such a dog person. (All those apps in the dogspace are so inspiring, by the way. Like, wow, I gotta get over there one day.) Okay, okay, I gotta stay on topic, though. It’s important to stay level when you’re responsible for others, even though I’m a really binary, black and white person. Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed with dogs. [giggles] Cats get out of here.” Lead E “I always did something I was a little not ready to do, you know. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of “Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this”’ and you push through those moments regardless. That’s how you’re certain you’ve had a breakthrough. A lot of people criticize what the culture is like out here. But I really had just been very blind to gender. And I still am. You gotta do it that way; like, you just have to ruthlessly prioritize. What’s number 1: the idea or the execution? But yeah, I really love color. [funny laugh] Maybe color comes first.” Lead F “When something’s fun, it’s obvious. That’s when you just need to do more of it. And that’s why as an entrepreneur, I try to push the limits. Pedal to the metal, bitch. I’m a competitor – and I’m screwed if I’m sleeping. If I catch the other guy sleeping, you bet I’m gonna tear him a new one. It’s hard to be a disrupter and not be an asshole. I’m the same guy I always was, success or not. They just don’t like your guts and effort anymore when you got baller status in this town.” Supporting A: “Yeah, everyone is different. I’m not even talking about backgrounds or your place in society. That’s why I love this neighborhood— all the changing faces and good energy. These new waves of, uh, new people, uh, is a huge thing. The area can always regenerate. There is a fresh rate of money coming in, fresh ways of support, fresh food— isn’t that a great thing? Look, if I’m willing and ready to pay more for a coffee in the morning, then by all means, charge more for your coffee. I’m not alone in this. Don’t act like this is a radical idea. This is what pays the bills.” Supporting B: “It’s more like, what job have I not had to cover rent over here? When have I only had one job? Never. This is 2015. I guess this is what is normal now. Of course, I fucking love the freedom of the 1099 economy. Probably as free as all my clients out on the Playa, bro. But twelve bucks an hour isn’t so great if you’re spending all day running around dropping off socks for software engineers. Hell, I’ll ride some of them on my handlebars to the vape shop. I can’t always see the changes coming, but I’m figuring out a way to maintain, and I wouldn’t be around here if I couldn’t. There is a real community here, if you can stick around. Something’s gotta give.” Supporting C: “Just like what my granddad said— I’m probably only as smart as the people I surround myself with. That said, I went to school. I can process abstractions, and I’m super into high risk play, maximizing the payouts. I’ll find a way to hedge those bets in the end. You gotta be careful at some point. If you introduce progress or innovation into any community, how does the community react? Not always the best. So, test that shit. Don’t fear the pivot.” Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: The 5 Most Typecast Roles In TV Ads  | ||
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The planned television show about the San Francisco Mission district's tech scene, dubbed 94110, is moving forward. What it's like using the best Android phone in the world for a month | ||
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We can review new devices when they’re first launched, and their performance can generally be predicted from their specs. But specs only tell part of the story. Samsung’s latest flagship device, the Galaxy S6, has been out for about a month and a half, and it's one of the most highly rated phones out there. Most consider it to be the best Android phone in the world. Here's what it’s actually like to use from a real life owner’s perspective. Design Samsung has refreshed its design philosophy from tacky fake chrome edges and plastic/faux-leather textures on previous Galaxy phones to a more refined, sophisticated glass and metal build for the Galaxy S6. I got the white version, which looks and feels premium and does a much better job at justifying its $650 price tag than the previous phones that felt like toys inside Kinder Eggs. But now that the S6 has sleek, smooth aluminum edges, it feels like it wants to slip out of my hands on a one-way trip to a hard floor. So how do you remedy that? With a cheap plastic $20 case that hides any indication that your S6 is made with premium materials, or that it’s an S6 at all since most Galaxy phones look pretty similar from the front.
Samsung packed some pretty powerful hardware into the S6, and it feels like it for the most part. Performance is largely quick and smooth, animations rarely stutter, and I can switch between apps and scroll down websites pretty smoothly. Occasionally, however, I’ll wake my phone from sleep and it won’t be able to unlock for about four to five seconds because of a bottleneck with the hardware. That might not sound like much, but it’s not something you’d expect from a brand new phone with some of the most powerful specs commercially available that’s just stripped you of $650 or more. It’s also not very good for fast smartphone typists as the S6 lags behind what you’re typing, especially when the Samsung keyboard tries to auto-correct or guess what you’re typing, which it does terribly anyway. I would suggest immediately downloading an alternative, like the Google Keyboard. The fingerprint sensor is excellent and you no longer have an excuse to leave your phone without some sort of security measure. It registers my thumb prints quickly and accurately and I can get to my apps just as easily as swiping the lock screen to unlock it. Eventually, I'll be able to use the fingerprint sensor with Samsung Pay, Samsung's answer to Apple Pay that launches this summer. Samsung's Android TouchWiz is the extra software Samsung uses to "skin" the basic version of Android made by Google so that it can differentiate its phones from other Android phones. That would be fine if only TouchWiz didn't look so cartoony and cluttered in the past. Samsung has dialed down its latest version of TouchWiz to look more sophisticated and less cluttered, but it's not quite as mature as the basic Android version.
Most Samsung apps can be disabled, but some keep running alongside Android to run the TouchWiz interface, which uses up the phone’s resources and slows it down. Overall, it's a step in the right direction, but I still prefer Google's basic version of Android.
The S6 has the sharpest display there is on a smartphone at the moment, and it looks gorgeous. It’s pleasingly bright and one of the only TouchWiz features I like lets you change the color scheme for a natural, warmer, cooler, or colorful display. Battery I experienced the same questionable battery life that many Galaxy S6 owners were reporting. This one isn’t Samsung’s fault. I was getting only slightly better battery life than with my old Nexus 5, and I was about to put the S6 back in its box and ship it back to wherever it came from. Before I did that, I tried one last thing. I switched off Google Now, Google's digital assistant, and my battery life skyrocketed to last me about 36 hours on a single charge with relatively decent usage, including music streaming. I charge it every night, but I usually have around 50% battery left before I go to bed. Google Now used to periodically activate my GPS antenna to gather my location and it forced my phone to process the information for the Google Now updates, and it destroyed my battery life. I somewhat miss Google Now, but not that much, and it’s a problem I’d likely experience with any smartphone. Camera The S6 takes fantastic pictures. The camera app can be pulled up quickly enough with a double tap of the home button and I’ve rarely missed a moment I wanted to capture. It offers myriad options like panorama, slow or fast motion, selective focus, and pro mode (for more DSLR-style control over your shots) in a convenient menu when you swipe right.
There’s a “Virtual shot” mode that takes multiple pictures around a still object to create a cool surrounding effect, but it’s mostly for novelty and has few uses because it’s difficult to take stable surround shots without some sort of camera tripod. Conclusion I wish I didn’t have to use a grippy plastic rubber case with the S6 because it mutes the newfound beauty of Galaxy smartphones, but I don’t want to drop it and potentially shatter the screen or dent the metal edges, either. Samsung could have kept using plastic for its phones and still had a premium design, it just had to use plastic well. Take my old Nexus 5, for example, it wasn’t quite as “pretty” as the S6 since it was made of plastic, but it’s still one of the best looking and best feeling phones I’ve ever owned. And it absorbed drops like a tank with only a few tiny dents and scratches. Overall, the Galaxy S6 is a great phone despite Samsung’s insistence to keep its heavy TouchWiz layer, which helps slows everything down. To be fair, it’s been dialed back enough that it’s not too offensive, and the slowdowns are quite rare. Either way, if you often use the camera on your phone because it’s convenient, the Galaxy S6 is for you as it has one of the best shooters available on an Android smartphone. SEE ALSO: 7 things the Samsung Galaxy S6 can do that the iPhone 6 can't Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here’s the newest phone from Xiaomi — the company that’s outselling Apple and Samsung in China  | ||
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You’ll still find silly TouchWiz traces, like “Wi-Fi Connected to Network XYZ” banner in the notification shade. It's completely unnecessary and will drive notification perfectionists mad because you can’t swipe it away like you do with other notifications. In typical TouchWiz fashion, there’s no way to remove it, either..jpg)
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Why cloud computing leaders must hang together or hang separately | ||
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Sometimes, building software is like playing jazz — it's all about variations on a standard. Take, for example, this week's OpenStack Summit in Vancouver, BC. At this event, big companies like Red Hat, Canonical, HP, and IBM stand alongside more specialized startups like Mirantis, SwiftStack, and Bluebox to show developers how they've taken OpenStack — a free software project to build cloud computing infrastructure that can trace its roots back to NASA — and used it as a core to build something really cool. OpenStack is one of the most successful open source projects in history, meaning that thousands of developers from all over the world, representing many top tech companies, have contributed their time, talent, and expertise to building the software over the last five years since it launched. HP, IBM, and Rackspace all use OpenStack behind the scenes for at least some of their public clouds, where applications run at huge scales on data centers hosted elsewhere. Meanwhile, Red Hat, Canonical, Mirantis, and many others offer their own versions of OpenStack optimized for running in a traditional data center, as well as services to help companies use it. There are some success stories, too: Huge businesses like Walmart and Comcast came to the summit to talk about how they're building more efficient data centers using the souped-up, enhanced version of OpenStack that Canonical baked into its popular Ubunu Linux server operating system.
But the thing about OpenStack is that on its own, it's not complete: Just today, a Gartner analyst described the main OpenStack code as "a science project" and not something to bet a company on, The Register reports. Business Insider has heard from several sources that the core, so-called "vanilla" OpenStack code requires a lot of work (sometimes, too much work) to get up and running — something acknowledged by the OpenStack community. "You shouldn't need a PhD to use OpenStack," said HP Helion Senior VP of Engineering Mark Interrante on stage during a keynote session at the OpenStack Summit. All eyes are on OpenStack, maybe now more than ever. Venture capital interest in OpenStack-based startups has cooled off, and once-prominent OpenStack pioneer Nebula, which tried to make it easier to deploy the software in a data center, shut its doors just recently. Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google all have booming cloud computing businesses, with Amazon counting $6 billion in revenue for its own cloud platform in the last year alone. The success of those three clouds gives the vendors that make up the OpenStack Foundation validation for the principle that there's a whole market out there. But to take advantage of this big chance, they're going to have to work with each other to define that standard, even as they scramble to compete for businesses. The real tough nut to crack here is "interoperability." Back when OpenStack was first conceived, one of the big selling points was that all of these different clouds from different vendors would be compatible with each other, which would ensure that you're never stuck with a bad product. Every vendor was to be free to build the product that they wanted, for the niches they wanted to sell to. And if a customer didn't like it, they were free to leave. Where Microsoft and Amazon were difficult and costly to leave, requiring a ton of work to get the same applications running elsewhere, OpenStack would be a common platform that encouraged user freedom.
At least, that was the idea. In practice, that hasn't always worked out so well. Vendors were putting lots and lots of proprietary code and features on top of OpenStack in order to get it ready for prime time, which was necessary to get it running, but also meant that none of these OpenStack clouds would work with each other. This week, that changes for the better: HP, IBM, Mirantis, Red Hat, SUSE, SwiftStack, Ubuntu, and VMware all announced that they've passed a battery of tests designed to ensure that their OpenStack technologies all work with each other, at least partially, reports Fortune. The announcement doesn't guarantee total compatibility between these services, but it addresses one of OpenStack's biggest pains, and at least indicates that it won't be quite as hard to move between their services as it might otherwise. The bottom line is that to fulfill the promise of OpenStack, these big vendors are going to have to work together. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have a tremendous market lead, and a lot of their stuff works well enough for the vast majority of businesses, as proven by their bottom lines. But they're also businesses, and they're competing with each other for customers just as much as they're making a big show out of cooperating on the development of OpenStack. Sooner rather than later, one of them hopes to hit on the variation on the standard that turns into a huge hit.
READ THIS NEXT: Urs Hölzle, Google's 8th employee and tech guru, explains why it can win the cloud war against Amazon and Microsoft Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A Computer Just Solved A 400-Year-Old Math Problem About The Best Way To Stack Balls  | ||
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This one chart shows Pinterest’s massive potential as an e-commerce site | ||
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Pinterest is one of the biggest pre-IPO companies with an $11 billion valuation. Its main appeal is the way it works as a digital bulletin board, where users can “pin” and share photos of things they like, from food and recipes to clothing and shoes. Because of its photo-centric model, Pinterest has attracted a lot of interest as a potential e-commerce platform. And a recent survey by Millward Brown, charted for us by BI Intelligence, shows why: 32% of active Pinterest users have bought something in a store after seeing it on Pinterest, while more than half of the respondents said Pinterest helps them find products they want to buy. Three-fourths of them said they had visited a retailer or a website after browsing Pinterest. This explains why Pinterest may soon add a “Buy” button, according to reports in February, which would allow users to make direct purchases within its platform. Sooner than later, we may see Pinterest as one of the largest e-commerce platforms.
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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"Have fun with it... carefully": The alleged plane hacker showed how he could hack planes in 2012 | ||
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As crazy as it sounds, one man allegedly told the FBI that he was able to hack into a plane mid-flight. And he's been talking about these sorts of exploits for years. A security researcher by the name of Chris Roberts has been accused by the federal government of hacking into a plane computer system. This past weekend the FBI issued a search warrant application, detailing a few of the hacks he allegedly performed, Wired reports. Though the researcher is now backtracking about what sort of in-flight hacking he performed, now you can see firsthand his previous boasts. Uploaded in November of 2012, a YouTube video shows a presentation made by Roberts called "By Land, By Sea, By Air" for the GrrCON hacking conference. In it, the researcher talks about hacking methods aimed at various modes of transportation. The description said, "This time we're going to release a few 'options' for DIY take-overs." At around 19 minutes into the presentation Roberts turned his attention toward planes. He mentioned a flight he took earlier in the week. While flying on this plane, Roberts said he "made friends with the firewall." The researcher continued describing his uninvited in-flight network tour until he came upon a vulnerable open-sourced web server in the plane's network called an Apache Tomcat. "It's not patched," he told the audience. "Have fun with it," he paused chuckling to himself, "carefully." Roberts deemed all of this airplane hacking as "simple stuff." After describing these vulnerabilities in the in-flight system, Roberts ended this section with a challenge: I challenge you: Next time you’re on the airplane that has go-go wireless, see how far through the firewall you can get. See if you can get to the ground-base communication that they use. See if you can get to the IntelliBus architecture. Please don’t take the airplane out of the sky. You can see this part of the YouTube video below. And this video shows him calling to the hacking community to go even further, albeit "carefully."
While Robert's pseudo-boasts went unnoticed for years, he is now in hot water precisely for saying this sort of stuff. The FBI, in its search warrant application, say that Roberts admitted to the authorities that he was able to hack into a plane and alter its movements. In fact, according to the authorities, he was once even able to make a plane go sideways using only code. But many security researchers have called into question some of the allegations. Security Researcher Jonathan Zdziarski, for example, told Business Insider via email that Roberts' claims that he was able to take control of one single engine, causing the plane to go lopsided, simply "don't make sense." He added that he has no specific experience with aircraft control systems. Zdziarski's best guess is that "Roberts probably hacked on some simulators, learned the flight computer protocols, perhaps even analyzed some plane schematics, and was perhaps seeking some venture capital which may have led to a few initial embellishments before he thought FBI would take his wise-cracks seriously." Boeing's response to the FBI seems to validate what experts like Zdziarski say. The airplane manufacturer issued a swift statement, plainly claiming that the in-flight entertainment system (which Roberts claims he was able to hack) is completely separate from the flight and navigation systems. Roberts, perhaps realizing the gravity of his earlier words, told Wired that the FBI claims are out of context. He wouldn't, however, get into much more detail. This case remains one of the most bizarre public hacking sagas to date. While it's unclear whether or not he was able to actually control a plane's movements, he has been speaking publically about his ability to perform such hacks for years. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch a pilot squeeze his plane through this skinny canal in Greece  | ||
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Barack Obama and Bill Clinton just had a cheeky Twitter exchange | ||
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President Barack Obama started a new Twitter account on Monday and appears to be making the most of it — with an assist from one of his predecessors. Former President Bill Clinton reacted to the news with a not-so-subtle reference to his wife's presidential campaign. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seeking to replace Obama at the end of 2016, and the former president suggested a "friend" might be interested in his new "@POTUS" account: "The @POTUS Twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him," The White House's Alex Wall explained in a Monday morning blog post. "President Obama is committed to making his Administration the most open and participatory in history, and @POTUS will give Americans a new venue to engage on the issues that matter most to them." SEE ALSO: President Barack Obama is finally tweeting ... from an iPhone Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Barney Frank has a grim outlook for the 2016 elections  | ||
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Uber's valuation jumped $15 billion in a single week, according to one billionaire hedge fund manager | ||
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Uber is one of the most valuable private tech companies in the world. It's raised $5.9 billion at a $41 billion valuation, and a new round of funding — an additional $1.5 billion to $2 billion — would make Uber the most highly valued private tech company of all time, at over $50 billion. Mike Novogratz, the president of $70 billion investment fund Fortress Investments, says that back when Uber was starting its roadshow to raise a recent round of funding, its valuation jumped $15 billion in just a week. On Sunday's episode of "Wall Street Week," Novogratz said he'd had an "interesting meeting" with former Uber CFO Brent Callinicos, who Novogratz referred to only as "Uber's CFO" during his chat. "Uber's the fastest growing company, maybe in the history of the planet. And it's a brilliant idea, and they were raising capital," Novogratz said. "They had started their roadshow at a $25 billion valuation. And a week later the valuation had jumped to $40 billion." "Wall Street Week" host Anthony Scaramucci interrupted Novogratz to ask him: "Did the valuation go up $15 billion just because they went on the roadshow and told the story?" "Yes," Novogratz said. Novogratz asked Uber's CFO how the company could justify such an insane valuation. Novogratz says Callinicos told him Uber takes between 20% and 25% of the fare drivers collect, but that in the future, Uber could hike that up to 25% or 30%. "If you look at the growth and you add that extra pure margin, we'd make a lot more money and we justify this $40 billion valuation," Novogratz said, recalling what Callinicos told him. Earlier this year, Novogratz and Fortress Investments backed Lyft, Uber's biggest US-based competitor. You can watch the full episode below. Tune in around minute 11 for Novogratz talking about Uber.
SEE ALSO: Billionaire hedge-fund manager says Uber told him it might cut driver pay ‘because we can' Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Gen. Stanley McChrystal on how Uber operates just like a special forces unit  | ||
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The founder of 'Russia's Facebook' explains how the Kremlin took his company away | ||
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The founder of Russia's most popular social network recently described to Mashable how he chose to flee his native Moscow after Kremlin loyalists wrested control of the company away from him. Pavel Durov, 30, seen by many as Russia's Mark Zuckerberg, created the website VKontakte — which had 69 million monthly users — before drawing the ire of Russian FSB agents when political protest pages began sprouting up. When Durov refused to shut down the page of activist Alexei Navalny, the FSB showed up at his door with automatic rifles, demanding to be let in. "I was really scared," Durov admitted in a rare interview in Brooklyn, NY. "For the first time I thought, ‘maybe I should think about the future - the future of my country and of my company.’" Durov was never interested in politics — he claims his defiance of the Kremlin when they ordered him to remove the VKontakte pages of activists was more a business decision than a political statement: He simply didn't want users to become disillusioned and start using another network. "Since I'm obviously a believer in free markets, it's hard for me to understand the current direction of the country," Durov The New York Times in December After the Kremlin launched a smear campaign against him in 2013 and raided the VKontakte office for company documents, however, "I began to understand that this was political,” Durov told Mashable. The Kremlin was largely successful in its attempts to damage Durov's credibility with both users and investors. But it did get his company.
'I had no power within the company'In late 2013, an investment firm in Moscow with connections to the Kremlin bought a 48% stake in VKontakte from two of the company's biggest investors — a deal allegedly been orchestrated by Rosneft head and Putin loyalist Igor Sechin as a way to exert greater control over the network. It was then when Durov realized that the Kremlin "was coming after me," he told Mashable, and he decided to leave for New York via Venice. He returned to Russia briefly after things cooled down, but by that point he had all but completely lost control of VKontakte. In February 2014, he relinquished administrative control entirely and sold his remaining stake to Putin loyalist Ivan Tavrin, staying on as director general until he resigned from the company for good in April. "It was time to get out because at that point I had no power within the company," he said. 'CIA project'
"The best thing about Russia at that time was the Internet sphere was completely not regulated," Durov told the Times. "In some ways, it was more liberal than the United States." Russia President Vladimir Putin's skepticism of the web spiked in 2011 when people started using the Internet to protest what they believed were rigged parliamentary elections. "The opinion of the blogosphere ... is aimed at undermining people's trust in the state," a Kremlin official said that year. Putin was also suspicious of the global Internet as a platform for foreign espionage. After documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the agency's ability to infiltrate social media networks, Putin dismissed the Internet as a "CIA project" and hinted at plans to create a Russian-run alternative to the world wide web which be easier for the Kremlin to monitor.
Durov has new project called Telegram that's a secure — and free — messaging app used by around 50 million people (including some Kremlin officials). He continues to travel extensively because "Me myself, I'm not a big fan of the idea of countries," he told the Times. "I'm very happy right now without any property anywhere," he added. "I consider myself a legal citizen of the world." Check out the Mashable interview >SEE ALSO: Putin Just Called The Internet A 'CIA Project' — Here's Why Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This wingsuit flight over New York City is an adrenaline junkie's dream  | ||
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When Durov founded the website in 2006, Russian authorities were still tolerant of Internet freedom.
This ex-cop thinks lie detector tests are so inaccurate he's facing 100 years in prison for starting a website that taught people how to cheat them | ||
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A former Oklahoma police officer pleaded guilty on Thursday to obstruction of justice and mail fraud for teaching people how to pass lie detector tests — even if they're lying, according to the Department of Justice. Ex-cop, Douglas Williams, 69, owned and operated Polygraph.com, a now-defunct website that offered training to conceal information during lie detector tests, also known as polygraphs. Many of Williams' customers were required to undergo the tests for background checks, as part of federal investigations and under the terms of their parole and/or probation, according to the indictment. Williams touted his services on his website, per a January 20, 2013 cached version available on the Way Back Machine, an internet project that saves website caches before they go offline: Police polygraph experts, Doug Williams will get you properly prepared to pass your polygraph test. In fact, he is the only one who can get you properly prepared because he is the only one with authentic credentials, a technique that is test and proven to be effective, and the demonstrated ability to teach you how to always pass your polygraph test — nervous or not — lying or not — no matter what! Aside from DVDs and other instructional materials, Williams also offered in-person training that ran between $1,000 and $5,000 and instructed his customers to lie about receiving it, according to the indictment. 'Operation Lie Busters'That's exactly how the feds nabbed Williams — through an investigation called "Operation Lie Busters," which involved undercover agents from Customs and Border Patrol, The Guardian reports. The sting was part of the Obama administration's push to stop federal leaks in the wake of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's disclosures of classified information. In October 2012, an undercover agent, claiming to be an inspector with the Department of Homeland Security, called Williams and explained that he was under investigation for allowing a friend to pass through customs with contraband, according to the indictment. Another undercover agent later claimed he had applied for a job with Border Patrol and "left stuff off his applications." In both cases, Williams received payment and met with the clients for training.
"I haven't lived this long and f***** the government this long, and done such a controversial thing that I do for this long, and got away with it without any trouble whatsoever, by being a dumb ass," Williams told one of the agents, according to the indictment. For years, Williams marketed himself as a guerilla critic of the government's overreliance on polygraphs, which he considers massively inaccurate. His website claimed that over half of people who take lie detector tests fail simply because they're nervous. "This indictment [was] brought simply to punish and silence me because I have the audacity to protest the use of the polygraph," he told NPR. For decades, Williams has spoken out against polygraphs. In 1986, he served as an expert source for a "60 Minutes" expose in which CBS staged the theft of a camera and called a polygraph company to conduct an investigation. One of the test administrators identified an employee named Paul as the fake culprit because he was supposedly "deceptive" when answering questions. Problems with polygraphsPolygraphs work by monitoring three physical reactions: sweat, using electrodes attached to the fingers; heart rate and blood pressure through an arm cuff; and breathing through chest straps. Any changes in those factors cause needles making lines on a paper to rise and fall, clueing experts in to the subject's mindset.
"That's still better than any other technology available today," the society's president, Raymond Nelson, told NPR. The association puts the test's accuracy above 80%. The society, headquartered online at polygraph.org, has a counterpart in antipolygraph.org, which closely followed Williams' trial. One of the most visible statements on the site claims that polygraphs have "no scientific basis," referencing a paper by University of Minnesota psychology professor William G. Iacono. Regardless of the questions surrounding its accuracy, polygraph testing remains legal at federal and state levels. The Employee Polygraph Protection Act, however, does prohibit most private employees from using them during interview processes or employment. With no sentencing date set, Williams faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, plus fees, for each counts, totalling 100 years and $1,250,500. "Lying, deception and fraud cannot be allowed to influence the hiring of national security and law enforcement officials, particularly when it might affect the security of our borders,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said in a statement. “[The] conviction sends a message that we pursue those who attempt to corrupt law enforcement wherever and however they may try to do so." William's lawyer didn't immediately respond for comment. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Popular new drug flakka is causing hallucinations and violent outbursts across Florida  | ||
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In 2002, however, the National Academy of Sciences published one of the Jay Z slams YouTube, Spotify, and Apple during Tidal concert | ||
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When Jay Z launched Tidal — his new music streaming site — in March, he promised to give exclusive content to subscribers, who pay between $9.99 and 19.99 per month.
During the concert, Jay Z took the opportunity to respond to critics of Tidal. Skeptics have even included fellow famous musicians like Mumford & Sons, Lily Allen, and Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard, who told The Daily Beast that Tidal "is going to fail miserably" because of it's approach of making rich musicians richer. "So I’m the bad guy now, I hear, because I don’t go with the flow," Jay Z said to 3,000 fans at Terminal 5 on Saturday, according to PageSix. "I’m never gonna go with the flow, I’m never gonna let nobody take over our music . . . This Tidal thing is all about the music. We gonna preserve the music, we ain’t gonna let nobody take our music. We ain’t gonna let nobody offer our music up and do what the f--- they wanna do."
Check out some of Jay Z's lyrics below:
The rapper continued:
Watch the video of Jay Z's performance below: SEE ALSO: MAJOR MUSICIANS BLAST TIDAL: 'This thing is going to fail miserably' Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This weekend, the rapper 
What is an IP address and what can it reveal about you? | ||
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But they should. An IP address, for instance, is a ubiquitous part of the online experience, but few know what it is. And, even scarier, many don't know the kind of information IP addresses can reveal. What is an IP address?At its core, an IP address is an online unique identifier. Every computer has its own IP address, and it is through this naming system that computers can connect with each other and share data. A standard IP address (using what's known as the IPv4 protocol) contains four individual numbers separated by a decimal. While every computer is given its own IP address, the outside world rarely has access to it. Routers, instead, connect to individual computers, and it's the routers that then connect to the rest of the internet using their own individual IP address. Think of routers as the bridge between the network within your house (or business, library, coffee shop, etc.) and the outside world network (that is, the internet). When you send an email or visit a website, the IP address being shared is that of your local router — provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) — and not the individual address assigned to your computer. All the same, whether someone knows the address of your computer or your network, these numbers are able to tell a bit about who you are and what kind of sites you surf. What sort of personal information is shared with an IP address?This most personal kind of information that can be shared in IP address itself is geolocation. But the good news is, because you are connected to a network and it's the network's IP address being shared, your precise location is not shared. For instance, you may send an email from your home, and someone may be able to know the city from which it was sent, but it’s highly unlikely they’ll be able to access any other granular information about you. Instead they'll probably see the information of your ISP. While this may give geolocation data about the general area of your router, it will not give a street address. But there's a catch...Alone, the IP address can't share much more about you than a generalized location of where you might be at a certain time. The trouble is, onlookers can in some cases look at the online activity associated with a particular IP address. Then, they can stitch together a lot of information about the people or even a single person who's accessing the internet from that address. The Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s Office (OPC) set out to see what sort of information it could dig up using the IP address of its own network. From there the researchers used a search engine to find details about the people who had used the internet via that network. Here are some of the sites and services the people using the OPC IP address visited:
The OPC also did a second experiment where it looked up the IP address of a person that had edited a Wikipedia entry (these IP addresses are public), then entered that IP address into a search engine. It got all kinds of information back, such as all the other entries that person had edited, and the fact that the person had visited an online message board related to sexual preferences. The report explained that using these tactics it was not hard to get a "glimpse into the kind of portrait that authorities could be able to paint of individuals without needing to obtain prior judicial authorization." In other words, an employer can figure out a lot about the people who are using the internet from work. Or, in theory, your ISP could figure out a lot about the activities of its subscribers. Or, an online advertising network could associate a particular IP address with a lot of online activity over time and use that to target advertising. What is the worst case scenario?With the help of the authorities, it is possible to discover more than just hearsay information. For instance, the OPC cites a case in the US where the authorities, knowing only the IP address, contacted the ISP and were able to find the identity of a person sending harassing emails. They did this by receiving the exact locations where the emails were sent from the ISP. Many of these places were hotels, and the FBI was able to find one common name on all of the hotels’ guest lists. Then, the FBI got a warrant to investigate that person's email account. This does require a certain set of knowhow. While it's relatively easy to find out an IP address (you can look up your own by going to websites like IP Chicken), finding real actionable information from it takes some finesse. But once you have that finesse, with a little bit of imagination, some creepy details may be discovered. 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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The nomenclature of the web is vast. But even though words become commonplace, people often don't know what they really mean. A computer student LOVES using Windows 10 on a new 2015 MacBook (MSFT) | ||
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Alex King, a computer science student at Pacific Northwest bought the 2015 12-inch MacBook about a month ago. He likes to play Windows PC games so he promptly loaded Windows 8.1 on it using a feature called Bootcamp, which lets a Mac switch back and forth between Windows and OS X. A few days ago, he thought, what the heck? He'd try the as yet-unfinished preview version of Windows 10, and surprise! He found the user interface in Windows 10 often worked faster and smoother on the Mac than OS X. Here's the real kicker: it's fast. It's smooth. It renders at 60FPS unless you have a lot going on. It's unequivocally better than performance on OS X, further leading me to believe that Apple really needs to overhaul how animations are done. ... So maybe it's ironic that in some regards, the new MacBook runs Windows 10 (a prerelease version, at that) better than it runs OS X. But it's a testament to two things: Apple's fantastic MacBook hardware, which is forward-thinking yet surprisingly agile; and Microsoft's excellent Windows software ...
For instance, he had to install some special trackpad software (he recommends Trackpad++) and re-run the installation of drivers (a step that Microsoft recommended he skip during the initial installation). He documented the process in detail on his blog. And, also to be fair, he found that the unfinished Windows 10 software did have some bugs: Windows 10 is still very much beta software, and sometimes it has slowdowns that don’t seem otherwise characteristic of its performance. But all told, he was so delighted with how well Windows 10 worked on the new Mac, he heartily recommends it: I'm excited to keep Windows 10 installed on this machine, both now as a preview, and later once the final version is installed. Even hardened OS X diehards owe it to themselves to give it a try. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
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To be fair, King did have to do some doctoring before he got Windows 10 to work perfectly on the Mac. The guy who created 'Mass Effect' is now in charge of games on Microsoft's futuristic new holographic computer | ||
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Video game designer Casey Hudson, the man who came up with the creative vision for BioWare's smash hit "Mass Effect," is starting a new career effective today with his appointment as Creative Director for Microsoft Studios, according to a company press release. To date, the "Mass Effect" series has sold more than 14 million copies, but Hudson has a new creative mandate at Microsoft: Develop new games and experiences for Microsoft HoloLens, the company's upcoming super-cool, super-crazy holographic computer. In a Q&A prepared by Microsoft and attached to that press release, Hudson said that he was fortunate enough to try an early demo of the Microsoft HoloLens ahead of its official announcement. "These first experiences cemented my belief that holographic computing was where I needed to be," Hudson said. "There’s no end to the potential of this technology, and I look forward to being able to influence the full-spectrum experience on HoloLens, from hardware to OS, to applications and games."
Microsoft and Hudson's ex-employer BioWare have always been two companies that were close. The original "Mass Effect" debuted on Microsoft's Xbox 360 console way back in 2007, though the series would eventually make its way to PC, Sony PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii U. Before that, the hugely popular "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" — which Hudson also worked on — was an exclusive title for the original Xbox video game console in 2003.
"The games I’ve worked on have found the greatest success on Xbox, and it’s my preferred way to play games," Hudson says in the Q&A. Games like Minecraft are already looking like the killer app for HoloLens — after all, video games have been teaching people to interact with virtual worlds for many, many years. HoloLens is a brand new product that's never been tried before, and it's going to be crucial that Microsoft gives people a familiar way in. The hire of Hudson speaks to a focus on gaming with HoloLens, showing that when it comes to finding the right approach to getting people on board, Microsoft is willing to make a few calculated calibrations. SEE ALSO: How a 17-year-old entrepreneur in Poland accidentally made the Apple Watch easier for deaf people Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch Microsoft's Insane Holographic Computer In Action  | ||
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An entrepreneur has sold San Francisco's most expensive home for $31 million | ||
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A home that has been the most expensive listing in San Francisco for the last seven months has finally sold for $31 million, Curbed SF reports. The home belongs to chef Roxanne Klein and serial entrepreneur Michael Klein, who founded and sold three telecommunications companies before starting a guitar manufacturer called Modulus Guitars. The home had previously been listed for $39 million, but the $31 million sale is still the biggest in the city so far this year. The Kleins' mansion may be pricey, but it is very chic. There's beautiful molding, lots of antique fireplaces, and plenty of space situated over five floors. The home is located on Broadway, in San Francisco's ritzy Pacific Heights neighborhood. Enter the home through a door in an ivy-covered wall. Built in 1910, the home was restored in 2002 and has lots of beautiful, traditional places to sit. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Yanis Varoufakis says Greece will have a deal within a week | ||
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The Greek government's coffers are running dry, but finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has good news — he thinks a bailout deal with the country's international creditors is imminent. In a televised interview on Monday night, when pressed to give a time schedule for the deal, Varoufakis said "let's say a week." You can check out a full translation and video of the discussions here at enikos.gr. That follows yesterday's leak to Greece's To Vima newspaper which suggested that the European Commission had offered Greece a pretty generous compromise deal. The Commission denied that such a deal had been offered. The conditions reported as those of the Commission seemed less stringent than some which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Eurogroup (other eurozone finance ministers) would have liked — for example, only reviews into Greece's pension system and labour market were promised, rather than concrete reforms. The reported deal would have unlocked a much-needed €5 billion (£3.61 billion, $5.65 billion) for the Greek state. In fact, the latest reports from the IMF suggest that a deal is significantly further than a week away. The Fund still lists pensions and labour market reforms as sticking points in a deal. It's clear not everyone is happy with the idea of a deal along the lines suggested. The Greek Analyst also reports that a rally will be held on Tuesday against the signing of an agreement, with speakers from the left of Syriza, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' own party. Here's what they're saying (translation from The Greek Analyst): We need to choose between the signing of the looming austerity agreement and the rupture with the lenders. SYRIZA cannot be turned into a party of austerity; neither can the government implement the Memorandum. This is the reason why, both domestically and abroad, proposals for the internal “cleansing” of SYRIZA and governmental solutions for “national unity” are put on the table. Without a deal, Greece is heading towards a crunch, and soon. Athens was forced to use a reserve account at the IMF to make its last payment to the international lender, and disbursements twice as large are due from early to mid-June. To add to that, Greece has pension and salary payments to make at the end of the month — whose recipients will likely be hoping that Yanis Varoufakis' optimistic timetable is accurate. 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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Two start-ups that are trying to destroy the banks just joined forces | ||
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Bad news for banks — two start-ups trying to reinvent finance and destroy traditional lending just teamed up. Challenger bank Metro Bank has just struck a deal with Zopa, one of the UK's biggest peer-to-peer consumer lenders, to lend money over Zopa's platform. The amount lent wasn't disclosed but a source told Business Insider that it was around "millions a month". The pair signalled their ambition in the release announcing the deal, writing: "Zopa and Metro Bank believe this partnership is a great example of how disruptive financial challengers can collaborate to provide additional value and revolutionise the UK banking sector." Both companies want to not only steal market share from the UK's traditional banks but also force them to reinvent their business by doing so. Management at both Metro Bank and Zopa have in the past said traditional banks do not to enough to cater to customers' needs. Metro Bank, known for its strong customer service focus, has in the past labelled the UK's five dominant high street banks "a cartel" and Zopa's boss Giles Andrews has chided banks for overlooking customers. Clearly these are two companies that aren't just happy to work alongside traditional lenders. Zopa's CEO Giles Andrews said in a statement: "This partnership brings together two key challengers to the traditional financial services landscape and signals our intent to become a mainstream service.” Metro Bank's CEO Craig Donaldson echoed Andrews' sentiment, saying: "At Metro Bank we’re committed to revolutionising UK banking and we’re delighted to have partnered with Zopa, a fellow financial challenger." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what 'Game of Thrones' stars look like in real life  | ||
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Mixed decision for Samsung appeal in Apple patent case | ||
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Washington (AFP) - A jury must recalculate the $930 million verdict against Samsung in the blockbuster patent lawsuit from Apple, a US appeals court ruled. The appellate panel in Washington on Monday gave Samsung a partial victory by ruling that Apple cannot collect damages for Samsung's copying of the look and feel of the iconic smartphone. The latest decision from the appeals court in the US capital sends the case back to a California federal court to recalculate damages. The ruling could affect as much as $382 million of the award to Apple, which was on grounds the South Korean electronics giant hurt Apple's image by copying certain design features of the iPhone. The invalidated awards affect Apple's contention that Samsung violated the "unregistered trade dress" or design components of the iPhone such as "a rectangular product with four evenly rounded corners." The court said Apple should not be awarded damages for these items because these were not purely design features of the brand, but rather a functional element of the smartphone. If the award were allowed to stand, the court said, Apple could have a "perpetual monopoly" of features which are needed for smartphone operation. "Trademark law allows for a perpetual monopoly and its use in the protection of 'physical details and design of a product' must be limited to those that are 'nonfunctional,'" the appeals court said. But the court upheld the damages violation of Apple's registered design patents and other technologies such as scrolling and zooming on a smartphone. "Today's decision shows that Apple's claims over trade dress and damages lack merit and are grossly exaggerated," Samsung said in a statement. "We remain confident that our products do not infringe on Apple's design patents and other intellectual property, and we will continue to take all appropriate measures to protect our products," the company said. Apple had no immediate response to an AFP request for comment.
- New jury, new damages -
Intellectual property analyst Florian Mueller said in a blog post that the decision means the damage award must be recalculated. "A new jury will have to determine damages" in the case, he said. "The original jury verdict only specified damages by product, but not by product and intellectual property right. That's why the total damages amount for those products must be redetermined. There's no way to simply subtract the part that related to design patents." In the long-running case between the world's two biggest smartphone makers, patents at issue in the case involve unlocking touchscreens with slide gestures, automatically correcting words being typed, retrieving data sought by users and performing actions on found data such as making a call after coming up with a phone number. Samsung devices targeted by Apple include more than half a dozen smartphones from the Galaxy line, along with the Galaxy 2 tablet. The original 2012 verdict was for more than $1 billion, but Judge Lucy Koh invalidated some $450 million and ordered a retrial on portions of the case. The retrial ended with an award of $930 million. The case was part of a series of patent battles around the world. Last year, the two firms agreed to end patent battles outside the United States. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Five Mexico children detained over six-year-old's murder | ||
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Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) (AFP) - Mexico sought answers after five children aged 11 to 15 stoned, stabbed and buried a six-year-old boy, a shocking case that raised questions about the influence of drug violence on kids. The boy was found in a shallow grave by a stream on Saturday, two days after he was last seen with a group of children on the outskirts of the Chihuahua state capital, the regional prosecutor's office said. Cristopher Raymundo Marquez Mora was found after investigators interrogated the children, who include two 13-year-old girls, one 11-year-old boy and two 15-year-old boys. The five were detained as "probable culprits in an act that reflects a problem of social decay," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. The victim disappeared late Thursday and his mother reported his disappearance the next morning, sparking a search. The boy and the other children are neighbors who knew each other. "They were playing, they tied him up and they put a stick on his neck that semi-asphyxiated him," the statement said. "When the boy fell to the ground, they hurled rocks at him, they stuck a knife in his back and once dead, they dragged him where they deposited the body, in a shallow dig," it said. "They covered the body with dirt and put plants and a dead animal on the surface" in a bid to hide him, the statement said. The two 15-year-old boys could be jailed if found guilty but the other three other minors face "other types of sanctions," prosecutors said. The murder took place in a state that has endured some of the worst bloodshed in Mexico's drug war, with thousands of people killed in turf wars between cartels.
- 'Generation of psychopaths' -
Chihuahua, which borders Texas, is home to Ciudad Juarez, which was once considered the world's murder capital outside a warzone as the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels fought for the territory. The city's murder rate has dramatically dropped in the past four years but the state continues to witness murders, torture, kidnappings and extortion. The five children accused of murder "are victims of an environment of extreme violence," said Juan Martin Perez, executive director of the Children's Rights Network, a non-governmental organization. "There's a strong presence and culture of organized crime and a lack of culture of rule of law," he said. "The children reflect what they experience every day." Carlos Ochoa, a forensic and criminology expert, said cases like the six-year-old's killing mark "the start of a generation of psychopaths, who are getting younger." Ochoa recalled the 2013 case of a 17-year-old girl from Chihuahua who poisoned and burned her adoptive parents. The mother of Cristopher, Concepcion Mora, angrily rejected the explanation that the children killed her son during a game. "It's illogical for it to be a game," she said Sunday as relatives and neighbors joined her in a protest. "They should pay for my son's life." One of the boy's aunts warned: "We want vengeance. If they don't give us justice, we will take revenge." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Pacific quest: solar pilot prepares for toughest leg | ||
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Nanjing (China) (AFP) - Strapped into a seat in a tiny one-man cabin, Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg will have to endure extraordinary conditions as he flies over the Pacific Ocean for five days and nights, powered only by the sun. Each day he will experience altitudes of 28,000 feet, akin to the world's highest peak, and temperature changes of 55 degrees C (almost 100 F) in the unpressurised, unheated Solar Impulse 2 cockpit. At the same time he will only be able to catch the shortest of naps -- his seat doubles as a bed -- on the 8,500 kilometre (5,270 mile) journey from Nanjing in China to Hawaii, given the need to check the autopilot. "How can I live five days in this tiny environment, going up Everest every day, having winter and summer every day because of the changing temperature, resting only 20 minutes at a time?" Borschberg asked. "It's a great opportunity to discover myself," he said. Borschberg -- who is taking on the challenge at the age of 62 -- will not resort to caffeine as personal fuel. "I'm convinced coffee helps a few hours, but is negative afterwards," he told AFP earlier this month. The journey, which is awaiting suitable weather conditions, is set to be the longest and most difficult leg of a 12-stage attempt to complete an unprecedented flight around the world using only solar power, promoting a message of a clean energy future. It began in Abu Dhabi in March and has featured two stops in China, the world's biggest polluter. But failure could mean a parachute descent into the ocean hundreds of kilometres from rescue. No ship will trail the plane as it is far too fast for a maritime vessel to keep up with, even though its maximum speed of 140 kilometres (87 miles) an hour is much slower than conventional jet aircraft. Even so, with an engineer's detachment, Borschberg declines to contemplate his own mortality. "I don't see it (as) risky, in the sense that we worked a long time on all these different questions," he said. "In the worst case, we have a parachute, we have a life raft and we know how to use it. Of course, hoping that we will not need to do that." - Spirit in the sky - The wings of Solar Impulse, longer than those of a Boeing 747, are covered with solar cells which generate electricity to propel the plane and charge lithium batteries so its four engines can operate in darkness. In advance of the Pacific flight, the crew stripped off two side wheels and internal brakes from the propellers to make the fragile-looking craft -- already just 2.3 tonnes, the weight of a large SUV -- as light as possible. Bertrand Piccard, who has flown the Solar Impulse on other stages of the voyage -- and who achieved the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight in 1999 -- said meteorological conditions were among the biggest challenges for the Pacific flight. "If you enter into bad weather, you might not have enough energy for the night," he told AFP by video link. "Of course, the other challenge for the pilot is resting time. If the autopilot fails, or you have too much turbulence and you have to fly manually, then it's going to be extremely difficult," said Piccard, who will take on the next leg from Hawaii to the US city of Phoenix. Borschberg, an entrepreneur with 23 years' experience as a pilot in the Swiss air force reserve, will breathe through an oxygen mask at high altitudes and eat specially prepared meals, including cereals, risotto and vegetable soup in self-heating packaging. A toilet is built into the pilot's seat. To relieve the physical stress on his 1.90-metre (6ft 4in) frame and the drain of the endless hours on his mind, he plans to practise yoga. "Yoga can be extremely helpful in this cockpit," he said. The mission has a yoga instructor, Sanjeev Bhanot, who said: "I'm teaching him breathing, I'm teaching him meditation, I'm teaching him yoga exercises. We're working on the whole body. We're working on the mind. We're working on the spirit." But one element defies advance preparation. "We also need luck," Piccard said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 things you need to know before European markets open | ||
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Here are the major stories in markets right now. Greece's Prime Minister has a vivid metaphor for the country's situation. Greece's prime minister warned Monday that the cash-strapped country is in a state of "financial strangulation" amid worries that Athens may only have a couple of weeks before going bankrupt. Opening up capital markets is a priority for China this year. Chinese policymakers on Monday announced guidelines for reform priorities in 2015, ranging from streamlining administrative procedures to boosting the yuan's global role, as Beijing steps up efforts to open up the country's capital markets. "More focus will be placed on promoting financial reforms to push forward the development of the real economy", the statement said. Deutsche Bank's retail chief is on his way out. Deutsche Bank's restructuring plan claimed its first management casualty when its retail chief Rainer Neske decided to quit after the group chose to split up and sell chunks of his domain, including Postbank , German media reported. The US signed a $1 billion (£638.5 million) loan guarantee for Ukraine. The United States signed Monday its second $1 billion loan guarantee deal for Ukraine aimed at helping the crisis-wracked country surmount a Russia-backed insurgency and rebuild its tattered economy. UK and eurozone inflation is coming. At 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. London time respectively (4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. New York), the UK and eurozone second readings for consumer price inflation in April are out. Analysts expect both figures to stay at the same level as the first readings, 0%. New UK Business Secretary Sajid Javid aims to cut £10 billion ($15.66 billion) in regulation. Javid promises to roll back red tape with his enterprise bill, which will be announced with the Queen's Speech next week, according to the Financial Times. Despite Carl Icahn's predictions, Apple reportedly stopped developing at TV last year. Apple gave up on any plans to make its own television as long ago as last year, according to a Wall Street Journal report. In an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook today, Icahn wrote that he expects an Apple car and an Apple television — two rumoured projects which have never been officially confirmed or announced by Apple — to hit the market next year. Founding members of China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will meet. Founding members of the AIIB will hold a three-day meeting in Singapore this week to discuss operational policies for the establishment of the institution. The gathering, called the 5th chief negotiators' meeting, will also discuss the draft articles of agreement for the AIIB in Singapore from Wednesday to Friday. Asian shares are booming. The Shanghai Composite Index is up 2.73%, followed by Japan's Nikkei, up 0.93%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng is currently 0.33% higher. Japan's finance minister says monetary policy alone won't be able to end deflation. Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday that monetary easing alone is not enough to end deflation and push up prices. "The deflationary mindset that has beset Japan for such a long time won't change suddenly. But we've seen some changes in the past two years, which is significant," Aso told parliament. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
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The 10 most important things in the world right now | ||
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1. Shi'ite militia fighters are preparing to launch an offencive to take back Ramadi, the western Iraqi city that has fallen to Islamic State militants in the government's biggest defeat since last summer. 2. At least 40 people died in a landslide in Colombia on Monday, triggered by heavy rains. 3. Cash-strapped Greece was reportedly offered a deal from the European Commission on Monday that would unlock about €5 billion (£3.62 billion, $5.69 billion) in bailout money with some austerity measures. 4. Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra appeared in court on Tuesday for the start of her trial on negligence charges over a multi-billion dollar rice scheme. 5. China announced guidelines for reform policies in 2015, with an emphasis on boosting consumption at the expense of exports and investment. 6. Around 170 members of rival motorcycle gangs were charged with engaging in organised crime on Monday after a shootout at a Texas restaurant that killed nine people. 7. Oil prices are rising over concerns about conflicts in Iraq and Yemen that could potentially disrupt production. 8. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ruled out an amnesty for Australian citizens seeking to quit foreign militant groups and return home. 9. The US signed a $1 billion (£638 billion) loan guarantee deal for Ukraine, designed to help the war-torn country rebuild its economy. 10. French cartoonist Renald Luzier, who drew Charlie Hebdo's front cover picture of Mohammed following the attack on the publication's editorial team in January, said he is leaving the paper because it's too difficult without his colleagues. And finally ... American TV legend David Letterman broadcasts his final show Wednesday, ending a 33-year run. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This Animated Map Shows How European Languages Evolved  | ||
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Tech giants have paid Hillary Clinton $3.2 million for speeches since 2014 | ||
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The Clintons' ability to command large sums of money from individuals and groups interested in hearing them speak has been well-documented. Of the $25 million former President Bill and presidential hopeful Hillary have earned for paid speeches in the past year, the Washington Post reports Hillary pulled down $11.7 million of that on her own – $3.2 million of which was from the tech industry. The Post's Matea Gold suggests that could be troubling. She speaks of the "blurred line between personal and political" as it relates to where Hillary Clinton has earned money to speak. Matea says some of those companies "are led by executives who are now prominent backers of her presidential campaign." One event – an eBay summit – featured a 20-minute speech from Hillary, for which she earned $315,000. Fewer than two months later, after she announced her presidential campaign, the Post reports an eBay executive hosted a fundraiser for Hillary at his home near San Francisco. According to the Post's analysis, nearly a third of the money Hillary Clinton earned from paid speeches since 2014 came from tech giants like Cisco and Qualcomm, plus some biotech trade groups.
The Post suggests that by spending years making the rounds on the paid lecture circuit, Hillary Clinton has been able to test drive political themes key to her run for the White House, while also constructing a built-in network of financial backers. The 2016 election is already shaping up to be one of the priciest political showdowns of our time. The Koch brothers have reportedly pledged nearly $1 billion to support largely Conservative causes, and have declared their support for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R). Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Barney Frank has a grim outlook for the 2016 elections  | ||
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Families torn asunder by Asian migrant boat crisis | ||
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Langsa (Indonesia) (AFP) - A teenage son fleeing poverty on a perilous sea voyage, his relatives in a squalid refugee camp, and the cousin who made it to a marginally better life in Malaysia -- the story of one Rohingya family illustrates the torment and dreams driving Asia's migrant boat crisis. Muhammad Shorif, 16, came ashore in Indonesia with other Muslim Rohingya after a harrowing, month-long boat journey. They were some of the nearly 3,000 migrants who made it to land in the past week. Others never made it. AFP tracked down his poverty-stricken family in a Bangladeshi camp and a relative who made the migrant boat voyage to Malaysia, a Muslim-majority, relatively affluent country that has become the favoured destination of many Rohingya, a persecuted minority in mainly Buddhist Myanmar. The family's tale -- stretching over thousands of kilometres from Myanmar to gritty Bangladesh border towns, hidden Thai jungle camps and the modern Malaysian capital -- shows how persecution of the stateless Rohingya has spawned a lucrative trade in human misery and led to the current crisis. While many have made it to land, often ill and severely malnourished, thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshis are still thought to be stranded at sea after Thailand -- a key transit point -- cracked down on people-smuggling routes, prompting boats to abandon their human cargo. - 'Poverty is everywhere' - Shorif was born in the Nayapara camp, a collection of shacks in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh across the border from Myanmar's Rakhine state. His father, Abdur Rahman, described a suffocating existence with little hope for the future. "Poverty is everywhere in the camp... There are hardly any jobs," he told AFP. "We live in a two-room shack, the food that the authorities give us is inadequate. We can't send our children to school except the private schools which are too expensive for us to afford, we are not even allowed to venture out of the camp." Rahman, aged around 40, said that he fled Myanmar with his own parents in 1992, after the government confiscated their farmland, a common tale among the Rohingya. He married in the camp and has five daughters as well as Shorif, and desperately wanted his only son to stay. "I told him that our agony would be over one day but he didn't believe me -- there was nothing in the camp that would give him any reason for hope," said Rahman. Shorif dreamed of going abroad and training to become a doctor, spurred on by his cousin through marriage, Syed Karim, who had made the risky sea journey. Around a year ago, 27-year-old Karim followed the people-smuggling route across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. After arriving in Thailand, he trekked overland to Malaysia, which activists say has long turned a blind eye to Rohingya and other penniless migrants working informally in construction, agriculture and other sectors where demand for cheap labour is high. It's not clear how Shorif got the $1,000 to pay for his trip. While his parents say they did not know he planned to go, the skinny teenager claimed his parents borrowed from relatives to fund the voyage. The month-long journey proved hellish. Almost 600 migrants -- Rohingya and Bangladeshis, most of whom are fleeing grinding poverty -- were crammed together on a ship, under the threatening gaze of armed men. The teenager said he had to sit with his legs pulled close to his chest, exposed to the beating sun during the day and cold at night, and did not dare move as the crew menaced and beat passengers. "We couldn't sleep in the boat. If anyone dared lie down or stretch their legs, they were beaten up or kicked. They even said they would shoot us," he said, adding that he was hit several times. - 'I'm sure he'll make it one day' - As the boat neared the Malaysia-Indonesia maritime border, the captain abandoned ship, leaving the hapless migrants to navigate. While Shorif did not arrive where he expected -- in Thailand, from where migrants typically cross from jungle camps to Malaysia -- he at least survived the journey, with his boat arriving in Indonesia's Aceh province. Not everyone was so lucky. Six died of starvation or illness during the voyage and their bodies were thrown overboard, he said. The journey has taken a heavy toll. Shorif, who had been a champion runner back home, walked with a limp and looked weak and underfed in a donated sports top as he talked to journalists in a camp hosting the migrants in Aceh. Despite his ordeal, he still wants to reach Malaysia to join Karim, and is seeking help from the International Organization for Migration. "I can't lose hope," he said. However, Karim does not paint a picture of an enviable life for Rohingya in Malaysia. After crossing from Thailand, he was detained for about four months before getting work at a market in Kuala Lumpur and now earns just 1,200 ringgit ($335) a month. But for many Rohingya, described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, it still beats life in Myanmar or in a Bangladeshi refugee camp. Karim said: "I talked to Shorif and told him not to worry, I am sure he'll make it one day to Malaysia." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The State Department will wait until January 2016 to release Hillary Clinton's emails | ||
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The State Department says it wants until January 2016 to complete its review and release of 55,000 emails from Hillary Clinton's time as Secretary of State, Politico reports. Those emails have been the subject of much debate leading up to Clinton's announcement that she's making a second run at the White House in 2016. The email scandal, which was first reported by the New York Times, called Clinton's political integrity into question. The emails, exchanged on Clinton's private server during her time as Secretary of State, were seen as a potential subversion of federal laws requiring that official government business be conducted through official channels, like a government-issued email address. Politico reports the State Department's proposal came to light amid documents related to a FOIA lawsuit that Vice News filed over Clinton's emails. In the document, John Hackett – the State Department's acting director of Information Programs and Services says: “The Department understands the considerable public interest in these records and is endeavoring to complete the review and production of them as expeditiously as possible. The collection is, however, voluminous and, due to the breadth of topics, the nature of the communications, and the interests of several agencies, presents several challenges.” Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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At least 61 dead in Colombia landslide | ||
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Salgar (Colombia) (AFP) - A massive landslide tore through a ravine in northwest Colombia Monday before dawn, killing at least 61 people and injuring 37, authorities said. Most residents were sleeping when the landslide hit the municipality of Salgar around 3:00 am, burying a large area in mud and debris. The rush of mud and water "tore down everything in its path," Salgar Mayor Olga Osorio told RCN Radio. The small town of Santa Margarita was practically "wiped off the map," she said. The rescue operation, which was being carried out by 166 first responders, was suspended overnight Monday and will resume again early in the morning. Aerial images showed a broad river of mud that had inundated a large area, dragging houses and trees along with it. Residents shoveled out piles of mud in the afternoon, trying to salvage what belongings they could, as dump trucks arrived to begin hauling away the mess. President Juan Manuel Santos flew over the affected area and met with local officials. "No one can bring the deceased back to you, that is something we deeply regret. But we have to get through this disaster and look to the future with bravery and strength," he said. Several children were orphaned and are being cared for by the Colombian Institute for Family Wellbeing, he said. He announced that each family affected -- 30 in all -- would receive $7,000, and promised infrastructure improvements to try to prevent such disasters in the future. Ex-president turned opposition leader Alvaro Uribe also visited the area, which is near where he grew up. "I met a woman who was holding her three-day-old grandson. His parents are lost," he told radio station RCN. "It's very painful what we saw." Santa Margarita, the hardest-hit town, is one of four that make up Salgar, a municipality of 17,000 people in the department of Antioquia. It was cut off from the rest of the municipality because of damage to an access road and a bridge, local media said. The area was left without electricity, drinking water or gas, and 31 homes were damaged, officials said. Extra emergency teams, rescue dogs and humanitarian aid have been sent, said Red Cross spokeswoman Ana Carolina Gutierrez. The area had been hit by several days of heavy rain. Colombia's tropical climate and mountainous landscapes make it prone to landslides. In 2010-2011, heavy rains caused flooding and landslides that killed 1,374 people and destroyed more than 100,000 homes. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Walcott urges Arsenal to seal top-three finish | ||
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London (AFP) - Theo Walcott has urged Arsenal to seal their place in next season's Champions League group stage by keeping Sunderland mired in the relegation dog-fight on Wednesday. Arsene Wenger's side will be certain of securing a top-three finish in the Premier League if they defeat the Black Cats at the Emirates Stadium. Even a draw is likely to be enough to guarantee they finish above fourth placed Manchester United, who remain two points behind the Gunners with a significantly inferior goal difference and only one game remaining. The reward for finishing in the top three is automatic entry into the group stages of the Champions League, which avoids the inconvenience of having to take part in a two-legged play-off tie to qualify for the competition early next season. Wenger admits he has found that experience a major headache in the past, but Arsenal winger Walcott, who set up his side's equaliser in their 1-1 draw against United at Old Trafford on Sunday, is confident his manager won't have any need to reach for the pain-killers. "We've got a game in hand over United now and it was a crucial point (on Sunday), knowing that. We just need one more point because of goal difference," Walcott said. Walcott made a surprisingly honest admission when he revealed that some of Arsenal players lacked the belief they were capable of keeping pace with champions Chelsea this season. But the England international, who is competing to return to the starting line-up in time for the FA Cup final against Aston Villa after an injury-ravaged campaign, believes Wenger has assembled a squad strong enough to make a serious push for the title next term. "Third place is a step forward from where we finished last year. But we need to be pushing on now and trying to challenge for the title," Walcott said. "There was an opportunity in the season when we were getting close to Chelsea and people were talking about us competing but I sensed throughout the dressing room that we were never quite up there with Chelsea. "But looking at the squad, the manager has an absolute headache to try and pick his best team and we want that going into next season. "We are looking very strong and you never know, he might add a few extra players but we need to be pushing for the Premier League now. There is no excuse." - Obdurate opponents - Sitting three points above third bottom Hull, Sunderland need one more point to be certain of staying up, but a defeat on Wednesday would leave them still in danger of the drop given their inferior goal difference to the Tigers. Sunderland boss Dick Advocaat has collected 11 points from his seven games since replacing sacked predecessor Gus Poyet on a short-term contract in March. And although a goalless draw against Leicester on Saturday revealed a few signs of nerves in Advocaat's squad as the denouement to the relegation battle approaches, the Dutchman is convinced they will survive. "We will stay in (the Premier League), I have no doubt about that," Advocaat said. Black Cats striker Connor Wickham is determined not to prolong the agony until the weekend and has set his sights on taking the decisive step to safety against Arsenal. "They are two tough games away from homes, but they are opportunities for us. We need one point, we all know that," he said. "We know what we have got to do now and it's something we are capable of. There are two opportunities to clinch it and hopefully we can do that on Wednesday." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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American TV legend David Letterman to bid farewell | ||
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New York (AFP) - The king of late-night American television, David Letterman, broadcasts his final show Wednesday, ending a 33-year run of unpredictable, caustic comedy that set him apart. The longest-serving nighttime talk show host in US TV with more than 6,000 shows to his name, 68-year-old Letterman has been honored with tributes in US media, and by a host of celebrities. Last week, his "Late Show" parade of A-list guests included Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Adam Sandler, Al Pacino and Bill Clinton. Tom Hanks and the musician Eddie Vedder are scheduled Monday; followed by Bill Murray and Bob Dylan on Tuesday before the grand finale on Wednesday. "I'm naked and afraid," Letterman told CBS Sunday, half seriously, half joking. "Any enormous uprooting change in my life has petrified me," he said. But once through the other side "the reward has been unimaginable." Letterman got his first comedy show on NBC in 1982, before defecting to CBS in 1993 to host the "Late Show" after the biggest career disappointment of his career -- losing out to Jay Leno as host of the "Tonight" show. His "Late Show," which airs at 11:35pm every weeknight, is a unique blend of comedy, news monologue, celebrity interviews and oddball comedy. Sarcastic, at times angry and scathing, Letterman is noted for an unpredictable, uncompromising attitude. Some celebrities admit they feared him, and the fact they could end up in his crosshairs. Yet Letterman has been nominated for 67 Emmy awards -- the most highly prized accolade in American television -- and was nominated every year from 1984 to 2009. He won 12 and features on lists of the most popular people in American television history. After the horror of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Letterman was the first comedian to go back on air -- six days after the Al-Qaeda hijackings that killed around 3,000 people. - New generation - In January 2000, he underwent a quintuple heart bypass. Five weeks later, he was back on air with his doctors at his "Late Show" guests. In 2009, he admitted to affairs with female staffers and apologized on air alongside his wife and his team. He kept his job. But over the years, he lost audiences to the "Tonight" show with Leno on NBC, figures dropping steadily from 7.1 million viewers in 1993-94 to 2.8 million in 2009, when Leno, three years younger, left. Today a new generation at ease with social media -- never embraced by Letterman -- dominates the airwaves: Jimmy Fallon, 40, who replaced Leno; Jimmy Kimmel, 47, on ABC, Seth Myers, 41, on NBC at 00:35 am. In August Jon Stewart, 52, is also stepping down from "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, replaced by South African comedian Trevor Noah, 31. Letterman who announced his intention to retire last year, will be replaced from September 8 by Stephen Colbert, 51, who until last December hosted the "Colbert Report". "They didn't push me out," Letterman told The New York Times. "I'm 68. If I was 38, I'd probably still be wanting to do the show. When Jay was on... I thought, this is still viable -- an older guy in a suit. And then he left, and I suddenly was surrounded by the Jimmys." Married to long-time companion Regina and the father of 11-year-old Harry, he says he has nothing lined up for retirement, which he has compared to a "punch to the head." "For the first time since Harry's been alive, our summer schedule will not be dictated by me. It will be entirely dictated by what my son wants to do," he told the Times. "After you take a good, solid punch to the head, you're just a little wobbly. I think in that state, it would be good to have others making my decisions." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Chelsea boss Mourinho outraged by Fabregas red card | ||
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West Bromwich (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho expressed his frustration after Cesc Fabregas was sent off in bizarre fashion as the champions were defeated 3-0 at West Bromwich Albion. The Spanish midfielder is set to miss the first two matches of next season plus the final game of this campaign at home to Sunderland on Sunday following his first half dismissal after he kicked the ball against Chris Brunt. Mourinho felt that a more experienced referee than Mike Jones would have resolved the situation with a mere lecture after tempers flared following a Diego Costa and Gareth McAuley off the ball coming together 29 minutes into the action at the Hawthorns. "I've not seen a sending off like that," said Mourinho. "I would like to see it again. What is this for a sending off? Where is the danger of the situation to get a red card in a friendly game almost? "I don't understand. Darren Fletcher was aggressive yes, he pushed in the chest. He's experienced. It was much more aggressive than what Fabregas did. "A top referee with big personality has a few words and controls the game. It's a bizarre red card. "Three game ban for this? Jesus Christ. Of course it's harsh. We lose all the time (when we appeal) but I've not spoken to him. "Diego Costa was targeted, of course. But it's the same story. "It depends on the referee. If the referee wants to protect the talent and punish the bully it is easy for him. "Congratulations to West Brom for the season and this three points. And let's go home." Mourinho felt this first defeat in 19 matches was the net result of claiming the title three games ago as Saido Berahino scored on nine minutes and added a penalty two minutes after the break before Brunt scored a third on the hour. "The ideal scenario is to be champions and don't play again, go home and have holidays," he said. "When you have three more matches it can happen with Bayern Munich three defeats in three and we claim one point in two. "When you play since August with motivation and commitment and feeling the pressure, when you are champions you breathe and everything changes. "It is difficult to play. Let's blame the players a bit, myself and the top contenders for the title as they were not good enough to fight with us. This is a consequence of being champions so early." West Brom manager Tony Pulis insists any criticism of Chelsea is unwarranted. "It's a great finish, we will finish 13th in the table but I don’t think anything should be taken away from the team we played," he said. "The team we've played have been by far the best team in England. They have won the league by a country mile and they have been much better than anyone else. "Although we have won this game, all the praise should go to Jose, his coaching staff, the people of Chelsea and the players. "Jose was very good. I've managed against him twice and managed to beat him twice with Palace and West Brom. "He was very gracious in defeat and for all what we have done, they have been worthy champions. They are a fantastic football club with wonderful players and for some people to criticise them is unbelievable. "We were so on edge after we lost at home to QPR and Leicester but the lads have bounced back. "The attitude has been wonderful, we got the breaks in this game, we played really well at times and defended well. The discipline was good and we made it very difficult for Chelsea." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Rid of CDs, Starbucks teams up with Spotify | ||
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New York (AFP) - Months after ending its tradition of CD sales, coffee giant Starbucks confirmed the rapid growth of music streaming as it announced a partnership with Spotify. The Swedish streaming leader will give accounts to its premium service to Starbuck's 150,000 employees in the United States starting this fall, allowing them to create playlists for stores. Starbucks in turn will promote Spotify's premium service -- which costs $9.99 a month --in part by making the playlists accessible on the coffee chain's own smartphone app. The tie-up also marks the first time that Starbucks will link its loyalty program to a third party, with Spotify users offered chances to earn "stars" that go toward free items at the coffee chain. Through the two companies' technological capacities, "we are reinventing the way our millions of global customers discover music," Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks, said in a statement, released on Monday. "Given the evolution of the music industry and the proliferation of streaming technology, it was natural that we would partner with Spotify in offering our customers a new way to engage with their favorite music," added Kevin Johnson, president and chief operating officer of Starbucks. The partnership will start later this year at Starbucks' 7,000 company-owned stores in the United States. Starbucks said it would later roll out the tie-up to stores in Canada and Britain. Starbucks was once seen by the music industry as a great hope for selling CDs, with a selection offered on racks as customers waited for their coffees. In 2004, Starbucks also introduced in select stores a burning service, allowing customers to select tracks to make their own CDs. But Starbucks in March stopped selling CDs, saying at the time only that it was exploring new options. In 2014, streaming overtook CD sales in revenue generation for the first time in the United States, by far the world's largest music market. Streaming, however, has caught on at different paces around the world. CDs remain the preferred format in Germany and Japan, while Nordic countries have rapidly embraced streaming. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Jawbone's last $300 million loan came with harsh terms, says report | ||
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Fitness-tracking device maker Jawbone has had its fair share of recent troubles, including a delayed launch of its latest product, the Up3. In an analysis of startups conducted for Business Insider by Mattermark, Jawbone was one of the "unicorns" — companies with private-market valuations of greater than $1 billion — seen to be at the greatest risk of failure. The company raised $300 million in February, but a new report from Bloomberg View suggests that the investment by financial management giant BlackRock was a loan, not an equity investment. And that loan came with some pretty strict terms: In the event of a sale, BlackRock will get paid before the investors who went into earlier rounds, and BlackRock will also have significant say in executive makeup and how the company spends its money, according to the report. So Jawbone lives, but life is getting harder. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how people react to trying on the Apple Watch for the first time  | ||
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Apple gave up on making a TV a year ago | ||
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Despite superstar investor Carl Icahn's best guess, Apple gave up on any plans to make its own television as long ago as last year, according to a Wall Street Journal report. In an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook today, Icahn wrote that he expects an Apple car and an Apple television — two rumored projects which have never been officially confirmed or announced by Apple — to hit the market next year. But while the jury's still out on any Apple car, that report indicates that Apple's television dreams may have come to an end a year ago, after over a decade of internal research and development. Basically, Apple reportedly found the higher-end television market to be way too competitive to go head-to-head with the likes of Samsung. The rumors held that the Apple television would sport an insanely high video resolution (four times as many pixels as HDTVs), and that it would include cameras and sensors to make video calls straight from the set. In his letter, citing "many years of rumors, Icahn said that he assumed it would ship in 55" and 65" models. But ultimately, Apple decided that nothing they could come up with was good enough to really make a splash in the market, especially given the fact that high-resolution TVs are only going down in price, the Journal reports. It's a shame, because Apple had reportedly been working on plenty of crazy ideas, including a transparent pane of glass that would use lasers to project the TV image. But on that idea in particular, the prototype had poor image quality and worse power efficiency. Apple hasn't given up on TV entirely: The rumor is still that we'll see a new Apple TV console before the year's out, with a new design and remote control. And Apple is still working with partners like HBO to build an online television service. Just don't hold your breath waiting for a big-screen Apple television. SEE ALSO: CARL ICAHN: Apple is worth $240 per share MORE BACKGROUND: Apple's new TV service will have the one feature that will scare the heck out of cable companies Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how to get HBO Now on your TV without Apple TV  | ||
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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff finds a way to take a jab at Oracle during a Berkeley graduation speech (CRM) | ||
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Benioff mocked Oracle’s cloud product “Fusion” as an underperforming “Confusion” in February, while Ellison didn’t even wait until the call to start to trash-talk Salesforce’s cloud business in March. And on Saturday, Benioff took another potshot from a new venue: a college campus. During his commencement speech at UC Berkeley, Benioff talked about his first full-time job at Oracle, and how the company grew tenfold within three years of his joining the company. But after 13 years at Oracle, Benioff says he wasn’t feeling fulfilled anymore. “After 13 years, I wanted to start my own company. I felt strongly in my heart that there must be more to the values of business than what I was experiencing at Oracle,” Benioff said. “I came to the realization that companies can do much, much more than just build and sell products,” he added. So in 1999, Benioff left Oracle and started a company called Salesforce. As the story goes, Benioff made three commitments when he started his own company. The first one was to build a truly “cloud” product, where you didn’t need to buy and install a physical product to use the software. Secondly, he wanted to build a subscription business, where companies would pay on a monthly-basis, as opposed to paying a huge, one-time upfront fee. The last one was to build a philanthropic culture where the company would give 1% of equity, 1% of employee time, and 1% of profit to build Salesforce Foundation. At the time, all three ideas were rather unconventional. Taking software to the “cloud” and getting paid monthly was unheard of, and a company-wide philanthropic effort was not considered a priority in the corporate world. To his credit, Benioff was an early pioneer in carrying out these initiatives, and has been one of the most vocal proponents of giving back to the society. Despite all this, however, a lot of the Berkeley students in attendance seemed clueless about who Benioff was, according to the San Jose Mercury News. So towards the end of the speech, Benioff took it as a chance to recruit talented Berkeley students to his company: “You can email me at ceo@salesforce.com or tweet me @benioff.” You can watch the full commencement speech below (Benioff's talk starts at around 1:47:00): Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch these giant container ships collide near the Suez Canal  | ||
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There's a crazy new wrinkle in HP's $5 billion lawsuit against Autonomy (HPQ) | ||
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Earlier this month, HP released a massive document spelling out its case in its $5 billion lawsuit against Autonomy executives. In it, HP said a software reseller called MicroTech was involved in a bunch of questionable transactions with Autonomy. Now, MicroTech is suing HP for $16.5 million, claiming it was duped by Autonomy, now owned by HP, into paying for product it never received. HP's case was spelled out in a 134-page document in which it claimed that Autonomy execs used financial tricks (HP called it fraud) to make it look like Autonomy was earning more revenue than it was. HP bought the company for $11 billion in 2011 and, less than a year later, wrote off $8.8 billion. Autonomy execs have categorically and repeatedly dened all of HP's charges and say HP's own mismanagement of the company caused the write-off. HP says that one of the alleged schemes involved five of Autonomy's sales partners, known as "value-added resellers" (VARs), who, HP says, were involved in various "contrived" transactions. It offered a few examples, including a deal between Autonomy and MicroTech in which MicroTech paid Autonomy $9.6 million for software for a customer contract that allegedly never materialized, HP says. And Autonomy paid MicroTech $9.6 million to build a new customer sales center, HP says. MicroTech claims that it had another such multi-million dollar contract with Autonomy that went south, in which HP itself was supposed to be the final customer for Autonomy's software. Now, MicroTech believes HP needs to pay back $16.5 million as a refund, or send MicroTech $16.5 million worth of Autonomy software. The courts will ultimately untangle all the lawsuits and counter-suits and declare the winners. But we have to say one thing: all the parties involved have plenty of chutzpah. And none of this is likely to be resolved before HP splits itself in two later this year. HP declined to comment. Autonomy has released multiple documents that refute HP's accusations point-by-point. SEE ALSO: 23 of the most powerful women engineers in the world Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow  | ||
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These descriptions of fictional techies for a TV show are totally absurd | ||
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The original casting call for the show about "six leading technology executives living, learning and loving together in San Francisco's Mission District, 94110" left many local residents scratching their heads as to what this was all about. The show's producers concluded auditions this weekend and posted the screen tests online, so now we know a little bit more about what these six fictional tech executives will look like. There's a B R O. And an engineer "kinda." And "one of the gang and has alcohol-fueled bro-downs for brainstorming sessions." Here are the descriptions for the characters that will appear on the show, along with some of the lines that each character read for the screen test: Lead A “Move fast and break stuff. I think if you’re not like breaking anything, you might not be moving at a good speed, you know? It’s not about winning and losing though. It’s about doing something valuable. I’m not really here to manage day-to-day; I’m more into strategy. People really undervalue that kind of flexibility, exploring what you want before committing all the way. I want to shop around first.” Lead B “What’s work-life balance? Uh, no such thing. Well, there’s no balance, but there sure is work and life. You have to figure out your own type of ambition and progress. That’s why I’m pragmatic. It’s not always easy. For instance, I think, if you’re a woman, you have to be more careful. Like, you have to say, well, “yes” a lot more than men do. But once there’s enough women around, that can change. Of course I have faith in the system. You have to.” Lead C “Uh, I wanna simplify complexity. Strip things down to the essentials and start again. Building stuff that like, really, simplifies our basic social interactions. Like, take money — that touches everyone in the world. And like, you’re taught to feel bad about money — because maybe it is bad, who knows? So uh, it feels dirty to hold onto — but great when it goes away. Real great. You’re being taken care of, like the world is finally working the way it’s supposed to. Yeah, I guess that is what I look for or want, y’know, when something simple can make a deep impression on you. Like the raw denim thing? It’s cool — all the designs or whatever — pressed into your jeans from the way your life moves.” Lead D “It was awkward— going from engineer to entrepreneur, having to get people behind your dreams and ideas. But it’s not a bad thing to get people to trade their time for some cash, right? And so, I wanna believe I’m a people person, but at the of the day, actually, I’m just such a dog person. (All those apps in the dogspace are so inspiring, by the way. Like, wow, I gotta get over there one day.) Okay, okay, I gotta stay on topic, though. It’s important to stay level when you’re responsible for others, even though I’m a really binary, black and white person. Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed with dogs. [giggles] Cats get out of here.” Lead E “I always did something I was a little not ready to do, you know. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of “Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this”’ and you push through those moments regardless. That’s how you’re certain you’ve had a breakthrough. A lot of people criticize what the culture is like out here. But I really had just been very blind to gender. And I still am. You gotta do it that way; like, you just have to ruthlessly prioritize. What’s number 1: the idea or the execution? But yeah, I really love color. [funny laugh] Maybe color comes first.” Lead F “When something’s fun, it’s obvious. That’s when you just need to do more of it. And that’s why as an entrepreneur, I try to push the limits. Pedal to the metal, bitch. I’m a competitor – and I’m screwed if I’m sleeping. If I catch the other guy sleeping, you bet I’m gonna tear him a new one. It’s hard to be a disrupter and not be an asshole. I’m the same guy I always was, success or not. They just don’t like your guts and effort anymore when you got baller status in this town.” Supporting A: “Yeah, everyone is different. I’m not even talking about backgrounds or your place in society. That’s why I love this neighborhood— all the changing faces and good energy. These new waves of, uh, new people, uh, is a huge thing. The area can always regenerate. There is a fresh rate of money coming in, fresh ways of support, fresh food— isn’t that a great thing? Look, if I’m willing and ready to pay more for a coffee in the morning, then by all means, charge more for your coffee. I’m not alone in this. Don’t act like this is a radical idea. This is what pays the bills.” Supporting B: “It’s more like, what job have I not had to cover rent over here? When have I only had one job? Never. This is 2015. I guess this is what is normal now. Of course, I fucking love the freedom of the 1099 economy. Probably as free as all my clients out on the Playa, bro. But twelve bucks an hour isn’t so great if you’re spending all day running around dropping off socks for software engineers. Hell, I’ll ride some of them on my handlebars to the vape shop. I can’t always see the changes coming, but I’m figuring out a way to maintain, and I wouldn’t be around here if I couldn’t. There is a real community here, if you can stick around. Something’s gotta give.” Supporting C: “Just like what my granddad said— I’m probably only as smart as the people I surround myself with. That said, I went to school. I can process abstractions, and I’m super into high risk play, maximizing the payouts. I’ll find a way to hedge those bets in the end. You gotta be careful at some point. If you introduce progress or innovation into any community, how does the community react? Not always the best. So, test that shit. Don’t fear the pivot.” Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: The 5 Most Typecast Roles In TV Ads  | ||
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