• It's been a wild year for tech, marked by scandal, political clashes, and bizarre product launches.
• From Mark Zuckerberg's Congress grilling to the mass Google protests, some of the drama has been captured in candid detail on camera.

Business Insider has compiled some of the wildest pictures from an apocalyptic year in tech. Scroll on for 15 moments that defined 2018. 

JANUARY: Yes, it really was this year Logan Paul posted *that* YouTube video of a Japanese forest and what appeared to be a dead body.

Paul was removed from Google's preferred partner program — which guarantees YouTube's biggest stars more ad revenue — and later said the mistake cost him $5 million.

MARCH: Pursued by reporters, Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix is bundled into the firm's London offices.

Just days before this photo was taken, The Observer reported that Nix's company had harvested the data of 50 million Facebook users and weaponized the information for political campaigns, including Donald Trump's run for president. He was unflatteringly compared to a James Bond villain.

MARCH: This self-driving Uber car killed Elaine Herzberg. It was the first pedestrian fatality involving an autonomous vehicle.

The incident shocked people inside Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, the company's 1,100-person self-driving unit, according to Business Insider's detailed retelling of the incident.

• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published his annual year-end letter Friday.
• In it, he boasts of the company's many accomplishments this year, particularly in addressing the "issues" it faced.
• Zuckerberg spends little time discussing the myriad specific scandals the company experienced in 2018, and doesn't apologize for them.
• Given the no-good, horrible, rotten year the company inflicted on its users, investors, and the rest of the world, the letter comes across as more than a bit tone deaf.

In summing up 2018, Mark Zuckerberg seems to have taken inspiration from a popular 1940s song.

He's all about accentuating the positive, and eliminating the negative.

If you asked pretty much anyone else on the planet about the kind of year Zuckerberg's company — Facebook — has had, they'd probably use words or phrases such as "horrible," "disastrous," or "scandal-plagued." They might mention the company's numerous privacy and security scandals; the role it played in promoting violence and genocide in countries as diverse as Myanmar, Nigeria, and Germany; its spread of misinformation and propaganda, particularly of the Russian and Iranian variety; or its flailing attempts to police what its users say on its site.

They might even bring up the company's ham-fisted public relations efforts, such as its use of an anti-Semitic smear to try to discredit its critics, or its cratering stock price.

Read this: Facebook endured a staggering number of scandals and controversies in 2018 — here they all are

In reflecting back on such a year, even a dimly aware executive might acknowledge at least some of the company's multiple fiascos, apologize to the organization's numerous stakeholders for them, and promise to do better.

But not Zuckerberg.

In his annual year-end letter, which he published on his Facebook page on Friday, Zuckerberg latched onto the affirmative, as the song goes, boasting of all that the company had accomplished this year and all the great things it does for its users.

"I'm proud of the progress we've made," he says in the letter.

Zuckerberg thinks Facebook accomplished a lot

The letter was anything but a humble apology. Instead, it reads more like the kind of self-evaluation someone writes when they're gunning for a promotion or a raise.

Zuckerberg boasts that 2 billion people now use Facebook's services. That they're using to connect with their friends and family members. That people are using Facebook to raise money for important causes and to find jobs. And that small businesses are using Facebook to find and hire workers.

"Building community and bringing people together leads to a lot of good, and I'm committed to continuing our progress in these areas," he writes.

But Zuckerberg spends most of the letter touting all the significant and wide-ranging advances he feels Facebook has made this year in "addressing some of the most important issues facing our community." That was his personal goal this year, he reminds readers, and he thinks he and the company did a great job of meeting it.

He didn't dwell on any of the many scandals

Zuckerberg's not afraid to name the "issues" he feels Facebook has confronted. He lists election interference, the spread of harmful content through Facebook's service, giving users more control over their private information, and making sure use of Facebook improves users' well being.

But he doesn't dwell on how those "issues" manifested themselves this year, much less apologize for the numerous scandals they ignited this year. Besides a passing reference to the leak of data on millions of Facebook users to Cambridge Analytica, the Trump-linked data firm, he doesn't specifically mention any of the company's 2018 fiascos.

Instead, he focuses on explaining just how much work he and Facebook have done to address those "issues." The company's moved a large portion of its staff over to work on "preventing harm." It's got a roadmap for revamping its system to address those "issues," and it's "well into executing" those plans. And as a result of that effort, it now has "some of the most advanced systems in the world for identifying and resolving these issues."

"We've made a lot of improvements and changes this year," he writes.

Don't worry, Facebook is going to keep making "progress"

He wants us to know that Facebook has been willing to make sacrifices to address these "issues." It's spending billions of dollars on security, he notes. The company's also sacrificed revenue for the good of its users, he writes, touting yet again a change Facebook made last year to reduce the number viral videos users see in their news feeds that reduced the time they spent on the service by a collective 50 million hours.

But even more than that, he wants us to know just how beneficial it's been for him to work through these "issues."

"I've learned a lot," he says.

And don't worry, Facebook's not going to rest on its laurels, Zuckerberg assures us. Instead it's going to keep working, he says.

"I'm committed to continuing to make progress on these important issues as we enter the new year," he says.

Thank goodness! I mean, just think about how great 2019 will be for Facebook and the rest of us if the company accomplishes as much as it did this year.

• Read more about Facebook and Zuckerberg: 
• Facebook's PR head defended its anti-Soros effort, saying it was 'completely legitimate'
• Mark Zuckerberg once suggested that a Facebook user's data was worth 10 cents a year
• Facebook's board needs to get a spine and fire Mark Zuckerberg, marketing guru Scott Galloway said
• Sheryl Sandberg is on the hot seat at Facebook — but ousting her alone wouldn't solve its problems

SEE ALSO: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg isn't accountable to anyone, so it's time Congress took away the source of his power

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I tried cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner using Google Home Hub and found there are two major flaws with it

• 2018 has been a rough year for tech investors.
• The sector got hit especially hard during the sell-off that occurred over the final few months of the year.
• Big US tech names, including the FAANG stocks, fell out of favor with Wall Street.
• Chinese tech and semiconductors were among the hardest hit during the selling.

Over the past few years, betting on the tech sector and its most prominent companies was a winning strategy. But this year has been a different story.

The stock market saw a brutal sell-off in February, and tech stocks were no exception. The sector suffered along with the broader market, seeing a loss of 8.6% — almost the same as the benchmark S&P 500. It later recovered and surged higher to a record high after President Donald Trump's tax-cut plan, which provided a boost through share buybacks.

Then things took another turn for the worse. The Nasdaq put in its record high in August before a sell-off in early October hit tech names particularly hard. The Nasdaq tanked as much as 24% during the final four months of the year, tumbling into a bear market.

The losses were widespread, and even the FAANG basket — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google parent Alphabet — wasn't spared. Apple (-12%) and Google (-5%) are down for the year, and Facebook (-27%) has fallen off a cliff. Meanwhile, Amazon (+18%) and Netflix (+21%) are still higher, but they're well off their highs.

And while FAANG stocks have been hit hard, there are other names that have fared far worse. Two types of companies — Chinese tech and semiconductors — were among the hardest hit, as uncertainty around the US-China trade war and slowing global growth weighed on investor sentiment.

Among the biggest losers this year in tech, four are Chinese companies, and three are semiconductors.

Here are the 10 tech stocks that tumbled the most in 2018, in ascending order of their year-to-date performance through Thursday.

NetEase

Ticker: NTES

Business type: Entertainment group (in China)

Year-to-date performance: -30%

Source: Bloomberg data

Skyworks

Ticker: SWKS

Business type: Semiconductor manufacturer 

Year-to-date performance: -30%

Source: Bloomberg data

Baidu

Ticker: BIDU

Business type: Internet-related service provider (in China)

Year-to-date performance: -32%

Source: Bloomberg data

• A new report from Euromonitor International predicted all the ways shopping at a store will be different in 2040.
• Stores will use technology to recognize customers as they walk in and offer them tailored virtual assistance.
• Stores will also offer "cold zones" to test winter jackets and other innovations to replicate the environments customers will use products in.

Retail stores will still exist in 2040, but you'll hardly be able to recognize them.

A new report on the future of commerce predicted sweeping changes to how consumers shop in the next two decades.

For one thing, brick-and-mortar stores will need to leverage technology to offer things that online retailers can't, Euromonitor International wrote in its "Commerce 2040" report issued last month.

That means stores could introduce "cold zones" where shoppers can try on winter coats, turf-like surfaces to test out athletic cleats, and other innovations that replicate the environments where shoppers will use products. 

Stores will also employ facial-recognition technology that will identify customers as they enter the store and provide them with tailored shopping experiences, the report predicted.

"Physical outlets remain a critical part of today’s shopping journey, both in terms of brand engagement or purchase execution and continue to play a role in 2040, though their functions will evolve," the report said.

In 2040, the report predicted:

• Consumers will be able to try on items in the environments they'll be used, like cold zones to try on winter coats and turf to try on cleats.
• Facial scanners will recognize customers as they enter the store, allowing for a tailored shopping experience.
• Virtual stylists will help consumers make choices based off what they already own.
• Payment will be made automatically upon exiting the store.
• Stores will have separate entrances for those picking up orders made online.

"Technological advances are increasingly detaching the purchase decision from a physical outlet," the report said. "Smart retailers will leverage technology to remove the hassles of shopping for mundane purchases while tapping into the innate curiosity to see, feel and experience specific products."

Read more: 20 years from now, our homes will have mirrors that give us style tips to robots that help us with dinner

The push toward a personalized shopping experience is related to one of the defining traits of today's youngest generations: that they prefer "experiences" to owning things. Younger shoppers have cited in-store experiences like live music and events as reasons they like going to brick-and-mortar retailers.

"The journey is no longer just about the end-point—the purchase," the Euromonitor International report said. "The ideal journey provides value before, during and after the purchase, converting a transaction into a relationship."

SEE ALSO: 20 years from now, our homes will have mirrors that give us style tips to robots that help us with dinner

DON'T MISS: Gen Z has a completely different shopping preference from millennials — and it's good news for retail

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: There's a psychological phenomenon that explains why you lose track of time in shopping malls

• Facebook had a difficult 2018.
• Mark Zuckerberg's public goal this year was to fix the social network's issues.
• "I'm proud of the progress we've made," Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Friday. 
• He wrote that Facebook has intentionally made changes that would harm its bottom line, in the name of building a stronger service: "One change we made reduced the amount of viral videos people watched by 50 million hours a day."

Facebook has had a difficult 2018, enduring issues that included data-leakage scandals, congressional enquiries, and even accusations that foreign governments used the social network to spread misinformation and propaganda. 

But looking back on the year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees a job well done. 

"For 2018, my personal challenge has been to focus on addressing some of the most important issues facing our community -- whether that's preventing election interference, stopping the spread of hate speech and misinformation, making sure people have control of their information, and ensuring our services improve people's well-being," he wrote in a note posted to his Facebook page on Friday. 

"In each of these areas, I'm proud of the progress we've made."

Zuckerberg famously gives himself an ambitious goal every year as part of his New Year's resolutions. In 2018, it was to fix Facebook.

Mission accomplished, Zuckerberg said, although there's still more work to be done. 

"To be clear, addressing these issues is more than a one-year challenge. But in each of the areas I mentioned, we've now established multi-year plans to overhaul our systems and we're well into executing those roadmaps," Zuckerberg wrote.  

The rest of Zuckerberg's lengthy note goes into how Facebook has improved its systems and incorporated artificial-intelligence systems to fight propaganda, remove harmful content, and even reduce the amount of time people spend on viral videos on the site. 

"One change we made reduced the amount of viral videos people watched by 50 million hours a day," Zuckerberg wrote. "In total, these changes intentionally reduced engagement and revenue in the near term, although we believe they'll help us build a stronger community and business over the long term."

Zuckerberg didn't reveal what his personal goal for 2019 is in Friday's post, but if it's anything like what he did last year, it's sure to make headlines. 

Read the entire note below: 

SEE ALSO: Facebook endured a staggering number of scandals and controversies in 2018 — here they all are

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How Singapore solved garbage disposal

The last 12 months have been a strange and confusing time in tech, especially for the giants housed mostly in Silicon Valley. 

This is the year that the default public attitude to tech firms such as Google and Facebook became one of suspicion, resulting in greater scrutiny from politicians and media. 

Business Insider has captured something of the changing spirit with a list of the 17 most jaw-dropping quotes from 2018.

The list is, perhaps unsurprisingly, jointly dominated by Facebook executives and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, both of whom had a trying year under the spotlight. Other figures include Steve Jobs, after the Apple cofounder's daughter Lisa wrote a poetic and devastating memoir which showed her father in a new light.

SEE ALSO: Facebook endured a staggering number of scandals and controversies in 2018 — here they all are

"You're getting nothing."

It's an open secret that Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was not only a visionary but an exceptionally difficult man.

A memoir published this year by his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, lends further nuanced depth to that image and examines their often frosty relationship.

In one heartbreaking extract, told for the first time, Brennan-Jobs recalled that her father would replace every Porsche as soon as it got a scratch. She asked whether she could have one once he replaced it. 

"You're not getting anything," she recalls him responding. "You understand? Nothing. You're getting nothing."

"Funding secured."

Elon Musk's Twitter activity prompted great scrutiny of the Tesla CEO this year, but the tweet that bit back hardest was his infamous claim that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private.

The full tweet appeared to contain a marijuana reference. "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420," he wrote. "Funding secured."

Ultimately, the tweet led to Musk being slapped with a $20 million fine from the SEC after it became apparent that funding had not in fact been secured. Under the terms of the settlement, Musk also had to step down as chairman of Tesla.

"I saw him in the kitchen tucking his tail in between his legs scrounging for investors to cover his ass after that tweet."

A surprising twist in the tale of Elon Musk's "funding secured" debacle was when rapper Azealia Banks weighed in with her account of events.

Banks claimed that after being invited to Musk's LA home to collaborate with Grimes, who was in a relationship with Musk at the time (it is unclear whether they are still a couple), she saw him scrambling for investors.

"They bring me out there on the premise that we would hang and make music," Banks told Business Insider in a DM. "But his dumbass kept tweeting and tucked his dick in between his ass cheeks once shit hit the fan.

"I saw him in the kitchen tucking his tail in between his legs scrounging for investors to cover his ass after that tweet. He was stressed and red in the face."

Banks later wrote an apology letter to Musk, saying "I feel terrible about everything."

The good times kept on rolling this year for Salesforce with all of the requisite ingredients of a highly successful cloud company — the steady revenue growth, the expanding product set and the splashy acquisitions. The company also opened the doors of its shiny new headquarters, Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, a testament to its sheer economic power in the city.

Salesforce, which set a revenue goal of $10 billion a few years ago is already on its way to $20 billion. Yet Salesforce is also proof you can be ruthlessly good at what you do, while trying to do the right thing as an organization.

Make no mistake, Marc Benioff and Keith Block, the company’s co-CEOs, want to make obscene amounts of money, going so far as to tell a group of analysts earlier this year that their goal by 2034 is to be a $60 billion company. Salesforce just wants to do it with a hint of compassion as it rakes in those big bucks and keeps well-heeled competitors like Microsoft, Oracle and SAP at bay.

A look at the numbers

In the end, a publicly traded company like Salesforce is going to be judged by how much money it makes, and Salesforce it turns out is pretty good at this, as it showed once again this year. The company grew every quarter by over 24 percent YoY and ended up the year with $12.53 billion in revenue. Based on its last quarter of $3.39 billion, the company finished the year on a $13.56 billion run rate.

This compares with $9.92 billion in total revenue for 2017 with a closing run rate of $10.72 billion.

Even with this steady growth trajectory, it might be some time before it hits the $5 billion-a-quarter mark and checks off the $20 billion goal. Keep in mind that it took the company three years to get from $1.51 billion in Q12016 to $3.1 billion in Q12019.

As for the stock market, it has been highly volatile this year, but Salesforce is still up. Starting the year at $102.41, it was sitting at $124.06 as of publication, after peaking on October 1 at $159.86. The market has been on a wild ride since then and cloud stocks have taken a big hit, warranted or not. On one particularly bad day last month, Salesforce had its worst day since 2016 losing 8.7 percent in value,

Spending big

When you make a lot of money you can afford to spend generously, and the company invested some of those big bucks when it bought Mulesoft for $6.5 billion in March, making it the most expensive acquisition it has ever made. With Mulesoft, the company had a missing link between data sitting on-prem in private data centers and Salesforce data in the cloud.

Mulesoft helps customers build access to data wherever it lives via APIs. That includes legacy data sitting in ancient data repositories. As Salesforce turns its eyes toward artificial intelligence and machine learning, it requires oodles of data and Mulesoft was worth opening up the wallet to provide the company with that kind of access to a variety of enterprise data.

Salesforce 2018 acquisitions. Chart: Crunchbase.

But Mulesoft wasn’t the only thing Salesforce bought this year. It made five acquisitions in all. The other significant one came in July when it scooped up Dataorama for a cool $800 million, giving it a market intelligence platform.

What could be on board for 2019? If Salesforce sticks to its recent pattern of spending big one year, then regrouping the next, 2019 could be a slower one for acquisitions. Consider that it bought just one company last year after buying a dozen in 2016.

One other way to keep revenue rolling in comes from high-profile partnerships. In the past, Salesforce has partnered with Microsoft and Google, and this year it announced that it was teaming up with Apple. Salesforce also announced another high-profile arrangement with AWS to share data between the two platforms more easily. The hope with these types of cross pollination is that the companies can both increase their business. For Salesforce, that means using these partnerships as a platform to move the revenue needle faster.

Compassionate capitalism

Even while his company has made big bucks, Benioff has been preaching compassionate capitalism using Twitter and the media as his soap box.

He went on record throughout this year supporting Prop C, a referendum question designed to help battle San Francisco’s massive homeless problem by taxing companies with greater than $50 million in revenue — companies like Salesforce. Benioff was a vocal proponent of the idea, and it won. He did not find kindred spirits among some of his fellow San Francisco tech CEOs, openly debating Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Twitter.

Speaking about Prop C in an interview with Kara Swisher of Recode in November, Benioff talked in lofty terms about why he believed in the measure even though it would cost his company money.

“You’ve got to really be mindful and think about what it is that you want your company to be for and what you’re doing with your business and here at Salesforce, that’s very important to us,” he told Swisher in the interview.

He also talked about how employees at other tech companies were driving their CEOs to change their tune around social issues, including supporting Prop C, but Benioff had to deal with his own internal insurrection this year when 650 employees signed a petition asking him to rethink Salesforce’s contract with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in light of the current administration’s border policies. Benioff defended the contract, stating that that Salesforce tools were being used internally at CBP for staff recruiting and communication and not to enforce border policy.

Regardless, Salesforce has never lost its focus on meeting lofty revenue goals, and as we approach the new year, there is no reason to think that will change. The company will continue to look for new ways to expand markets and keep their revenue moving ever closer to that $20 billion goal, even as it continues to meld its unique form of compassion and capitalism.

• Atlassian, the $19 billion Australian software giant, has new offices in San Francisco. 
• The new digs take up six floors, but Atlassian is currently only using four.
• Atlassian invested heavily in making this office represent the company's ideals around teamwork — the desks are on wheels, there are tons of nooks and crannies for quiet conversations, and even the artwork on the wall was created by teams of artists working together. 
• We visited the space, take a look around.

Atlassian, the $19 billion Aussie software giant behind the popular Jira bug-tracking tool, takes the concept of teamwork seriously — so much so that it literally trades on the stock market under the ticker symbol "TEAM."

So when Atlassian moved into new San Francisco offices this year, the company took the opportunity to rethink how its own employees work together. In the same way that the new Apple Park campus reflects designer Jony Ive's attention to detail, Atlassian wanted its headquarters to be at the cutting edge of design that encourages people to work together. 

"Companies are realizing that physical spaces are a reflection of the culture," said Helen Russell, Atlassian's chief people officer, in a recent interview. 

We swung by Atlassian's new digs to see how it put that concept into action.

SEE ALSO: Google Cloud is acquiring a research startup founded by some of the top names in DevOps

This is Atlassian's old San Francisco office, circa 2012. A converted warehouse, it was plenty spacious — but also, located deep in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood, a far walk from public transit hubs. That wasn't a fun trek after dark, says Russell.

So for the new space, Atlassian opted to go right into the heart of San Francisco's financial district, not terribly far from a Microsoft office, and a short walk away from the San Francisco Bay Area's BART train system.

Atlassian technically controls six floors of the building, but currently occupies four.

Stepping inside the office, you can see that it was designed with lots of open spaces, with tons of seating for people to meet — a reflection of the fact that Atlassian makes some of the most popular tools for software developers to work together.

AT&T customers will start to see a 5G logo appear in the corner of their smartphone next year — not because they’re using a 5G phone connected to a 5G network, but because AT&T is going to start pretending its most advanced 4G LTE tech is 5G.

According to FierceWireless, AT&T will display an icon reading “5G E” on newer phones that are connected to LTE in markets where the carrier has deployed a handful of speed boosting — but still definitively 4G — technologies. The “E,” displayed smaller than the rest of the logo, refers to “5G Evolution,” the carrier’s term for networks that aren’t quite 5G but are still faster than traditional LTE.

If this sounds sadly familiar, it’s because AT&T pulled this exact same stunt during the transition to...

Continue reading…

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. This report is exclusively available to enterprise subscribers. To learn more about getting access to this report, email Senior Account Executive Jeff Jordan at jjordan@businessinsider.com, or check to see if your company already has access.

Although competition in the US wireless carrier market remains fierce, the price war among the Big Four US carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint — began to cool over the past year.

In an attempt to avoid further competition on price, carriers began shifting their focus to adding value to their mobile plans with new offerings to differentiate from the competition. This helped average revenue per user (ARPU) start to stabilize across all carriers in Q1 2018, after declining over the last two years.

The Big Four have now begun reshuffling their unlimited plans to lure subscribers by providing more options. This strategy has been unrolling in two flavors: introducing new, expensive unlimited plan tiers loaded with an array of features and choices, while also catering to price-sensitive customers with more affordable plans that strip away extra perks like free digital content and international coverage. As a result, a new battleground is emerging, with differentiation now coming down to the value loaded in their mobile plans.

Looking forward, the US carrier market will see competitive pressure pick up due to a number of trends: 

• The US smartphone market is creeping toward saturation. Penetration in the US hit 85% in 2018, up from 82% in 2017 and 77% in 2016.
• eSIM technology is making it easier for consumers to switch carriers. eSIM technology is a nonphysical SIM card slot that pairs with the physical SIM card to enable dual-SIM functionality — allowing customers to switch carriers without changing to a different SIM card or device.
• And cable mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are edging in on US carriers' share of wireless adds. Cable MVNOs, such as Comcast's Xfinity Mobile and Charter's Spectrum Mobile, are expected to snag roughly 50% of total wireless customer net adds, or about 2.2 million subscribers, by 2020.

All of this means fostering loyalty and winning over new subscribers is more important than ever for the Big Four, making it crucial for these mobile carriers to understand consumer sentiment around their services.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence uses consumer survey data from our proprietary panel, collected during 2017 and 2018, to evaluate which features are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider, as well as to determine which features would convince them to switch to the competition. It contains insights that can help telecoms guide strategic investment and marketing decisions to win and retain customers in this increasingly competitive space.

The companies mentioned in the report are: AT&T, Amazon, Apple, Charter, Comcast, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Sprint, T-Mobile, Tidal, and Verizon.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• T-Mobile came out on top again, outpacing the rest of the Big Four US carriers on value, loyalty, and satisfaction. T-Mobile customers want to see coverage improvements, though. 
• Verizon customers don't see much more value in its offerings than a year ago.
• AT&T was the only carrier to show declines in all capacities. 
• Sprint is still a good deal, but it doesn't offer much else.
• When it comes to features, subscribers still value the basics most. However, demand for international coverage is growing.
• 5G is the next major battleground for the Big Four, and the winner of the 5G race has the potential to leap ahead in customer volumes. 

 In full, the report:

• Determines the features that are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider.  
• Identifies which features are nice to have or essential in consumers' willingness to switch carriers. 
• Examines consumers' feelings on emerging technologies and trends in the mobile industry, such as 5G, new network-connected devices, and the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.

SEE ALSO: 5G in the IoT: How the next generation of wireless technology will transform the IoT

Join the conversation about this story »

Patents and acquisitions have backed up the company's progress in fields from AI and the cloud to edge computing, open source development and even quantum computing.

• You'll see 4K advertised a lot while shopping for TVs.
• 4K is nice, but there's a feature that's definitely more important to have if you're looking to buy a new television: HDR.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

"4K" is the latest buzzword with TVs.

Most advertising would have you think that 4K is akin to the leap we made from standard to high-definition TVs, but that's not totally true.

Instead, when you're buying your next TV, there's another feature you should be more focused on: HDR.

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about HDR TV

First, it's important to understand what 4K really means.

Standard definition (SD), high definition (HD), and 4K (or Ultra HD) refer to a characteristic called resolution, or the number of pixels (or tiny display bits) that make up a display.

A common HDTV has a resolution of 1080p. In simple terms, it's 1,920 x 1,080 pixels: 1,920 pixels going across the display horizontally, and 1,080 pixels going across it vertically.

A 4K TV simply boosts that pixel count: Usually, 4K refers to a display resolution of 2160p, or 3,840 x 2,160 pixels. That’s roughly four times larger than a 1080p picture, hence the term "4K."

(Technically, 4K isn't the same as 2160p, but the technical differences are so minor that it doesn't really matter.)

Here's why 4K is misleading: Companies love the "4K" buzzword since it sounds bigger and better than normal HD, and 2160p sounds like a bigger and more appealing number than 1080p.

If a 4K TV is four times larger than a typical HD TV, it should be four times better, right?

Of course, that's not the case.

This Carlton Bale article puts it into perspective: From about five feet away, you'd need something like an 84-inch TV to see the additional sharpness. With a more common 42- or 50-inch TV, you'd have to sit about two to three feet away. So, it's not going to happen, basically.

4K isn’t worse than 1080p, but your eyes are physically incapable of noticing those extra pixels unless you have a fairly large TV set, and plan on sitting close to it.

This Carlton Bale article puts it into perspective: From about five feet away, you’d need something like an 84-inch TV to see the additional sharpness. With a more common 42- or 50-inch TV, you’d have to sit about two to three feet away. So, it's not going to happen, basically.

Also, the 4K effect only works when you're actually watching content that was natively shot in 4K. A 1080p program that’s “upscaled” to 4K doesn’t provide any more detail.

But here's the best part: Your next TV will probably be 4K regardless.

The cost of a 4K TV has fallen dramatically over the past several years. Today, you can find a competent 4K TV set for well under $500.

The price reduction for 4K TVs also makes regular 1080p HD TVs much cheaper as well, but that's not really a good thing. Basically, it means that the really important stuff that makes up a good TV display — higher contrast ratios, smoother motion, and better colors, for example — has been stripped out of 1080p TVs to cut costs, and put into 4K TVs instead.

Unless you’re buying a very small TV (think 32 inches or lower), or you're not looking to spend much money, you’ll want to buy a 4K TV set as your next TV, even if the actual "4K" aspect isn’t worth the hype.

4K may not be all that, but some 4K TVs do have one important feature that makes it worth the purchase: high-dynamic range, or HDR.

HDR boosts a display’s contrast ratio, which is the difference between the brightest and darkest colors your TV can show. It allows for much finer detail in the shades in between those light and dark colors.

HDR also usually comes with another feature, called wide-color gamut (WCG), which lets a TV produce more colors than most displays are capable of.

The combination of 4K, HDR and WCG results in a picture that's more vivid and lifelike. Colors are less muted, and objects appear to have more depth. It’s not a gimmick, but a real improvement to picture quality.

The big issue with HDR is the same issue with 4K: You need content shot in that native format, and there isn't much of it. While that's changing, with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video getting into the game, HDR has still yet to go mainstream.

In short, HDR is the real deal.

Here are the most important takeaways:

- 4K and HDR aren't mutually exclusive. There are already plenty of 4K HDR TVs you can buy right now, and 4K and HDR will probably go hand-in-hand moving forward. That said, some 4K TV sets do HDR much better than others.

- You don't need a 4K HDR TV right this second. For now, HDR is still a high-end feature, and it's going to take some time for more HDR content to be come widely available. There's nothing wrong with getting a 1080p TV right now.

- Between HDR and 4K, HDR is the real step forward. If you can wait for the HDR market to mature before making your next TV purchase, no problem. But if you have the cash to get something good right now, HDR is certainly a buzzword that earns its hype.

Jeff Dunn contributed to an earlier version of this story.

• The Guardian has mocked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a parody 'Year in Review' video.
• The video refers back to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Zuckerberg's evidence to Congress, and the platform's dwindling number of European users.
• Facebook's 2018 has been so chaotic, there were many more scandals which were omitted from the video.

Facebook's turbulent year has been ruthlessly mocked by The Guardian, which posted a spoof 'Year in Review' Facebook video for CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The video congratulates Zuckerberg on making a new "friend" in Chris Wylie, the man who blew the whistle on the Cambridge Analytica data breach. The Guardian's sister paper, The Observer, originally broke Wylie's story.

It also sniped at Zuckerberg's testimony to Congress in April, "You said 'follow up' or 'get back to you' a lot! 31 times to be exact!" In his testimony, Zuckerberg was criticised for failing to answer many of the lawmakers' questions.

Read more: Here are all the questions Mark Zuckerberg couldn't answer during his congressional hearings

In a parting shot, the video suggests that Zuckerberg "reconnect" with the millions of European users who ditched Facebook this year.

Savage though the video is, it only scratches the surface of scandals Facebook has faced this year. This has included a series of data breaches (the most recent of which exposed users' photos), the news that Facebook hired a PR firm to smear critics including George Soros, and accusations that the network facilitated the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar.

You can watch the full video here:

SEE ALSO: The 21 scariest data breaches of 2018

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: China made an artificial star that's 6 times as hot as the sun, and it could be the future of energy

M&A activity was brisk in the enterprise market this year, with 10 high-profile deals totaling almost $88 billion. Companies were opening up their wallets and pouring money into mega acquisitions. It’s worth noting that the $88 billion figure doesn’t include Dell paying investors more than $23 billion for VMware tracking stock to take the company public again or several other deals of over a billion dollars that didn’t make our list.

Last year’s big deals included Intel buying MobileEye for $15 billion and Cisco getting AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, but there were not as many big ones. Adobe, which made two large acquisitions this year, was mostly quiet last year, only making a minor purchase. Salesforce too was mostly quiet in 2017, only buying a digital creative agency, after an active 2016. SAP also made only one purchase in 2017, paying $350 million for Gigya. Microsoft was active buying nine companies, but these were primarily minor. Perhaps everyone was saving their pennies for 2018.

This year, by contrast, was go big or go home, and we saw action across the board from the usual suspects. Large companies looking to change their fortunes or grow their markets went shopping and came home with some expensive trinkets for their collections. Some of the deals are still waiting to pass regulatory hurdles and won’t be closing until 2019. Regardless, it’s too soon to judge whether these big-bucks ventures will pay the dividends that their buyers hope, or if they end up being M&A dust in the wind.

IBM acquires Red Hat for $34 billion

By far the biggest and splashiest deal of the year goes to IBM, which bet the farm to acquire Red Hat for a staggering $34 billion. IBM sees this acquisition as a way to build out its hybrid cloud business. It’s a huge bet and one that could determine the success of Big Blue as an organization in the coming years.

Broadcom nets CA Technologies for $18.5 billion

This deal was unexpected, as Broadcom, a chip maker, spent the second largest amount of money in a year of big spending. What Broadcom got for its many billions was an old-school IT management and software solutions provider. Perhaps Broadcom felt it needed to branch out beyond pure chip making, and CA offered a way to do it, albeit a rather expensive one.

SAP buys Qualtrics for $8 billion

While not anywhere close to the money IBM or Broadcom spent, SAP went out and nabbed Qualtrics last month just before the company was about to IPO, still paying a healthy $8 billion. The company believes that the new company could help build a bridge between SAP operational data inside its back-end ERP systems and Qualtrics customer data on the front end. Time will tell if they are right.

Microsoft gets GitHub for $7.5 billion

In June, Microsoft swooped in and bought GitHub, giving it a key developer code repository. It was a lot of money to pay, and Diane Greene expressed regret that Google hadn’t been able to get it. That’s because cloud companies are working hard to win developer hearts and minds. Microsoft has a chance to push GitHub users toward its products, but it has to tread carefully because they will balk if Microsoft goes too far.

Salesforce snares MuleSoft for $6.5 billion

Salesforce wasn’t about to be left out of the party in 2018 and in March, the CRM giant announced it was buying API integration vendor Mulesoft for a cool $6.5 billion. It was a big deal for Salesforce, which tends to be acquisitive, but typically on smaller deals. This one was a key purchase though because it gives the company the ability to access data wherever it lives, on premises or in the cloud, and that could be key for them moving forward.

Adobe snags Marketo for $4.75 billion

Adobe has built a strong company primarily on the strength of its Creative Cloud, but it has been trying to generate more revenue on the marketing side of the business. To that end, it acquired Marketo for $4.75 billion and immediately boosted its marketing business, especially when combined with the $1.68 billion Magento purchase earlier in the year.

SAP acquires CallidusCloud for $2.4 billion

SAP doesn’t do as many acquisitions as some of its fellow large tech companies mentioned here, but this year it did two. Not only did it buy Qualtrics for $8 billion, it also grabbed CallidusCloud for $2.4 billion. SAP is best known for managing back-office components with its ERP software, but this adds a cloud-based, front-office sales process piece to the mix.

Cisco grabs Duo Security for $2.35 billion

Cisco has been hard at work buying up a variety of software services over the years, and this year it added to its security portfolio when it acquired Duo Security for $2.35 billion. The Michigan-based company helps companies secure applications using their own mobile devices and could be a key part of the Cisco security strategy moving forward.

Twilio buys SendGrid for $2 billion

Twilio got into the act this year too. While not in the same league as the other large tech companies on this list, it saw a piece it felt would enhance its product set and it was willing to spend big to get it. Twilio, which made its name as a communications API company, saw a kindred spirit in SendGrid, spending $2 billion to get the API-based email service.

Vista snares Apttio for $1.94 billion

Vista Equity Partners is the only private equity firm on the list, but it’s one with an appetite for enterprise technology. With Apttio, it gets a company that can help companies understand their cloud assets alongside their on-prem ones. The company had been public before Vista bought it for $1.94 billion last month.

When it comes to shift workers communicating with each other in the workplace when they are not face-to-face, gone are the days of cork announcement boards. Now, the messaging app is the medium, and today one of the startups tackling that opportunity in a unique way has raised a round of funding to get to the next stage of growth.

Crew, a chat app that specifically targets businesses that employ shift workers who do not typically sit at computers all day, has now raised $35 million in Series C funding from DAG Ventures, Tenaya Capital and previous backers Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, Harrison Metal Capital and Aspect Ventures. With the funding news, it’s also announcing the launch of a new feature called Crew Enterprise, which helps businesses better manage messaging across large groups of these workers.

The funding and new product come on the heels of the company hitting 25,000 organizations using its service — many of them multi-store retailers with an emphasis in the food industry; household names like Domino’s Pizza and Burger King — with some strong engagement. Its users are together sending some 25 million messages or responses to other messages each week, on average six times per day per user, with more than 55 percent of its whole user base logging in on an average day.

There are quite a lot of messaging apps out in the market today, but the majority of them are aimed at so-called knowledge workers, people who might be using a number of apps throughout their day, who often sit at desks and use computers alongside their phones and tablets. Crew takes a different approach in that it targets the vast swathe of other workers in the job market and their priorities.

As it turns out, co-founder and CEO Danny Leffel tells me that those priorities are focused around a few specific things that are not the same as those for the other employment sector. One is to get the latest shift schedules for work, especially when they are not at work; another is to be able to swap those shifts when they need to; and a third, largely coming from the management end, is to make sure that everything gets communicated to the staff even when they are not in for work to attend a staff meeting.

“Some of the older practices feel like versions of a Rube Goldberg machine,” he said. “The stories we hear are quite insane.” Shift schedules, he said, are an example. “Lots of workplaces have rules, where you can’t call in to check the schedule because it causes employees to come off the floor. One hotel manager told us he couldn’t hold staff meetings with everyone there because he runs a 24/7 workplace so some people would have to come in especially. One store GM from a supermarket chain told us that the whole store has only one email address, so when an announcement goes out, the GM prints that and hands it to everyone. And the problems just compound when you talk to them.”

Crew is by no means the only business internal messaging service that is aiming to provide a product specifically for shift workers. Workplace, Facebook’s own take on enterprise communications, has also positioned itself as a platform for “every worker,” and has snagged a clutch of huge clients such as Walmart (2.2 million employees globally) and Starbucks (254,000) to fill out that vision.

Leffel, however, paints a sightly different picture of how this is playing out, since in many cases even when a company has been “won” as a global customer that hasn’t translated to a global roll out.

“Starbucks is theoretically using Workplace, but it’s been deployed only to managers,” he said. “We have almost 1,000 Starbucks locations using Crew. We knew we had a huge presence there, and we were worried when Facebook won them, but we haven’t seen even a dent in our business so far.”

Leffel has had some previous experience of getting into the ring with Facebook — although it hasn’t ended with him the winner. His previous startup, Yardsellr, positioned itself as the “eBay of Facebook,” working as a layer on top of the big social network for people to sell items. It died in 2013, when Facebook took a less friendly turn to Yardsellr using Facebook’s social graph to grow its own business (it was a time when it was cutting off apps from Zynga for similar reasons). Today, Facebook itself owns the experience of selling on its platform via Marketplace.

Crew seems to have found a strong foothold among enterprises in terms of its usefulness, not just use, which is one sign of how it might have more staying power.

A survey it conducted among 50,000 of its users found that 63 percent of leaders who use Crew report fewer missed shifts and 70 percent see increased motivation on their team. Crew worked out that among respondents, it is generating time savings of four or more hours per week for 93 percent of surveyed managers. And because of better communication, people are working faster when handing off things to each other on the front line — a Domino’s Pizza franchisee sped up delivery punctuality by 23 percent as one example. (The company offers services on three tiers, ranging from free for small teams, Pro at $10 per month per location and to Enterprise priced on negotiation.)

Crew’s new enterprise tier is aiming to take the company to the next step. Today, Leffel says that a lot of its customers are buying on a location-by-location basis. The idea with Crew Enterprise is that larger organizations will be able to provide a more unified experience across all of those locations (not to mention pay more for the functionality). Managers can use the service to message out details about promotions, and they have a better ability to manage conversations across the platform and also get more feedback from people who are directly interacting with customers. Meanwhile, admins also gain better ability to manage compliance.

If some of this sounds familiar, it’s not just because Workplace is the only one that is also targeting the same users. Dynamic Signal and Zinc (formerly Cotap) are two other startups that are also trying to provide better messaging-based communications to more than just white-collar knowledge workers. Crew will have its work cut out for it, but there is a lot of room for now for multiple players.

“We are seeing a shift in the marketplace, going from ‘absolutely don’t use your phone at work’ to ‘don’t use it when customers are present,'” Leffel said of the opportunity. “Some have started to change the rules to allow workers to use their own phones to perform price checks. We are solving for this evolving workflow.”

Poor dogs. All they want to do is enjoy the New Year’s Eve celebrations, yet humans have this annoying habit of continually firing loud rockets into the sky. At least they might have a bit of respite soon thanks to a new prototype kennel designed by Ford, which combines noise-canceling technology, sound-dampening cork, and an automatic door to give our canine friends a quiet retreat from the festivities.

The kennel, which is the first of a series of initiatives that Ford is calling “Interventions,” is really a sly promotion for the company’s noise-canceling technology that’s built into its latest Edge SUVs. In the car, microphones are used to pick up engine and transmission noises, and speakers then play the opposite frequencies to...

Continue reading…

This story was delivered to Business Insider Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers hours before appearing on Business Insider. To be the first to know, please click here.

AT&T announced that it will launch the US' first 5G mobile network this Friday, December 21, across 12 cities, with plans to expand the network to an additional seven in the first half of 2019. The service, which uses mmWave high-band spectrum, is the first 5G network based on the latest 3GPP NR standards.

Starting Friday, the carrier will also deliver its 5G mobile hotspot device — which is currently the only device compatible with the network — to select businesses and consumers at no cost for 90 days. In the spring, the device will launch for general availability for $499, with and an additional $70 per month for a 15GB data plan.

The launch cements AT&T as the leader in the US race to mobile 5G, a goal the company’s been striving to reach for some time now. The carrier beat Verizon and Sprint, as both plan to launch mobile 5G networks in a limited number of markets in 2019. Meanwhile, T-Mobile plans to launch its nationwide 5G network in the US in 2020.

AT&T’s leading 5G rollout timeline will help it capture early adopters. AT&T’s network will be live and running real-world connections for months before the first wave of 5G smartphones hits the US market early next year. And as those smartphones become available, AT&T’s network will likely be the most appealing, as it will be available across 19 US markets, reaching a greater audience and coverage area for mmWave 5G than competing carriers. This will give AT&T an edge in capturing US consumers eager to take advantage of 5G.

The official launch of a mobile 5G network marks a significant step in paving the way for adoption of new and advanced technologies. The ability of 5G networks to transmit data roughly 10 times faster than 4G, the current standard, will revolutionize the connected world.

The technology is expected to completely overhaul the tech industry thanks to its ability to connect and support a wide range of IoT-connected devices, enhance VR and AR experiences, and enable faster and more reliable mobile video.

Subscribe to a Premium pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to:

	Content like this delivered straight to your inbox daily
	Access to 250+ expertly researched reports plus all future reports
	Forecasts of new and emerging technologies in your industry
	And more!

Learn More

SEE ALSO: 5G in the IoT: How the next generation of wireless technology will transform the IoT

Join the conversation about this story »

The people who love voice messages love voice messages. Vox.com’s Kaitlyn Tiffany and The Verge’s Ashley Carman aren’t those people. On this week’s Why’d You Push That Button, they discuss voice messages and why people send them. They also try to figure out why people like them in the first place.

Ashley talks to her best friend, Casey, about her habit of sending voice messages, and Kaitlyn interviews The Verge’s very own AI reporter James Vincent and his mom, Bridget, about their family texting dynamics. It’s heartwarming. Then, Ashley and Kaitlyn take all that they’ve learned to Djamel Agaoua, the CEO of messaging app Viber, to learn more about why people use voice messages and how they’ve become more popular around the world. Agaoua...

Continue reading…

• Oath is changing its name to Verizon Media Group, according to an announcement Tuesday.
• News of the rebranding was accompanied with what many guessed to be the new logo — the letter "Y."
• The Y logo appears to have been a gaffe that immersed the rebranding effort in confusion.

Verizon announced Tuesday that Oath, the business unit comprising Yahoo and AOL, will be rebranded as Verizon Media Group starting January 8.

But the brand's name change wasn't what necessarily caught the attention of those who viewed the announcement. Instead, people were puzzled by the graphic at the top of the announcement — a purple box with the letter "Y."

It was not clear whether the graphic was supposed to be the new logo for the rebranded business. Although the purple and white Y is very likely related to Yahoo (which uses a similar looking purple Y in its logo), Verizon's use of the Y seemed incongruous with the new Verizon branding. 

And Twitter users didn't waste any time in roasting the company.

Verizon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's inquiry seeking clarification about the "Y" logo.

But later on Tuesday, the announcement had been updated. Gone was the "Y" logo. In its place was a box bearing the names of various Verizon Media Group owned brands, such as Yahoo!, Yahoo! Mail, Tumblr, Aol, and HuffPost.

News of Oath's rebranding comes a week after Verizon said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing it expected to write down the value of Oath by $4.6 billion. The write-down was due to competitive pressures in the digital ad business, Verizon said.

Business Insider first broke the news in April 2017 that the combined unit of AOL and Yahoo would be named "Oath." The new division was created following Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo for about $4.8 billion in cash.

Read more: AOL and Yahoo plan to call themselves by a new name after the Verizon deal closes: Oath

Verizon paid about $9 billion to acquire AOL and Verizon. The integration of the two companies as Oath never achieved the benefits Verizon hoped for, the company said in its SEC filing.

SEE ALSO: Russia's disinformation campaign wasn't just on Facebook and Twitter. Here are all the social media platforms Russian trolls weaponized during the 2016 US elections

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic plan on taking you to space

• Civil rights groups are calling for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg to resign from the company's board.
• The calls come after a new report detailed how Russian operatives used Instagram for a voter-suppression campaign targeting African-Americans.
• Sandberg conceded that Facebook "need[s] to do more" in a statement, but did not address the calls for her to quit Facebook's board of directors.

Facing calls to resign from Facebook's board of directors, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has conceded that the social network "need[s] to do more" to protect civil rights.

This week, a coalition of civil rights group called on Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to quit their posts on the company's board of directors, diversify the company's board, fire policy chief Joel Kaplan, and make a number of other changes. The groups include NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Centre, MoveOn, Freedom From Facebook, and others.

The NAACP is also calling on users to boycott Facebook on December 18, and has returned a donation from the social networking company, it said.

The calls come after a report revealed how Russian operatives utilized Facebook-owned Instagram to target African-Americans in a voter-suppression campaign during the 2016 presidential election, part of a broader covert social media campaign to influence American politics and elect Donald Trump.

On a statement posted to her Facebook page on Tuesday, Sandberg did not directly reference the calls for her to leave the board, but acknowledged: "We know we need to do more."

Regarding the voter suppression findings, Facebook's No.2 exec wrote that "we take this incredibly seriously, as demonstrated by the investments we’ve made in safety and security." Facebook is trying to encourage "voter registration and engagement," she added.

Sandberg also shared an update on the ongoing civil rights audit of Facebook being conducted by former ACLU director Laura Murphy.

"For the past several years, civil rights groups have consistently expressed, both publicly and privately, their deeply held concerns about Facebook’s products, policies, and practices and their implications on civil and human rights. The work that has been done over the last six months is an attempt to capture and consolidate their concerns to produce meaningful results," Murphy wrote.

"Given Facebook’s scope and scale, this continues to be a challenge. That being said, in the first six months of this audit, we have witnessed some progress and tangible results, including policy changes, improvements to enforcement, and greater transparency in certain areas."

You can read Sandberg's full post here.

Do you work at Facebook? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal or WhatsApp at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

SEE ALSO: Facebook's catastrophic year has caused Mark Zuckerberg to lose more money than any of the world's other 500 richest billionaires

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I tried cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner using Google Home Hub and found there are two major flaws with it

Soon it will be easier for people without Google accounts to collaborate on G Suite documents. Currently in beta, a new feature will enable G Suite users to invite people without G Suite subscriptions or Google accounts to work on files by sending them a pin code.

Using the pin code to gain access allows invitees to view, comment on, suggest edits to or directly edit Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. The owners and admins of the G Suite files monitor usage through activity logs and can revoke access at any time. According to the feature’s support article, admins are able to set permissions by department or domain. They also can restrict sharing outside of white-listed G Suite domains or their own organization.

In order to sign up for the beta program, companies need to fill in this form and select a non-G Suite domain they plan to collaborate with frequently.

According to a Reuters article published in February, since intensifying their focus on enterprise customers, Google has doubled the number of organizations with a G Suite subscription to more than 4 million. But despite Google’s efforts to build its enterprise user base, G Suite hasn’t come close to supplanting Office 365 as the cloud-based productivity software of choice for companies.

Office 365 made $13.8 billion in sales in 2016, versus just $1.3 billion for G Suite, according to Gartner. Google has added features to G Suite, however, to make the two competing software suites more interoperable, including an update that enables Google Drive users to comment on Office files, PDFs and images in the Drive preview panel without needing to convert them to Google Docs, Sheets or Slide files first, even if they don’t have Microsoft Office or Acrobat Reader. Before that, Google also released a Drive plugin for Outlook.

This may not convince Microsoft customers to switch, especially if they have been using its software for decades, but at least it will get more workers comfortable with Google’s alternatives, and may convince some companies to subscribe to G Suite for at least some employees or departments.

A California man sued the US government after Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security agents allegedly detained him for four hours and pressured him to unlock his cell phones so they could search their contents, according to court documents.

Haisam Elsharkawi, a 35-year-old US citizen of Egyptian descent, said he was stopped at the gate at the Los Angeles International Airport on February 9, 2017, after passing through TSA and security checks with no issues. As he was boarding his flight, according to a lawsuit filed by Elsharkawi in a California court in late October, CBP agents allegedly pulled him aside and repeatedly asked him questions, searched his belongings, and asked him to unlock his cell phones.

Got a tip? You can contact this reporter securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, OTR chat at lorenzofb@jabber.ccc.de, or email lorenzo@motherboard.tv

When he refused and asked for an attorney, CBP officers allegedly handcuffed him and took him to a room for more questioning, where a DHS officer eventually convinced him to unlock the phone and then looked through it for 15 minutes. At no point did the agents tell him why they were searching and questioning him, the lawsuit alleges, nor did they they have a warrant. According to the lawsuit, the “interrogation” lasted four hours, and Elsharkawi missed his flight.

When going through his phone, the lawsuit alleges, a DHS agent asked Elsharkawi about his Amazon accounts, made comments about how many unread emails and apps he had, and asked where he gets the merchandise that he sells on his e-commerce site, according to the complaint. His lawyers also allege that CBP agents downloaded, made copies, and forensically examined all his data, violating his privacy.

The case highlights how freely CBP agents operate at the US border, and the wide latitude and authority they have to question citizens and search digital devices without having to present a legal justification for it.

Elsharkawi is now suing the US government, the Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, CBP commissioner Kevin McAleenan, and four of the agents who questioned him in 2017, seeking damages and an order that would prevent the government from performing this kind of search in the future.

He and his lawyers argue that CBP and DHS violated the First Amendment, which protects religious freedom and freedom of speech, because his phone contained “expressive content and associational information.” His lawsuit also argues that they breached the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth Amendment, which protects against self-incrimination.

READ MORE: The Motherboard Guide To Not Getting Hacked

“The search of Mr. Elsharkawi’s phone was not supported by any real suspicion of ongoing or imminent criminal activity and as such no basis for a search existed,” Elsharkawi’s lawyers, who defined the incident as “outrageous,” argued in the complaint.

When reached for comment, a CBP spokesperson declined to comment on the pending litigation. The spokesperson, however, said in an emailed statement that “all travelers arriving to the US are subject to CBP inspection,” and that “all persons, baggage, and merchandise arriving in, or departing from, the United States are subject to inspection, search and detention,” citing a CBP directive on searches on inbound and outbound travelers.

Elsharkawi and his lawyers lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

“I travel all the time, and I was never asked to unlock my phone,” Elsharkawi told The New York Times last year, before he filed his lawsuit. “I have personal photos there, which I think is normal for anyone. It’s my right. It’s my phone.”

Listen to CYBER, Motherboard’s new weekly podcast about hacking and cybersecurity.

Connecticut-based internet service provider Charter Spectrum has been ordered to pay customers $62 million in a fraud settlement after the state attorney general found it had misled customers by advertising internet speeds it couldn’t deliver.

According to a Tuesday announcement, it’s the largest consumer refund from an ISP in US history. The total consumer fraud settlement is $174.2 million, the rest of which will come in the form of premium channels and streaming services. Individuals will receive between $75 and $150 each.

“This settlement should serve as a wakeup call to any company serving New York consumers: fulfill your promises, or pay the price,” said Attorney General Barbara Underwood, in a statement. The settlement “sets a new standard for how internet providers should fairly market their services,” Underwood said.

The New York State Attorney General’s Office launched the lawsuit against the ISP in January 2017, asserting that the internet giant had persuaded customers to sign up for internet plans advertising speeds it knew it couldn’t provide. Many customers only got between 10 to 87 percent of the speeds they paid for, depending on their plan.

The AG claimed that Charter leased modems and routers to customers that were insufficient to deliver such speeds, failed to maintain enough network capacity to support its subscribers, and all while aggressively marketing these expensive “high speed” plans to customers.

Charter also used “hardball tactics” against Netflix and other third-party services that ensured subscribers would suffer “frozen screens, extended buffering, and reduced picture quality,” according to the attorney general.

The settlement also includes a requirement to be more transparent in marketing and to substantiate advertised speeds through regular tests. Charter has already made network enhancements to improve infrastructure in the state following the investigation, according to the attorney general.

Charter has had a fraught history in New York State. The Public Service Commission voting to kick it out of New York entirely earlier this year, due to its deteriorating service following its merger with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Charter is fighting the decision, and is required to continue to provide service in New York until it can find another ISP to take over its customers.

It’s unlikely that Charter’s service is going to improve overnight, but the settlement—combined with the Public Service Commission’s decision—has increased the pressure on the telecom giant to start providing fair, reliable services to customers, many of whom have no other options in the state.

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

• Photography enthusiasts still love their trusty DSLR cameras. During our testing and research, the Nikon D850 stood out with its impressive image quality. The best part? This powerful camera is relatively easy to use.

The digital camera market is in the midst of a significant change. Smartphone cameras are taking control of the low end of the market, which is fueling development of the best DSLR cameras.

Digital camera makers are searching for ways to differentiate their cameras from smartphone cameras, and the best way to do it is by providing high-end image quality and performance features that a smartphone camera cannot match. Buying a DSLR camera (short for digital single lens reflex) is a great way to achieve this separation.

We at Business Insider showed the performance difference in a hands-on test between the iPhone 6, a DSLR, and a point-and-shoot camera a couple of years ago. Certainly, things have changed since then, and the iPhone 7 Plus and other phones with bokeh effects have really upped the smartphone photography game. However, DSLRs are still king in several categories based on a test by Ars Technica, and serious photographers can't imagine life without them.

Below, we'll get into why you should consider a DSLR camera and how to choose the best one for you. After we go over the basics, we'll move on to our top picks.

DSLR cameras vs. simple cameras

DSLR cameras base their primary design features on 35mm SLR cameras from the days of film. It is a tried and true design for a camera, but it does end up being a bit bulkier than simple cameras. However, the performance benefits of the DSLR are easy to see once you’ve tested both types of cameras, even for a short period of time.

As discussed in Photography Life, a DSLR camera separates itself from a simple camera through three primary features:

• Interchangeable lenses: DSLR cameras have interchangeable lenses, meaning you can give them different capabilities just by swapping out the lens. A simple fixed-lens camera has the lens embedded in the camera body.
• Big image sensors: The image sensor on a DSLR camera is going to be larger in physical size than that of a simple point-and-shoot camera. Larger sensors pick up more details in a scene and work better in low light than smaller sensors. Adorama has a nice table comparing image sensor sizes. The physical size of an image sensor is different than the number of megapixels it can record.
• Fast image processors: DSLRs have fast image processors, which allow them to offer minimal shutter lag and delays between shots. A simple camera often will have a sluggish performance, which could cause you to miss a photo.

Buying a DSLR camera

Most DSLR cameras will range in price from around $500 to $5,000. Cameras aimed at professional shooters will carry an even higher price point. Older and used DSLRs will be available below the $500 threshold.

When looking for a DSLR camera, you’ll find that they’re sold in three different configurations.

• Body only: If the DSLR is listed as a body-only camera, that means it ships with no lenses. Obviously, the camera will not work without lenses, so this seems like an odd way to sell the DSLR. But for those who already own some compatible lenses, this is a cheaper way to buy a DSLR camera body. Individual interchangeable lenses can fit on several different camera bodies, as long as there’s compatibility both ways.
• With lens kits: DSLRs that come with a lens are sold with one or two compatible lenses that offer basic features — they're called kit lenses. It's the most cost-effective way to purchase a camera and lens, but these lenses won’t yield extensive zoom or wide angle capabilities.
• With component kits: If you select a DSLR lens and component kit, you’ll receive a basic lens, a tripod, a memory card, and some other components needed to get started with photography. For those who are just starting with DSLRs, this can be an inexpensive way to go, but you also run the risk of spending money on components that you don’t really need.

Here are our picks for the best DSLR cameras you can buy:

• Best DSLR camera overall: Nikon D850
• Best mid-range DSLR camera: Nikon D7500
• Best beginner DSLR camera: Nikon D3500
• Best high-resolution DSLT camera: Sony A99 II
• Best sports DSLR camera: Canon EOS 7D Mark II

Updated by Owen Burke on 12/18/2018: Updated our best overall pick from the Nikon D810 to the D850, our best mid-range from the D7200 to the D7500, and replaced our beginner pick with the Nikon D3500. Added links to our mirrorless camera guide. Also updated prices and formatting.

Read on in the slides below to check out our top picks.

The best DSLR camera overall

Why you'll love it: The Nikon D850 is a fast camera that can shoot 4k video and excellent photos

The Nikon D850 is the best DSLR for most people. Unlike its older sibling, the D810, the D850 comes with a respectable 45.7-megapixel sensor. It also takes 4k video and supports XQD memory cards, which speeds up the interfacing between the SD card and the camera and the computer.

PetaPixel posted about a video put out by Nikon Asia showing just how much faster the XQD card transfers photos: The old CF took one minute and fifty-five seconds to transfer 1,000 photos, while the XQD took only 35 seconds.

Apart from that, the D850 has all the same features and superlative qualities of the D810 but with no pop-up flash, which is not something most people use at this level of photography anyhow. The big difference is that you get much higher resolution, which is great, especially when cropping photos, and you can shoot 4k video at 30p, which isn't great at high speed or in low light.

Otherwise, it's weather-sealed, holds two memory cards, shoots seven frames per second, has a faster image processing speed, and is probably likely to be around a little longer as it's three years younger.

TechRadar calls the D850 "high resolution meets high speed." Digital Trends and Ken Rockwell are similarly enamored by the D850, and, if you've got the dough to blow, this is our favorite DSLR on the market right now.

All this aside, our old pick, the D810, is still a strong camera, but if you're spending this much, it's probably worth tossing in a few hundred dollars for the newer, higher-res, higher-speed option. — Owen Burke

Pros: High-resolution count, large full-frame image sensor size, easy to use for beginners, plenty of control buttons for advanced photographers, two memory card slots, great battery life

Cons: High price tag, heavy camera body

Buy the Nikon D850 (body only) on Amazon for $3,296.95

The best mid-range DSLR camera

Why you’ll love it: The Nikon D7500 fits perfectly into the intermediate level of the DSLR market with a good price and great shooting features.

If you have a bit of experience with photography and don’t want your first DSLR to be an entry-level model, the Nikon D7500 is our favorite intermediate-level camera. It fits perfectly into this area of the DSLR market, offering much of what higher-end cameras do, but at a price point well below their price point.

As Digital Photography Review discusses in its Nikon D7500 review, this camera offers the highest quality in the market among DSLRs with APS-C sized image sensors. It provides 20.9 megapixels of resolution, which is more than enough for most beginner and intermediate photographers.

It's worth noting that our previous pick, the D7200, offered 24.2 megapixels, which is much more comparable to other DSLRs in this price range. The big tradeoff is that you do get 4k video with the D7500. All in all, 20.9 megapixels is just fine for most anyone and even some professionals, so long as you're not doing heavy cropping or printing large posters.

Steve’s Digicams' D7500 review highlights the excellent viewfinder build quality that was also found in our previous pick. For those who have used film cameras in the past, the viewfinder was a key component to framing photographs.

Photographers often are disappointed to find no viewfinder on a simple digital camera or on a smartphone camera. So having a high-quality viewfinder in the Nikon D7500 is a great feature. — Kyle Schurman and Owen Burke

Pros: Great image quality on APS-C sized image sensor, excellent performance in low light, buttons are well placed for ease of use, lightweight DSLR body, excellent viewfinder quality

Cons: No 4K movie recording option, autofocus system is a little slow in some situations, two-year-old design

Buy the Nikon D7500 (camera body only) on Amazon for $1,146.95

Buy the Nikon D7500 with a mid-range kit lens on Amazon for $1,446.95

The best DSLR camera for beginners

Why you'll love it: The Nikon D3500 is a user-friendly beginner's camera that does everything you need it to do, while making it easy to learn the ropes.

One thing we really like about the D3500 — and all Nikon cameras, for that matter — is its user-friendliness. Nikon is widely known and appreciated for making easy-to-use cameras, which alone earns it a large, loyal fan base. 

But just because it's easy to use doesn't mean it's necessarily a limiting camera. Sure, you can't shoot 4k video, and there's no swivel or vari-angle screen, so capturing video or stills using the rear display at tough angles is more or less out of the question.

The D3500 does come with a respectable 11-point autofocus and a 5fps burst shooting speed, which makes some other competitively-priced cameras seem sluggish in comparison.

Another huge benefit of this camera, especially when compared with mirrorless cameras, is its battery life. Because the D3500 relatively low-tech, it doesn't burn up as much power and can fire off about 1,500 shots before you run out of charge. In contrast, higher-tech DSLRs and most mirrorless cameras tear through a battery in several hundred shots.

TechRadar calls the D3500 "a great entry into the world of photography," and it's relatively new, but 30 reviews on Amazon have earned it a 4.6-star rating. After a steady month of testing, we don't know of a better camera at this price point, and certainly not a full kit that stacks up for under $500. As far as we're concerned, this is the best entry-level DSLR you can buy. — Owen Burke

Pros: Low price, easy-to-use camera, excellent battery life, faster burst shooting speed and more autofocus points than the competition

Cons: No 4K video recording option, no swiveled (aka articulated) rear display, not enough advanced features for experienced photographers 

Buy the Nikon D3500 with a VR-Nikkor lens kit and other accessories for $459 (recommended)

Buy the Nikon D3500 with an 18-55mm VR-Nikkor kit lens for $396.95

An Arizona real estate agent was shocked when a voice started broadcasting from his Nest security camera recently, addressing him directly.

Andy Gregg was in his backyard when he heard the voice, belonging to someone who claimed to be a “white hat hacker” from Canada, Gregg told the Arizona Republic. A white hat hacker is a hacker who exposes security vulnerabilities for the greater good, rather than their own benefit.

Gregg recorded the conversation that followed. In the video, a voice can be heard over the speaker telling Gregg that he was contacting him in the creepiest way possible to warn him about the security risks of his internet-connected camera.

“We don’t have any malicious intent, but I’m just here to kind of let you know so that no one else, like any black-hat hackers, follow,” the voice can be heard saying. “There are so many malicious things somebody could do with this.”

It’s worth noting that the “hack” here was not particularly sophisticated, if it went down as described.

Gregg told the newspaper that the hacker told him his private information had been “compromised,” and recited to Gregg a password that he had used for multiple websites. Since Gregg used the same password for his Nest, and apparently didn’t use two-factor authentication, it would have been easy for anyone with that information to log in remotely to the camera.

There have been numerous data breaches that leaked usernames, emails, and passwords for millions of people, and databases containing such information are bought and sold online, and Nest said to the Arizona Republic in a statement that it was aware passwords stolen in hacks of other companies have been used to access its cameras.

The creepy incident is a reminder of why it’s important to set up basic security and privacy protections, such as using a password manager (so your password is different for every account), and setting up two-factor authentication (so even if someone steals your password, they can’t log in to your account very easily). To help you set up two-factor authentication, see this website and keep in mind that experts don’t consider SMS a secure second factor anymore. Instead, use an app such as Google Authenticator, DUO Mobile, or Authy.

You can easily check if your information was included in any data leaks by visiting Have I Been Pwned. Motherboard’s extensive guide to not getting hacked also gives you some easy-to-follow steps on how to protect yourself online. It takes just a few minutes to make sure your information is more secure—unless you’re set on using your smart home devices to meet some new Canadian hacker friends, that is.

• Google announced on Monday that it will spend $1 billion in a major New York City expansion.
• It's locked down three properties near the Hudson River on New York's west side. 
• The expansion will enable Google to add 7,000 employees in New York, in what it is calling its "Global Business Operation."

Google will build a new campus in New York City, the tech giant announced in a blog post on Monday.

Google will spend $1 billion to create a 1.7-million square-foot campus in Manhattan's West Village neighborhood, it said in the post by Google's CFO, Ruth Porat. The new campus will be called "Google Hudson Square."

Google's locked down three properties as part of the expansion:

• 550 Washington St.
• 315 Hudson St.
• 345 Hudson St.

Google said it plans to start moving into the buildings in 2020. 550 Washington Street is called the St. Johns Terminal space, and it will be the head of Google's "Global Business Operation" when it opens in 2022.

All of the locations announced on Monday are within walking distance of each other.

Google already has a massive office in New York, at 111 8th Avenue, with 7,000 employees. The expansion will allow Google to support another 7,000 employees in the city. Google has also paid 2.4 billion to purchase the Chelsea Market, across the street.

The announcement caps off a busy quarter in tech expansion. 

Last month, Amazon announced that it would move as many as 50,000 employees into new office complexes in Queens, New York and Arlington, Virginia. Apple said it would expand its footprint in Austin, Texas.

SEE ALSO: Apple is dropping $1 billion on a huge new campus in Austin, Texas

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How Singapore solved garbage disposal

North, the company behind the Focals AR glasses, has acquired the “technology portfolio” behind another set of AR glasses, the cancelled Intel Vaunt glasses. The company wouldn’t disclose the terms of the deal, but Intel Capital is a major investor in North and led its last financing round in 2016.

Both Focals and Vaunt had the same basic idea: use a tiny laser embedded in the stem of your glasses to project a reflected image directly into your retina. Unlike other AR and VR efforts, the goal is to create a pair of glasses you’d actually want to wear — something that looks relatively normal and doesn’t weigh too much.

Intel struggled to get its glasses out of the lab and on a path to actually becoming available to consumers. Like so many...

Continue reading…

It feels like there’s a WeWork on every street nowadays. Take a walk through midtown Manhattan (please don’t actually) and it might even seem like there are more WeWorks than office buildings.

Consider this an ongoing discussion about Urban Tech, its intersection with regulation, issues of public service, and other complexities that people have full PHDs on. I’m just a bitter, born-and-bred New Yorker trying to figure out why I’ve been stuck in between subway stops for the last 15 minutes, so please reach out with your take on any of these thoughts: @Arman.Tabatabai@techcrunch.com.

Co-working has permeated cities around the world at an astronomical rate. The rise has been so remarkable that even the headline-dominating SoftBank seems willing to bet the success of its colossal Vision Fund on the shift continuing, having poured billions into WeWork – including a recent $4.4 billion top-up that saw the co-working king’s valuation spike to $45 billion.

And there are no signs of the trend slowing down. With growing frequency, new startups are popping up across cities looking to turn under-utilized brick-and-mortar or commercial space into low-cost co-working options.

It’s a strategy spreading through every type of business from retail – where companies like Workbar have helped retailers offer up portions of their stores – to more niche verticals like parking lots – where companies like Campsyte are transforming empty lots into spaces for outdoor co-working and corporate off-sites. Restaurants and bars might even prove most popular for co-working, with startups like Spacious and KettleSpace turning restaurants that are closed during the day into private co-working space during their off-hours.

Before you know it, a startup will be strapping an Aeron chair to the top of a telephone pole and calling it “WirelessWorking”.

But is there a limit to how far co-working can go? Are all of the storefronts, restaurants and open spaces that line city streets going to be filled with MacBooks, cappuccinos and Moleskine notebooks? That might be too tall a task, even for the movement taking over skyscrapers.

The co-working of everything…

Photo: Vasyl Dolmatov / iStock via Getty Images

So why is everyone trying to turn your favorite neighborhood dinner spot into a part-time WeWork in the first place? Co-working offers a particularly compelling use case for under-utilized space.

First, co-working falls under the same general commercial zoning categories as most independent businesses and very little additional infrastructure – outside of a few extra power outlets and some decent WiFi – is required to turn a space into an effective replacement for the often crowded and distracting coffee shops used by price-sensitive, lean, remote, or nomadic workers that make up a growing portion of the workforce.

Thus, businesses can list their space at little-to-no cost, without having to deal with structural layout changes that are more likely to arise when dealing with pop-up solutions or event rentals.

On the supply side, these co-working networks don’t have to purchase leases or make capital improvements to convert each space, and so they’re able to offer more square footage per member at a much lower rate than traditional co-working spaces. Spacious, for example, charges a monthly membership fee of $99-$129 dollars for access to its network of vetted restaurants, which is cheap compared to a WeWork desk, which can cost anywhere from $300-$800 per month in New York City.

Customers realize more affordable co-working alternatives, while tight-margin businesses facing increasing rents for under-utilized property are able to pool resources into a network and access a completely new revenue stream at very little cost. The value proposition is proving to be seriously convincing in initial cities – Spacious told the New York Times, that so many restaurants were applying to join the network on their own volition that only five percent of total applicants were ultimately getting accepted.

Basically, the business model here checks a lot of the boxes for successful marketplaces: Acquisition and transaction friction is low for both customers and suppliers, with both seeing real value that didn’t exist previously. Unit economics seem strong, and vetting on both sides of the market creates trust and community. Finally, there’s an observable network effect whereby suppliers benefit from higher occupancy as more customers join the network, while customers benefit from added flexibility as more locations join the network.

… Or just the co-working of some things…

Photo: Caiaimage / Robert Daly via Getty Images

So is this the way of the future? The strategy is really compelling, with a creative solution that offers tremendous value to businesses and workers in major cities. But concerns around the scalability of demand make it difficult to picture this phenomenon becoming ubiquitous across cities or something that reaches the scale of a WeWork or large conventional co-working player.

All these companies seem to be competing for a similar demographic, not only with one another, but also with coffee shops, free workspaces, and other flexible co-working options like Croissant, which provides members with access to unused desks and offices in traditional co-working spaces. Like Spacious and KettleSpace, the spaces on Croissant own the property leases and are already built for co-working, so Croissant can still offer comparatively attractive rates.

The offer seems most compelling for someone that is able to work without a stable location and without the amenities offered in traditional co-working or office spaces, and is also price sensitive enough where they would trade those benefits for a lower price. Yet at the same time, they can’t be too price sensitive, where they would prefer working out of free – or close to free – coffee shops instead of paying a monthly membership fee to avoid the frictions that can come with them.

And it seems unclear whether the problem or solution is as poignant outside of high-density cities – let alone outside of high-density areas of high-density cities.

Without density, is the competition for space or traffic in coffee shops and free workspaces still high enough where it’s worth paying a membership fee for? Would the desire for a private working environment, or for a working community, be enough to incentivize membership alone? And in less-dense and more-sprawl oriented cities, members could also face the risk of having to travel significant distances if space isn’t available in nearby locations.

While the emerging workforce is trending towards more remote, agile and nomadic workers that can do more with less, it’s less certain how many will actually fit the profile that opts out of both more costly but stable traditional workspaces, as well as potentially frustrating but free alternatives. And if the lack of density does prove to be an issue, how many of those workers will live in hyper-dense areas, especially if they are price-sensitive and can work and live anywhere?

To be clear, I’m not saying the companies won’t see significant growth – in fact, I think they will. But will the trend of monetizing unused space through co-working come to permeate cities everywhere and do so with meaningful occupancy? Maybe not. That said, there is still a sizable and growing demographic that need these solutions and the value proposition is significant in many major urban areas.

The companies are creating real value, creating more efficient use of wasted space, and fixing a supply-demand issue. And the cultural value of even modestly helping independent businesses keep the lights on seems to outweigh the cultural “damage” some may fear in turning them into part-time co-working spaces.

And lastly, some reading while in transit:

• The Grim Future of Urban Warfare – The Atlantic, Darran Anderson
• New York’s New Wage Law for Uber Drivers is a Lesson for Cities Around the World – MIT Technology Review, Erin Winick
• Can New Home Building Tech Help Solve the Affordability Crisis? – FastCompany, Adele Peters
• Homelessness Rises More Quickly Where Rent Exceeds a Third of Income – Zillow Research, Chris Glynn & Alexander Casey
• Vote on Temescal to Test Core Values – StreetsblogSF, Roger Rudick
• L.A. Approves New Rules for Airbnb-Type Rentals After Years of Debate – Los Angeles Times, Emily Alpert Reyes
• Can France Revive its Industrial Heartland? – FT, Harriet Agnew
• Why Communities Across America Are Pushing to Close Waste Incinerators – CityLab, Rebecca Stoner

Last year, FCC boss Ajit Pai repeatedly hyped the creation of a new "Broadband Deployment Advisory Council" (BDAC) purportedly tasked with coming up with creative solutions to the nation's broadband problem(s). Unfortunately, reports just as quickly began to circulate that this panel was little more than a who's who of entrenched telecom operators with a vested interest in protecting the status quo. The panel has yet to really offer up a meaningful proposal, but it has been rocked by several resignations due to cronyism, and at least one member who was arrested for fraud.

As the FCC looks to expand the council's charter for another few years, the panel itself has been pushing a plan that pretty clearly highlights the cronyism intentionally inherent in its design. More specifically, the panel has been pushing the FCC to adopt a new system that urges states to tax Netflix and Google to fund rural broadband deployment:

"A Federal Communications Commission advisory committee has proposed a new tax on Netflix, Google, Facebook, and many other businesses that require Internet access to operate. If adopted by states, the recommended tax would apply to subscription-based retail services that require Internet access, such as Netflix, and to advertising-supported services that use the Internet, such as Google and Facebook. The tax would also apply to any small- or medium-sized business that charges subscription fees for online services or uses online advertising."

To be clear, this is extremely unlikely to come to pass, even in the most myopic of states. Still, if you're playing along at home, this is just an extension of a multi-decade effort by ISPs to force somebody else to pay for network upgrades they refuse to fund, despite having received countless billions to accomplish this goal. In fact this push to have content companies pay for ISP network upgrades is really what began the net neutrality fight back in 2003 or so, when former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre proclaimed that Google should pay him an additional troll toll just to access his network. You know, just because.

This mantra was long rooted in telecom envy of Silicon Valley online ad revenues, and a belief by telecom executives that they're somehow "owed" a cut of those revenues. Over time it evolved into endless claims by telecom sector allies, think tankers, and other cronies that companies like Google and Netflix were somehow getting a "free ride" on incumbent ISP networks, despite having invested billions into their own global transit and network operations. Over time it became a global telecom executive mantra of sorts, even if it never made coherent sense.

People forget, but it's this telecom industry attempt to "double dip" that truly launched the modern net neutrality debate just about fifteen years ago. That point has gotten lost as ISP efforts to extract unearned rents have gotten more elaborate over the years, but at its heart the fight has always been about monopoly ISPs trying to offload network construction and operation costs off to somebody else, while already earning fat revenues thanks to limited competition.

Of course AT&T, who generally drives most dubious DC telecom policy moves and would reap the lion's share of said tax, had originally tried to insist that the panel's recommendations (and the proposed tax) should apply to pretty much all traffic that touches the internet:

"An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only."

The real problem here (or one of many) is that companies like AT&T and Verizon were already given billions upon billions in taxpayer dollars to fund these upgrades years ago. American history is filled with examples of these companies getting massive tax cuts or subsidies to deploy fiber, then using their lobbying prowess to wiggle out from under the obligations after the fact. Had the government ever conducted any real audit, you'd likely find American taxpayers have paid to upgrade the country with fiber several times over, yet still somehow often only have access to pricey, sluggish DSL.

That, nearly two decades later, AT&T's still running a lame variation of the same ploy is equal parts frightening and sad, but seems to be par for the course for a country that refuses to learn from history, and an FCC that has made it abundantly clear it's a glorified rubber stamp for lumbering natural monopolies and their very worst instincts.

• Facebook said it found a bug that gave as many as 1,500 third-party apps access to the unposted Facebook photos of up to 6.8 million users.
• The affected pictures include those posted on Facebook Stories and Facebook Marketplace, as well as those that were uploaded but never shared, Facebook said.
• "We're sorry this happened," Facebook said in a statement.

Facebook said on Friday in a developer-focused blog post that it had discovered a nasty bug in its photo software.

The bug allowed authorized app programmers to access photos that people had uploaded to Facebook but not publicly shared, as well as those posted on Facebook's Marketplace software or Facebook Stories, the post said.

There are several cases in which someone might have uploaded a photo but didn't share it, Facebook explained.

"For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn't finish posting it — maybe because they've lost reception or walked into a meeting — we store a copy of that photo so the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post," Facebook said in its statement.

The bug may have affected as many as 6.8 million users, 1,500 apps, and 876 app developers, Facebook said, but users had to give the apps authorization to "access the photos API." It said the bug was active for 12 days in September.

"We're sorry this happened," Facebook said in a statement. "Early next week we will be rolling out tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people using their app might be impacted by this bug. We will be working with those developers to delete the photos from impacted users."

Facebook has faced a string of privacy scandals over the past two years. A researcher was able to take and sell the personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users in what came to be known as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. And Facebook said earlier this year that "most" of its users might have had their personal data skimmed by "malicious actors."

If you've been affected by the latest photo bug, you'll see an alert on Facebook, the company said in a statement.

"We are also recommending people log into any apps with which they have shared their Facebook photos to check which photos they have access to," the post said.

SEE ALSO: Apple isn't just building a new campus in Austin. Here's everywhere the tech giant is expanding.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How an automatic floodgate is helping communities against natural disasters