The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first digital pill for the US which tracks if patients have taken their medication. The pill called Abilify MyCite, is fitted with a tiny ingestible sensor that communicates with a patch worn by the patient — the patch then transmits medication data to a smartphone app which the patient can voluntarily upload to a database for their doctor and other authorized persons to see. Abilify is a drug that treats schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and is an add-on treatment for depression.
The Abilify MyCite features a sensor the size of a grain of sand made of silicon, copper, and magnesium. An electrical signal is activated when the sensor comes into contact with stomach acid — the sensor then...
Photographer Tim Flach is renowned for his photos that show the emotional — or human — side of animals.
Flach's images often capture creatures' moods, expressions, and gestures in ways that make us rethink our relationship with the natural world.
His newest book, "Endangered", includes text by zoologist Jonathan Baillie and tries to make readers consider the impact they have on these animals — and consider what it would mean for them to disappear.
Along with the creatures themselves, Flach photographed the landscapes these animals live in.
He spent days in frozen snow to capture a shot of the rare Siaga antelope. He swam with sharks and hippos, and visited zoos for perspectives of wildlife in settings created by humans.
The ecosystems in which many of these creatures live have already been destroyed to make room for cities and farms. But by eliminating such habitats, we remove the only places some of the most unique creatures on Earth can live.
Check out a selection of some of our favorite photos from the book below.
Pangolins are one of the creatures most threatened by the illegal wildlife trade. This white-bellied pangolin can be seen hanging from its mother's tail.
Hippos are hunted for their meat and their ivory teeth.
Yellow-eyed tree frogs are affected by climate change — they're threatened by a fungus that's spreading through forests, and their eggs are hatching early or late because they're sensitive to temperature.
AT&T and Verizon have partnered with a third company to build hundreds of cell towers, Verizon announced today. The third company, Tillman Infrastructure, is a private company that makes and owns towers, and it will construct the towers to suit AT&T and Verizon.
The new towers are going to be added in locations in need of more coverage. AT&T and Verizon may also relocate equipment from current towers to serve these new ones.
It’s notable that the two carrier giants chose Tillman Infrastructure, a relatively small company based in New York, instead of any of the top three cell tower companies in the US: American Tower, Crown Castle, or SBA Communications. Executives from both carriers indicated that the decision to go with an industry...
Shortly after the horrific shooting of 26 people in a Texas church, the FBI began dropping hints about its inability to access the contents of the shooter's phone. Things didn't go the FBI's way the last time it tried to access a phone's contents following a mass shooting. It was unable to force Apple to break its own encryption and failed to obtain a judicial precedent it could wield against other manufacturers. In the end, the FBI ended up out a large sum of cash in exchange for access to phone contents that ultimately proved worthless.
These rumblings follow the DOJ's push for "responsible encryption" -- a mythical beast composed of "strong" encryption that can be broken at the drop of warrant. This is the FBI hinting it's interested in taking a second swing at obtaining a pro-encryption breaking courtroom decision. What the FBI won't do is offer any details on the shooter's phone itself.
"We are unable to get into that phone," FBI Special Agent Christopher Combs said in a press conference yesterday (see video).
Combs declined to say what kind of phone was used by gunman Devin Kelley, who killed himself after the mass shooting. "I'm not going to describe what phone it is because I don't want to tell every bad guy out there what phone to buy, to harass our efforts on trying to find justice here," Combs said.
Most agents aren't adept at handing out off-the-cuff statements, as Agent Combs's "harass our efforts on trying to find justice" word salad can attest. Withholding this information made little difference, however. The phone the FBI is trying to break into is an iPhone -- something Apple may have inadvertently outed while preemptively defending itself against FBI/DOJ criticism.
Apple today tried to get ahead of another encryption showdown with the Federal Bureau of Investigation related to the Texas gunman’s attack this past Sunday, saying it reached out to the bureau to offer assistance in getting into the gunman’s iPhone and expedite its response to any legal process. The attack, which left 26 dead and many more injured, was committed by now-deceased Devin P. Kelley, who is confirmed to have been carrying an iPhone that may have crucial information about his activities in the lead up to the shooting.
Maybe the FBI should have taken Apple up on its offer. As Reuters reports, the FBI did not ask Apple for help during the 48 hours following its receipt of the phone -- a time period during which Apple's assistance may have been invaluable. (This echoes the FBI's apparent mishandling of the San Bernardino shooter's phone, which resulted in a locked phone and a courtroom showdown.) Apple likely would have known whether or not the phone was secured by the shooter's fingerprint, which certainly could have been applied postmortem.
Instead, the FBI chose to complain about its lack of access. This may be part of the DOJ's long game. Immediate assistance only helps in individual cases and only if done as soon as possible after taking possession of a device. But a favorable court decision? That lasts forever and can be applied at the FBI's leisure.
As the FBI struggles to unlock the iPhone used by the gunman in the recent Texas massacre, Sen. Dianne Feinstein believes it’s time to bring back long-dormant encryption-piercing legislation. It’s been about 18 months since she and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr floated legislation that would have required tech firms to hand over customers’ secure messages when served with a warrant. The measure, released after a bitter feud between the FBI and Apple over a locked iPhone, was never formally introduced but the latest case is exactly why it should be revived, she told Martin. “I think we ought to move that bill,” she said.
If everything alleged by the Reuters report is true, the FBI's "struggles" are of its own making. It could have sought immediate assistance from Apple but chose not to. It also, apparently, turned down Apple's offer to help. If so, the FBI doesn't actually want cooperation from tech companies. It wants to be able to tell companies what features they can and can't have. It wants to dictate all the terms of these engagements, which is very much in line with the DOJ's views on tech company "partnerships."
And thus far, through at least Oct. 16, defense contractors have donated $24,844,775 to federal politicians and political parties, according to an analysis from the Center for Responsible Politics, which draws on the Federal Election Commission's latest political-candidate-contribution report.
While these defense industry contributions are substantial, they are many times smaller than the financial sector, which leads all federal contributions with nearly $554 million in contributions.
The Center for Responsive Politics' numbers include all donor contributions to outside groups and political action committees, as well as individuals giving over $200.
Open Secrets also notes that donations don't come from the firms themselves but rather from their PACs, employees or owners, or those individuals' immediate families.
DynCorp International is a Virginia-based company that provides all kinds of training, intelligence, and aviation services for the military, including maintenance for the AH-64 Apache program.
Thus far in 2018, its employees and PAC have given 51.2% of its contributions to Democrats.
Dyncorp has also been accused of bilking the federal government out of millions of dollars between 2004 and 2008 for their work in the Iraq War.
Dyncorp didn't donate any money to candidates in the election cycles immediately before and after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Its first contributions came in the 2006 election cycle and increased in 2008.
19. General Atomics
Contributions: $152,900.
General Atomics is a San Diego-based company that makes missile defense systems, aircraft launch and recovery systems and more.
Thus far in 2018, its employees and PAC have given 76.5% of its contributions to Republicans.
18. Cobham Management Services
Contributions: $161,000.
Cobham Management Services is a British company that manufactures a variety of technology for the military and even the refueling system for the KC-46.
Thus far in 2018, its employees and PAC have given 67.4% of its contributions to Republicans.
Blockchain will offer Canada a transparent view of the supply chain "from seed to sale," which will facilitate regulation and quality checks, reduce fraud, and support consumers' health and safety.
By Gerry Smith, Scott Moritz, David McLaughlin and Sara Forden,Bloomberg News
AT&T Inc. won’t sell CNN and never proposed such a deal, CEO Randall Stephenson said as a battle escalated with antitrust officials over the $85.4 billion acquisition of the network’s owner, Time Warner Inc.
The unexpected fight is exploding over CNN, which has been a regular target of President Donald Trump’s Twitter attacks against what he calls “fake news.” The Justice Department’s Trump-appointed leadership is now taking a different view of the anti-competitive issues surrounding the deal than predecessors under Barack Obama did with similar agreements. Some lawmakers are calling the uproar over the cable news network political.
Discussions of individual assets, including the division that includes CNN, have come up in talks between the companies and Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The government officials brought up the idea of divesting either DirecTV, the satellite provider, or Turner Broadcasting, which includes CNN, TNT and TBS, one of the people said. Another person said AT&T floated the idea of selling CNN and was rejected.
“Throughout this process, I have never offered to sell CNN and have no intention of doing so,” Stephenson said.
Makan Delrahim, who took up the reins at the antitrust division in September after he was confirmed by the Senate, has signaled he isn’t a fan of settlements that force the Justice Department into ongoing monitoring of companies’ behavior.
Far apart
The two sides are far apart in getting a deal done, increasing the risk that talks could hit an impasse. Without an agreement, the Justice Department would sue to block the merger — with a lawsuit possibly coming as soon as next week, one of the people said. The agency is concerned that AT&T’s ownership of Time Warner content could raise the costs of its pay-TV rivals, according to one of the people.
The Justice Department said it’s “committed to carrying out its duties in accordance with the laws and the facts,” according to a statement. “Beyond that, the Department does not comment on any pending investigation.”
Time Warner shares fell 1.5 percent to $87.21 at 9:39 a.m. in New York, compared with the $107.50 offer price. AT&T rose 1.3 percent to $33.86.
AT&T is ramping up preparations to fight the Justice Department in court if it comes to that, instructing its legal team to prepare for battle, some of the people said. The timing of the deal, originally expected to close by the end of the year, is now uncertain, AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Wednesday.
Trump assailed the merger on the campaign trail, saying the tie-up would concentrate media power. That raised fears early in the process that Trump would interfere in the review. Delrahim told senators during his confirmation process that politics has no role in antitrust reviews.
Before he was nominated by Trump, Delrahim had briefly delved into the AT&T-Time Warner deal in a television interview, telling Canada’s BNN in October 2016 that “from a technical standpoint, I think these folks would have an easier route toward approval than a merger of two competitors,” he said.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who delayed Delrahim’s confirmation for weeks, asked the antitrust chief last month to recuse himself from the review because of those comments. In a Nov. 6 letter obtained by Bloomberg, the Justice Department said Delrahim “had no professional or personal connection with, or any non-public information about, the proposed merger then,” and noted he told BNN there could be other antitrust issues. Ethics officials reviewed the interview and determined recusal isn’t required, the department told Warren.
Delrahim’s arrival at the Justice Department slowed down the merger review as he got up to speed, people familiar with the matter said last week. He’s looking for ways to remedy the competitive issues posed by the combination of AT&T’s vast communications network and Time Warner’s media empire.
Delrahim took over the review after months of investigation by the staff attorneys and economists at the antitrust division. Until now negotiations with the companies had focused on conduct remedies, according to one of the people.
AT&T is ramping up preparations to fight the Justice Department in court if it comes to that, instructing its legal team to prepare for battle, some of the people said. The timing of the deal, originally expected to close by the end of the year, is now uncertain, Stephens said Wednesday.
It’s not clear if AT&T would be willing to part with anything it’s acquiring from Time Warner. The company has said it considers CNN a prize asset, and the company also considers properties such as the Warner Bros. studio, HBO, TNT and TBS essential, people familiar with the matter said.
Stephenson wants to pair all the programming those divisions produce with advertising and other services to create new sources of revenue.
The Obama administration settled a similar tie-up between a pay-TV company and an entertainment giant, the acquisition of NBCUniversal by Comcast Corp., by imposing conditions.
On Wednesday, Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, tweeted that the burden is on the Justice Department to show there has been no political interference in the antitrust division and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should be open about any communications with the White House on the deal.
On the other hand, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, praised the Justice Department for working to uphold competition and protecting CNN’s independence. “The Justice Department appears to be doing its job,” he said in a statement.
Voters in Vail, Louisville and 17 other Colorado cities and counties Tuesday voted to take internet service into their own hands in a move that could lead to providing citizens an alternative to the entrenched cable internet provider. Fort Collins voters, who voted to do so two years ago, passed a measure to finance exploration of a city-owned broadband utility.
According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which has tracked broadband votes for years, the 19 cities and counties join about 100 others in the state that previously opted out of Senate Bill 152. That bill, passed in 2005, restricts local governments from using taxpayer dollars to build their own broadband networks.
“These cities and counties recognize that they cannot count on Comcast and CenturyLink alone to meet local needs, which is why you see overwhelming support even in an off-year election,” Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said in a statement.
Colorado communities’ broadband votes
On Tuesday, voters in 19 cities and counties voted to opt out of SB 152, which restricts local government spending on building a broadband network. Here is the percent by which citizens voted to opt out:
Passage, however, doesn’t mean cities and counties will start offering their own broadband internet service.
In 2005, cable and internet providers campaigned to stop cities from offering internet service. At the time, Steve Davis, an executive at Qwest, which is now CenturyLink, told The Rocky Mountain News, “I think it’s inappropriate for public tax dollars to be invested in competitive businesses. At minimum, taxpayers should have the opportunity (to vote on the matter).”
The law passed, but it gave citizens the right to opt out in order to explore the possibility of building a municipal broadband network.
The city of Longmont became the first to do so in 2011, and about three years later, the city began offering internet service at speeds of a gigabit per second, which was much faster than the 20 mbps available from the local cable provider. In August, the city said nearly 90,000 residents can now get gigabit service, which starts at $49.95 a month for residents who sign up within three months of the service launching in their neighborhood.
About 53 percent of the population uses the city’s high-speed internet service, Longmont officials said.
Systems Underground employees Angel Rangel, left, and Henry Moto, contracted by Longmont Power and Communications, work to install a junction box in the ground for the NextLight fiber-optic network Dec. 11 near Quail Road and South Emery Street in Longmont.
In Fort Collins, which opted out of SB 152 in 2015, voters Tuesday approved the 2B measure to take the next step. The measure allows the city to issue $150 million in securities and debt to pursue the best way to offer broadband to its residents.
But the cable industry isn’t abandoning support of SB 152. Cable providers campaigned heavily against the Fort Collins move, spending more than $256,000 in television and radio ads, according to campaign report filings by Priorities First Fort Collins. More than half of the amount came from a $175,000 contribution from the “Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association,” which represents companies such as Comcast and rural broadcasters that are part of the Colorado Telecommunications Association.
“The CTA and its members oppose cities, towns and other government entities building, owning and operating broadband networks where existing networks are in place,” said Pete Kirchhof, executive vice president of Colorado Telecommunications Association, pointing to the troubled EAGLE-Net Alliance, which was formed in 2010 with $100.6 million in federal bailout funds to provide broadband service to underserved and rural areas. “With or without voter approval, if government-owned networks are going to compete with private entities, there should be a far more level playing field. Governments should not be able to use taxpayer dollars to overbuild existing networks — and then compete against private companies for customers.”
Comparably, the Fort Collins Citizens Broadband Committee collected $8,288.13 and spent $3,021.98 as of Nov. 1, according to the group’s campaign report filing. Funds were spent on ads, consulting fees and yard signs.
According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which tracks broadband developments nationwide, voters in the 19 Colorado cities and counties said yes to municipal broadband by a high margin — at an average yes rate of 83 percent. The institute also estimates that out of Colorado’s more than 270 cities, about 185 have not opted out. However, since 30 counties have opted out, the cities may not need to, said Nick Stumo-Langer, who is with the institute.
This story was updated on Nov. 8 to include results from the town of Kremmling, according to the Colorado Municipal League.
Followers of Intelligent Assistance (#IA) and Conversational Commerce (#ConvComm) take note. During Dreamforce (the annual Love Fest for Salesforce’s customers, partners and analysts) the company showcased new products and services that will reverberate throughout the highly volatile #IA Ecosystem.
A series of case studies and product demos demonstrated how myEinstein with the help of a resource called myLightning has enabled Salesforce customers (in this case T-Mobile and Adidas) to power conversational user interfaces for their customers through Web pages, mobile apps or chat platforms that are emblazoned with their own branding and trademarks. As a big point of differentiation, Salesforce spokespeople claim that this can all be done “with clicks, not code,” meaning that the product is targeted to be put to into practice by business unit employees, rather than programmers or developers from the IT department or 3rd parties.
The power of this approach is self-evident. Brands are able to introduce new AI-infused chatbots or virtual agents based on a centralized resources with business logic and data from a multiplicity of sources. As one of the directors of product management for Einstein explained to me, “We don’t decide how our customers’ customers talk to them.” That’s a powerful value proposition.
Last year, Einstein was already one of the major star of Dreamforce. As we noted at the time, it was designed to serve as a ubiquitous “intelligent assistant that provides a customized view of the world to each Salesforce customer or sales rep.” Well, during the intervening year, it looks like the product development folks have been true to their word, and then some. Certainly more pieces have to be put into place, but with likes of Adidas showing how it was able to use the Krux Data Management Platform (DMP) in conjunction with myEinstein and myLightning in order to deliver highly personalized products and services to their customers, the era of omnichannel IA seems that much closer.
Yet, Salesforce can’t expect its competitors in #ConvComm to lay fallow during its Big Show. Facebook, for one, showed its own innovative way to embed Messenger-based chat and chatbots into Web sites, mobile phones and tablets). These plug-ins and related development tools are part of the release of Messenger Platform 2.2. The plug-ins are not generally available yet but is already in use by a beta community that includes: Adore Me, Air France, Argos, Aviva (Eurofil), Bodeaz, Elves, Goibibo, Keto Mojo, KLM, Mermaid Pillow, Spoqa, Total Activation, Volaris and Zalando.
Industry Significance: IA Within Reach
Solutions providers are well aware that they are creating a highly fragmented distribution chain, especially at the Conversational User Interface level. The most sophisticated brand marketers know that they want to cultivate and maintain a “single source of Truth” about their customers, products, promotional offerings, and the like. Salesforce’s approach is powerful for two reasons. The “Clicks not Code” approach democratizes a brand’s ability to support multiple devices and modalities without relying on expensive professional services. In addition, as Adidas demonstrated, the highly-dynamic data that is brought to bear to answer questions or fulfill an order can be under the brand’s control or housed in a centralized DMP.
Beyond that, enterprise decision makers have to be impressed by the speed at which new AI-infused solutions are being developed and brought to market. The speed of technology refresh is staggering and the tools for development and testing of new user interfaces, analysis and reporting of results and ongoing training (both with machine learning and human intervention) are getting to be comprehensible and accessible to a broad spectrum of employees… not just developers. This “democratization of AI” is a big step toward mass deployment of IA.
Apple was valued at over $900 billion after markets closed on Wednesday. The next closest company, Google parent Alphabet, is valued at $728 billion.
Apple stock is up 52.6% in 2017.
The world's most valuable company just broke a new record.
Apple shares finished regular trading at $176.24 on Wednesday, up less than 1% but crowning the company with a jaw-dropping market cap of $904 billion. It's the first time that Apple has been valued at over $900 billion at the end of a day of trading, although the company has crossed the mark in intraday trading before.
The next closest company — Alphabet — has a market cap of $728 billion.
Apple has had a very good few months. It's stock is up 52.6% in 2017 so far, and it recently released a sales forecast for its holiday quarter of more than $84 billion in revenue, which would be a record for Apple.
"We're literally firing on all cylinders," Apple CEO Tim Cook said on the company's earnings call last week.
Its latest product, the iPhone X, seems to be a hit despite a high price, with supplies backordered for weeks. And Apple stands to be one of the primary beneficiaries if the Republican party passes tax reform and allows Apple to bring some of its over $200 billion in cash and securities held overseas back to the United States at a reduced rate.
The US Justice Department is voicing new concerns over the approval of AT&T and Time Warner’s massive $85 billion merger deal first announced last year. According to a a report today from Reuters, regulators are now asking AT&T to put some of its assets up for sale or to offer comparable “structural remedies” that would make the unprecedented media consolidation less of an antitrust lightning rod.
According to a pair of reports from The New York Times and Financial Times, the DOJ is pressuring AT&T to sell CNN parent company Turner Broadcasting. The DOJ remains the last barrier to the merger, as AT&T CFO John Stephens publicly announced earlier this year that all other approvals have been met. Now, AT&T is saying the deal may not close...
A small bit of good news from our lol-worthy Justice Department: federal prosecutors have decided they're no longer interested in jailing someone for laughing at the Attorney General. That isn't the entirety of the story (or the dropped charges, for that matter), so here's a little background.
Fairooz, a retired children's librarian and demonstrator affiliated with the organization Code Pink, let out a laugh during a Senate hearing back in January after Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Sessions had a “clear and well-documented” record of “treating all Americans equally under the law.” (Sessions had faced strong opposition from civil rights organizations and was rejected as a federal judge in the 1980s over concerns about his past comments on race.)
This very slight blow to Senate hearing decorum could have been ignored. Perhaps Fairooz could have been approached quietly and asked to keep her amusement to herself. Instead, a rookie Capitol police officer decided to arrest Fairooz. This led to a verbal altercation with Fairooz loudly protesting her removal from the hearing.
Desiree Fairooz, an activist associated with the organization Code Pink, was found guilty on two counts: one for engaging in “disorderly or disruptive conduct” with the intent to disrupt congressional proceedings and a separate count for parading, demonstrating or picketing.
Several jurors who spoke with HuffPost after the verdict emphasized that they were focused on Fairooz’s actions after a rookie Capitol Police officer approached Fairooz when she laughed at Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-Ala.) claim…
The jurors made this assertion post-conviction but the government appeared to believe laughter was enough of a crime in and of itself to justify pursuing a conviction. The judge disagreed.
[A] judge tossed out the jury’s conviction in July, finding that prosecutors had improperly argued during the trial that “laughter is enough, standing alone,” to merit a conviction. D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Morin said he found it “disconcerting” that the government had explicitly argued during the trial that laughter in and of itself was enough for a guilty verdict.
But there was still more prosecuting to be done, apparently. Fairooz rejected the government's offer of a plea deal, which would have required her to plead guilty to laughing at a legislator and/or disrupting the proceedings. So the government decided it would take another swing at securing a conviction. Maybe this was just a ploy to push Fairooz into an unforced error -- accepting the previously-rejected plea deal. Whatever the case, the government has now decided it's through trying to prosecute laughter.
Justice Department prosecutors have dropped their case against a woman who laughed at now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing. Desiree Fairooz was scheduled to face trial for a second time next week, but a DOJ prosecutor entered a nolle prosequi filing in the case on Monday indicating the department is dismissing the charges.
The DOJ is wise to do this. It has plenty of other ways to waste taxpayer dollars that won't so closely resemble punishing free speech. (Uh... scratch that last part.) It also would have had an uphill battle arguing its case in front a judge who already determined Fairooz's laughter couldn't be used as part of the prosecution's case. And if the laughter couldn't be used to justify the officer's arrest and removal of Fairooz, then it would be extremely difficult to claim the ensuing disruption was itself a criminal act. The hasty decision of a rookie Capitol cop pretty much defeats that line of reasoning by tainting the arrest itself. With nowhere else to go and faced with an arrestee unwilling to cave, the DOJ has decided to exit this debacle as gracefully as possible.
McDonald's is supposed to replace its ice cream machines with a new model that fixes problems.
For years, McDonald's customers have complained about the chain's often broken ice cream machines.
Now, one woman has taken matters into her own hands.
A free app called "Ice Check" allows users to check and see which nearby McDonald's have functioning ice cream machines.
The app relies on users to mark machines as "on" or "off" in the app when they visit McDonald's, saving others the annoyance of showing up to a McDonald's craving a McFlurry, only to find the ice cream machine "broken."
"I came up with the idea for the app around a year ago, after a late night Oreo McFlurry craving went unfulfilled due to the ice cream machine being down," Raina McLeod, the creator of the app, told BuzzFeed.
News broke that McDonald's would its ice cream machines across the US earlier this year, awakening hope that the fast-food giant would finally be able to reliably serve up late-night McFlurries across the US.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the old machines require a nightly cleaning cycle that can last four hours. When machines are being cleaned, they can't serve ice cream.
The new machines are supposed to fix that problem. However, a McDonald's representative confirmed to Business Insider on Tuesday that the chain still hadn't rolled out the new machines in stores — making the app even more necessary.
We've noted for years how giant ISPs have literally written and purchased protectionist laws in more than twenty states restricting towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. Many of these laws even go so far as to restrict these towns from striking public/private partnerships with companies like Google Fiber, often one of the only options for areas incumbent ISPs have declared not-profitable enough to serve. In this way giant ISPs get their cake and eat it too: they don't have to expand service, but make sure nobody else can either.
Colorado's SB 152 is one such law. SB 152 was a 2005 product of lobbying from Comcast and CenturyLink, and required communities jump through numerous hoops should they want to simply make decisions regarding their own, local infrastructure. Like all such laws the ISP pretense was that they were simply looking to protect taxpayers from financial irresponsibility (an idea often lacking in ISPs' daily business efforts), though it's abundantly clear the real goal was to prop up and protect the dysfunctional broadband duopoly status quo from anything vaguely resembling change or competition.
However, over the last few years ballot initiatives have allowed several Colorado communities like Boulder, Montrose, and Centennial to take back their right to determine their infrastructure needs for themselves and ignore the restrictions SB 152 imposes. Rather unsurprisingly, residents angry at substandard service from the likes of Comcast have been overwhelmingly opting out of the restrictive state law. Again -- not because they think building a network will be fun -- but because they're so disgusted by incumbent service they feel they have no other option.
Fort Collins is the latest city to this week vote on opting out of SB 152. To be clear: opting out of the law's restrictions only opens the door to the possibility of building a network or striking public/private partnerships. But the incumbent ISPs like Comcast that bought the law have spent more than $200,000 to prevent that conversation from even happening:
"Politics is an expensive game, but when an oligopoly is at stake, there's no price tag too high for Big Telecom. In Fort Collins, Colorado—a town of about 150,000 north of Denver—Big Telecom has contributed more than $200,000 to a campaign opposing a ballot measure to simply consider a city-run broadband network. It's the latest example of how far Big Telecom is willing to go to prevent communities from building their own internet and competing with the status quo.
"It's been wild," said Glen Akins, a Fort Collins advocate for municipal broadband. "We're overwhelmed by the amount of money the opposition is spending."
That spending, which is breaking local records, has included TV spots -- funded by an ISP policy front group -- that make numerous, misleading arguments about what locals are actually voting on. The ads try to conflate being allowed to have a conversation about the idea with actually moving forward with a plan. The ads also falsely claim that if the city of 150,000 moves forward with such a project, road repair, affordable housing, and other priorities in the city would suffer (also not true since the project would be funded by service revenues and utility bonds that couldn't be used for these other services):
What's Comcast so afraid of? The idea of city-owned or public/private partnerships have opened the door to open access networks in many cities, where ISPs come in and actually compete over core infrastructure. Like Ammon, Idaho, for example, where users can switch between multiple ISPs in seconds if they're not getting the speeds, prices or customer service they'd prefer. Actual competition obviously would mean a notable erosion in Comcast revenues:
"Evidence from other cities suggests that a real choice in broadband services could reduce Comcast's revenues by millions of dollars per month," the group, which advocates for municipal broadband projects, wrote in a policy brief. "Competition in Fort Collins would cost Comcast between $5.4 million and $22.8 million per year. In Seattle, robust competition would cost between $20 million and $84 million per year."
It's worth repeating that Comcast could prevent towns and cities from going this route by simply offering better service and lower prices. But in a country where incumbent telecom companies all but own state legislatures (as we just saw in Michigan), it's often much less expensive to write and purchase a law. Or in this case, spend half a million dollars to mislead consumers, preventing them from even having a conversation about creative paths toward better, faster, cheaper broadband.
The company is paying roughly $2 for every compromised record, but under the EU's looming GDPR regulations, it would be paying $1,200 per record, Digital Guardian reports.
Salesforce announced a partnership with Google Cloud to help bring its service to new clients abroad.
It's a big blow to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which was previously Salesforce's main cloud provider.
AWS will still work with Salesforce, but now Google is taking some of its territory.
Salesforce's tight relationship with Amazon Web Service (AWS) just got a little less cozy. On Monday, Salesforce announced that it will add Google Cloud as a second preferred cloud provider.
Salesforce said it will keep working with AWS, though Google Cloud will provide services for Salesforce as it prepares to expand internationally.
The partnership is a big win for Diane Greene, the head of Google Cloud, who was acqui-hired in late 2015 to help transform Google into a major influencer in enterprise technology. Google remains number three in the ongoing cloud wars, which is led by AWS, and followed closely by Microsoft Azure.
Google made clear on its earnings call last month that it's taking its cloud business seriously. The company increased its headcount by 2,495 people last quarter, and most of those new hires are in technical and sales jobs in its cloud business.
In addition to cloud storage, Salesforce and Google will collaborate on integrations across Salesforce's customer relationship management software and G Suite, Google's set of cloud-based office tools like documents and spreadsheets.
Among the new features, customers can move records and reports from Salesforce onto a Google spreadsheet with the click of a button. The Salesforce tool that can pick out which customer inquiries are most high priority will also be integrated with the email service Gmail, to highlight which emails are most important. Those emails can also be imported into the Salesforce interface.
Google, for its part, will continue using Salesforce's software internally to manage its sales relationships.
T-Mobile boasts more loyal customers than any of the other Big Four telecoms, according to BI Intelligence's exclusive Digital Telecom Consumer survey.
In fact, almost a quarter of T-Mobile's subscriber base said they wouldn't switch mobile carriers for anything. Customer loyalty among the three other big US telecoms is low in comparison:
AT&T's and Verizon's customer bases aren't nearly as loyal T-Mobile's. Only 16% of AT&T subscribers said they wouldn’t switch on account of competing features. And an almost equal share of Verizon's customers expressed the same sentiment — 15% said they wouldn't switch.
Sprint ranked worst for customer loyalty among the Big Four. Only 7% of Sprint's wireless subscribers said they wouldn't switch carriers for anything.
The results are a huge win for T-Mobile — customer loyalty matters to US telecoms now more now than ever, for several reasons:
US smartphone penetration is approaching saturation, causing mobile carriers to fight over each other’s subscribers. About 95% of Americans own a cell phone and 77% own a smartphone, according to Pew Research, making new subscribers a rare commodity.
To win that fight, mobile carriers are engaging in a price war, which is compressing margins — and making customer volume more important than ever. Average revenue per user across the Big Four dropped to $45 in Q1 2017, from $49 in Q1 2014. To remain profitable, carriers need to maintain or grow their customer base.
The end of the two-year contract has made it easier for consumers to switch providers. Consumers have long been tethered to their carriers via contracts — being able to switch carriers quickly and without penalty makes loyal customers especially valuable for telecoms.
But a more loyal customer base can only go so far in protecting T-Mobile from aggressive competition. Forty-two percent of T-Mobile subscribers said they'd switch to a provider that offered better coverage where they live. This is higher than both AT&T and Verizon.
BI Intelligence’s Digital Telecom Consumer survey examines consumers’ preferences and ratings of the major US telecoms and the features they provide. It rates Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, and other mobile carriers on loyalty and user experience, and it looks at consumers' real must-haves. The full report will be available to BI Intelligence enterprise clients in October. To get access to this report the moment it becomes available, email Matt Jackson (mjackson@businessinsider.com).
Financial bubbles are often fully recognizable only after they burst — when it's too late. But the speed of bitcoin's rise has already convinced many that its price is well disconnected from its underlying value.
Bitcoin's price has rocketed 646% in very volatile trading this year as its demand and popularity has grown. As the chart above from Bespoke Investment Group illustrates, the rally has been faster than most other severe bubbles in recent history, including tech and homebuilder stocks.
But there's a key difference between bitcoin's rally now and home prices, for example: The fallout from a potential bitcoin price crash is unlikely to damage the broader economy.
Bitcoin traded down 1.8%, or $136, at about $7,227 against the US dollar at 10:50 a.m. on Monday.
Tom Lee, the co-founder of Fundstrat and one of the earliest and most prominent Wall Street voices to make a bullish bitcoin call, said he was "cautious short-term."
Bitcoin’s price jumped past Fundstrat’s 2018 target of $6,000 late in October. It continued to soar after CME Group, a leading marketplace for derivatives, said it planned to launch bitcoin futures by the fourth quarter.
Koenigsegg's Agera RS became the world's fastest production car this weekend, hitting an average speed of 277.9 mph over two runs, and a top speed of 284.55 mph.
It broke the previous record of 267.9 mph set by Bugatti's Veyron Super Sport in 2010.
Hennessey is claiming its new Venom F5 may be able to break 300 mph.
Swedish car maker Koenigsegg broke the record for the world's fastest production car (which means that the car is sold to consumers and legal to drive on public roads) on Saturday with its Agera RS, which hit an average speed of 277.9 mph during two runs on a closed, 11-mile stretch of highway in Nevada, according to Top Gear. The car beat the previous record of 267.8 mph, set by Bugatti's Veyron Super Sport in 2010.
You can watch Koenigsegg's record-breaking run, courtesy of Racelogic, below.
But that's not the only record the Agera RS has broken. In addition to hitting a maximum speed of 284.55 mph on its first run, which topped the previous best of 270.40 mph by the Hennessey Venom GT, it also recently posted the fastest time from 0 to 249 mph, doing so in 36.44 seconds, 5.52 seconds than the previous record of 41.96 seconds, set by the Bugatti Chiron.
Koenigsegg's records may not be safe for long, as Hennessey is claiming that its new Venom F5 may be able to approach 300 mph. While the company has yet to test that claim, there are concerns that tires available to consumers would not be able handle that speed without becoming damaged.
Motorola’s Alexa speaker Moto Mod for its Moto Z phones — officially known as the Moto Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa — will be available for preorders starting on November 7th for $149.99. The attachment will be available a week later on BestBuy.com and Motorola.com, starting November 13th, and will come to Verizon a few days after that on the 16th.
As noted when Motorola first announced the Moto Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa, it’s worth remembering that you can just buy an actual Amazon Echo for $99 (or a $129 Echo Spot, or a $149 Echo Plus), and get a device with better microphones, a larger speaker, and compatibility with more than just a handful of Motorola phones.
In the end it wasn't regulators, but giant international egos that derailed Sprint's latest attempt to acquire T-Mobile. As last week's rumors had suggested, T-Mobile owner Deustche Telecom and Sprint majority owner Softbank couldn't agree on terms of the latest attempted megamerger, formally calling off the deal over the weekend. At issue, apparently, was the fact that T-Mobile wanted greater control over the merged company in the wake of the deal. Company executives wanted to keep T-Mobile's momentum, which has resulted in bigger net subscriber gains per quarter than any other U.S. carrier, intact.
The failure is good news for consumers, employees, and business customers alike. Wall Street had estimated that the deal would have killed between 10,00 and 30,000 jobs -- potentially more positions that Sprint currently even has. Telecom history suggests that the reduction of major competitors from four to three would have also had a profoundly-negative impact on overall competition (go ask a Canadian). As a result users not only likely would have seen higher rates, but the end of the recent resurgence in unlimited data plans -- only made possible by T-Mobile's competitive disruption of the market.
In a joint statement, the two companies pay a little empty lip service to the supposed "consumer benefits" of the deal, before promising to get back to upgrading their networks and competing:
"The prospect of combining with Sprint has been compelling for a variety of reasons, including the potential to create significant benefits for consumers and value for shareholders. However, we have been clear all along that a deal with anyone will have to result in superior long-term value for T-Mobile’s shareholders compared to our outstanding stand-alone performance and track record,” said John Legere, President and CEO of T-Mobile US, Inc. “Going forward, T-Mobile will continue disrupting this industry and bringing our proven Un-carrier strategy to more customers and new categories – ultimately redefining the mobile Internet as we know it. We’ve been out-growing this industry for the last 15 quarters, delivering outstanding value for shareholders, and driving significant change across wireless. We won’t stop now.”
The death of the deal is perhaps extra good news for T-Mobile CEO John Legere. Legere has spent the last few years fashioning himself as a massive consumer ally (except for that whole opposing net neutrality and mocking the EFF thing), dropping F-bombs, and making fun of AT&T and Verizon. Selling consumers on a deal all-but guaranteed to devastate sector jobs and price competition would have required some PR acrobatics that challenge the laws of physics.
The death of the deal is ironic, given that Sprint will not likely have a better chance at getting regulatory approval. Softbank and Sprint spent the better part of the year buttering up the Trump administration, going so far as to let Trump take credit for Softbank job promises he not only had absolutely nothing to do with, but which were announced months before Trump even became President. Given the rubber stamp nature of the current FCC, the chances of regulators doing the right thing and stopping the job and competition-killing deal were far from certain.
Fortunately for consumers, fussy international egos derailed the deal before regulators had a chance to downplay how bad a deal it actually was. Sprint can now turn its focus toward striking deals with other companies like Altice and Charter; deals that won't erode the overall level of competition in the wireless sector.
In October, home device maker Ring unveiled a new security system called Ring Protect, designed to tie together a home’s cameras, lights, and doorbells. Last week, a judge ordered Ring to stop selling products at the center of an ongoing lawsuit brought by security company ADT, pending its resolution.
Earlier this year, ADT filed a lawsuit against Ring, alleging that the company misused proprietary information that it received when it acquired another home device maker, Zonoff, when that company went under earlier this year. Ring hired around 75 employees from the defunct company, including its CEO, Mike Harris. In its lawsuit, ADT — which invested $36 million in Zonoff — alleges that Harris and Ring used Zonoff’s Z1 software in its...
Japan has risen above the U.S. in the worldwide rankings for the largest bitcoinexchange market. The country now accounts for roughly 48 percent of the global market share, reaching a high of 51 percent over the weekend. This is thanks in no small part to the Chinese government’s recent rulings on the cryptocurrency. The nation […]
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made an undisclosed appearance before a group of elite US Marines and their spouses.
Musk delivered a motivational speech and discussed lessons he's learned as an entrepreneur.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a welcomed appearance at the 1st Marine Raider Battalion Ball and delivered a sobering speech that took many US Marines by surprise last Friday.
The 1st Marine Raider Battalion out of Camp Pendleton, California, is comprised of elite Marines under the command of Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC), the Marine Corps' expeditionary force that typically operates in austere conditions.
Musk was invited to the event as a guest of honor because the Raiders wanted an "equally innovative" keynote speaker to honor the battalion on its birthday, a former Marine Raider commander who asked not to be named, told Business Insider. Around 400 people attended, including World War II veterans and Gold Star family members, the Marine Raider said.
Much like the secrecy of the Marine Raiders' operations, Musk's appearance at the event was closed to the press and kept low-key in order to "avoid a media frenzy," the Marine Raider said.
Like other branches of the military, formal military events are steeped in deep tradition. The Marine Corps, however, pride themselves in being a distinct group from the other branches, and their customs were reportedly noticed by Musk.
"You can tell he was a little nervous," said Joe Musselman, the CEO of The Honor Foundation. "He was walking alongside the commanding officer of the 1st Raider Marine Battalion. You have this polished officer who's walking in step to very traditional music."
Musselman was invited to the event as the CEO of an organization that supports veterans.
As the Marine Raiders brought out a celebratory cake, the commanding officer of the battalion reportedly drew a sword.
"Elon kind of stepped back like, 'Whoa, what's going on. Why did you draw your sword at me,'" Musselman said.
The officer proceeded to serve Musk with the first piece of cake, using his sword to set it onto Musk's plate.
"That's intimidating for any person," Musselman said. "A Marine Raider just served [Musk] a piece of cake off his sword. I don't know if that was necessary in the scripts or the notes for Elon to review beforehand."
'The whole room, you could've heard a pin drop.'
As the guest of honor, Musk reportedly delivered the opening statement that appeared to make an impact to the group of elite Marines.
"I will never forget it; it set the tone for his entire talk," Musselman said. "He said, 'I wanted to come and speak to this group,' and I get the chills even saying it, 'Because whenever there's danger in the world, you all are the first to go and die."
Musk continued to say he had a great amount of respect for their service to the country, according to Musselman.
"And the whole room, you could've heard a pin drop," Musselman said. "When he said that, the way he said it, it wasn't prepared, there was no script. He was genuinely looking up in the air to find the words to say 'Thank you for doing this for our country.'"
Following the speech, Musk offered some lessons he's learned throughout his career in the Silicon Valley. One particular lesson he reportedly said was to always question authority — a trait that could be seen as counterintuitive to the military's doctrine of strict obedience.
One Marine was said to have made light of the discrepancy, shouting, "You're in the wrong room for that, sir," and drew a few laughs.
Musk went on to discuss his companies' involvement in the veteran community and emphasized Silicon Valley's need for leadership and talent from veterans.
"It was quite a treat for us to have Mr. Musk," the former Marine Raider commander said, "He [recognized] Marines and sailors would be one of the first ones in harms way."
MARSOC, a relatively new command compared to other special operations groups, was founded in 2006 to integrate Marines into the special operations community. Although media coverage of the special operations forces have largely centered on Navy SEALS and Green Berets, MARSOC Raiders have proven itself as a capable special operations force and screens its applicants as rigorously as other branches — with around 120 applicants graduating from its individual training course each year.
From medical imaging to cotton weeding, niche use cases of AI and ML abound. But for the average company struggling to keep up with digital transformation, the tech is still far out of reach.
Followers of Intelligent Assistance (#IA) and Conversational Commerce (#ConvComm) take note. During Dreamforce (the annual Love Fest for Salesforce’s customers, partners and analysts) the company showcased new products and services that will reverberate throughout the highly volatile #IA Ecosystem.
"I came up with the idea for the app around a year ago, after a late night Oreo McFlurry craving went unfulfilled due to the ice cream machine being down," Raina McLeod, the creator of the app, told BuzzFeed.
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