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• A newly-discovered bug in Apple's FaceTime allows a person to secretly hear what someone is saying before they answer the call.
• The bug affects any iPhone, iPad, or Mac that supports FaceTime. 
• Business Insider was able to replicate the vulnerability on an iPhone.
• Apple said it would release a software fix for the bug "later this week." In the meanwhile, the only thing to do is disable FaceTime entirely in your system settings.

A major privacy flaw in Apple's FaceTime video chat product has been discovered allowing someone to secretly eavesdrop on another user before they answer the call.

This bug affects any Apple iPhone, iPad, or Mac that can run FaceTime. 

The bug is serious problem in one of Apple's flagship products, and is especially embarrassing given Apple's recent campaign touting its privacy bona fides compared to rivals like Google. It also comes less than 24 hours before Apple is due to report close-watched quarterly earnings in which the company is expected to report a decline in iPhone sales. 

News of the privacy bug was making the rounds on Twitter on Monday and was quickly picked up by Apple blogs like 9to5Mac. Some users were urging iPhone owners to switch off FaceTime until Apple fixes the vulnerability. 

Business Insider was able to replicate the privacy vulnerability in its own testing on Monday.

The bug in FaceTime allows someone to dial one of their contacts and listen in to the recipient's microphone before they actually answer the call. This can be accomplished by using the "add a person" feature after dialing the contact, and then adding your own number as the other person. 

Furthermore, The Verge discovered that if the person being called pushes the power or volume button on their iPhone to dismiss the FaceTime call, it actually sends the caller a video feed, as well. 

An Apple representative sent the following statement to Business Insider: "We’re aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week."

In the meanwhile, those concerned about the issue should disable FaceTime on their Apple devices until the fix is available. You can see instructions for doing so on an iPhone and iPad here, or on a Mac here.

SEE ALSO: I keep over 200 apps on my iPhone's home screen — here's the system I use to stay organized

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NOW WATCH: 7 science-backed ways to a happier and healthier 2019 that you can do the first week of the new year

Multi-award-winning collaboration solutions company, Nureva recently announced an exciting new evolution for their HDL300 System. The audio-conferencing asset has been officially designated as a “recommended audio solution” by Zoom Video Communications, ideal for people using medium to large-sized Zoom Rooms.

According to Zoom, the HDL300 system helps to provide Zoom customers with a cost-effective and highly-advanced microphone speaker solution, well suited for delivering top-level audio. What’s more, the thousands of virtual microphones featured in Nureva’s pioneering technology allows for a more complete full-room pickup.

Inclusion as part of Zoom’s recommended hardware list has been a crucial part of Nureva’s initiative to help them deliver seamless collaboration to customers through certifications, third-party integrations, and APIs. ISE 2019 attendees will be able to see the HDL300 in action at the Nureva stand (11-B180).

Impressive Conferencing Power from Nureva

The Nureva HDL300 system is an easy-to-install solution offering plug-and-play connectivity for businesses in need of a comprehensive conferencing strategy. According to Zoom’s partnerships development manager, Chris DeNovellis, the technology has a remarkable ability to pick up the voices of meeting participants wherever they may be in the room. When combined with easy integration to other meeting room technologies, the Nureva system is a valuable solution for Zoom customers.

The HDL300 audio conferencing system was created to overcome some of the common problems in dynamic conferencing environments, such as poor audio pickup. The tech can also be used as a primary source of video and audio playback when used with an interactive display like the Nureva wall.

Perhaps the most impressive feature of the HDL300 system is the “Microphone Mist” technology patented by Nureva, which places over 8,000 virtual microphones around a room to ensure complete sound pickup. The system makes sure that everyone in your organisation is heard, wherever they might be located. What’s more, with sound masking technology, you can ensure that you’re collecting only human voices, rather than distracting outside noises.

A Strong Step Forward for Nureva

Already, companies have begun to see the benefits of using the HDL300 system with Zoom Rooms. According to the founder of Video Conference Gear, Ryan Pinke – a Zoom and Nureva reseller, one of their clients installed the HDL300 system and reduced poor audio pickup by 99%.

Nureva’s CEO, Nancy Knowlton, has released a statement expressing her delight that the HDL300 system has been accepted as a recommended product for Zoom Rooms. Zoom now joins a lineup of other systems that Nureva’s HDL300 is optimised for, including Pexip Infinity Connect, Cisco Webex, GoToMeeting, and BlueJeans.

SEE ALSO: Legendary billionaire Ray Dalio told a crowd at Davos that the next economic meltdown scares him more than anything — here's what he said, and why he's so worried

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NOW WATCH: We compared Apple's $159 AirPods to Xiaomi's $30 AirDots and the winner was clear

• WardsAuto has released its list of the 10 best engines for 2019.
• The top 10 includes traditional gasoline and diesel engines as well as fuel cell, electric, and hybrid propulsion systems. 
• Mass markets brands such as Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, and RAM took seven of the spots with luxury brands BMW, Infiniti, and Lexus taking the final three spots. 
• Only new or significantly re-engineered engines or propulsion systems that are available for sale in the US and are installed in cars with a base price of less than $64,000 are eligible.

WardsAuto recently released the latest and the 25th edition of its annual round up of the best engines in the world. As usual, the 2019 winners are an eclectic bunch ranging from diesel truck engines to hydrogen fuel-cell drive units.

"I never thought I’d live to see the day when a fuel-cell car and a battery EV would make the list the same year as two burly V-8s and a sophisticated 4-cyl. engine with variable compression," Drew Winter, WardsAuto senior content director, said in a story announcing the winners.

Mass markets brands such as Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, and RAM took seven of the spots with luxury brands BMW, Infiniti, and Lexus taking the final three spots. 

"Automakers and their powertrain engineers are being pushed in different directions: Governments around the world want low emissions and electrification, while customers want vehicles that meet their every need without compromise," Winter added. "We believe this year’s list represents the industry’s ability to deftly satisfy both demands."

Read more: Rolls-Royce's CEO reveals how his company just set a new all-time record for sales of its ultra-luxury cars.

According to Wards, which published the results in December, only new or significantly re-engineered engines or propulsion systems that are available for sale in the US and are installed in cars with a base price of less than $64,000 are eligible. In addition, winners from the previous year are also eligible to defend their title. 

For 2019, a total of 39 candidates were put through their paces by the publication's staff in real-life, on-road, driving and on race tracks when possible. 

Each engine or propulsion system is graded on horsepower, torque, comparative specs, noise attenuation, fuel economy, and application of new technology. 

Here are the 10 winners for 2019 in alphabetical order:

SEE ALSO: The worst states in America to get a speeding ticket, ranked

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1. BMW X5: 3.0-liter, DOHC, turbocharged, inline-six cylinder.

BMW refreshed B58 inline-six has been praised for smoothness and imperceptible start/stop system. It also won back in 2016 and 2017.

2. Chevrolet Silverado: 6.2-liter, OHV V8 with Dynamic Fuel Management.

• Microsoft employees spent much of Thursday ensnared in a massive reply-all email thread, according to social-media posts from employees.
• It started with a message sent to some 11,543 Microsoft employees registered to the company's GitHub account. 
• The episode is especially delightful for longtime Microsoft employees: This is evocative of 1997's legendary Bedlam DL3 incident, in which a similar reply-all apocalypse actually took down Microsoft's internal email servers for days.

It happens to the best of us.

On Thursday, Microsoft found itself swept up in a reply-all email apocalypse, with thousands of hapless employees caught in the unwanted thread and receiving frequent updates, including ones that were irksome and others that were absurd. In a video trying to help his colleagues break free, one Microsoft employee said the email had ensnared as many as 11,543 Microsofties.

Microsoft declined to comment.

It all started when an employee sent a message to everyone who helps manage Microsoft's GitHub account, we hear. Ironically, we hear that this original message was trying to tell everyone in the organization how to change their GitHub settings to get fewer notifications.

GitHub is the mega-popular code-sharing site for programmers, of which Microsoft was a major power user even before it acquired it last year for $7.5 billion. Given that Microsoft is the top corporate contributor to open-source projects on GitHub, it's no surprise that this message reached over 11,000 people. 

According to Twitter posts, it didn't take long before it turned into a full-fledged fiasco: Some people committed the cardinal sin of this situation and replied to everyone in the e-mail thread asking to be removed. Others cracked jokes to their captive audience, begged their colleagues to stop replying, or tried to offer useful advice to those stuck in the thread.

What's more, a quirk in the system meant that even employees who managed to unsubscribe kept getting resubscribed, according to reports. 

It was, apparently, chaos. 

The Bedlam connection

The whole incident appears to have been extra-funny to longtime Microsofties, as it evokes a legendary episode in the company's history.

Way back in 1997, Microsoft was still working the kinks out of Exchange, its ubiquitous corporate email server. For the purposes of testing, Microsoft created a mailing list with about 25,000 employees on it, called Bedlam DL3, with the name chosen for reasons that are lost to time.

An employee noticed that they were in the Bedlam DL3 group and sent a message to the list asking to be removed. 

That message went to all 25,000 people in the mailing group. It sparked plenty of responses — again, some people tried to help, while others cracked jokes. But the most common reply was a simple "Me too!" from people who wanted off the Bedlam DL3 list and off the thread. 

Factoring in all of those messages, not to mention the read receipts that many employees had enabled, and it actually brought Microsoft's email server to a standstill for two days while the IT department figured out how to fix it.

To this day, Bedlam DL3 is still a running joke among Microsoft employees — indeed, during Microsoft's newest reply-all apocalypse, several employees are said to have added their own "Me too!" to the thread. In fact, some are already calling it "Bedlam V2," or even "Gitlam."

On a final note: The best advice for how to make sure a similar situation doesn't happen to you is to simply not reply to everybody when you're copied on a mass email or another kind of message. You'll do everyone a favor. 

Just ... seriously, don't.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft's president says tech's bruising 2018 has left scars that will result in US federal regulation as early as this year

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NOW WATCH: Japanese lifestyle guru Marie Kondo explains how to organize your home once and never again

As facial recognition systems become more common, Amazon has emerged as a frontrunner in the field, courting customers around the US, including police departments and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But experts say the company is not doing enough to allay fears about bias in its algorithms, particularly when it comes to performance on faces with darker skin.

The latest cause for concern is a study published this week by the MIT Media Lab, which found that Rekognition performed worse when identifying an individual’s gender if they were female or darker-skinned. In tests led by MIT’s Joy Buolamwini, Rekognition made no mistakes when identifying the gender of lighter-skinned men, but it mistook women for men 19 percent of the...

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• Flights were delayed and rerouted Friday at major airports along the US's East Coast because of staffing shortages as the government shutdown entered its 35th day.
• Ground stops were in place at some of the nation's busiest airports as air-traffic controllers, working without pay, began to stay home.
• By 10:45 a.m. ET, flights were no longer halted, but delays at LaGuardia, Newark, and Atlanta continued as of noon on Friday.
• Cabin crews reportedly told passengers on some flights that they were taking on extra fuel in the event of holding patterns.

The government shutdown is starting to have a very real effect on flights throughout the US.

Staffing shortages at the Federal Aviation Administration, the US's top air-traffic regulator, caused delays and rerouting at some of the country's biggest airports on Friday morning, including Philadelphia, Atlanta, DC, and New York City, according to the administration's website.

Air-traffic controllers have been working without pay since the shutdown commenced on December 22. The FAA said in a statement that it had "experienced a slight increase in sick leave at two facilities."

"We are mitigating the impact by augmenting staffing, rerouting traffic, and increasing spacing between aircraft when needed," the FAA said.

The facilities have been identified as ZDC, or Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center, in Leesburg, Virginia, and Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center in Hillard, Florida. These two control centers manage air traffic for much of the US's East Coast.

At 10 a.m. ET, Newark and LaGuardia reported departure delays of between 30 and 45 minutes. Philadelphia reported delays of more than an hour.

Washington, DC's Reagan Airport also suffered from delays but was dropped from the list later in the morning. By noon, New York's LaGuardia Airport, Newark Airport, and Atlanta remained on the list.

Read more: Airline passengers are furious after government shutdown sparks hundreds of flight delays

By 1 pm, all of the staffing delays had disappeared from the FAA's website, however residual delays were still clogging airports. LaGuardia was still showing 90-minute delays, with Atlanta and Newark both still above the hour mark.

Traffic-management programs, aka ground stops, don't necessarily apply to all flights into and out of an airport. The ground-delay program limits the number of departures to lessen the volume that air-traffic controllers have to direct.

According to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.com, 209 flights departing from LaGuardia and 215 bound for LGA have already been delayed by noon on Friday.

The site's data showed that 90 flights departing from Newark and 99 flights inbound had been delayed by noon on Friday.

Federal workers deemed essential, such as air-traffic controllers and TSA security screeners, have been working without pay for 35 days as the shutdown enters its second month. Workers were set to miss their second regularly scheduled paycheck on Friday because of the shutdown.

Some flights have been rerouted to deal with the traffic-management programs in place.

Congressman Joaquin Castro, the Texas Democrat, said the crew on his Southwest flight to San Antonio said they had take on extra fuel in case the shutdown led to delays.

Many agencies have also been seeing an uptick in employees calling in sick.

The TSA had an unprecedented 10% absence rate on Monday over the holiday, reflecting about 3,000 workers, compared to 3% the same weekend a year prior.

Some federal workers have turned to food pantries and government programs during the shutdown. In one gesture that went viral, Canadian air-traffic controllers sent pizza to their American counterparts as a goodwill gesture.

The union that represents flight attendants blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other lawmakers for allowing the shutdown to go on this long.

"This is exactly what AFA and other aviation unions have been warning would happen," the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA president Sara Nelson said in a statement.

"The aviation system depends on the safety professionals who make it run," Nelson said. "They have been doing unbelievably heroic work even as they are betrayed by the government that employs them. They are fatigued, worried, and distracted — but they won't risk our safety. So the planes will stay on the ground.

"Do we have your attention now, Leader McConnell? All Lawmakers? Open the government and then get back to the business of democracy to discuss whatever issue you so choose," the statement continued.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the incident was "another day of federal madness."

"Now it's not just Washington, in the Beltway, now literally they’re slowing down air traffic in the United States of America," he told reporters.

Air Canada, which flies into both LaGuardia and Newark, said Friday that it had revised its ticketing policy for customers affected by the air-traffic restrictions.

"Air Canada is monitoring the situation closely and is working to get you on your way safely and as quickly as possible," it said.

On Thursday, JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said that the air-travel network is nearing a "tipping point" as the government shutdown stretches on.

"Our crew members and customers are likely to face extended security lines, flight delays, and even cancellations," Hayes said. "And the longer this goes on, the longer it will take for the air-travel infrastructure to rebound."

Lapsed food benefits for millions, courts system on the brink, and the potential for recession: other effects of the shutdown

• Former White House aide Anthony Scaramucci warned that the partial shutdown could put America's economy into a recession if it continued for another month.
• John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, asked Trump and Congress to end the shutdown, specifically citing its effects on the Department of Homeland Security.
• Because of the shutdown, Trump became the first president in US history to be disinvited from delivering the State of the Union address.
• New car models may not be rolled out during the shutdown.
• FBI agents gave stark warnings about how the shutdown could affect safety in the US.
• By the end of this week, the shutdown could end up costing more than the $5.7 billion Trump wants for the border wall.
• The government has been left powerless in dealing with product recalls, potentially putting customers in dangerous situations.
• Schools are worried about being able to feed children their lunches if the shutdown continues.
• Cybersecurity experts say the shutdown is putting the US is at greater risk of attack.
• Secret Service agents are working with no pay, with some saying that they are struggling to make ends meet and that job performance could be affected.
• National parks are facing piles of trash and damaged trees.

• Read more:
• There are no NTSB investigators to look into plane crashes and highway accidents because they've been sent home during the government shutdown
• TSA has found money to give employees transit and parking benefits during the government shutdown
• Unpaid TSA workers are 'trying not to panic' as bills stack up
• Delta can't put its new Airbus jets into service because FAA inspectors have been sent home during the government shutdown
• Canadian air-traffic controllers are buying hundreds of pizzas for their US cohorts who aren't getting paid in the government shutdown

See Business Insider's full coverage of the shutdown here.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Joaquin Castro. He is a US representative in Texas.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Tampa, Florida also was experiencing delays due to staffing. Those delays were due to traffic volume at the Jacksonville air traffic control center. 

SEE ALSO: More than 3,000 furloughed TSA screeners missed work over holiday weekend

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NOW WATCH: Airports are dealing with massive lines during the government shutdown as TSA employees are working without pay

Today, T-Mobile announced the launch of the Coolpad Surf, a 600MHz mobile hot spot that’s aiming to bring service to rural areas. It’s the first mobile hot spot to support Band 71, or 600MHz LTE, which T-Mobile recently won the spectrum license for from the Federal Communications Commission Broadcast Incentive auction last April. A number of phones have been released with Band 71 support since then, including the iPhone XS and XR, Samsung Galaxy S9, and the OnePlus 6T. T-Mobile says that Band 71 is designed to provide better coverage for rural customers, which has traditionally been a weak point for the carrier.

The Coolpad Surf (which is a sick name), has a 2,150mAh battery that can last up to 48 hours on standby and gets around five...

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A new report published Wednesday in Nature suggests that Earth’s vegetation may not be able to continue to absorb human carbon dioxide emissions at current rates, which could accelerate climate change and exacerbate its effects.

Humans pump nearly 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year and about 50 percent of these emissions are absorbed by plants in the terrestrial and ocean biospheres. The negative effects of the large amounts of carbon dioxide being absorbed by Earth’s vegetation can be seen in unprecedented coral bleaching events and the acidification of the ocean.

Although carbon dioxide is necessary for plants to grow, there is a limit to how much CO2 they can absorb. According to the lead authors of the new study, Columbia University environmental engineer Pierre Gentine and his doctoral student Julia Green, the impact of extreme events like droughts and floods on soil are decreasing the amount of CO2 that Earth’s vegetation an absorb.

Read More: The Seafloor is Dissolving Because of Climate Change

The rates that plants can absorb greenhouse gasses is largely dictated by how variations in the water cycle—such as droughts and floods—affect the soil. Gentine and Green used four different climate models to analyze net biome productivity (NBP), which is equal to the amount of carbon used by plants and the soil in a given region minus the amount of carbon lost due to things like forest fires or forest harvesting. They were looking specifically at how soil moisture affects the NBP by analyzing long-term drying trends in soil and the impact of extreme, short-term events like floods and droughts on soil.

“Essentially, if there were no droughts and heat waves, if there were not going to be any long-term drying over the next century, then the continents would be able to store almost twice as much carbon as they do now," Gentine said in a statement.

According to the study, the variations in soil moisture from droughts and floods are already reducing the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon at current levels.

Annual CO2 emissions by country from 1960 to 2017. Image: CarbonBrief

“This is a big deal,” Gentine said. “If soil moisture continues to reduce the net biome productivity at the current rate, and the rate of carbon uptake by the land starts to decrease by the middle of this century—as we found in the models—we could potentially see a large increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and a corresponding rise in the effects of global warming and climate change.”

In short, the ability of plants and the soil to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is already being affected by the varying and extreme weather events produced by human-driven climate change. As these effects become more pronounced, they will further limit the Earth from absorbing carbon dioxide, thereby exacerbating the extreme weather creating a vicious cycle.

Gentine said that the study highlights the need to dedicate more resources to studying the way plants respond to water stress so that these findings can be better incorporated into models.

In the meantime, Gentine said, “We all really need to act now to avoid greater consequences of climate change.”

• Greenland's ice sheet is melting six times faster than it was in the 1980s — that's even faster than scientists thought.
• A new study has revealed that melting Greenland ice has contributed to more than half an inch of global sea-level rise since 1972. Half of that increase happened in the last eight years.
• If all of Greenland's ice were to melt, it would raise sea levels 23 feet, submerging some coastal cities. In the US, that would put everything south of West Palm Beach, Florida underwater.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Greenland's ice is melting six times faster now than it was four decades ago.

The authors of a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimate that the Greenland ice sheet is now sloughing off an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year. In 2012, Greenland lost more than 400 billion tons of ice.

Two decades ago, the annual average was just 50 billion.

All that lost ice means Greenland's melting has contributed to more than 0.5 inches of global sea-level rise since 1972, the researchers reported. Alarmingly, half of that increase came about in the last eight years alone.

Another study published in January 2019 used data from satellites and a GPS network to determine that Greenland's ice is melting faster than scientists previously thought. That study highlighted risks of melting in Greenland's southwestern region, which isn't typically known to be a source of ice loss, as Quartz reported.

"This is going to cause additional sea-level rise," Michael Bevis, lead author of the January study and a professor at Ohio State University, told National Geographic. "We are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point."

This news comes in the wake of another ominous finding: Antarctica's melting is also speeding up. In the 1980s, Antarctica lost 40 billion tons of ice annually. In the last decade, that number jumped to an average of 252 billion tons per year — just a hair behind Greenland's new average.

What happens if the entire Greenland ice sheet melts?

Roughly 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) in size, the Greenland ice sheet covers an area almost three times that of Texas. Together with Antarctica's ice sheet, it contains more than 99% of the world's fresh water, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. 

Most of that water is frozen in masses of ice and snow that can be up to 10,000 feet thick. But as human activity sends more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the oceans absorb 93% excess heat those gases trap. The warm air and water is leading ice sheets to melt at unprecedented rates.

If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt — granted, this would take place over centuries — it would mean a 23-foot rise in sea level, on average. That's enough to submerge the southern tip of Florida.

If both Antarctica and Greenland's ice sheets were to melt, that would lead sea levels to rise more than 200 feet (and Florida would disappear).

NASA has created an interactive tool that helps track sea-level rise projections based on how much the two ice sheets are melting. One thing the tool makes very clear: Coastal cities will be heavily impacted.

In the event of a full ice melt, according to a map from National Geographic, cities like Amsterdam, Netherlands; Stockholm, Sweden; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Dakar, Senegal; and Cancun, Mexico (to name just a few) would vanish.

SEE ALSO: The oceans are the hottest they’ve been since we started measuring — which means we should prepare for more disastrous flooding and storms

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NOW WATCH: Animated map shows what the US would look like if all the Earth's ice melted

In case you hadn’t heard, Google Hangouts is going away — and if you’ve been dreading the day you’ll have to replace it with the perhaps much nicer-looking Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, we’ve got some brand-new guidance from Google on when the switch will be happening.

Namely, October to start. That’s when Google will start retiring the classic Hangouts app for its G Suite customers — aka companies that pay to use Google Apps — according to an official blog post. So that’s when you should expect to hear the first wave of people complaining about being forced to switch, even though it’ll only be those G Suite customers at first.

Google says that it won’t start killing off Hangouts for regular users until those G Suite customers are all...

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Swedish audio company Teenage Engineering is expanding their popular Pocket Operator synth line with a new line of self-assembly modular units called the 16, the 170, and the 400. Meant to be a more affordable entry point into modular synthesis than most Eurorack modules — which can easily balloon into thousands of dollars — Teenage Engineering says their goal was to create a “poor man’s modular.”

The 400 is an analog modular synthesizer with what Teenage Engineering says is a “warm natural analog sound.” It is priced at $499, and comes with three oscillators, a 16-step sequencer, filter, LFO, two envelopes, noise, random generator, two VCAs, a mixer, speaker box, and power pack. The 16 is a musical keyboard with sequencer and...

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Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant has fallen behind Google Assistant and Alexa over the past year, and now the software maker is taking a different approach to the competition. Speaking to journalists at a media event earlier this week, attended by The Verge, CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Microsoft no longer sees Cortana as a competitor to Alexa or Google Assistant. “Cortana needs to be that skill for anybody who’s a Microsoft 365 subscriber,” explains Nadella, referencing Microsoft’s new consumer subscription push. “You should be able to use it on Google Assistant, you should be able to use it on Alexa, just like how you use our apps on Android and iOS so that’s at least how we want to think about where it’ll go.”

Microsoft has...

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• Facebook has seemingly confirmed that employees left five-star reviews for its new Portal video-chat device on Amazon.
• The reviews were first spotted by New York Times tech journalist Kevin Roose.
• Facebook executive Andrew "Boz" Bosworth tweeted saying that Facebook had not asked employees to leave good reviews, and that it will ask the employees to remove them.

Facebook employees have been caught leaving glowing reviews on Amazon for Facebook's new video-chat device.

Facebook released the Portal, a video-chat and smart-speaker device, in October. It was the first hardware product to be built and sold under the Facebook brand.

The new gadget has already faced some hardship after Facebook admitted that the camera-equipped screen could collect data about its owners to help Facebook target ads at people.

Read more: The curious timing of Facebook's first hardware product, the $200 "Portal"

Now it seems Facebook employees have been trying to artificially inflate the device's ratings on Amazon.

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose was the first to spot that stellar reviews were being left by people with the same names as Facebook employees.

As Roose also pointed out, this would be in contravention of Amazon's terms and conditions for sellers.

Roose's suspicions were later confirmed by a Facebook executive. Andrew "Boz" Bosworth heads up Facebook's AR and VR divisions, and said that the employees had not been instructed to leave good reviews. "We will ask them to take them down," he added.

Business Insider contacted Facebook and Amazon for comment.

SEE ALSO: Facebook is restructuring its augmented reality glasses division as it inches closer to launch

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NOW WATCH: British Airways has a $13 million flight simulator that taught us how to take off, fly, and land an airplane

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Google lifted the lid on two new updates to its mobile service, Google Fi, in a concerted effort to grow its subscriber base: It plans to enable richer messaging via RCS and faster 4G LTE coverage abroad in 33 countries.

Fi is Google’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service that offers phone plans that use a combination of three 4G LTE networks and the company’s own network of 2 million Wi-Fi hotspots secured with the service’s VPN tech.

While Google’s MVNO has a number of advantages over competing services — it’s affordable, international, has no annual contract, and is device-type agnostic — it has yet to gain significant traction among US consumers.

However, the new updates help increase Google Fi's attractiveness to US consumers looking for better messaging capabilities and international plans. Here's why the updates will increase Google Fi's appeal:

• Embracing RCS expands chat abilities for a broader array of phones than US carriers support. RCS is a replacement for standard SMS and MMS messaging formats that enables users to send more content types in interactive formats. This allows for a more personal and engaging messaging experience between consumers who have access to RCS and businesses that adopt it. For instance, an airline can send an image of an interactive card that features boarding passes, airport maps, and flight status updates, as opposed to just a text message. With the update, phones designed for Fi will soon automatically enable RCS, and compatible Android phones will support RCS as long as Messages is set as the default chat app. For comparison, Verizon only supports RCS on the Pixel 3, while T-Mobile only supports it on select Samsung devices. 
• Moving to faster 4G LTE in 33 of the 200+ countries covered under the service will make Google Fi one of the best options for frequent international travelers. Fi costs $20 a month for talk, text, and Wi-Fi tethering, and for roaming in international countries. Data under the plan costs $10 per GB, but Google will reimburse users for any data purchased and not used in a billing period. Offering fast 4G LTE data speeds in a wide variety of countries at a flexible and affordable price makes Google Fi a better alternative to the T-Mobile One plan, which is one of the best plans for international coverage. That's because, while the T-Mobile One plan offers coverage in more than 210 countries, the plan starts at $70 per a single line and the data in these countries is at 2G speeds. T-Mobile One subscribers looking for 4G LTE speeds internationally need to upgrade to purchase a $5 daily data package, which offers 512MB of 4G LTE data and unlimited text and talk. Google's advantage is significant because demand for international coverage grew for many US consumers in 2018, according to Business Insider Intelligence’s Telecom Competitive Edge report (enterprise only).

The new updates, coupled with Google’s moves over the past year, could help Google Fi corner off a large swath of US subscribers and, in turn, become a threat to US wireless carriers. 

Google added a number of new features to the service in 2018: It expanded the plan to work with the majority of Android devices, including those from Samsung and OnePlus, and added support for iPhones in November after previously only supporting the Google Pixel and a small number of LG and Motorola handsets. 

And in February, Google Fi introduced an unlimited plan. Google's latest moves to expand the addressable audience and integrate mobile service offerings that either match or improve on those from other US wireless carriers will help position Fi to eat into US carriers' subscriber numbers. 

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SEE ALSO: T-Mobile is outpacing the rest of the Big Four US carriers on value, loyalty, and satisfaction — here's what consumers say is most important when selecting a mobile provider

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Facebook Messenger’s redesign, which was first announced at Facebook’s F8 developer conference last May, is finally here. Its listing on both the App Store and the Google Play Store has been updated to show the new interface, and we’ve verified that it’s available across both operating systems, but the Messenger team has said that it might take a little time for the update to be available for everyone.

The aim of the redesign is to make the chat client simpler and to put your messages front and center once again. But despite this, it’s taken a surprising amount of time to actually see a widespread release. Following its announcement in May, the redesign entered a prolonged rollout period in October, but since then, the only way to...

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• Lyft has filed a patent for augmented-reality tools that could make connecting riders and drivers easier.
• The system would use historical pick-up and drop-off data to determine the optimal location for drivers to meet riders. 
• The patent also proposes the use of AR glasses like Magic Leap to project futuristic labels onto the drivers' vision. 

Finding your Lyft driver amid a sea of nearly identical Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords could soon go by the wayside if a patent the company applied for this week comes to fruition.

According to the documents published by federal regulators on Thursday, Lyft envisions a system where the app can use historical pick-ups and drop-offs in order to help a driver find a good place to park. What's more, the application reveals plans to use augmented reality, or AR, to project riders' locations to make them easier to find.

Here's how it's worded in the filing:

"Identifying a driver assigned to the passenger; generating an augmented reality element corresponding to a real-world environment surrounding the driver and indicating the ideal pickup location; and providing, to the driver by way of an augmented reality device associated with the driver, the generated augmented reality element corresponding to the real-world environment surrounding the driver."

In other words, Lyft wants to use the troves of data it's amassed in its now six years of giving rides to make the pick-up and drop-off process as seamless as possible. Instead of scanning a crowd for one person staring at their phone who might be looking for their ride, the app could show the driver exactly which person is their rider, and vice-versa. The company specifically posits a sporting event as an example of where this tech could help.

"The augmented reality transportation system, in at least one example, also identifies one or more 'no pickup' locations," the filing reads.

"For example, the augmented reality transportation system analyzes the historical information to determine a number of factors such as: a previous number of pickups at given places, wait times for pickup at given places, places where it is historically congested, places where previous passengers have given poor ratings as a pickup location, places where previous passengers have historically requested not to be picked up, where it is illegal to pick up passengers, illegal to park, too busy to park, unsafe, or is otherwise undesirable as a pickup location."

That's not unlike things Lyft has already done to help avoid unsafe pickup locations, like geo-fencing bike lanes to ensure drivers are not blocking cycle traffic, the company's new head of bike and pedestrian policy, Caroline Samponaro, recently explained to Business Insider.

Read more: Tesla wants its factory workers to wear futuristic augmented reality glasses on the assembly line

Where the patent filing gets particularly interesting is when it comes to actually displaying the AR elements. Knowing optimal pickup points can all be done behind the scenes, but when it comes to identifying a waiting passenger, Lyft says it could use devices including Microsoft Hololens, Google Glass, Magic Leap, or a myriad of other AR glasses that have hit the market recently.

Convincing drivers they need space-age glasses might be a more difficult play.

Lyft did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. 

Do you work for Lyft? Have a news tip? Get in touch with this reporter at grapier@businessinsder.com

SEE ALSO: Uber, Lyft, China, and more — top tech investment bankers share their biggest hopes and fears for IPOs in 2019

FOLLOW US: On Facebook for more car and transportation content!

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NOW WATCH: Here's what it's like to drive trains on London's Tube — one of the most complicated subway systems in the world

Federal prosecutors are pursuing a criminal investigation into the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei for reportedly stealing trade secrets and misappropriating technology from its US partners, including T-Mobile, according to The Wall Street Journal.

According to the Journal, this investigation is in its final stages and arose out of several civil lawsuits targeting Huawei. An indictment could come soon.

One of these civil lawsuits was posed by T-Mobile. In 2017, a Seattle jury found that Huawei had misused the technology behind T-Mobile’s smartphone testing robot “Tappy.” At the end of the legal battle, Huawei said that the “company continues to believe in the merits of its defense to the allegations made by T-Mobile,” and...

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If you're looking to take your career to the next level, it might be time to bet on cloud computing. Startups in the cloud market are garnering massive funding and massive interest. 

That's not surprising. Cloud computing is expected to become a $300 billion market by 2021, according to analyst firm Gartner.

The cloud computing market consolidates around Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.  Over the last three years, job postings with key words on cloud have skyrocketed, and employer interest for "cloud engineers" has risen 31%, according to Indeed. 

A growing number of startups are creating tech that helps companies better use the cloud.

We looked at a variety of factors when selecting this list including the experience of leaders and founders, the reputations of investors and the amount of funding raised along with valuations, based on data from online finance database Pitchbook, keeper of such records.

Here are 8 cloud computing startups to bet your career on in 2019:

Zapier: Getting all your web apps to work together

Valuation: Unknown
Total raised to date: $1.3 million
Year founded: 2011
HQ: Sunnyvale, CA

What it does: Zapier connects Web apps together to automate tasks such as automatically copying Gmail attachments into Dropbox and alerting you in Slack.

Why it's hot: This seven-year-old company has raised a total of $2.56 million. This year it revealed it has achieved a $35 million annualized revenue run rate. Oh, and by the way, at Zapier, you can work in pajamas from the comfort of your bedroom, if you really wanted to. This all-remote company even started a delocation package of $10,000 to move away from the pricey San Francisco Bay Area.

Fastly: Making websites and apps faster

Valuation: $925 million
Total raised to date: $220.04 million
Year founded: 2011
HQ: San Francisco

What it does: Fastly calls itself an "edge cloud platform." It helps large websites work faster by moving data and apps closer to their users.

Why it's hot: Fastly has come on strong in this well-established market (also known as a Content Delivery Network) and already powers sites such as Airbnb, GitHub, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, and The New York Times.

It reportedly broke the $100 million revenue mark in 2017 and this year raised funding that included backing by the investment arm of telecom giant Deutsche Telekom.

Cohesity: a storage startup with a veteran founder

Valuation: $1.1 billion
Total raised to date: $411 million
Year founded: 2013
HQ: San Jose, CA

What it does: Cohesity helps make storage back-ups less expensive, easier to manage, and easier to sift through for big data projects.

Why it's hot: Cohesity is the second act for its founder Mohit Aron, who had previously co-founded Nutanix. And its been growing like mad, so much so that in 2018, Cohesity landed a massive $250 million round of investment from Softbank's Vision Fund. It was only the second enterprise company to be backed by the massive fund.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced a new data privacy bill today, marking the first real push from Congress to regulate big tech companies in the new year. The bill, initially reported by Axios, does little to quell Democrats’ regulatory desires, and it would effectively remove individual states’ authorities to write their own, perhaps stricter, rules.

The bill is called the American Data Dissemination Act, and it would direct the Federal Trade Commission to write privacy rule recommendations for Congress, proposing a framework for companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. If Congress does not pass a bill within two years, the FTC would be able to write its own rules for companies, something the agency has been unable to do since the...

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Almost one third of a bat population in eastern Australia was killed over the course of just two days of November of 2018, when a heat wave in eastern Australia devastated the Queensland region and temperatures were as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Climate change makes heat waves like this one disproportionately more likely.

An estimated 23,000 to 30,000 spectacled flying fox bats perished during the heat wave, which lasted from November 26 to 27, according to the BBC. Some media reports alleged that once the temperatures exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit, bats literally started falling out of trees. David White, a wildlife rescuer from Australia, told the BBC that the event was "totally depressing.”

Justin Welbergen from Australia’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment told Australian outlet ABC.net that the event was likely the second-largest mass die-off for the species, which have been listed as “vulnerable” in the country since 1999. In 2014, as many as 100,000 spectacled flying fox bats died, also during a heat wave.

The late-November Australian heat wave also caused more than 80 intense brush fires, and coincided with a series of dust storms that swept across the Queensland region. It’s worth noting that desertification—the process of places becoming more dusty, dry, and desert-like over time—is exacerbated by climate change.

Climate change makes monster heat waves like this one disproportionately more likely. When the air gets hotter, it’s able to hold more water, and humid air makes heat waves more likely. Australia specifically, which is already prone to heat waves, is vulnerable to "more frequent, hotter, and longer" heat waves.

Heat waves also pose a major threat to human lives.It’s difficult to account for the number of human deaths during a heat wave, since experiencing extreme heat can exacerbate pre-existing medical problems in vulnerable populations and contribute to death. For instance, a study found that many of the human deaths associated with the 2009 Australian heat wave occurred in people with heart disease that also lived alone.

Australia is currently in the midst of yet another heat wave, and temperatures are expected to reach or exceed 113 degrees Fahrenheit in the most vulnerable areas of the continent.

Dear Readers,

After a short hiatus, we're back! Welcome to the first edition of BI’s new Advertising and Media Insider newsletter. We’ve replaced our daily digest with a weekly version that publishes every Wednesday and will go deeper into the big stories we’ve been following. We’ll play around with the format, so let me know what you like/don’t like at lmoses@businessinsider.com.

If you’re new to the newsletter, you can sign up here.

Voice is primed take off

You didn’t have to be at CES to know that voice is shaping up to be one of the hottest areas for publishers and marketers this year. In a Reuters Institute survey, three quarters of digital publisher respondents said that audio is becoming a more important part of their content and business strategy.

As we reported, The New York Times recently provided a glimpse of what customized audio content for the devices will look like. The Times is also making money on the platform, with a skill it created for Audi. A lot of publishers have already been repurposing podcasts for voice assistants, but many publishers are building dedicated audio production units and content as well. “We don’t want to be road kill,” as one publisher confided to me about the urgency to get on voice assistants.

But voice comes with questions for publishers and marketers. Surveys have mixed results on how much people actually use the devices to pull up news. As with any platform, publishers have to think about the loss of control to the platforms, Amazon and Google, that dominate the market. At least when distributing on search and social networks, there’s a possibility of getting traffic back to your site and visual brand recognition. Not so with voice.

The financial benefit is also limited since the device manufacturers have, probably wisely, kept them free of ad products. A utilitarian or entertainment approach seems to be the way to go. They also have to consider how their brand "sounds" on the device. Google has made grants to certain media companies to create content for its voice-activated Assistant, setting the stage for a situation of haves and have-nots in the space and tension between the tech giant and other publishers. It’s a trend we’ll continue to follow.

To read most of the articles here, subscribe to BI Prime, or sign up here and enter promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a 1-month free trial.

--Lucia

Here's what else we're reporting:

Chief customer experience officers are the new must-have role at CPG companies

Established brands are losing share to digitally born companies that have shaken up retailing, in part with great customer experience. Casper, for instance, lets customers try a mattress for 100 days and return it if they don't like it. Legacy brands are fighting back by appointing C-Suite executives to oversee every touchpoint with the customer. Around 12% of companies in the S&P 500 have chief experience officers, up from 6% three years ago, Forrester estimated. 

We got a leaked document that shows how Amazon is courting influencers

Lauren Johnson looked into the online giant’s program to get influencers to recommend products on Amazon to their fans on social media in exchange for a cut of the sale.

Amazon is promoting the program as a way to make easy extra money. But influencers we talked to said the money they’re making varies widely. Ultimately, Amazon could be the big winner, by taking the data that influencers generate and using it to retarget customers on its own.

"There's so much data that Amazon can start to build within their advertising ecosystem," said Krishna Subramanian, a cofounder of Captiv8, an influencer marketing firm.

Gillette’s #MeToo ad

Brands act at their own peril when it comes to being part of a cultural moment. When shaving giant Gillette created an ad addressing the #MeToo movement, it knew there would be a backlash, but it went ahead anyway to reach the next generation of consumers. The one-and-a-half-minute spot refers explicitly to #MeToo stories and calls for men to look inward and be the best versions of themselves.

Pay TV’s problems are reshaping the cable business

The third quarter of 2018 was the worst ever for pay TV, with legacy-cable and satellite companies losing more than 1 million subscribers, and it’s having a trickle-down effect on small cable operators. Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett predicts that, rather than fighting to keep video subscribers, cable operators will withdraw from the business to focus on higher-margin broadband products.

Publishers will roll out more paywalls this year, but face increasing resistance from readers

Subscriptions are a top priority for media companies this year, with 52% saying it’s their main revenue focus, according to a Reuters Institute survey. But scores of publishers put up paywalls and created membership programs last year and people can only manage so many subscriptions. Reuters predicts there even will be a rise in paywall-blocking software.

How Sprinklr CEO’s plans to survive the mar-tech consolidation

The CEO of the $1.8 billion social media-management platform says 80%-99% of marketing tech firms will go out of business. Ragy Thomas says his software-as-a-service model positions Sprinklr well. He sees a growing market for social media management as companies use digital channels to support customer service and other departments.

“We think it's going to go further because customer care is going to come into the fold,” he told BI. “If I'm United Airlines and I talk about great customer service that isn't backed up by a real example in my content or messaging strategy, it's not going to be credible.”

In tech news:

• Netflix is rolling out its biggest price increase ever to US subscribers
• What's next for hot data backup startup Rubrik, now valued at $3.3 billion
• Snap's 'infamous' head of HR is the latest executive to leave the company
• The best consumer concept we saw at CES 2019

In entertainment news:

• Lifetime's creepy TV show 'You' has risen dramatically in popularity since debuting on Netflix, and season 2 will be a Netflix exclusive
• Netflix and Hulu are releasing competing documentaries on the Fyre Festival, but Netflix is dominating Google search interest
• NBCUniversal shakes up leadership as it prepares to launch a streaming service in 2020

Other good stories from around BI:

• Meet Marina Gross, the interpreter who was the only other American in the room for Trump and Putin's 1-on-1 meeting in Helsinki
• 'Asymmetrical jeans' that have one straight leg and one flared leg are the newest bizarre denim trend, and they'll cost you $375
• Ford just unveiled the most powerful Mustang ever to hit the streets

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is 35 — here's how he became one of the world's scariest dictators

Huawei has been releasing products that look heavily inspired by those from Apple for years. Now, with its new Dongguan headquarters in China, the tech company is setting its sights on something even bigger to clone: all European architecture.

CNBC got a look inside Huawei’s new corporate campus, which is composed of 12 “towns” named and modeled after European cities. Thus, there’s a Granada area that’s modeled after the design of the city in the south of Spain; a Paris town with Parisian architecture; Verona (for Italian design); Bruges (Belgium); and Cesky, presumably for Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic. There’s also a bridge spanning a lake that divides the campus in half that’s a...

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The computer mouse is one of the most important accessories ever invented, one that essentially carried in a new wave of electronic interaction when it was first released. But what if we went further, like YouTuber Electronic Grenade, who has done the seemingly impossible: built a mouse that not only can control a computer, but in fact is a fully functional computer on its own, complete with a built-in screen and keyboard (via Motherboard).

As Electronic Grenade details, the computer-mouse is a custom-designed 3D-printed mouse case that houses a Raspberry Pi Zero W (of course), along with sensors cannibalized from a separate mouse. But what makes it truly impressive is the 1.5-inch OLED display mounted on the top, along with tiny pop-out...

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Apple may have had to replace as many as 11 million iPhone batteries under its heavily discounted $29 replacement program, according to John Gruber over at Daring Fireball. According to Gruber, Apple would typically expect to perform between one and two million replacements during the same period. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently cited the program, alongside a slowdown in the Chinese economy, as one of the reasons for the the company’s slashed earnings outlook for Q1 2019.

If 11 million people replaced their iPhone’s battery for $29 rather than spending $1,000 on a new iPhone, that would roughly equate to $11 billion in lost revenue. For reference, Apple said it expected to make between $5 and $9 billion less in its revised forecast. Of...

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• TSA employees have been required to work without pay during the federal government shutdown, which began on December 22.
• Some airports, including Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Miami International Airport, have had to close security lines because of worker shortages.
• Travelers have described unusually long lines on social media because of the lack of workers. 

Security lines at airports across the country are getting worse as the government shutdown drags on. 

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees have been required to work without pay during the federal government shutdown, which began on December 22. (They will be eligible to receive back pay once the shutdown ends.)

Since the shutdown began, many TSA workers have been absent from airports, and Hydrick Thomas, the president of the TSA worker's union, said some had quit or considered quitting.

Some airports, like Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Miami International Airport, have had to close security lines because of worker shortages, leading to unusually long lines. 

 Travelers stuck waiting in endless lines are taking to social media to share just how bad the situation has gotten. 

If you've worked for TSA and have a story to share, you can contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: From airport lines to food inspections, here are all the ways the government shutdown is impacting the lives of average Americans

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NOW WATCH: Here's what it's like to drive trains on London's Tube — one of the most complicated subway systems in the world

Monday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai refused to meet with a Congressional committee to discuss the underground sale of real-time cell phone location data.

Last week a Motherboard investigation revealed that cell phone providers and location aggregators have allowed real-time smartphone location data to be sold to bounty hunters, landlords, and used car salesman, among others. Soon after the story broke, Frank Pallone, the Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, asked Pai for an emergency briefing on the issue. Monday, Pai refused that request, according to Pallone’s office.

“Today, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai refused to brief Energy and Commerce Committee staff on the real-time tracking of cell phone location, as reported by Motherboard last week,” Pallone said in an emailed statement. “In a phone conversation today, his staff asserted that these egregious actions are not a threat to the safety of human life or property that the FCC will address during the Trump shutdown.”

Pallone added that using the shutdown as an excuse to not meet with Congress is a copout: “There’s nothing in the law that should stop the Chairman personally from meeting about this serious threat that could allow criminals to track the location of police officers on patrol, victims of domestic abuse, or foreign adversaries to track military personnel on American soil.”

Jessica Rosenworcel, commissioner of the FCC, also reiterated her calls that the FCC needs to investigate.

"Your wireless phone location data is being sold by shady entities that you never gave permission to track you. That’s a personal and national security issue. No law stops the FCC from meeting with Congress to discuss this right now. It needs investigation," she tweeted Monday.

In 2016, Congress gutted rules proposed by Pai’s predecessor that would have given consumers much more control over how their personal data could be used by telecom companies. Pai, a former telecom lobbyist, has generally taken a pro-industry stance at every turn, most notably with his vote to repeal federal net neutrality protections. The FCC did not respond to a request for comment.

“The FCC once again appears to have dragged its feet in protection consumers,” Pallone wrote in his letter to Pai. “The FCC must take immediate action to ensure no wireless carrier is allowing the rampant disclosure of real-time location data.”

Update: This piece has been updated to include comment from Jessica Rosenworcel, commissioner of the FCC.