Davemichels

By Beth Schultz
Announcements from company's annual user and partner conference focus on integrations and expanding global support.

• There's a nasty new strain of ransomware spreading in Europe called "Bad Rabbit."
• It encrypts victims' files and demands hundreds of dollars to release them.
• It spreads by pretending to be a Flash update, and is full of hidden "Game of Thrones" references.

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If you get a prompt to update Adobe Flash while browsing online any time soon — be careful.

A new strain of ransomware dubbed "Bad Rabbit" is spreading in Europe, tricking victims into installing it by pretending to be a software update.

According to researchers from security firm Kaspersky, the majority of targets thus far have been in Russia, but it has also infected people in Germany, Ukraine, and Turkey.

ESET, another security company, has also spotted it in Bulgaria, Japan, and elsewhere.

For the unfamiliar, ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts a victim's data and refuses to release it unless they pay a ransom, typically in digital currency bitcoin.

BadRabbit asks for a 0.05 bitcoin bounty — around $280, or £213.

Here's the message that infected victims are seeing:

And this is the website they're directed to in order to pay to get their files back:

Per Kaspersky, multiple media outlets have been hit by the attack, including Interfax news agency and Fontanka.ru, and their websites are being used to spread the malware, while ESET adds that a Ukrainian airport and the Kiev Metro has also been affected.

The security firms say the malware is similar to Petya, which hit dozens of countries earlier in 2017.

It's not yet clear who's behind Bad Rabbit — but they seem to be a fan of "Game of Thrones." It contains references to the hit HBO fantasy show, including "Drogon" and "Rhaegal" (two of Daenerys Targaryen's dragons) and "GrayWorm" (the dragon queen's commander).

Kaspersky recommends that people do not pay the ransom and back up data — meaning if they are infected (by this or anything else), they can simply wipe and restore.

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NOW WATCH: Google Pixel 2 vs iPhone X: The biggest differences between the two

• Millennials are far more comfortable discussing how much they make than baby boomers, a new survey finds.
• The findings hold across discussions between friends, family members, and coworkers.
• Employers are taking their preferences to heart and making pay more transparent.

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The talkative youngsters of the office are using their voices to make the workplace more equal.

According to a survey conducted by The Cashlorette, a personal finance site run by Bankrate, people 18 to 36 years old are far more comfortable discussing their salaries with coworkers, friends, and family than workers in older generations.

This preference for pay transparency has resulted in a number of companies amending their policies to encourage people to speak up when they think something is amiss in how they or others get paid.

The Cashlorette's survey found 30% of millennials feel comfortable discussing pay with their coworkers; meanwhile, just 8% of those aged 53 to 71 felt the same. Millennials also discussed pay more with their family and friends.

"Pay and promotions are not secretive topics anymore," Mary Ann Sardone, a consultant who deals with compensation issues at large employers, told The Wall Street Journal.

Unlike baby boomers who could generally afford to pay for college by working part-time jobs, many millennials are saddled with thousands, if not tens of thousands, in college loan debt. Roughly 70% of the 2014 graduating class left college with debt, one report showed, and the rates are growing.

The prevailing attitude among the age group seems to be less that pay should be competitive and more that it should be collaborative — people are often in the same boat, and feel compelled to help one another out.

"I share my salary with friends who I know make a similar salary, mostly to discuss how they make a budget work with this particular income," Meredith Hirt, a 26-year-old working in marketing, told The Cashlorette.

Employers have taken notice. As workforces have started to skew younger, a growing number of companies are deciding to make their pay transparent to all employees.

At SumAll, a marketing and analytics company, CEO Dane Atkinson decided after founding the company in 2012 that payroll information ought to be freely available. Employees can consult an internal Google Doc that lists everyone else's salary.

Atkinson has said the move levels the playing field in two ways: First, it helps people understand how their role fits into the company's priorities. Second, it lets people who think they're paid unfairly voice a concern that could result in a raise.

"It's kind of crazy that in America, which is founded on this capitalistic vision of meritocracy, that we've obfuscated one of the core components of it," Atkinson told Business Insider in May.

At the social media company Buffer, transparency is taken to an even greater extreme. Employee salaries are treated like those of public officials: Anyone in the world can look them up. The database also includes the formula Buffer uses to calculate people's pay, which incorporates factors like role, experience, loyalty to the company, and stock options.

On a legal level, too, pay transparency is gaining ground. New York and Massachusetts have new state laws that bar employers from asking job candidates about their salary history. Philadelphia and New Orleans have enacted similar laws on a city level. Legal experts say the laws will go a long way toward forcing companies to be forthright with what they can pay people, instead of basing a figure on someone's past income.

Along with casual dining and napkins, the salary discussion taboo could soon become the latest thing millennials have killed.

SEE ALSO: A 40-year study of teens finds Generation Z avoids sex, alcohol, and driving at record rates

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NOW WATCH: MongoDB soars 33% on its first day of trading — the CEO explains how they plan to beat Oracle and Amazon

• On Tuesday, Microsoft announced it had discontinued the USB adapter for the Kinect sensor, a pioneering motion-sensing accessory line for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One that sold almost 30 million units in its lifetime.
• Microsoft had discontinued the Kinect sensor itself in the Fall of 2017.
• The Kinect was a huge bet for Microsoft, but it didn't pay off — the technology wasn't quite reliable enough, the games weren't as good as they could be, and the novelty wore off.
• The death of the Kinect has been a long time coming, with Microsoft removing the Kinect port from its most recent model of Xbox One consoles.

On Tuesday, Polygon reported that Microsoft had killed the USB adapter for the ahead-of-its-time motion sensor for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. That adapter let the Kinect work with the modern Xbox One S and Xbox One X models, as well as Windows PCs. Microsoft had officially discontinued manufacture of the Kinect sensor itself in the Fall of 2017. 

Back in 2015, we took a deep look at the history of the Kinect and its downfall. The story below was originally published on September 8th, 2015, now updated to reflect current facts.

When the Kinect for Xbox 360 was first demonstrated in June 2009, it looked like the future of technology.

By tracking your body with an advanced infrared camera, sensors, and a microphone, the $150 Kinect accessory let you control games and media using just your body and voice.

But then, after Microsoft sold about 29 million of them for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, it just kind of faded away. 

Even Microsoft appears to have given up on it — the Xbox One originally required Kinect to function, but Microsoft dropped that requirement last year.

There are only a handful of Kinect games available for the Xbox One. And the current-model Xbox One S, and the forthcoming Xbox One X, no longer have the correct port to directly plug in a Kinect — you need an optional $40 adapter. 

What happened?

It looked like the future

The goal of Kinect was to broaden the Xbox 360 console's appeal beyond who you would typically think of as "gamers." Instead of playing games with intimidating and complicated controllers, you just had to move.

The Xbox 360 had been selling well since its 2005 introduction, but now needed something to set itself apart, as the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii were providing stiff competition.

The Kinect was intended to be a shot in the arm, extending the Xbox 360's appeal and providing a new platform for games and content that could take it into the future. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Shane Kim once claimed that the Kinect would mean that the Xbox 360 could stay on the market through 2015.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer even tellingly referred to the Kinect as a "new Xbox" in one presentation.

At first, everything looked like it was going according to plan.

The Kinect launched with tons of fanfare — and a $500 million marketing budget — November 4, 2010, with the tagline "You Are the Controller." Oprah Winfrey even gave away Xbox 360s and Kinects on an episode of her show.

You could either buy it separately for $150 or with an Xbox 360 in bundles starting at $299. The Xbox 360 interface itself was given a revamp to be more Kinect-friendly.

The press, especially the non-gaming mainstream media, ate it up and gave the Kinect glowing reviews. And within 60 days, Microsoft sold 8 million Kinects, earning it the Guinness World Record of "fastest-selling consumer device."

Developers started to line up to make games for the device, too, with 17 available at launch, including "Kinect Adventures," a Microsoft-made game that came packaged with the Kinect sensor.

Most of those games were panned by reviewers: "Critics are complaining about a lack of solid launch titles for the new control system; only 'Dance Central' seems to have anything to recommend it," said a Metacritic roundup of launch titles at the time.

But people realized it was new technology, and they were willing to give it time. Even when people noticed that you needed a lot of space to make good use of the Kinect sensor, nobody seemed to mind moving their furniture.

At least, not at first.

Problem #1: Not enough great games

A slow but steady trickle of Kinect games came out over the following months, but a lot of them fell into the "family entertainment" or "fitness trainer" veins, far from the core gamer demographic that made up most of the Xbox 360-owning audience.

Worse, a lot of the titles got poor reviews, alienating those many who bought an Xbox 360 just to play Kinect games.

Microsoft convinced a lot of larger publishers of marquee franchise games to integrate Kinect features into their gameplay, but they were largely gimmicky — I'll never forget the time my friend got a red card in "FIFA 15" soccer for the Xbox 360 because the Kinect's microphone caught him swearing.

We asked a former Xbox insider familiar with the development of the Kinect why it was so hard to find any good games that did cool things with the sensor.

The simple answer is that the best of the best developers simply weren't interested because they had invested so much in making their existing, lucrative, big-budget franchises work frighteningly well with a traditional controller.

"'Halo' doesn’t need Kinect — it has an incredibly precise and detailed control set, and further, can’t give a Kinect user an unfair advantage over non-Kinect owners," the former Xbox insider says.

In other words, even if top-tier developers thought it was cool, they weren't going to blow the time and budget to make it work with their existing games.

Plus, you didn't need a Kinect to play those games, so many players likely didn't even know there was any integration in those games at all.

At the same time, circa the early 2010s, those developers who were best suited to creating really new, innovative games for non-gaming crowds were starting to shift their efforts toward the iPhone and Android platforms, where there was cash and a rapidly growing audience to be found, the insider says.

Problem #2: "85% magic, 15% frustrating"

The Kinect also introduced voice commands and a gesture interface to the Xbox 360 itself. You could pause a movie with your voice, or log in to your account on the console by standing in front of the camera.

But as cool as that all sounded, the Kinect was still a new technology, and there were some glitches with those cool new interface tricks.

"It does do magic, but only 85% correctly. When you encounter the 15%, it’s frustrating," the former Xbox insider said.

Serious gamers care about precise movements, like landing a perfect Super Combo in "Street Fighter IV" or nailing a headshot in "Call of Duty." Similarly, if you have voice controls for a movie, it had better work the first time, or else you're just shouting "pause" at your TV over and over.

In both cases, it wasn't quite the totally accurate experience that people wanted.

"It’s essentially a less precise replacement for a lot of things which, once the novelty wears off, is not valued by the market. So it’s real value is for new experiences impossible before without it. There isn’t enough interest or investment in those," the ex-insider says.

Problem #3: It required a lot of space.

Worse, the longer people used Kinect, the more they found places and situations where it just fell short and didn't work as well as it should have.

In my apartment, playing a Kinect game requires moving furniture around to give the sensor the field of view that it needs to work well. It's a big problem for lots of gamers, since you need 6 to 10 feet between you and the sensor.

Try playing that in a dorm room or small apartment.

"I'd be surprised if even 20% of rooms with Xboxes 'work well' for the really new/fun experiences," the former Xbox insider says.

Meanwhile, you can sit on a couch in a room of any size and play a more traditional video game.

A second push with the Xbox One

Despite these pros, Kinect adoption was fairly strong, at least partially because Microsoft was pushing it as part of those bundles with the wildly popular Xbox 360 console.

But not every Xbox 360 owner took the plunge: In January 2012, Microsoft announced that it had sold 18 million Kinects versus 66 million total Xbox 360 consoles.

A year after later, in February 2013, Microsoft Xbox community relations head Larry Hryb announced on Twitter that the company had sold 24 million Kinects for 76-million-plus Xbox 360 consoles, which suggests — but doesn't prove — that most of them were sold bundled with the console.

Microsoft wasn't ready to give up on the Kinect just yet, though.

When the Xbox One was first introduced in November 2013, Microsoft made the shocking announcement that the new console would come with and require a new version of the Kinect sensor. That meant the Xbox One would cost $499 versus the competing Sony PlayStation 4's $399 price tag.

In exchange for the $100 premium over the competition, Microsoft promised that the new system would provide an unprecedented user experience, including immersive games and television shows that you could actually interact with. Plus, it shipped with Bing-powered search and the Internet Explorer browser preinstalled.

For Microsoft, it was all part of its long-time ambition to place a computer in the living room. With the Kinect, Microsoft thought it had made a user-friendly multimedia hub with a natural interface that anybody could use for both games and media.

The Xbox One's core gamer demographic hated the idea. When the Xbox One hit the market in November 2013, it was quickly outsold by the cheaper PlayStation 4 for months after its launch. At one point, the PlayStation 4 outsold the Xbox One at a factor of 3 to 1. That early lead means PlayStation 4 still dominates the Xbox One in sales.

Microsoft refused to relent and doubled down on its message that the Kinect was the future.

That message was undercut by the fact that the Xbox One only launched with one game that needed the Kinect: The incredibly, poorly reviewed "Fighter Within," with a 23% average on review aggregation site Metacritic.

Furthermore, the actual Kinect for Xbox One sensor itself turned out to only be a minor improvement on the first, with some new, but still gimmicky, integrations with the interface. For instance, you could take a screenshot in a game by asking the Kinect, nicely, to do so.

The final retreat

In April 2014, the flagship "Kinect Sports Rivals" came out for the Xbox One. Published by Microsoft, it was going to be a big, if belated, showcase for what the new Kinect could do. It was a big bet for the company, with a team of 150 working on the title.

Instead, it ended up wildly underselling, ultimately getting written off as a massive loss that led to layoffs at developer studio Rare, according to reports at the time.

In May 2014, Microsoft finally relented on its insistence on the Kinect sensor and announced that it would sell a version of the Xbox One console without it for $399 — recently marked down again to $349. You can still buy a Kinect bundled with the Xbox One system for $499 or by itself for $150.

The move has significantly helped Xbox One's sales, and the gap between it and the leading Sony PlayStation 4 is getting smaller by the quarter.

But it meant that the estimated 5 million Xbox One owners who had bought their console before the Kinect unbundling were stuck with an accessory they didn't necessarily want in the first place. Meanwhile, only a handful of games support Kinect for Xbox One at all, and of those only a few received decent reviews.

And with the novelty gone after the first generation of Kinect for Xbox 360, even the most optimistic Xbox fans were out of patience with the device.

"Microsoft has only itself to blame for Kinect's failure," said a headline on Microsoft news site Neowin in May 2014.

The gloves were off.

The article's author noted that no new big flagship games had been announced for the Kinect for Xbox One — not even from Microsoft itself. That remained true for the rest of the lifetime of the Kinect.

In addition, Microsoft actually closed the TV studio it had opened to provide interactive TV content with Kinect in October 2014. In 2016, with the release of the Xbox One S, Microsoft removed the built-in Kinect port, requiring users to use an external USB adapter. That adapter was, in turn, officially discontinued at the end of 2017.

In other words, it really seems like Kinect had been swept under a rug, even before the official discontinuation.

Not game over

There's an interesting coda here: The Kinect has found a strange second life outside gaming.

Its nifty motion-tracking tech has a ton of other applications. In 2010, Adafruit CEO Limor Fried released a set of unofficial drivers to make the Kinect for Xbox 360 work with Windows — which allegedly annoyed Microsoft at first, but they came around and released an official version down the line.

From there, artists and robotics hobbyists started working the Kinect into all kinds of projects, Fried tells Business Insider.

This bizarre "PomPom Mirror" art piece uses a Kinect to match your motion, for example:

Elements of the Kinect made it into Windows itself: Windows Hello, the facial recognition system built into select Windows 10 PCs, uses similar infrared-tracking technology as the Kinect to work.

In short, with 23 million Kinects sold for the Xbox 360, and at least 5 million Xbox Ones sold that included the sensor, it's a little funny, and a little sad, that Microsoft couldn't make it work as the future of gaming.

But at least it's getting good use somewhere.

And when the Microsoft HoloLens, its futuristic wearable computer, comes out with a consumer version down the line, it's going to face a lot of the same problems with finding a niche. Notably, Kinect's product lead, Alex Kipman, is also responsible for the HoloLens.

But where Kinect led with gaming, Microsoft is being careful to reaffirm that the HoloLens has lots of commercial applications for business users, even as it shows off holographic "Minecraft" demos. 

Microsoft has become wary of trying to appease hardcore gamers alone, it seems.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft's cunning plan to save the Xbox from Apple

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NOW WATCH: The head of Xbox says this one product is 'critical' to the future of gaming

• Google's new iPhone rival, the Pixel 2, has been beset by problems.
• There are numerous issues reported with the Pixel 2 XL's screen, while the Pixel 2 is making weird noises.
• The company is investigating, but some reviewers are warning customers to hold off on buying the phone for now.

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On October 4, Google launched the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL — its two new high-end, iPhone-rivalling smartphones.

The two devices looked distinctive, and were initially well-reviewed. "There's no better Android phone, anywhere, than the Pixel 2," wrote Wired. It is "simply fantastic," said Trusted Reviews. "Were it not for a few issues," The Verge declared, "it might have received the highest score we've ever given a phone."

Since then, things haven't gone so well.

The new smartphones have been beset by a wave of issues, from potentially catastrophic problems with the Pixel 2 XL's screen to weird clicking noises coming from the smaller Pixel 2, delivery delays, and more.

It's an embarrassing setback for Google as it tries to establish itself as a phone maker to rival Apple and Samsung.

There are multiple issues with the Pixel 2 XL's screen

First, the screens.

There's a whole host of complaints from customers about the OLED screen in the larger Pixel 2 XL made by LG.

First, there have been numerous reports of "ghosts" of images and icons remaining on the screen of the Pixel 2 XL after they should've have disappeared (e.g. a faint residual navigation bar appearing at all times).

It's not clear if it's temporary "image retention" or far more serious "burn-in," which could necessitate replacements to be issued. Google is investigating and replacing faulty devices, but some critics are already urging customers not to buy the device until the problem has been identified.

"We're temporarily removing our score on the Pixel 2 XL," The Verge warned. "In the meantime, we can't recommend buying this phone until we can definitively say that the screen isn't permanently damaging itself within weeks of buying it."

Next up, there has been criticism of the white balance of the Pixel 2 XL's screen, as well as reports of graininess on some screens.

9to5Google also reports that there is significant "black smearing" — when blacks appear to smear across the screen while scrolling. Here's a video showing how that looks:

The Pixel 2 is clicking and whining, customers say

The Pixel 2 initially seemed to be free of the technical issues marring the 2 XL's roll-out. But now it's facing its own problems.

Dozens of users have complained in the official Google forums that their devices are making strange clicking and high-pitched whining noises.

"Whenever the phone is unlocked, I can hear a constant ticking (like the second hand of a watch) if the phone is against my ear. Doesn't happen when the screen is off, or when the screen is on but the phone is locked," one disgruntled customer wrote.

"Experiencing high pitched whirling noises when phone is up to ear in calls. Also during normal use can put phone up to my ear and hear the noise," said another.

It sounds like switching off NFC (temporarily) solves the clicking noise — but the whining is unconnected. A Google spokesperson told Business Insider it is aware of the reports and is looking into the issue.

There have been issues with pricing and deliveries

Some customers who want Pixel 2's are having trouble getting their hands on them.

Per Android Police, some people have had their orders pushed back by as much as a month, with Google offering a free case to say sorry.

This isn't a serious issue — delays are fairly common on sales of in-demand smartphones — but it's still frustrating for the customers involved.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Verizon was overcharging people who bought the phone at pop-up stores in the US by $30 (£22).

It's the second PR disaster in a month

In short: There's a whole host of issues.

Time will tell whether the problems are permanent, or if they can be fixed with software updates. And even if they are significant hardware problems that necessitate repairs (or even a recall), it necessarily isn't the end of Google's smartphone ambitions.

After all, Samsung bounced back even after its flagship Galaxy S7 wouldn't stop catching fire.

That said, it's clearly a significant setback. After all, Google is still new to hardware, and trying to build a reputation as a company capable of building gadgets as well as the software that powers them.

Earlier this month, the Californian firm was forced to permanently disable a button on its Google Home Mini smart speaker after it was found to be secretly recording people. A second hardware screw up within a month, this one affecting its flagship devices, is a reputational nightmare.

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NOW WATCH: This 'crazy, irrational decision' Apple made 20 years ago turned out to be the key to its outrageous success over Samsung

By using a crawl, walk, run approach, companies can ease the digital transformation process and make sure all participants are on board with changes and challenges.

 LinkedIn — the Microsoft-owned platform for those who want to network with professional contacts and advance their own careers — has been in the middle of a long-term makeover of its social tools, as it looks to drive more usage. Today comes the latest chapter in that story: the site is unveiling a new smart reply feature in its messaging app, which gives users prompts with… Read More

By Dave Michels
Cisco announces $1.9 billion acquisition to boost its collaboration story.

Spectacles were one of last winter’s hottest gifts, but apparently demand for them quickly died off and left Snap in a bad position. The Information reports that Snap expected demand for Spectacles to continue after the holidays and ordered “hundreds of thousands” of additional units. But after it opened sales to a wider audience, that didn’t happen, and those units are now reported to be sitting around in warehouses, unsold.

It’s not known exactly how many Spectacles have been sold so far, but from the sound of it, Snap may have dramatically over-ordered units of its debut hardware device. Earlier this month, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the company had sold “over 150,000 units,” which sounds pretty bad in the context of having hundreds...

Continue reading…

Essential is slashing the price of its eponymous phone, down to $499 at its website. That’s a $200 price cut from the original $699 price, less than two months after it began shipping to customers. There is really no other way to read the move except as a signal that it wasn’t selling well at $699 — especially given that the only US carrier stores it’s available in have “Sprint” above the door. It certainly doesn’t help that it now has to face the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL head-to-head.

Of course, that’s not how Essential sees it, saying that the price drop is there in lieu of “a massive TV campaign to capture your attention,” which is hard not to see as a wry Google and Apple dig. “We think making it easier for people to get their hands on...

Continue reading…

• Google is getting serious about making hardware a core component of its business and shipping products that integrate well with its software and services.
• But its devices aren't pushing the boundaries of industrial design, like its main competitors, Apple and Microsoft, do.
• However, that might just be the best way to go for the company — at least for now.
• What Google can't achieve via design, it will make up for with its secret sauce: AI.

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Google recently announced several new hardware products at an event in San Francisco on October 4. From smartphones to convertible laptops and digital assistant-powered earbuds, the Mountain View company had it all.

The company's SVP for hardware and products, Rick Osterloh, told The Verge that the company is serious about hardware, and one of the ways it's showing its intentions is by covering almost every product category that matters.

Google has historically been a software company, known for web services like Google Drive, the G Suite (Docs, Slides, Sheets), Google Maps, and of course YouTube, in addition to the world's most-used search engine.

Android, for instance, is by far the most adopted operating system (OS), and has been one of the firm's true trojan horses in the mobile war against Apple and the iPhone. Earlier this year, Google announced 2 billion Android devices have been activated in total, making it its single most widely distributed product.

But in order to better deliver these experiences, Google realised it needed the integration of software and hardware it couldn't hope for if it continued to let companies like Samsung or LG be the ones that actually put a physical product in customers' hands.

It created a dedicated hardware team and put it under the leadership of former Motorola COO Rick Osterloh back in April 2016, and even bought an entire engineering team from HTC this September.

Companies with control over hardware and software generally take pride in their design

Given that we spend so much of our time with our phones, tablets, and even smart speakers, however, companies usually put a lot of effort in design, too.

Aesthetics, choice of material, and the overall experience — down to a product's packaging — are all high up in most hardware makers' lists. Industrial design has always been one of Apple's biggest strengths in particular, and Microsoft has put extra care in making good design a pillar of every Surface product, too (notably, Microsoft and Apple are the other two big companies that ship products they power with their own operating systems).

But, apparently, Google's idea of self-made devices doesn't have to necessarily reflect this sense of aesthetics.

If anything, most of its new products have a somewhat unassuming design. There is nothing particularly innovative or flashy about the Pixel phones; the new Home Max is as generic-looking a loudspeaker as you can get, and the Clips camera is basically just a small box with a bulge on its back.

Google's devices are not ugly by any means, but industrial design — in terms of glitziness, attention to detail, choice of material, and all the other things that make machines like, say, the Surface Studio stand out — seems like an afterthought.

And it probably is, at least according to the company's claims, in which executives speak explicitly about pragmatic decisions (like imbuing software with AI) taking priority.

But the point is that, considering Google's position as a new player in this specific space, it might actually be ok.

The thinking behind most of the firm's design decisions has leaned towards being more practical than flashy, focused on making things work rather than look good. And if that means being a little behind the curve, or even conservative, Google is willing to accept that.

There is no shiny glass on the back of the Pixel 2, which means no wireless charging. There is no secondary camera. The screen takes up almost the entirety of the front — at least on the larger XL model — but it's not quite up there with the Galaxy Note 8, the iPhone X, the Essential phone, or even the LG V30, the phone upon whose canvas the Pixel 2 XL was built. There is no razzle-dazzle face-scanning camera, just a good old-fashioned fingerprint reader. The list goes on.

In short, just by looking at it, you'd have to think twice about spending $649 (for the 64GB small model, or up to $949 for the larger XL in 256GB configuration; UK prices are £629/729 and £799/£899) on a new Pixel. But, much like last year, using it will be a completely different story — or, at least, that's Google pitch.

Google's idea of design gravitates more towards user experience than sheer looks

Google is trying to make up for the lack of special hardware features or a particularly eye-catching design with what it does best, i.e. software, with a little help from its machine learning algorithms.

Take the camera, for instance.

Last year's Pixel's camera was widely considered the best one around, and Google first branded it with a then-record-breaking 89 score on DxO mark. The new rear shooter brings that up to a whopping 98 — which might not be reflected in actual use, but it's still something to keep in mind (the iPhone 8 Plus and Galaxy Note 8 both sit at 94).

By dividing each pixel in the sensor of the 12MP camera into two separate sub-pixels, Google worked out algorithms that can produce a depth map capable of replicating the shallow depth of field in portrait photos that competing smartphones achieve with a second lens.

There are some other AI-powered tricks, too, like a feature that instantly recognises songs playing around you and lets you play and save them on Play Music or Spotify (without sending data to Google), or the Google Lens app, which wants to become Google Search for your eyes by recognising, identifying, and giving you information on objects, flyers, signs, posters, and whatever you happen to find in your surroundings.

But that's all stuff that you are going to be able to appreciate using the phone, not just by looking at it. Even the unsightly bezels — both on the sides and the top and bottom, particularly on the smaller model — start to make sense, because they offer enough space to cram in a set of stereo speakers.

Simply looking at the Pixel 2 — or the Home Max, the Pixel Buds earphones, and even the Pixelbook laptop — will probably not evoke any allure or sense of fashion-centered thinking, which is certainly important to some. But that's fine, because it's probably something that Google doesn't necessarily need (or is even able to achieve) right now.

Its entire hardware portfolio is but a vessel for it to ship its AI-powered products, from Assistant, to Lens, to Google Photos, filled with unlimited, max-resolution pictures straight out of the single camera of the Pixel (which, the company claims, people use to take twice as many shots as the average iPhone user, for a total of 23GB worth of photos uploaded on its cloud) and more.

Google knows that it can't compete on the scale of the Apples and Samsungs of the world — and, probably, not even with Microsoft — right now, but it definitely plans to do so (moving significant hardware volumes and breaking out the division in its financial reports within five years, according to The Verge's interview).

For now, though, the people at Mountain View will try to sell a range of products and make a name for themselves in the hardware space by choosing function over form, and that's a good temporary compromise. Google's devices might not make your mouth water, but, over time, they will make you realise they were worth their money.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Samsung released the widest computer monitor you can buy — here's what it's like

• Last week, Box introduced Box Skills, which lets app developers apply artificial intelligence from Microsoft, Google, and IBM to their cloud files. 
• Box CEO Aaron Levie says that AI could be as big a shift in our technical lives as the PC revolution was – letting machines do more for us as our digital lives sprawl out.
• He says the real opportunity is in taking Silicon Valley-borne cutting-edge AI and making it accessible to developers everywhere. 
• Levie also says that he's largely made his peace with his rivals at Dropbox, given that they target different markets.

Everywhere you go in Silicon Valley, the trendy technology du jour is "artificial intelligence." It's a major selling point for Google's new Pixel phones, the Amazon Echo speaker, Microsoft Office, and a whole mess of tech startups.

Aaron Levie, the CEO of $2.75 billion cloud file company Box, acknowledges that when it comes to AI, people are "already tired of the buzzword." And yet, at the company's Boxworks conference where we spoke last week, Levie announced that Box was making a big bet on artificial intelligence, with new features and capabilities. 

With its new AI upgrades, Box customers can pick and choose AI services from Google, Microsoft, and IBM, which can then be used to automatically classify and tag the voice, video, and image files stashed in your cloud. If you're, say, a hospital, Box is making it easier to build a system such that any X-rays are automatically tagged, secured under federal law, and locked down to only the doctors who are allowed to see them. 

"We're finally at a point where computers can do things on our behalf," says Levie.

Levie likens the rise of artificial intelligence to the PC revolution in the '80s — a shift that could change everything about how we interact with our technology, creating huge opportunities for those with the foresight to invest in AI now.

"We're literally at the beginning of what we can do in this space," says Levie.

That's where Box comes in, says Levie. Box is taking AI and using it to play to the company's strengths, says Levie. As people and companies stash away ever-increasing amounts of data in the cloud, it gets harder for humans to organize. When companies go looking for smarter ways to handle that growth, Levie wants Box to be there.

"There's been few examples of [machine learning] and AI being applied to that problem set," says Levie. "In an enterprise business, that's a really hard problem." 

Along those lines, Levie says that artificial intelligence is beginning to come into its own, but difficult to use for most people. Platforms like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are offering increasingly intelligent services for building software, but you have to be a pretty sophisticated developer to take advantage. Most companies might need some help.

"We've played that role in this context," says Levie.

Box is a publicly traded company, and Wall Street apparently thinks Box is poised for growth — at the time of writing, analyst consensus sets a price target for Box of around $24, up from its current price of about $20 at the time of writing.

Box is a category leader with differentiated technology that targets the boom in mobile devices and cloud computing," writes JP Morgan in an analyst note rating the stock "neutral" following the Boxworks event. JP Morgan says that despite Box's history of operating losses, its technology makes it well-positioned against cloud storage companies like Dropbox, Microsoft, and Google.

And on the subject of cloud collaboration, Levie says that he's largely made his peace with Dropbox, once his most public rival, ahead of its expected IPO later this year.

The recent Dropbox redesign proved to Levie that the two companies are really going after different customers. He says that while the two companies still compete in small businesses, he believes that Dropbox has begun to focused on power users and creative professionals. Levie has set is eye on the largest of large businesses. 

"We have a very different strategy," says Levie. "We've staked slightly different markets." 

SEE ALSO: While Amazon and Microsoft battle in the cloud wars, this startup quietly built a $175 million business by picking up their slack

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NOW WATCH: HENRY BLODGET: Technology may destroy jobs, but it also creates them

For years we've noted how if you want to really understand the dysfunction at the heart of the U.S. broadband industry, you should take a closer look at West Virginia. Like most states, West Virginia's state legislature is so awash in ISP campaign contributions it literally lets incumbent ISPs write state law, only amplifying the existing lack of broadband competition in the state. So when the state received $126.3 million in broadband stimulus funds, it's not particularly surprising that a report by the US Commerce Department's Office of Inspector General (pdf) found more than a few examples of fraud and waste.

More specifically, Frontier was accused of buying and storing miles of unused fiber to drive up costs, as well as the use of various "loading" and "invoice processing" fees to milk taxpayers for an additional $5 million. The report's findings come on the heels of previous reports that found Frontier and the state used taxpayer money on unused, overpowered routers and overpaid, redundant, and seemingly purposeless consultants. As is often the case with regulatory capture, efforts to hold anybody accountable for any of this have so far gone nowhere.

But after the Inspector General's report, the federal government decided it might be a good idea to at least ask for some of this misspent money back from Frontier and the State. According to the Charleston Gazette Mail, of particular interest were these additional "loading" surcharges, and the fact Frontier stockpiled 49 miles of unused fiber to drive up build costs:

"The Commerce Department letter cites findings that Frontier misled the public about the amount of unused fiber cable — called “maintenance coil” — the company installed across the state. The extra fiber, which is stored at public buildings and used for repairs, drove up the broadband expansion project’s cost. Frontier placed 49 miles of spooled-up, unused fiber in West Virginia, four times the amount the company had disclosed to state officials.The feds have ordered state officials to disclose whether the extra coil was included in the total miles of fiber the state claimed Frontier built with stimulus funds. The state also must get an “explanation from Frontier for the reason it misrepresented the maintenance coil mileage to the public,” according to the Commerce Department’s Aug. 21 letter.

This sort of stuff happens pretty much constantly in telecom as companies pay empty lip service to "bridging the digital divide." But whereas giants like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have the lobbying and policy chops to obfuscate such graft, West Virginia is so dysfunctional Frontier doesn't even have to try. Case in point: a Frontier executive has spent years also employed as State Senate leader -- without anybody raising much of an eyebrow. That employee was only recently fired -- but only because he finally failed to oppose a bill Frontier wanted killed.

With that kind of support, it's not too surprising that Frontier executives say they won't be returning the misspent taxpayer money anytime soon:

"In a letter to West Virginia Chief Technology Officer John Dunlap this week, Frontier asserted that any funds the state might return to the federal government “are, of course, not recoverable from Frontier.”...Frontier also disputed the federal government’s determination that the state must return $4.7 million, urging the state to file an appeal. "To avoid the waste of millions of West Virginia taxpayer dollars, the [state] should appeal,” wrote Mark McKenzie, a Frontier engineer who oversaw the company’s role in the project.

Again, if you've tracked the similar reports bubbling out of the state for years, the $4.7 million the feds want returned is likely only the tip of the iceberg. But because state legislatures are often little more than glorified rubber stamps for the interests of giant telecom operators, it's less than likely that these inquiries result in anything vaguely resembling genuine accountability. As a result, West Virginia remains one of the least broadband-connected states in the union, a story of graft and regulatory capture that plays out in countless states across the country on a daily basis. This is, as they say, why we can't have nice things.

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• The Harman Kardon Invoke is a $199 smart speaker powered by the Microsoft Cortana voice assistant. It brings Microsoft into contention with the Amazon Echo and Google Home.
• The Invoke hardware is great — the speaker is loud and clear, making it great for music. It comes with built-in support for Skype calls (even to telephones) and Spotify. 
• Cortana is smart and useful, and integrates with Microsoft apps and calendars.
• However, compared with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, Invoke doesn't integrate with as many smart home appliances, outside apps, or streaming TV devices, making it difficult to recommend.  

We live in an age of miracles — it's so commonplace now to use your voice to get information out of a computer, it's almost boring. And yet, not all tech miracles are created equal.

Take, for example, the Harman Kardon Invoke, a new $200 smart speaker powered by the Microsoft Cortana smart assistant. While Microsoft didn't build the Invoke itself, it's still the tech titan's first shot at the leading Amazon Echo and Google Home product lines.

Previously, Cortana was primarily only available on Windows 10 PCs, reaching over 140 million monthly active users. Now, with the Invoke, Cortana is going after the rest of your home, too.

The Invoke has a lot going for it: The sound quality is amazing, which is no surprise, given that Harman Kardon makes some of the best speakers in the world. And Microsoft's Cortana doesn't get nearly enough credit for its intelligence: It's often smarter than Apple's Siri or Amazon Alexa, and integrates with Office apps, too. 

And yet, if you're looking to buy a smart speaker, I would generally guide you away from the Invoke, and toward one from Amazon or Google. Here's why.  

The good

I can't say enough nice things about the Invoke's hardware.

The external design is a matter of taste — at first I was sour on the Invoke's casing, because I thought it looked like a prop from the next "Alien" movie. Now, after a few days with the Invoke, I kinda like it, for the same reason. 

The inarguable part is that the Invoke sounds amazing. Even to my untrained ears, the Invoke sounds way better than any similarly-priced Google Home or the first generation of Amazon's Echo speakers. And it's loud, too: Even at 50% volume, it was way too much for my reasonably-sized kitchen, and I had to turn it down to around 30%. 

And Harman Kardon and Microsoft have leaned into this audio quality. The two headlining features of the Invoke are its integrations with music streaming service Spotify and support for making calls with Skype. 

Both services work great, in my own tests, and benefit greatly from the Invoke's quality audio hardware. As a nice bonus, the Invoke can make free unlimited phone calls to landline and cellular phone numbers, by way of Skype. The Invoke also supports Bluetooth, to pair up with your phone or other music players, if you want that.

Otherwise, Cortana can do much the same stuff as Amazon's Alexa and its ilk. You can set alarms and timers, check the weather, and control your smart home gear. Another nice perk: If you set a reminder or a to-do item on your Invoke, Cortana will also remind you on your Windows 10 PC  and/or Cortana phone app, or vice versa. 

And Cortana is surprisingly smart. Microsoft Bing gets a bad rap, but it's really not as far from Google as everybody makes it out to be. Using Bing, Cortana is able to answer questions both practical ("How long do I boil a sausage?") and esoteric (It nailed "What day was the Battle of Hogwarts," though it mispronounced it as "Hogwatts for some reason).

Cortana also connects with Microsoft Outlook and LinkedIn — coming down the line is a Cortana feature that will use LinkedIn to give you a quick profile of everybody you're supposed to meet in your next appointment. That said, the Invoke won't currently hook up with Google's Gmail and Google Calendar, which is a personal bummer, though a Microsoft spokesperson confirms that support is coming down the pipeline.

In other words, there's a lot to like. But...

The big 'but'

No voice assistant is an island. So much of what makes these things useful is their integrations with other products and services. It's in this department that Cortana is sorely lacking, and brings the whole Invoke package down with it.

Here's a big example. If you get an Amazon Echo, of any variety, you can use it to command an Amazon Fire TV. The Google Assistant, which powers the Google Home, can control Google Chromecasts or any Chromecast-powered TV. Cortana can't control a Microsoft Xbox One or any other TV-connected gadget, at least not yet.

When it comes to smart-home appliances, Cortana supports a few popular ones, including smart bulbs from Philips Hue and Insteon. But Amazon, Google, and even Apple support a much broader swath of smart home manufacturers, at least for now. 

Another thing, too, is that you can use an Echo to shop on Amazon, and a Google Home to shop at Walmart, Target, and other stores. Cortana offers none of that, either.  And if you make a shopping list, your only options to retrieve it are from Cortana on another device, or Microsoft's doomed Wunderlist, with no other options to export.

Bafflingly, certain "skills," or apps, that work with Cortana on a PC won't work on the Invoke. Existing skills for calling an Uber or posting to Twitter, among others, have to be done from Windows (thought you can check the latest tweets from high-profile people like Donald Trump). Plus, Cortana doesn't support playing the same audio from multiple devices, which is a bummer if you want to rig your house with Invokes.

So to make a long story short, the Harman Kardan Invoke is a great device, with great sound, and a lot of smarts — but with serious limitations, compared to the competition. Unless you just want to listen to Spotify and chat with Skype, and little else, I'd advise looking at a $99 Amazon Echo or $129 Google Home.

Besides, pretty soon, you'll be able to access Cortana from any Alexa device, and vice versa. From that standpoint, it might be worth investing in an Alexa device now, so you can take advantage of Cortana's particular strengths later.

 

SEE ALSO: Google's new $50 speaker is a smarter alternative to the Amazon Echo Dot with better sound

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NOW WATCH: This is the Google Home Mini — Google's answer to Amazon's Echo Dot

• EquBot just launched the AI Powered Equity ETF (AIEQ), which uses IBM's Watson technology to construct a stock portfolio.
• The fund has outperformed the S&P 500 so far, but a much longer trading period is needed to assess whether it can truly offer market-beating returns.

---

 

The long-awaited rise of the machines is here, at least in the stock market.

A new artificial intelligence-powered exchange-traded fund launched on October 18. Called the AI Powered Equity ETF (ticker: AIEQ), it uses IBM's Watson supercomputing technology to analyze more data than humanly possible, all in the pursuit of building the perfect portfolio of 30 to 70 stocks.

The ETF ranks investments based on their "probability of benefiting from current economic conditions, trends, and world- and company-specific events" and picks those with the best chance at outperformance, according to a recent release.

And the technology enables it to do that while constantly analyzing information for 6,000 US-listed companies. The top three positions as of Friday were CIT Group, Penumbra and Genworth Financial. 

The fund, which the release says is the first of its kind, was founded by EquBot. The company is a part of IBM's Global Entrepreneur program, and is offered to investors through a partnership with ETF Managers Group. EquBot initially sprouted from a discussion between the cofounders in an MBA classroom at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

The ETF launch comes at a time when passive investment has never been hotter. The combined assets of US ETFs hit $3.1 trillion in August, increasing roughly $700 billion in a single year, according to Investment Company Institute data. And many of those strategies already employ computer-driven quantitative strategies.

So what sets AIEQ apart? Chida Khatua, CEO and co-founder of EquBot, argues that their technology is more advanced, which gives it a big advantage.

"As powerful as many algorithms underlying expensive quantitative hedge funds and other vehicles might be, unless they’re also built with AI and machine learning baked right in, mistakes can be propogated and opportunities for outperformance can be missed," he said in the October 18 release.

In three days of trading, the fund has risen 0.8%, double the S&P 500 over the same period. What's more, the ETF has averaged about 193,000 units traded per day, a strong showing for a fledgling fund. It had around $3.2 million in assets on Friday afternoon.

Of course, a much longer time frame will be needed to assess whether the ETF is actually able to translate its massive computing power into market-beating returns. But so far, so good.

SEE ALSO: If Trump is doing so horribly, why is the stock market doing so well?

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NOW WATCH: Why Martin Shkreli’s view on corporate profits is misguided

The iPhone X is here. You can order one right now and get it delivered to you in about 3-4 weeks, or get lucky and pick one up in an Apple Store.

But if you have money to blow and a taste for the ornate, don't settle for the typical iPhone X, which only comes in black or white. Instead, consider one of these lavish hand-crafted iPhone X models from Legend, a Helsinki-based maker of luxury smartphone products.

SEE ALSO: Forget the iPhone 8 and iPhone X — here are 7 reasons you should buy the iPhone 7 instead

The Aurum iPhone X from Legend costs about $3,494. Only 10 models will be made.

From Legend's description:

The Corium iPhone X from Legend costs about $3,778. Only 10 models will be made.

From Legend's description:

The Classique iPhone X from Legend costs about $3,897. Only 10 models will be made.

From Legend's description:

An in-house developed logo brings a unique touch, the logo’s VVS1 grade diamonds are illuminated when the device is in use, and the brightness of the logo can be adjusted. As a bespoke option, various colors of diamonds can be used in the logo. We also offer exquisite leather versions of this model and stock a wide selection of genuine exotic leathers in various colors.

A special diamond edition of this phone features 359 round-cut VS1 grade diamonds set into the 24k gold bezel and the solid 18k white gold logo, totaling over 10.40 carats. Only five devices will be made.

The device comes with a luxurious presentation box, certificate of authenticity, 24k gold plated EarPods and a custom made premium leather pouch.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

By Alaa Saayed
Latest market study shows big changes ahead by 2023.

By Jesse Lund, vice president of blockchain market development, IBM Industry Platforms

Making payments seems deceptively simple — just tap an app, press your thumb on a button, and it’s done. It's less work than pulling paper money out of your wallet. But this simple interaction masks a web of communication among dozens of parties — banks, credit card issuers, merchants, and more — that work behind the scenes to ensure that each transfer of funds can occur within seconds.

With generational shifts in expectations, banks and the payments industry are racing to match the ease and convenience that digital payments have introduced to consumers. Now it’s time to make the back end just as convenient. And, despite our increasingly global society, cross-border payments and transfers in some parts of the world are an area that is still trapped in a process that takes multiple intermediaries and days to finalize.

This is an area that is ripe for disruption. It has the potential to enhance payment processing in the same way that Stripe enhanced online payments. Less than 10 years ago, online merchants were forced to use complicated and proprietary software to support online transactions, racking up costly fees and an awkward experience that often forced their customers to leave the merchant’s website to confirm a purchase. It also added another party to the already crowded payment process.

With a few lines of code cut-and-pasted into any website, Stripe made it possible for merchants to process credit cards seamlessly, creating the digital payment process and online experience we know and expect today, which is radically simple and virtually invisible. On the consumer front, Zelle and Venmo are delivering a similar peer-to-peer payment experience while banks are moving quickly to support new immediate inter-bank payments initiatives.

Blockchain is poised to usher in the next major shift in payments. IBM, KlickEx Group, and the Stellar Foundation have designed a universal, cross-border blockchain payments solution that reduces the time it takes for a payment to clear from days to seconds by completing the process all on one network.

The process of initiating and settling an international payment involves multiple steps, multiple currencies, and often many intermediaries. The process can take days to finalize with little visibility of transaction status in the process and is often error-prone and subject to high fees. This is especially true in emerging economies where the banking system is still developing.

This led IBM to create a new universal payments solution running on the IBM Blockchain Platform, an integrated network for recording payment instructions and facilitating transaction settlement in near real time. By introducing this single, transparent record of transaction, the network provides a low-cost, yet highly efficient method for payments to efficiently transfer across borders.

What makes this unique is that it combines the distinct processes of payment instruction messaging (commonly called clearing) and the physical transfer of funds (commonly called settlement) onto a single network that can process transactions in seconds with complete finality. There are no follow-up steps or secondary processes required to finalize a transaction. Even the foreign exchange between counterparties is provided as an integrated step in every individual transaction. It essentially provides a universally new approach to clearing and settling payments of all different types — corporate, consumer, remittances, large value, micropayments, whatever — a payment is a payment is a payment, and the network that services them need not be complicated or expensive.

In the future, this same universal payment solution could make it possible for a farmer in Samoa to enter into a trade contract with a buyer in Indonesia. The blockchain would then be used to record the terms of the contract, manage trade documentation, allow the farmer to put up collateral, secure letters of credit, and finalize transaction terms with immediate payment, conducting global trade with transparency and ease.

IBM hopes this initiative will pave the way for entirely new global financial services, working with banks and central banks around the world to create new, real-time global payment solutions, allowing large and small businesses alike to finally reach a higher level of efficiency and affordability in cross-border transactions. The use of blockchain can ultimately help eliminate today’s high costs of manual processes and reconciliations, and easily ensure that all transactions are transparent and compliant with regulations in all jurisdictions.

In time, we expect to see more blockchain-powered systems go far beyond payments to support the exchange of digital currencies, securities, bonds, and structured financial assets. All will have the ability to conduct immediate transfers and conversions of currencies, as well as complete transparency throughout the processing of every transaction.

This post is sponsor content from IBM and was created by IBM and BI Studios.

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 When Cisco acquired AppDynamics in January for $3.7 billion, it was a big surprise as the company was on the verge of going public. While it’s probably too soon to say how intertwined it will become in the Cisco product family, it continues to march forward announcing an update to the products set at the AppD Summit this week in New York City. Today’s announcements build on the… Read More

Over the last few years AT&T and Verizon have been desperately trying to pivot from stodgy, protectionist old telcos -- to sexy new Millennial media juggernauts. And while this pivot attempt has been notably expensive, the net result has been somewhat underwhelming. Verizon, for example, spent billions to gobble up AOL and Yahoo, but its lack of savvy in the space has so far culminated in a privacy scandal, a major hacking scandal, a quickly shuttered website where reporters couldn't write about controversial subjects, and a fairly shitty Millennial streaming service even Verizon's own media partners have called a "dud."

AT&T's efforts have been notably more expensive, but just as underwhelming. The company first decided to shell out $70 billion for a satellite TV provider (DirecTV) on the eve of the cord cutting revolution. And the company's putting the finishing touches on shelling out another $89 billion for Time Warner in a quest to gain broader media and advertising relevance. That was paired with the launch of a new streaming service, DirecTV Now, which the company hoped would help it beat back the tide of cord cutting.

But things aren't really working out quite like AT&T planned. The company's stock took a beating last week after it acknowledged it would be facing a 390,000 reduction in pay TV subscribers this quarter. AT&T, in an 8K filing with the SEC, tried to partially blame hurricanes for the mass exodus occurring at the company:

"The video net losses were driven by heightened competition in traditional pay TV markets and over-the-top services, hurricanes and our stricter credit standards. The decline of traditional video subscribers negatively impacts our Entertainment Group revenues and margins, resulting in an adjusted consolidated operating income margin that will be essentially flat versus the year-ago third quarter."

Unmentioned is that AT&T also lost 351,000 pay TV subscribers the quarter before, as the company gets hit harder by cord cutting than most pay TV providers. One of the real reasons for these departures? While AT&T was willing to spend hundreds of billions on megamergers, it has spent the better part of the last decade (especially in places where poor people live) neglecting necessary network upgrades. As a result, in countless markets Verizon & AT&T users on last-generation DSL lines are switching to cable providers for faster broadband, and bundling cable TV service that's priced cheaper than broadband alone.

In short AT&T neglected its core business in order to daydream about matching Google or Facebook's ad revenues, but (so far) lacks the core competency to jump the gap from telecom to Silicon Valley-esque Millennial marketing. Both AT&T and Verizon have spent so many years operating as government-pampered protected duopolies, they believed they could pivot on a dime, ignoring that years of regulatory capture left them with only a few key skills: charging too much for too little, lobbying to thwart competition and bullshit.

To its credit, AT&T was at least willing to take a risk and launch DirecTV Now, a streaming alternative. And while the company did manage to add 300,000 streaming customers on the quarter, those users pay a fraction of what traditional cable TV customers do - and AT&T still saw a net loss of 90,000 pay TV users. Still, most other incumbent pay TV providers have responded to the cord cutting threat by raising cable TV rates (ingenious!) or by pretending to keep pace via the launch of streaming alternatives that are intentionally designed to be underwhelming, lest they cannibalize more lucrative legacy customers.

One of the core problems here is that Wall Street isn't satisfied with ISPs simply doing a good job and making a reasonable profit. The relentless, myopic need for quarterly improvements has companies like AT&T and Verizon trying to use megamergers and vertical integration to magically elbow their way into markets it's unclear they lack the competency for. And only after mindlessly cheering these deals do some Wall Street analysts realize some of these arrangements don't even make coherent business sense given the current market climate:

"Though the company partly blamed recent hurricanes for these trends, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett notes that weather was only the third of four reasons that AT&T listed. “Heightened competition in traditional pay TV markets and over-the-top services” came first. In other words: cord cutting. “It is becoming increasingly clear that the wheels are falling off of satellite TV,” he writes, meaning that Dish Network might announce similar results."

In an ideal world, AT&T would realize its core competencies (building and maintaining wireless and fixed-line networks) should take priority. That $70 billion spent on buying a doomed satellite TV company could have gone a long way in shoring up broadband service that in many regions still doesn't even meet the FCC's base 25 Mbps definition. But in the world we live in that's simply not sexy enough for Wall Street, and the need to grow simply for growth's sake will likely result in AT&T making even more expensive deals of dubious net benefit down the line. Next up: Waffle House?

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Technology is outpacing the knowledge of those in the field and companies like Cisco are looking for ways to close the growing gap. 

• Beginning January 22, 2018, some US residents may need to carry a passport to fly domestically.
• The move is part of the Real ID Act, which requires states to issue driver's licenses that comply with federal standards.

Some US residents may need to bring a passport with them to fly domestically in 2018.

The Transportation Security Admission will stop accepting driver's licenses that don't comply with the Real ID Act beginning January 22, 2018. The act requires states to adopt certain federal standards for issuing and producing licenses.

That act was passed in Congress in 2005 in the aftermath of 9/11, but enforcement has been rolling out in stages since 2013. Proponents say the move will enhance national security and cut down on identity theft.

So far, 25 states are compliant with the Real ID act, according to the TSA's website. That means residents in states like Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico can continue to board domestic flights with their driver's license as their main form of identification.

The federal government granted extensions to several states in 2016, giving them extra time to comply with the act before the January 2018 enforcement date. The Department of Homeland Security is currently reviewing those extension requests and will update the TSA webpage as they are granted.

Currently, states like New York, California, and New Jersey are having their extension requests reviewed. If they are not granted by January 22, residents will need a passport to travel on domestic flights.

All of this means is that it's still too early to tell whether your driver's license will be a valid form of identification on domestic flights, as the TSA is still reviewing most extension requests. But you may want to prepare anyway and look into getting a new passport or making sure your current one is up-to-date.

SEE ALSO: Southwest Airlines will start flying to Hawaii

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NOW WATCH: How to get the most money and perks if you get bumped from a flight

The Intercept has obtained a leaked asset forfeiture guide for seizures performed by ICE. (It has, unfortunately, chosen not to share the original document. Then again, the last non-Snowden leak it published appears to have helped out the document's source.)

For those familiar with the process of civil asset forfeiture, the contents of the guide are mostly unsurprising. Despite the document dating back to 2010, ICE did confirm the version seen by The Intercept is its most recent guidance. ICE is allowed to seize property without bringing charges or securing convictions -- something still permitted by federal law (your state laws may vary) and greatly encouraged by the new head of the DOJ, Jeff Sessions.

What is surprising about the document is how much emphasis is placed on the seizure of real estate. As Ryan Devereaux and Spencer Woodman point out, ICE's forfeiture teams are pretty much property flippers, albeit ones working with the undeniable advantage of making zero initial investment.

Much of the handbook is devoted to describing the process of seizing real estate — homes, farms, and businesses — and it is in these pages that the dual priorities of financial gain and law enforcement objectives become most apparent. While the handbook contains little discussion on how to utilize asset forfeiture to maximize crime-fighting outcomes, there is extensive discussion of how agents should painstakingly determine whether a property is valuable enough to make seizure worthwhile

[...]

More than a dozen pages of the document describe an important — if perhaps surprising — role of AIRG agents: as real estate appraisers. Using the example of “houses used to store narcotics or harbor illegal aliens,” the manual walks agents through a comprehensive process of assessing homes and landed properties to determine the financial appeal to ICE of acquiring such real estate.

If ICE can obtain a warrant to search the property it plans to seize, it will usually send a private real estate appraiser along during the search. AIRG [Asset Identification and Removal Group] agents apparently ballpark property values using public databases -- something that tells ICE whether or not it should move forward with the forfeiture.

As is the case in most civil forfeiture operations, the connecting tissue of criminal activity doesn't need to be much more than gossamer-thin.

The manual instructs agents seeking to seize a property to work with confidential informants, scour tax records, and even obtain an interception warrant to determine whether “a telephone located on the property was used to plan or discuss criminal activity” in order to justify seizing the property.

You would think the phone would be the "guilty" property -- at least as far as you can follow forfeiture's twisted logic. Apparently not. According to ICE's guidance, the entire house around the landline is equally culpable.

The handbook also points out civil forfeiture is preferable to criminal forfeiture, thanks to its general disdain for due process. The key factor is the conviction itself -- something you'd think a law enforcement agency would value over seized property. In criminal proceedings, seized property is generally returned if the charges don't stick. Not so with civil forfeiture. ICE's guidance says when in doubt, go civil. That way the agency may still keep something, even if the alleged perp goes free.

ICE is by far the biggest contributor to the DHS's total forfeiture take. This can be expected to grow with the new administration's intense focus on illegal immigration. As with any government program experiencing sudden growth, one can expect an exponential leap in abuse.

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Almost 150 vendors were affected by the flaw, which impacts nearly every device that can connect to the internet.  

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made just over $20 million in cash and stock over the company's most recent fiscal year, after nailing his annual performance report.

Nadella's pay package was revealed in Microsoft's annual shareholder proxy filing, which you can read here. 

Basically, half of Nadella's pay package is based on how well he performs in three key areas: "Product & Strategy," "Customers & Stakeholders," and "Culture & Organizational leadership." Scoring well in all areas netted him a $7,032,406 bonus on his base salary of $1,450,000.

His highest score was in "Culture," where Microsoft's board praised Nadella's signature "growth mindset" philosophy. Under the "growth mindset," Nadella challenges executives and employees to check their assumptions, expect the unexpected, and change their strategy as new data comes in. Nadella scored 145% of his goal in this area.

"The Company widely adopted leadership principles that help its leaders deliver clarity, generate energy, and deliver success," writes Microsoft's board in the proxy statement. 

His next highest score was 125%, in "Customers & Stakeholders." Here, the board praises progress in "the perception of Microsoft as an innovator and as a leader in the cloud." The filing also highlights Microsoft's well-received programs around bringing broadband internet to rural areas, as well as other philanthropic initiatives. 

Last, and least, was his score of an even 100% on "Product & Strategy." The board rated him highly for the rapid growth of Microsoft's $18.9 billion cloud computing business, which encompasses the Azure cloud platform, as well as the Office 365 productivity suite.

However, Nadella was dinged points for the 2% decline in Surface revenue in 2016 versus 2015, as well as the lagging market share of the Microsoft Edge web browser versus the leader, Google Chrome.

The board was also happy enough to award Nadella $11,434,557 worth of Microsoft stock. Add in an extra $97,189 for miscellaneous compensation that includes matching charitable gifts, and it comes out to $20,014,152 total. 

This was actually Nadella's best year as Microsoft CEO yet, at least in terms of his personal fortune: In the previous fiscal year, Nadella took home $17,692,031, with the wind-down of Microsoft's smartphone business hurting his bonus.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explains what happened when employees struggled with a gross milk situation

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Microsoft is working on a big redesign for its Outlook for Mac and Windows apps. The software giant revealed teasers for the new design during an Ignite conference session last month, and the goal is to simplify the user interface on both Mac and Windows versions. A lot of the changes look very similar to the Outlook for iOS app, with a single-line ribbon and a smaller set of default commands. Reducing complexity is one of the key aims of the redesign, to make it easier for new and existing Outlook users to navigate the email app.

A new customizable ribbon will let Outlook for Mac and Windows users control which buttons are available, so you can tailor the email interface to your own common tasks. The left navigation panel will include...

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Microsoft says it has already fixed the problem for customers running supported versions of Windows. “We have released a security update to address this issue,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “Customers who apply the update, or have automatic updates enabled, will be protected. We...

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How far can $42,800 take you on Facebook? Far enough to swing an election, says one expert.

Ben Kunz, the executive vice president of marketing and content at the media agency Mediassociates, says it could have cost at least this much to swing the 10,700 Michigan voters who tipped the scale in favor of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

"That's the scary power of Facebook. Its targeting is really, really powerful," he said. "People like to think they can't be persuaded, but the math says it works."

Kunz and his team made the estimate as part of a broader story by Business Insider in which Mediassociates and two other media agencies modeled the cost of using Facebook to reach voters in Wisconsin and Michigan with the intention of swaying their vote.

Facebook has said it discovered roughly $100,000 in ad buys between June 2015 and May 2017 associated with about 3,000 ads used by Russian groups to influence the outcome of the election. CNN reported that several of these ads targeted voters in Michigan, where Trump won by about 10,700 votes, and Wisconsin, which he won by roughly 22,700 votes.

While $42,800 may seem like a paltry amount to swing an election in a state, Facebook's advanced and granular targeting options can amplify the reach and engagement possible with that amount. Anyone looking to swing an election in Michigan could easily pinpoint and target undecided voters through data. After that, "it wouldn't cost much in ad spending to sway their opinions," Kunz said.

Mediassociates' model is based on two assumptions. One is a basic rule of thumb of digital advertising, which is that one out of every 2,000 people, or 0.05%, who view an ad will respond or act on the message. The second is that it is possible to target swing voters.

The model works backward from the exact number of votes by which Trump won both Wisconsin and Michigan — though it's possible that someone targeting swing voters could try to reach more people than that and therefore might spend more money on their campaign.

Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. Assuming only 0.05% of viewers will react to an ad, a person would need to aim for about 21.4 million ad impressions. Because Facebook ads cost about $2 for every 1,000 impressions, Kunz's team estimates that to sway this number of voters, a person would need a budget of $42,800.

"In reality, targeting this exact 'swing voter' population might take more effort, since some of your ads will reach the wrong people ... and competitors might be fighting you with similar tactics," Kunz told Business Insider. "But a clever political operator would just spend a little more. And for a few hundred grand, he or she could tip an entire presidential election."

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In the latest edition of crazy perks tech companies give their employees, Microsoft is building tree houses for its employees.

One tree house, nestled in the bows of a Pacific Northwest Douglas Fir on the company's Redmond, Washington, campus, serves a meeting room. It features a round skylight that lets in "just a bubble of blue" and is more "Hobbit than HQ" according to a post on a Microsoft Blog.

There are three treehouse in total — two that already open and one, a sheltered lounge space, that will open later this year. Open to all employees, they were built by Pete Nelson of the TV show "Treehouse Masters" who Microsoft said began the project by "connecting with the trees for hours."  

The structures are part of a new system of outdoor work spaces on Microsoft's 500-acre Washington campus. The  spaces are all Wi-Fi enabled and have benches with electricity plugs.

But the company is also bringing the outdoor theme to more traditional buildings and structures. It's adding an outdoor area on to its indoor cafeteria, for example. The new al fresco space will have rocking chairs and an awning that allow the the Microsoft logo to shine through onto the grass below on sunny days. 

The new emphasis on outdoor living isn't all about fun and games. As Microsoft noted in its blog, exposure to the outdoors can relieve stress and stimulate creativity. And employees were pushing for the change. 

"People said, given the opportunity, they would work more outside," said Bret Boulter, who works in Microsoft's real estate and facilities division and led the project. 

SEE ALSO: Microsoft is undergoing another huge reorganization to sell more cloud subscriptions and less software

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The rapid rise of bitcoin, the red-hot cryptocurrency up more than 400% this year, has Wall Street abuzz. 

Still, despite its meteoric rise, bitcoin by many measures is still in its very early days. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used, for instance, by a very small percentage of people and institutions are just starting to look at building out a sophisticated market around the space. 

"We are in the third inning of a burgeoning new asset class," said BlockTower Capital cofounder Matthew Goetz in a recent interview with Business Insider. 

Credit Suisse agrees with Goetz's thesis. In a note out to clients Tuesday, analysts Paul Condra and Mrinalini Bhutoria wrote "the investment infrastructure is emerging."

Cryptocurrency funds like BlockTower Capital have been opening at an eye-popping clip. At least 79 funds, according to Autonomous NEXT, a fintech analytics company, have emerged with an estimated $2 billion in managed assets. Michael Novogratz, a former manager at the $72 billion investor Fortress, for instance, is reportedly starting a $500 million crypto-fund that invests in bitcoin, ethereum, and other crypto-assets. 

At the same time, "private investment firms are increasingly putting resources toward finding ways to provide exposure to the industry," according to Credit Suisse. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman Sachs was looking into establishing a bitcoin trading operation. As for Credit Suisse, the bank hosted a symposium on cryptocurrencies and blockchain Tuesday.

There are barriers 

But there are huge barriers to making cryptocurrencies more palpable to Wall Street, especially in the market for initial coin offerings, a cryptocurrency-based fundraising method.

This year companies have raised more than $2 billion via ICOs, but many have operated outside the realm of financial regulations. Some countries, including China and South Korea, have deemed them illegal. Such countries are worried about a mounting bubble in the space and the impact it could have on retail investors. Wall Street has similar concerns. 

But a mature market could be around the corner. Overstock, the online retailer, launched a trading system that provides a platform on which startups can run ICOs in a manner compliant with the regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Credit Suisse said such initiatives could "catalyze more broad-based investment in the space."

"Regulation remains a key obstacle as – without a clear legal framework – existing service providers are generally unwilling to offer the liquidity, leverage and custody services needed to attract larger investment," the bank wrote. 

This, however, will change over the course of the next five years, according to the bank. It expects SEC-compliant ICOs, which make up less than 1% of the total market, will soon become the norm.

What's less certain is which ICOs and cryptocurrencies will come out on top. Goetz told Business Insider that investing in ICOs and other crypto-assets is akin to betting on the internet during the nineties.

"You could be right on the thesis that cryptocurrencies are transformative and you could make what you think is the right bet at the time, but remember one time you had Yahoo and then this thing called Google came along," he concluded. 

UBS in a note to clients Friday said the same thing: "Investing in the blockchain wave is akin to investing in the internet in the mid-nineties."

Many financial institutions, however, have shied away from the space. 

In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, Larry Fink, the head of BlackRock, the world's largest investor with $5.7 trillion under management, said he thinks the explosive growth of bitcoin points to nefarious behavior.

"It just identifies how much money laundering there is being done in the world," Fink said. "How much people are trying to move currencies from one place to another."

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, more notably, called bitcoin a "fraud" at a Barclay's conference on September 12.

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