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The Federal Communications Commission sent a letter to AT&T detailing concerns about whether the company unfairly favors its own video content over its competitors', Ars Technica reported.

Specifically, AT&T doesn't count video content from DirecTV, which AT&T owns, against AT&T’s data caps for mobile subscribers. However, the company charges other content producers that compete with DirecTV for the same privilege.

The FCC said that this practice, called “zero-rating,” may obstruct fair competition and harm consumers by preventing them from accessing video content from producers that compete with AT&T. AT&T started exempting DirecTV from data caps in September. The company has argued in the past that DirecTV pays for the right to exempt its content from data caps on AT&T phones just like its competitors. However, the FCC responded that this argument is insufficient since DirecTV is directly owned by AT&T.

The FCC also said that AT&T had disclosed to the commission how much it charges other companies for data cap exemptions. The charges are significant enough that it will impair other companies’ ability to compete with DirecTV’s upcoming $35-per-month streaming video service, DirecTV Now, according to the commission’s letter.

When AT&T acquired DirecTV last year, the FCC specifically barred AT&T from exempting DirecTV’s online video services from home internet data caps, but that ruling doesn't apply to mobile data caps, according to Ars Technica. However, the FCC may not pursue this matter any further after Donald Trump takes office, as many expect the new president to take a stance against net neutrality. 

The ultimate ruling on this matter could have a profound effect on the wireless industry, which is in a state of flux. AT&T and Verizon have dominated the carrier market over the past seven years while T-Mobile and Sprint have struggled to gain subscribers. Then in 2013, T-Mobile tweaked its strategy to turn around its business.

This move, along with slowing smartphone adoption and other forces in the mobile industry, killed the two-year contract and initiated an ongoing price war between carriers. The movement away from the contract model is not only changing the way carriers operate, it’s affecting the myriad of industries that rely on carriers’ services.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on wireless carriers that examines how the wireless industry has fundamentally changed since carriers began aggressively responding to the launch of T-Mobile’s “Un-Carrier” movement. It also looks at the factors underpinning changes in the broader wireless industry and the challenges carriers face in 2016 and beyond, including the upcoming spectrum auction and the deployment of new wireless technologies.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Consumers are actually becoming more loyal to their current wireless operator even as competition between the carriers intensifies.
• The wireless carriers are not only battling over device financing, they’re also trying to woo consumers through attractive data packages.
• Intensified competition between carriers has lengthened the smartphone replacement cycle, posing a challenge for mobile software developers and handset makers.
• With phone subscriber growth stagnating, carriers will look to alternative sources of revenue, including connected cars, tablets, and IoT devices, to drive growth.
• The upcoming spectrum auction, the latest ruling on net neutrality, and new technology, will change the face of the broader wireless industry in next few years.

In full, the report:

• Examines the impact of T-Mobile’s Un-Carrier movement on the wireless industry.
• Forecasts how the death of the two-year contract will impact the broader mobile industry.
• Identifies how carriers are helping facilitate the growth of mobile video consumption.
• Explains the changing nature of subscriptions and the growing importance of connected devices.
• Discusses what changes and challenges the wireless industry will face over the next five years.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the wireless carrier war.

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The first batch of reviews for Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar are in, and they're mixed.

If you need a new laptop, are a Mac user, and have the money to spend, go ahead and buy the new MacBook Pro, my colleague Steve Kovach writes. 

"The latest MacBook Pro model is slimmer, more powerful, and downright attractive," he wrote."It’s the best MacBook you can buy, but it’s also not for everyone."

Other reviewers had issues with the laptop's battery life, next-generation Thunderbolt ports, and questioned the usefulness of the laptop's banner new feature, a touchscreen strip that replaces the function keys that Apple calls Touch Bar.

The new MacBook Pro comes in three main versions: one with a 13-inch screen without the Touch Bar touchscreen keyboard integration, one with a 13-inch screen and a Touch Bar, and one with a 15-inch screen and a Touch Bar. These reviews focus on the versions with the Touch Bar. 

Here's what tech pundits are saying about Apple's latest computer: 

SEE ALSO: REVIEW: The new MacBook Pro is the best laptop you can buy

Joanna Stern, WSJ:

So how do you decide? Do you invest in the present—the “old” MacBook Pro with performance, good-enough portability, a keyboard to cherish and lots of ports? Or do you invest in the future—a beautiful, highly portable machine with new tricks? Or maybe you do what I’m doing: Stare down at your three-year-old laptop and wonder if you can tough it out another year or two while this sorts itself out.

Walt Mossberg, The Verge:

The biggest surprise in my tests was just how inconsistent the Touch Bar Pro’s battery life was. I have tested hundreds of laptops over the years and Macs have almost always excelled at meeting or beating their promised battery lives, both in my longtime battery test regime, and in typical daily use. But the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar wasn’t as reliably consistent as previous Macs.

On my rigorous test, which I’ve used for years, the machine actually exceeded Apple’s claim of up to 10 hours of battery life. The test involves setting the screen at 100 percent, keeping it on and undimmed constantly, playing an endless loop of music, and leaving Wi-Fi on to collect email, tweets, and Facebook posts in the background. Result: 11 hours and 38 minutes.

...

So, my best advice is that even a mainstream, non-pro user can’t count on this laptop lasting the promised maximum of 10 hours — even in light to moderate use — let alone the 12 hour maximum a new Air can pull off. And you won’t have an accurate estimate to go by.

Dana Wollman, Engadget:

Apple rates both the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro for up to 10 hours of battery life, and that's either with web surfing or iTunes movie playback. Even after half a dozen battery tests, I'm still noticing some inconsistencies in my results: 13-inch battery life is sometimes in the seven- to eight-hour range, with some tests hinting at a ten-and-a-half-hour capacity. Testing on the 15-inch model has also been inconclusive. I've generally seen between nine and 10 hours of video playback, but in one instance I exceeded the 13-hour mark by lowering the brightness slightly. I'll be conducting more tests and updating this review with final battery life results.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The president-elect is certainly one to hold grudges.

Let’s state the obvious: Donald Trump and Amazon CEO, and Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos do not see eye to eye. And that becomes a more concerning prospect for Bezos and Amazon now that Trump is president-elect.

In May, after learning of the large team of Washington Post reporters looking into his past, Trump told conservative TV commentator Sean Hannity that Bezos was using the paper to damage Trump’s chances because he feared what a President Trump would mean for Amazon.

"He thinks I'll go after him for antitrust," Trump said at the time. "Because he's got a huge antitrust problem because he's controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing.

"He's using the Washington Post, which is peanuts, he's using that for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust."

Trump’s campaign later reiterated this narrative in a statement claiming that the Post was being used as political leverage so Amazon doesn’t “get sued for monopolistic tendencies that have led to the destruction of department stores and the retail industry.”

In response, Bezos has appeared undaunted in public. Bezos told an audience at Recode’s Code Conference in June that “a presidential candidate should embrace” the media coverage that the country’s democracy allows for rather than fight it. More recently, Bezos called out Trump for his threats of retribution against media organizations he feels have wronged him.

In the wake of Trump’s win, I asked an Amazon spokesman if Bezos planned to comment. I was told he doesn’t.

Investors seem to be unsure about what a Trump presidency means for the online retailer. Amazon’s stock was down 2.68 percent as of 11:25 am ET on Wednesday morning. Other tech stocks like Apple, Facebook and Alphabet were also down, but all less than 2 percent.

Over the weekend I wrote about some of my experiences with USB-C over the past year. They are, in short, mixed. I’ve had brief glimpses of the future that USB-C promises: a single port and a single cable for all gadgets. But figuring out how to get to that future means dealing with infuriatingly bad cables and hubs and trying to understand a hilariously complicated admixture of different protocols like Thunderbolt, HDMI, and DisplayPort that also theoretically work with this one single cable (plus all the dongles it currently requires).

But friends, I have not even come close to scratching the surface. And I’m here to tell you that reading Google+ posts about USB-C charging specifications is strangely relaxing (at least when compared to...

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If you've received a weird message on Skype with a link to Baidu or LinkedIn recently, you're not alone. In the past couple of weeks, I've received spam links to Baidu from six of my Skype contacts, one of whom works for Microsoft's PR agency and another is a former Microsoft employee. All were surprised to see their accounts breached, and some believed they were protected by Microsoft's two-factor authentication. That wasn't the case, though.

A thread on Microsoft's Skype support forums reveals this has been occurring to hundreds of Skype users since at least August. Breached Skype accounts are used to send thousands of spam messages before they're locked and the owners have to regain access. Skype has fallen victim to similar attacks...

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In an effort to restore some consumer goodwill after the discontinuation of the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung ran full page apology ads in three major US daily newspapers today. The letters, which appeared in Monday editions of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, were aimed at English-speaking consumers, according to The Korean Herald. The letter is signed by Gregory Lee, the president and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America.

"An important tenet of our mission is to offer best-in-class safety and quality. Recently, we fell short on this promise. For this we are truly sorry," the ad reads. "We will re-examine every aspect of the device, including all hardware, software, manufacturing and the overall battery...

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Apple’s challenge now is pleasing the much larger mainstream Mac user base without alienating the power users.

A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.

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Since Apple’s event, there has been lots of talk about the new MacBook Pros, especially among the Apple commentariat. It’s fair to say that the backlash against these new devices is stronger than for any MacBook announcement I can remember, and it’s mostly coming from two particular sets of people: Those who use heavy-duty creative applications such as Photoshop, and those who develop for Apple platforms.

This is easily Apple’s most vocal audience, so such a response must be at least a little disheartening. But it’s also worth remembering that Apple — and even the Mac in isolation — has long since gone mainstream, and is bigger than these groups. Apple’s challenge now isn’t serving this hardcore base but pleasing the much larger mainstream Mac user base without alienating the power users.

Apple’s increasingly diverse base

I wrote a post a while back about the counterintuitive liability Apple has in its growing customer base. On the one hand, this customer base is a huge asset, especially given the upgrade cycles for devices like the iPhone and the ability to sell services to a captive group of users. But on the other hand, the increasing diversity of this base can also be a liability, because Apple now has to please many groups in a much less homogeneous base than in the past. The problem is the public image of Apple among many in the media and beyond continues to be of a company that serves mostly creative professionals. This perception has led to a lot of misguided commentary over the past week, both about the damage Microsoft’s Surface Studio could do to Apple’s Mac base, and about the perceived shortcomings of the new MacBook Pro line.

Apple’s Mac base today

The reality is that Apple’s installed base of Macs today is likely around 90 million. That’s up enormously over the last 15 years or so — it was around 25 million in the early 2000s. As that base has grown, it has diversified considerably. Just visit any college campus to see row on row of MacBooks in lecture rooms and study halls. These aren’t creative professionals, and they’re not even using their MacBooks for particularly resource-intensive tasks. But, of course, there are still creative professionals and Apple developers who use Macs for work. So it’s worth thinking about what percentage of the overall base these users might represent.

Here are some data points:

• In 2013, Adobe estimated it had an installed base of around 12.8 million users of its Creative Suite software, with another 250,000 on Creative Cloud. Around 40 percent of this revenue came from what Adobe described as creative professionals, with another 25 percent coming from other creative people in businesses, 10 percent from creative people using it at home and 25 percent from education.
• Adobe currently has around eight million Creative Cloud subscribers (this is how Adobe now sells its creative suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, and so on).
• At WWDC this year, Tim Cook announced that Apple had 13 million registered developers.

If we put these numbers together, we get a picture of eight million to 13 million users of Adobe’s creative products and another 13 million or so Apple developers. Of course, of those Adobe users, a good chunk will be using Windows versions rather than Mac versions. At the absolute outside, though, it gives, at most, around 25 million total users in the two buckets that have been most vocal about the MacBook Pro changes, out of a total base of around 90 million, or around 28 percent. Realistically, that number is probably quite a bit smaller, perhaps around 15 percent to 20 percent of the total. Of these, not all will share the concerns of those who have been so outspoken in the past week. To look at it another way, Apple sold 18.5 million Macs in the past year, which might end up being roughly the same as the combined number of creative professionals and developers in the base.

In the end, the picture that emerges is of a base of Macs with the kinds of users that have been expressing concerns or frustration with the changes in the minority. The vast majority of the user base is in other categories, principally general-purpose consumer and business users. How does the rest of the base feel about the new MacBooks? Well, of course, that base is much less vocal and less visible — the general-purpose Mac user tends not to blog or host podcasts about Apple. They’re much more likely to quietly keep using the products they have and occasionally upgrade to something new. The best place to look for their feedback is sales numbers for the Mac. Those have been down a little lately, as the existing Macs have been getting a little long in the tooth, and those in the know have been waiting for upgraded machines.

However, Phil Schiller said last week that online orders for the new MacBooks were higher than they’ve ever been for a new product before, suggesting that some of this pent-up demand is being released now. Mainstream users — and likely quite a few from among the professional class of MacBook users, too — are buying this new product despite the misgivings some power users have. We won’t know the actual numbers on how these MacBook Pros are selling until at least three months from now — and probably longer. But my guess is that those sales numbers will suggest that the mainstream base cares a lot less about some of the subjects of the criticism from the past week and a lot more about a decent bunch of spec upgrades, thinner and lighter hardware, and some interesting new features.

Keeping the pro base happy

Of course, Apple can’t simply ignore the professional base — though these users may be a minority among the overall set of Mac customers, they are an important segment and, as we’ve already seen, a vocal one. Pleasing them is important in its own right, but also as a way to influence broader perceptions of the Mac and Apple as a company.

Apple likely needs to do more here to mollify this base. For starters, it needs to update the desktop Macs, especially the Mac Pro, quickly. The current version of the Mac Pro suffers from being less upgradeable than its predecessor. With that being the case, it requires hardware refreshes more — not less — frequently. It might also be a reasonable concession to the complaints from this base to make it more upgradeable. I suspect Apple will have to think hard about how to please those who want a portable yet ultrapowerful machine, which is really the even narrower segment that has been criticizing the new MacBooks. The portability/power tradeoff it has made in the new machines seems to be fine for the mainstream, but that’s the one thing that seems to be creating the most problems for the hardcore base, and it’s worth addressing.

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Jan Dawson is founder and chief analyst at Jackdaw, a technology research and consulting firm focused on the confluence of consumer devices, software, services and connectivity. During his 13 years as a technology analyst, Dawson has covered everything from DSL to LTE, and from policy and regulation to smartphones and tablets. Prior to founding Jackdaw, Dawson worked at Ovum for a number of years, most recently as chief telecoms analyst, responsible for Ovum’s telecoms research agenda globally. Reach him @jandawson.

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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are set to take the stage for the first presidential debate of the general election at Hofstra University on September 26.

Solving America's energy problems, like reducing dependence on foreign oil and moving the country to a lower-carbon economy, will be a major election issue and a top priority for the next president.

The two candidates — one the first woman to ever run on a major party's ticket and the other a brash billionaire and reality-television star — offer competing visions for the future direction of the country.

At the core, the candidate's energy plans are mostly representative of their campaigns as a whole.

Clinton's plan is thoughtful and detailed, to the level of addressing funding sources. Her campaign has placed a priority on investing in and incentivizing renewable-energy technology to help create jobs and transition the US to a lower-carbon economy.

Trump's plan, on the other hand, is short on specific details and spends a lot of time calling out "extremist" Clinton. Trump's plan is supremely focused on American "energy independence" at all costs, and he's fully supportive of deregulating fossil fuels. 

For his part, Trump supports "rational" environmental concerns but not at the expense of decreasing fossil-fuel production in the US. 

Here's a more detailed look at the candidates energy proposals. 

Renewable energy

Clean technology — solar, wind, and hydroelectric — is a rapidly growing sector of the US economy. 

Clinton's campaign has the stated goal of generating half of the US's electricity from renewable resources by the end of her first term. Her campaign has specific strategies for accomplishing this, including launching a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge to partner with local municipalities to cut carbon pollution and expand clean-energy technology to lower-income families.

Clinton also wants to cut oil and gas subsidies and invest in clean-energy research, specifically installing a half-billion solar panels by the end of her first term, according to Science Debate. 

Trump has supported ramping up fossil-fuel production as a vehicle for job growth and feels it will lead to a "resurgence in American manufacturing." 

Trump's campaign cited a study from the Institute of Energy Research (IER), a nonprofit that conducts research on government regulation in energy markets, to support his claims. According to IER, lifting regulations on American energy production will amount to a $700 billion increase in annual economic output. 

The IER's study was authored by Dr. Joseph Mason, the Endowed Chair of Banking at the Ourso School of Business at Louisiana State University. 

It's important to note that IER is affiliated with the American Energy Alliance, a pro-fossil-fuel group linked to Charles and David Koch. Many economists have expressed doubt over IER's findings, reports CNBC. 

"This is not academic research and would never see the light of day in an academic journal," Thomas Kinnaman, the chair of the Economics Department at Bucknell University, told CNBC, regarding IER's study. 

Chris Warren, IER's director of communications, pointed out to Business Insider in an email that the IER's study is based off of a report by the Congressional Budget Office, and uses a model frequently used by government agencies to score laws and regulations. 

Oil drilling 

Oil drilling is an efficient yet highly destructive and invasive process for obtaining fossil fuel.

In March, the Obama administration announced that it would not open new oil reserves near the southeastern Atlantic coast for drilling. Obama, however, did free up three massive reserves on sensitive habitat in Alaska earlier this year, though environmental activists say the land should never be drilled. 

Clinton opposes Arctic drilling and has expressed skepticism for oil production off the southeastern Atlantic coast, according to CFR. 

Conversely, Trump's "America First" energy plan will lift most restrictions on oil and gas companies and allow them to drill in the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico. 

Trump's campaign said that he will revoke all policies that place "unwarranted restrictions" on new drilling zones, including in the Arctic and the Atlantic coast. Trump's campaign also called Obama's decision to close the Atlantic reserves to drilling a "job-killing" policy. 

Though Trump's plan has few specifics, it's safe to assume that this means he will open up a lot more land — and ocean — for drilling. 

Some experts think that's a misguided policy. 

Installing wind power off of the southeastern Atlantic coast could produce more jobs and more energy over the next two decades than drilling for oil, according to a study from Oceana, a conservation-focused environmental nonprofit.

Hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking'

Fracking is a method of injecting liquid deep into the earth's crust to release previously inaccessible natural-gas reserves. Fracking has helped the US significantly increase domestic fuel production, and it's a popular method anywhere there's shale, like North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma. 

Fracking has also come under intense scrutiny for its environmental impact. It has been shown to contaminate groundwater — used for drinking — in Wyoming, and there have been multiple reports all over the US of similar issues. Wastewater disposal from fracking, which is injected deep into the ground, has also been linked to earthquakes in Texas. 

Clinton's campaign has expressed that domestically produced natural gas can play an "important role in the transition to a clean energy economy." Her campaign also said that they'll focus on creating new standards and safeguards to make fracking safer and less environmentally destructive. 

Trump's campaign has expressed that "energy independence" will be a top priority if Trump gets elected. Within the first 100 days of a Trump presidency, his campaign said he would "lift moratoriums" on energy production in federal areas.

He also railed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for fining energy companies in North Dakota, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service for abusing the Endangered Species Act for "restricting" oil and gas exploration. 

Keystone XL pipeline

The Keystone XL pipeline is a proposed $8 billion oil pipeline that would bring crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf coast of Texas, reports The New York Times. It was the subject of massive protests over the past few years and was ultimately vetoed by the Obama Administration.

Most of the oil produced in Alberta's oil sands — a process with notorious environmental repercussions — is bought by American companies. 

The Clinton campaign opposes construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, saying that the project, "distracts from U.S. efforts to combat climate change," according to CFR. Clinton echoed Obama's comments regarding the pipeline, when he said in a 2015 statement that the pipeline "has occupied what I, frankly, consider an over-inflated role in our political discourse." 

The pipeline, according to Obama, would not lower gas prices for American consumers, nor would it make any "meaningful, long-term contributions," to the US economy. The Obama Administration rejected Trans Canada's application last year. 

Trump has said that he will ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application to build the pipeline within the first 100 days of taking office, according to his campaign. Trump's campaign said that the pipeline would create 42,000 jobs, but it's unclear where this figure comes from. 

Both Trump and Clinton, however, have remained silent on the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been the subject of protests by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe on the border of North and South Dakota in recent weeks. The pipeline could pose a threat to the local environment and water resources.

Coal power

Coal is one the cheapest and most polluting fuel sources. Coal production has fallen over the past decade, and it's critical to the economies of many Appalachian and Rust belt states. 

Coal power is the US's top source of carbon dioxide — a primary cause of global warming — in the air, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy organization.

Clinton's campaign announced a $30 billion initiative to invest in the "economic diversification" of former coal-mining towns. Clinton's plan, while supporting long-term healthcare for retired coal miners, will also focus on redeveloping former coal-mine sites for different uses. She'll finance her plan using "unappropriated" resources from the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund.

Trump's campaign has said that they will "save the coal industry" from Clinton's "extremist agenda." Trump wants to end regulation that impacts the growth of the coal industry, including the EPA's Clean Power Plan.

The loss of coal-mining jobs has devastated many communities in states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania — states that Trump hopes to carry in November. The low price of coal, coupled with declining production in these coal mines, means that these jobs likely aren't coming back, Marketplace reported.

Emissions

Reducing harmful emissions from power generation is one of the key tenets of the Paris climate accords, an international agreement ratified by over 60 countries.

Clinton's campaign called for reducing gas emissions based on the terms set by the Paris agreement by up to 30% by 2025, relative to 2005 levels, and to "put the country on a path" to cutting emissions more than 80% by 2050. 

Trump doesn't spend too much time discussing emissions. His campaign said that he's "committed" to the use of natural gas, which emits around half of the carbon dioxide as coal when combusted. Trump has also made pulling out of the Paris agreements and rolling back emissions-reduction targets priorities for his first 100 days in office, should he be elected. 

Editor's note: The original version of this post ran on September 25. 

SEE ALSO: Obama calls for a new global business model to fight climate change

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NOW WATCH: This map shows the places that would go dark if we banned fossil fuels tomorrow

Amazon may soon offer free house-keeping service to its Prime members.

That's what two new job postings, first spotted by The Seattle Times' Angel Gonzalez, seem to suggest.

The jobs, titled "Home Assistant," are intended to help the customers keep their homes clean, do laundry, and put groceries away. The positions seem full-time as Amazon is offering company stock, insurance, and overtime pay as part of the package.

Here's the full job description:

You will be an expert in helping Amazon customers keep up their home. You will be working with customers each day with tidying up around the home, laundry, and helping put groceries and essentials like toilet paper and paper towels away. You will assure that customers return to an errand-free home.

Amazon will provide on-site training along with benefits including Amazon stock, health insurance, a flexible work schedule with the potential for overtime pay. If you love making a house feel like a home then this role is for you. You will:

• Travel to customers’ homes to provide time-saving assistance
• Identify opportunities to delight customers
• Maintain a positive and professional demeanor
• Help provide high-quality cleanings and meet any special requests

The job posting originally said the goal is to provide “timesaving assistance to Amazon Prime members," according to The Seattle Times, suggesting housekeeping could be a new perk added to Amazon's Prime membership. 

But the part about Prime is now taken out, after Amazon updated the post about an hour ago. The Seattle Times story was published more than 6 hours ago.

Prime members pay $99 a year or $10.99 a month for free two-day shipping and access to a bunch of video, music, and e-books online. Amazon haven't disclosed the number of Prime members, but they are estimated to be over 60 million in the US. 

Amazon wants to grow its Prime membership-base as much as possible because Prime members tend to spend a lot more on Amazon.com than non-Prime members.

Amazon wasn't immediately available for comment.

SEE ALSO: Internal Amazon documents reveal a vision of up to 2,000 grocery stores across the US

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NOW WATCH: A mysterious cloud moving 700,000 mph is going to collide with our galaxy — here's what will happen

Many of us have been talking our way around this issue for the past week without directly confronting it, so I feel like now’s as good a time to address it as any: Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops are not designed for professional use.

This should come as no surprise to those who’ve long perceived the Mac platform as inward-looking, limited in compatibility, and generally worse value for money than comparable Windows alternatives. Pros are smart with their tools and their money, after all. But the change with Apple’s 2016 generation of MacBook Pros is that those downsides have been amped up — more expensive and less compatible than ever before — to an extreme that exposes the fallacy of the continued use of the Pro moniker. These are...

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While we wait for Tesla's mass-market Model 3 to arrive sometime in late 2017, we can start to mull over the Chevy Bolt — a 238-mile-range electric vehicle, stickering for $29,995 after credits — that's heading to dealerships in California and Oregon before 2016 is in the record books.

Motor Trend took things a step further recently and conducted a head-to-head comparison between the Model 3 and the Tesla Model S 60, at $66,000 the cheapest Tesla one can currently get.

It wasn't a fair comparison, and Motor Trend admitted as much, but the idea was to see if Chevy's new EV could match up against the premier 200-plus-mile electric car in the market.

And match up it did, so much so that Motor Trend concluded that the Model S isn't necessarily worth $30,000 more (the well-optioned Bolt they tested came it at just over $40,000). That doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a Tesla — it's just that the Bolt offers a very competitive and cheaper, non-luxury alternative.

More importantly, MT decided the Bolt is so good that it beats every other short-range EV currently in the market. It's a game-changer.

"More than any EV that’s come before it, the Bolt makes emissions-free, environmentally friendly transportation a realistic proposition for millions of Americans," MT's Christian Seabaugh wrote.

"It has made the current crop of pricey, short-range electric cars from BMW, Nissan, and others utterly irrelevant."

You can read the entire comparo here. It's well worth it.

SEE ALSO: This is your step-by-step guide to fixing a scratch on your car

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NOW WATCH: Chevy's 'Tesla-killer' has some sweet features

Intel sees a future where fireworks are replaced by flying drones.

So on Friday, the world's largest chipmaker released a new drone called the Shooting Star, an unmanned aerial vehicle specifically designed for light shows.

"With this drone, we will be able to demonstrate that drone light shows can redefine entertainment and create amazing new experiences in the night sky," Anil Nanduri, Intel's VP of New Technology Group, wrote in a blog post.

The Shooting Star is Intel's first drone created for entertainment light shows. At 280 grams, it's lighter than a volleyball, and comes with built-in LED lights that can create over 4 billion color combinations, Intel says.

Intel has recently acquired drone companies like MAVinci GmbH and Ascending Technologies to beef up its drone expertise. 

This isn't the first time Intel lobbed the idea of drones replacing fireworks. At this year's CES, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich shared his vision for this, claiming drones are safer and easier to control than fireworks.

"I see a future where fireworks and all of their risks of smoke, dirt are a thing of the past, and they’re replaced by shows that have unlimited creativity and potential — and powered by drones," Krzanich said.

To celebrate the release of Shooting Star, Intel also shared this video that shows 500 drones lighting up the sky:

SEE ALSO: 12 tips on how to get a high-paying job at Google even with a low GPA

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NOW WATCH: The story of Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the daughter Steve Jobs claimed wasn't his

Ikea is betting on indoor gardening in the US.

The furniture retailer is introducing a line of products, part of the Krydda/Växer collection, that'll help you start your own indoor hydroponic garden. Unlike regular gardens, hydroponic systems don't use soil to grow plants — only water. That water is filled with nutrients to make it a viable way to cultivate plants.

Because light, nutrient and water levels are easily adjustable, hydroponic devices also allow for finer tuning of growing conditions. This makes the process less water intensive and viable year-round. Plus, it helps novice gardeners skirt some common problems, including over- or under-watering, root rot, pests, and insufficient fertilizer.

Ikea's collection offers a number of different indoor gardening units. There's a nursery unit, which has small holes that allow seeds to germinate, as well as a cultivation unit, which houses matured plants. The collection also includes plant inserts, nutrients, and artificial lights, allowing customers to create kits with everything they need to grow herbs and greens indoors from start to finish.

The US collection will also include seeds for 18 types of herbs and salad greens, ranging from basics like lettuce, arugula, and chard, to slightly more exotic greens like chicory, amaranth, and mizuna. 

To take care of the plants, users just need to germinate them by placing them in water-soaked, nutrient-filled plugs in a nursery unit. Once the plants have matured, you can move them to a cultivation unit, where you give them fertilized water until they mature into harvestable greens.

 
The company hopes to have the collection on sale by Spring 2017, though a spokesperson for the company said product shipments could be staggered based on supply. The collection is already available in the UK, but the expansion to a much larger customer base in the US suggests the products have thus far been successful.

With the release of its first hydroponic systems, Ikea is joining numerous companies that are already using hydroponic technology to create innovative indoor gardening products. 

The Calla, which raised over $85,000 on Kickstarter, is a modular hydroponic system that allows you to grow a countertop herb garden with very little maintenance. And company called Everblume is making an enclosed hydroponic grower that controls the air temperature around your plants. 

Though IKEA's contribution to that list lacks the smart functionality of some other similar devices, the fact that it's being sold by the furniture giant will likely bring hydroponics even more into the public eye.

The move suggests indoor hydroponic gardening is no longer a rarefied hobby for environmentalists — with the new units, it'll be something anyone can start doing for relatively little cost.

Check out the video below to learn more about IKEA's hydroponic kit.

SEE ALSO: This self-watering herb garden is completely idiot-proof

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NOW WATCH: This garden-in-a-box brings fresh produce to apartment living

Global supply chains are undergoing a massive Internet of Things (IoT) transformation that will generate huge economic value.

A new report by Business Insider says that new connected technology will unlock $1.9 trillion, citing estimates by Cisco Systems and logistics giant DHL.

Specifically, it is the advent of IoT devices and related asset tracking solutions that will spark a seismic shift in global supply chains.

IoT-powered asset tracking technology stands to generate massive value for the logistics sector because of its sheer versatility.

Among the many benefits for companies, the connected tracking tech creates cost savings at almost every stage in global supply chains. Such phases where IoT is saving money include extraction, production, storage, transportation and the ultimate delivery to the client.

As well, new asset tracking technology will improve compliance reporting and unlock new revenue-generating opportunities in the logistics sector.

Yet it’s not just the hardware sensors that is transforming the industry, but the data these sensors are producing. More importantly, it’s the valuable insight that logistics and supply chain operators can glean from this new torrent of data.

“Analyzing real-time tracking data for operational insights can deliver a wide range of benefits including decreased fuel and storage costs, the automation of inventory-related tasks to free up employees for more valuable assignments, improved compliance reporting, and new revenue opportunities,” said the Business Insider report.

Logistics firms need major upgrades

Researchers found that the advent of IoT-powered asset tracking is prompting logistics companies to undergo major technology upgrades.

“Legacy asset tracking technologies like barcode scanners are gradually being replaced with newer internet-connected tracking solutions that provide real-time tracking data, as well as other information on the condition of goods in transit,” said the report.

“Asset tracking solutions allow companies to completely overhaul their supply chain and logistics operations so they can deliver more goods faster and more cheaply.”

The report says that the leading sectors adopting the new asset tracking technology include: manufacturing, agriculture, retail and oil and gas.

The post Can IoT-assisted asset tracking save shippers trillions? appeared first on ReadWrite.

U.S. networking hardware giant Cisco Systems is looking to transform 100 Indian metropolises into smart cities with connected technology.

Economic Times says Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins confirmed his company’s commitment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative.

He said that Cisco is currently working with state governments to digitally transform 14 cities, and that’s just the beginning.

“I wish to take this number to 100 in the next five-seven years in line with the government’s ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ initiatives,” said Robbins at the annual Cisco Partner Summit in San Francisco.

“We are working closely with our partners in India as they have the skills and capabilities to make this happen,” Robbins said. “This is part of our broader India digital plans,” Robbins added during a media interaction at the annual here on Tuesday.

Cisco’s larger plans in India also include its recently launched manufacturing operations in the western city of Pune.

Since first setting up shop in India in 1995, Cisco has expanded to its current level of 11,000 employees.

Robbins said that in those two decades, Cisco has gained a deeper knowledge of the challenges facing the fast-growing country. And he says his company has helped India tackle big challenges in the areas of healthcare and education.

“It is absolutely amazing to see the technology helping students read better and transforming healthcare in the Indian villages,” he said. “This is what actually drives Cisco.”

India just the next connected step for Cisco

The involvement in India’s smart cities movement is in line with Cisco’s interest in expanding into the burgeoning world of connected devices and infrastructure. Cisco has indicated that it is pursuing a strategy that involves the Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity and cloud computing.

And the IoT market that Cisco is targeting is growing a dizzying pace.

Currently, there are almost 23 billion connected devices around the globe. However industry forecasts have predicted that this number to grow to 50 billion by 2020.

The post Cisco aims to hook up 100 smart cities in India appeared first on ReadWrite.

As far as I’m aware, rotary cell phones never existed. The two technologies didn’t overlap much in time, with rotary dials getting replaced by push-button alternatives a decade or so before portable cell phones became popular. But that doesn’t mean rotary cell phones can’t exist now, and YouTube tinkerer Mr. Volt has created his own. It’s beautiful, minimalist, and looks heavy enough to smash a window.

The cell phone itself has six basic functions: it can make calls, store a single phone number, text (very slowly), tune into the radio, display system settings, and go to sleep. There’s a 96 x 96 OLED display, its case is made from a mixture of aluminum, brass, and 3D-printed plastic, and the whole thing is powered by an Adafruit...

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Microsoft is dipping a toe into the coworking world by shifting nearly 30% of its New York employees to WeWork memberships.

The company plans to take 300 We memberships — WeWork's basic, flexible membership plan — in two WeWork spaces in New York. Those 300 employees make up 70% of Microsoft's finance sales team in New York.

The company also has 40 employees working in a private office in an Atlanta WeWork and will move employees to WeWorks in Philadelphia and Portland as well.

Microsoft employees will be making the shift to a more flexible work environment later this month. 

"We admired WeWork from their founding and the way they were bringing fantastic new ideas to productivity," Matt Donovan, Microsoft's Office general manager, told Business Insider. "Productivity is something that Microsoft has been deeply passionate about."

The partnership with Microsoft goes both ways: All WeWork members have had access to Office 365 since WeWork and Microsoft began their partnership about a year ago. Employees will also get access to Microsoft's new work chat app, Teams, beginning in early 2017. 

But the move to coworking spaces represents something of a shift for Microsoft, which has lately been redoubling its outreach to startups and developers. Donovan said Microsoft employees will now have more flexibility and mobility, but will also bring them closer to the startups working out of WeWorks. 

"We’re a big fan of startups," Donovan said. "We were one ourselves at the beginning, so we know what those early days were like. We’ve been lucky enough to scale as a business and become a large enterprise, but certainly Satya [Nadella] is ensuring that we retain that growth mindset and that early hunger that we had as a business."

The partnership with Microsoft also falls in line with some changes afoot at WeWorks nationwide. The company said it's seen an uptick in enterprise clients — which it defines as large companies with more than 500 employees — moving some of their employees to WeWork locations. The startup, which was last valued at $16.9 billion, has been "fleshing out" its offerings for bigger companies. 

Dave Fano, chief of product at WeWork, said the company has "hundreds" of large organizations working in WeWorks — clients like GE, Airbnb, Spotify, and Salesforce. 

"I think it’s getting increasingly difficult to retain good talent, to attract good talent," Fano told Business Insider. "There’s a lot of discussion with the millennial workforce and how millennials are really driven by missions and not so much money or material things. I think large organizations understand that and understand that it’s not business as usual."

"We’re a high growth startup, so we’ve got a lot to learn from seasoned companies and we’re kind of humbled that they feel there’s something to learn from us." 

SEE ALSO: Here's what it's like to work in a WeWork building, the $16 billion company that simulates startup life

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NOW WATCH: Elon Musk just unveiled something that could revolutionize how you power your home

While the tech world was fascinated and freaking out over Microsoft's new Slack-killer product Teams, Facebook subtly reminded the world that it had some game in this market, too.

During Facebook's earnings on Wednesday, it had warned the Street that revenue growth would likely slow in 2017, and that it planned to increase spending to pursue new opportunities.

One of those new opportunities is software for business users. 

During the quarterly conference call with Wall Street analysts, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeated the fact that it just launched Workplace, a new version of Facebook that's designed for business users and that's a direct threat to the popular Slack business messaging product. He also said that 1,000 companies were already using Facebook Workplace (emphasis ours).

We're starting to build communities around completely new apps. This quarter, we launched Workplace to help make organizations more connected and productive. Workplace is a communications platform that uses features that people know, like News Feed, groups, and messages to help them collaborate and share at work the same way that they do everywhere else. Already, more than 1,000 organizations are using Workplace, including Starbucks, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Danone, and we're adding more all the time.

Similar backstories

Facebook is trying to break into a competitive market. The brand new product from Microsoft, Teams, is Microsoft's second attempt to corner the work group chat market. Microsoft also has Yammer, the workgroup chat app that Microsoft bought for $1.2 billion in 2012 and embedded into Office 365, which seemed to go nowhere.

But Facebook's Workplace origins are more like Slack's. Slack was born out of a failed video game startup, when the startup team created their own chat app to help them work on the game. Slack has gone on to grab about 4 million users, and is on track to generate $100 million in revenue this year. 

Similarly, Workplace was born because Facebook employees use Facebook as their main communication tool with their teams and co-workers rather than email. Facebook decided to turn that idea into an ad-free product. It charges $1-$3 per month per user, depending on how many users a company signs up for it.

Will Workplace steal away the people who would choose Slack? Or capture a good chunk of the millions of companies who use Office 365, who can now get Teams for free (not to mention Yammer)? 

Maybe not. But Facebook is clearly looking at new ways it can start making money from businesses beyond selling ads.

SEE ALSO: Facebook's Slack competitor, Workplace, is now available for any business to use

SEE ALSO: Slack took out a full-page ad in The New York Times so it could write an open letter to its new competitor, Microsoft

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NOW WATCH: A mysterious cloud moving 700,000 mph is going to collide with our galaxy — here's what will happen

Slack's head of marketing has quietly stepped down after two years on the job, leaving a key position at the $3.8 billion startup unfilled just as it faces tough new competitors.

Bill Maciatis, a tech industry veteran and former Salesforce and Zendesk executive who was hired as Slack's first Chief Marketing Officer back in 2014, stepped down a few months ago and move to an advisory role at the compay, according to his LinkedIn page.

A Slack representative confirmed to Business Insider that the company has not yet replaced Maciatis.

"Bill continues to be closely engaged with Slack, and is also following a passion of his to mentor other high growth startups by serving as formal board members and advisor roles," says a Slack spokesperson. Maciatis' LinkedIn bio, which notes that he had also served Chief Revenue Officer, says he remains on Slack's board of directors.

"Board and Advisor roles also give me a little more flexibility for time with the family while still allowing me to stay actively involved in the SaaS space which I love so much," Maciatis tells Business Insider. "I have a deep passion for igniting and scaling growth at companies and it’s fun to mentor and guide other startups."

The change comes at a time when Slack is battling two new big-name competitors, with Facebook's new Workplace service and Microsoft's Teams products both aiming to scoop up the business users that have flocked to Slack's messaging platform.

The lack of an experienced marketing leader could prove tricky for Slack as it looks to set itself apart from the competition.  

On Wednesday Slack published a full-page advertisement in The New York Times "welcoming" its new rival Microsoft to the enterprise chat market. The ad got plenty of attention, but was also criticized for making the startup appear overly defensive and not in keeping with Slack's friendly brand image, embodied by founder Stewart Butterfield.

Slack, for its part, has been redoubling its efforts to sell to larger customers: Back in May, Slack hired Salesforce veteran Robert Frati as its first-ever head of sales, signaling that it was taking the enterprise market more seriously.

And, in general, Slack says that it's growing like crazy, with 650 employees and counting across its four global offices — 15% of whom joined in the last 45 days. Slack also says that it's expecting another 100 people to join in the very short term. 

On the product side, though, questions still remain. Big customers like Uber have passed over Slack in favor of rivals like Atlassian HipChat, over concerns that the startup can't keep up with the demands of larger enterprises with thousands of employees. Noted pundit Ben Thompson today wrote he's still optimistic about Slack's chances, but is waiting for the startup to implement long-promised security controls for large enterprises.

For its part, Slack now says that Uber was only ever testing its product with a small group of its then-6,000 employees, and it just never went past that experimentation stage. In general, Slack says, it's dealing with customers larger than Uber was at that time, every day.

"Slack also has customers like IBM with more than 30,000 daily active users who rely on Slack to get their jobs done. That’s 5x the total size of Uber at the time they evaluated Slack and at a company with 6,300% more employees than Uber did," says a Slack spokesperson.

Still, Microsoft, at least, doesn't seem too concerned, recently referring to Slack as an "application du jour" for a "very narrow niche." Slack has its work cut out for it to prove the naysayers wrong.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft says its new Teams app will crush 'applications du jour' like Slack: 'Little companies come and go'

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NOW WATCH: Elon Musk just unveiled something that could revolutionize how you power your home

Huawei is announcing a new fitness tracker today, the simply-named Huawei Fit. The Fit is a watch-style fitness tracker, with a round face, and always-on, monochrome touchscreen. It counts steps, tracks sleep, and can continuously monitor heart rate during workouts. It is available at Best Buy, Amazon, and Newegg starting today for $129.99.

The Fit’s appearance is very similar to the Pebble Time Round from last year, and if you put them side-by-side, only a trained eye would be able to spot the differences. It’s available in a silver or grey finish with black, orange, or blue straps, which can be easily swapped for other 18mm wide straps.

For tracking features, the Fit can automatically sense when you’re walking, running, or sleeping,...

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Slack has always been easy to like. The fast-growing team communication startup had a classic underdog story, with its founders falling ass-backwards into enterprise software following a failed effort to build a video game. It’s led by Stewart Butterfield, one of the kindest and most self-aware founders in Silicon Valley, who had previously given the world Flickr and then gone through the wringer after its acquisition by Yahoo. And it makes a genuinely useful product — the company may not have killed email yet, but it does seem to be reducing the volume.

Today 4 million people use Slack every day, the company is on pace to generate $100 million in revenue this year, and investors have valued it at $3.8 billion. But as of this week, it...

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Word on the street is that Microsoft Teams, the Redmond giant's new work chat app, can trace its origins back to Bill Gates.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Gates urged company leadership not to bid $8 billion for mega-hot Silicon Valley startup Slack, but rather reinvest in building out the business appeal of Skype, which it bought for $8.5 billion in 2011.

It seems that Microsoft took Gates' advice: According to a leak in September 2016, Microsoft experimented with calling the new product "Skype Teams," before settling on the apparently final name of just "Teams."

Really, though, even without that indicator, Microsoft Teams is so much like Bill Gates, he may as well have signed it. In fact, Microsoft Teams is itself the most Gates-esque move yet undertaken by Microsoft under Nadella's reign, aimed entirely at using Microsoft's sheer size and scale to edge out the competition.

Gates of Borg

Back in the '90s, before memes were really a thing, it was kind of a meme to pass around pictures of then-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates as a Borg — the cyborg baddies of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fame.

If you're not a "Star Trek" fan, trust me, it's a sick own. Before the Borg attacked, they would issue their famous warning: "Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

It was a warning that resonated with the tech industry of the day.

Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft became known as a company that would win at any cost. From productivity apps to web browsers, any competitor it couldn't simply buy Microsoft would crush by making a new, competing product and win by selling to its huge existing customer base.

This is exactly what Microsoft is doing with Teams. Rather than pay $8 billion for Slack, which is more than twice its last private valuation of $3.8 billion, Microsoft has opted to take a bunch of technology and talent it already has and build a juggernaut that can't be stopped.

Everywhere already

Microsoft's Office 365 subscription suite has 85 million monthly active users, all paying workplace customers, and all of whom will get access to Microsoft Teams when it leaves preview and officially launches next year.

That's a tremendous advantage for Teams, giving it a reach that other companies will have trouble matching. Plus, Microsoft already has important stuff like security and regulatory compliance at huge scales all sorted out, solving what's historically a huge headache for startups as they learn to sell to Fortune 500 companies. 

Just as importantly, Teams boasts tight integrations with the whole Microsoft Office suite, which is already the standard for getting work done.

In the days of Gates, Microsoft's killer edge was what's called the "platform advantage." Microsoft's ownership of Windows and Office, the two main ways that people got anything done on a PC in those days, made it really easy to integrate any new product in a deeper and easier-to-use way than any competitor possibly could.

While Slack has accrued a vital ecosystem of developers around itself, supporting software and chatbots that integrate with the app, it's hard to compete with a product that's built around Office and the whole Microsoft product lineup.

In other words, Microsoft has weaponized Office into something that no startup can compete with head-on. The whole point of work chat apps is to collaborate on documents and projects, and Microsoft owns a huge chunk of that market.

And much like Microsoft in the nineties, Microsoft Teams takes that platform advantage and turns it into an offer that its considerable base of existing customers can't refuse. 

On the other hand

In other, important ways, Microsoft Teams couldn't exist without current CEO Satya Nadella and his kinder, gentler philosophy for the company. 

Nadella has envisioned a world where the device you use matters less than the services connected to it: The whole idea behind Office 365 is that your apps and documents follow you across Windows PCs, Macs, Apple iPhones, Android tablets, and whatever else you connect it to. It's a stark contrast with Microsoft's imperialist, Windows-first reputation.

Chat is a natural fit for that. In our connected world, it's a huge boon to be able to start a conversation on one device and finish it on another. Combine that with the workplace nature of Microsoft Teams, where you can see the conversation going on around documents and data, and it plays right into that larger strategy.

Unfortunately, though, Microsoft Teams seems to suffer from one of the worst hallmarks of Microsoft's earliest software efforts: Early hands-on experiences from the likes of PC World say that while it's cool and potentially very useful, Microsoft Teams is also a little complex and sports a learning curve.

On that note, Microsoft's selling strategy may be smart, but it's far from bulletproof. Products like Slack and Atlassian HipChat got to their current lofty positions in the chat market because they made signing up free and easy, and because people actually really liked using them.

Unlike in the Gates era, it's never been easier for people to circumvent the IT department and use whatever tool they want. While Microsoft is confident that they've built a better mousetrap, the burden of proof is definitely on them when it comes to building something people actually want.

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg is officially the new Bill Gates — that should make startups nervous

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NOW WATCH: Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Slack and Flickr, on two beliefs that have brought him the greatest success in life

A big questions investors have for Facebook is when it will start making money from its collection of standalone apps.

Instagram, the photo-sharing app Facebook bought for $1 billion in 2012, already contributes significantly to the company's ad revenue, but the company has been slowly tip-toeing towards monetization with its two other messaging apps.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out how he thinks about monetizing products in three phases during Facebook's third quarter earnings call on Wednesday:

1. Build a great consumer experience and get it to scale (Facebook does that last part very well).
2. Give people a way to "organically" communicate with businesses.
3. Give businesses "tools to reach those people."

Zuckerberg explained that Instagram is well into the third stage — the app has over 1 billion business accounts, serves ads, and is starting to let people shop for things. Although Facebook doesn't break out Instagram's revenue, analysts believe it is already contributing nicely to the top line.

Money in messaging

Messenger is early into the second stage, Zuckerberg said, as evidenced by the thousands of chat bots businesses have already built to communicate with people. Facebook said there are now 33,000 bots — which allow Messenger users to buy anything from flowers to airplane tickets — up from 11,000 in July.  Facebook is also experimenting with different types of revenue-generating ads that connect users with bots and businesses.

WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired for $22 billion in 2014, is still in the first stage. The app is starting to show early signs of revenue potential through a recent update to its privacy policy that linked WhatsApp and Facebook accounts for the first time, but it has yet to introduce any chat bots for businesses like Messenger.

Zuckerberg said that "we’re going to really start working on the next phase next year” for WhatsApp, which means we'll probably get an update about chat bots for WhatsApp at Facebook's annual developer conference in the spring.

SEE ALSO: Facebook smashes Q3 targets with sharp revenue growth, but worries loom for 2017

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NOW WATCH: WhatsApp is now sharing your data with Facebook — here's how to turn it off

 Microsoft introduced Microsoft Teams today to much fanfare and hoopla — as only Microsoft can seem to do these days. But when you take a close look at today’s announcement, what have you really got here — a 10-year-old idea on how to communicate and collaborate in the enterprise with a distinctly Microsoft twist. As I wrote previously about Slack and more recently Workplace… Read More

 Microsoft Teams throws a lot of you, right out of the gate. That’s because competitors like Slack already have a sizable head start on Microsoft’s workplace collaboration tool. More to the point, though, is that, while the company is late to the party, it’s got about as good a business suite infrastructure as anyone can ask for, from Office 365 to Skype. In a lot of ways,… Read More

On Wednesday, Microsoft officially unveiled Teams — a new work chat app for PCs, smartphones, and tablets that will take on competitors like $3.8 billion Slack and $5.5 billion Atlassian when it fully launches in early 2017.

In response, Slack took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, welcoming Microsoft to the market. 

That's especially notable considering reports that Bill Gates himself talked Microsoft leadership out of placing an $8 billion bid for the red-hot Slack, urging instead for the company to use its own tech to build a competitor. With Teams, it seems like Microsoft took Gates' advice to heart.

And now, Microsoft is being very clear that despite all the hype around the very well-funded and much-hyped Slack, it's not worried about competing with the startup, or any of its imitators. After all, Microsoft has Office, and Office rules the workplace.

"Little companies come and go," says Microsoft corporate VP of Office 365 marketing Ron Markezich, referring to tools like Slack as "applications du jour" that will fade away as Microsoft Teams comes into its own.

'A very narrow niche'

Markezich says that, from Microsoft's perspective, tools like Slack "fill a very narrow niche."

He calls them "little point solutions" that have found success with smaller teams by focusing so heavily on the user interface and letting them get started for free. The original and still primary audience for tools like Slack and HipChat have historically been smaller, more technical or creative teams.

But, he says, these apps just aren't suited to scaling up to larger companies, lacking in features, security controls, and integrations with business-standard software like Microsoft Office. Markezich says with Teams, Microsoft built something that's as easy to use as its upstart rivals, but that fills in the gaps for the IT department.

For its part, Slack has lost customers like Uber to its rival Atlassian HipChat over those same concerns around scalability and IT control.

"We have it all covered," says Markezich. "We are unique in that we are a great friend of IT and a great friend of the end user."

The master plan

With Microsoft Teams, Markezich says, Microsoft has built a product that's good for departmental groups of all sizes, at larger enterprises of all sizes, and that integrates tightly with the Microsoft software and services that so many employees at so many businesses already use. 

Plus, thanks to Microsoft's strong (though recently strained) relationship with big enterprise vendors like Salesforce, Office 365, and thus Teams, can hook up with most systems that employees in every part of the business is already using.

"I talk about Office 365 integration with Salesforce more than anything — more than our own [Microsoft Dynamics] product, in fact," Markezich says.

Plus, Markezich points out, Microsoft already has 85 million monthly active users on Office 365, all of whom get access to Teams when it enters into general availability next year. Slack, for comparison, recently claimed 5.8 million weekly active users.

That's a lot of potential users, and it's going to encourage developers to sign up and integrate their products with Teams — hot Silicon Valley companies like Asana and Zendesk have already signed on to provide their tools within Teams, letting users plan projects and assign help desk work right within the chat app. 

All of which means that Microsoft Teams can be customized for every team within a business, in a way that its upstart rivals can't, Markezich says.

"We look at Office 365 as a solution for every team," Markezich says.

Slack did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft officially announces Teams — and Slack should be very nervous

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NOW WATCH: The crazy story behind Slack, the app taking over offices everywhere

At an event in New York City today, Microsoft officially launched its Microsoft Teams competitor to Slack. The announcement, by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, comes just minutes after Slack published a warning letter to the software giant about competing with it. Microsoft is launching its Teams software as a service that ties into its existing Office 365 subscriptions. In a video demonstrating Microsoft Teams, the software maker describes the service as a chat-based workspace that's focused on real-time collaboration.

"Microsoft teams will bring together chat, meeting, notes, Office, Planner, PowerBI, and a host of extensions and applications to help teams get work done," explains Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. It looks a lot like Slack,...

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Wake up, America, We have a sleep problem. More than 68% of Americans report having trouble sleeping at least once a week, and many people believe that technology plays a major role in keeping them awake, but can it actually help you get a better night’s sleep? After all, the Internet of Things already helps make our day-to-day lives easier and more efficient: from keeping an eye on your house to regulating your pet feedings to keeping track of how many steps you take each day. But, we can’t ignore sleep as we turn to IoT for help with our daily (and nightly) tasks. As Arianna Huffington told Stanford MBA students, sleep is a “productivity tool,”  which is why it only makes sense to develop a platform to help us sleep better.

Sleep deprivation is also a health issue, and according to the Harvard Business Review, it’s not just an individual health hazard – it’s a public one. The IoT is just starting to break its way into the healthcare space, with doctors, hospitals, and diagnosticians taking advantage of new technology to help their patients. But there is still a huge opportunity for the Internet of Things to improve consumers’ health by simply helping them get a better night’s sleep.

For more than 15 years, Cambridge Sound Management has made it our business to make people more productive. As the world leader in sound masking technology, our commercial sound masking products emit low-level, unobtrusive background sound, similar to airflow, designed to reduce distractions and the intelligibility of speech. Over the years, our clients have seen the difference our sound masking technology has on their work environment and have often asked us for solutions to noise distractions in their own home. Many own a white noise machine or sleep with a fan on year-round to drown out unwanted noise, but the single point of sound in these devices makes it easy for our brains to focus on where the noise is being emitted, which doesn’t actually make for a more restful night’s sleep.

At Cambridge Sound Management, we know this is the number one shortcoming of traditional white noise machines and fans because it’s an issue we conquered years ago when we invented direct-field sound masking for our commercial business. Instead of one big speaker in an office to mask sound, we spaced out our smaller emitters in a grid layout to create a more uniform distribution and more effectively reduce noise distractions. But sound masking doesn’t just replace one unwanted sound with another (like your fan or ocean sounds playlist); it masks that unwanted sound through a sound at the right frequency and decibel level on the sound curve that is comfortable and barely noticeable to the human ear. To draw a comparison, you can drown out the light from a flashlight with a high power flood light, or you could perfectly dim the lights to eliminate the impact of the flashlight. This is how our sound masking systems work.

But, as Ms. Huffington pointed out, productivity isn’t limited to the boardroom: it first starts with productive sleep at home. Hearing the need for a more advanced solution to noise distractions in the home, we took our expertise in sound masking and developed a solution that masks unwanted noise where people need it most: the bedroom. That’s why we created Nightingale, the world’s first smart sleep system designed for today’s connected home. Nightingale’s unique, two-unit system creates uniform and even soft, ambient sound (called sound blankets) that ensure the brain cannot localize on the source of the sound, making for a truly quieter night’s sleep.

Nightingale sound blankets were designed by our sound scientists to immerse the entire bedroom in our proprietary sound curve, which is optimized to mask the most common indoor and outdoor noises that interrupt sleep. Two speakers on either side of the room and low to the ground project our sound blankets in a dogbone or bipolar pattern, so when Nightingale is behind furniture, the sound or overall effect isn’t impeded.

Through the iOS and Android app, you can optimize Nightingale to fit your room’s specific acoustics and sleeping conditions: for instance, adjust for a hardwood or carpet floor, the type of room you’re in (whether an adult bedroom, child bedroom or hospital room) and account for health conditions like snoring or tinnitus.

Nightingale seamlessly integrates with other smart home devices such as Nest, Ring, and Philips Hue via the popular IFTTT platform and can be controlled by voice with Amazon Echo. Nightingale offers 15 different ambient sound blanket options and, if you prefer, different nature sounds, all designed to ease you to sleep. We understand that no two rooms or people are the same, so Nightingale flexibly accommodates your sleeping conditions and preferences.

We’re excited to be among the first to leverage IoT technology to truly change your quality of our sleep. Learn more about Nightingale here.

This article was produced in partnership with Cambridge Sound Management.

The post How IoT is fixing America’s sleep problem appeared first on ReadWrite.

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Today, $5.5 business software company Atlassian announces that it's bringing its popular HipChat app to the Amazon Echo family of smart speakers — making HipChat the first chat program available on Echo, and possibly marking a milestone in using virtual assistants at work. 

Most Amazon Echo services (Amazon calls them "skills") are passive, as in you need to call on Alexa, the devices' personal digital assistant, before it'll do anything. But HipChat on Echo is designed to be active, as well, calling out when certain pre-set conditions are met as well as answering questions.

HipChat General Manager Steve Goldsmith says that Atlassian teams have been testing Echo internally as an alert system when things go wrong: If an Atlassian site or service goes down, the system automatically sends a message into HipChat, which then triggers the Echo to activate and shout an alert at the team.

Here's a video showing how it works:

 

The idea, Goldsmith says, is that Atlassian likes to think HipChat is pretty great on the web or smartphone, but you still need to be actively looking at one of your devices to use it. That's fine most of the time, but in a worst-case scenario, you're losing time if your top engineer is making coffee instead of looking at his phone. 

"We can't help you if you're not staring at one of your screens," Goldsmith says.

The advantages are a shorter time to respond, even when people aren't currently staring at their phones. The whole team can ask Echo for updates on HipChat, and hear the answers. Atlassian's main customer base are developers, so that's where it starts, but consider this the tip of the iceberg.

Neutral ground

It's true that, theoretically, you could wire this into integration like Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana. In Atlassian's experimentations, though, you're really using this kind of integration in more of an office setting. And no matter how you slice it, Goldsmith says, it's really weird to shout commands and updates at a coworker's laptop or phone.

Instead, Goldsmith says, the Echo is a "neutral piece of hardware." Put one in the corner of the room, and it's a team's communal voice box. In the same way that a family might share an Echo, so too does a software team, Goldsmith says. 

Amazon says the Echo will become a key pillar of its business in the future, with thousands of developers tasked to building and improving it. The existence of the forthcoming Google Home device, a direct Echo competitor, is a big sign that Amazon is on the right track.

While, right now, so much of the Echo's use is fun and games, the device's continued popularity, and the overall industry shift towards voice, means that HipChat on Echo could be a sign of things to come.

SEE ALSO: Slack's archrival Atlassian just beat it to the punch in a big way

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