Slack, the $2.8 billion valued company behind the messaging app that is changing how many businesses communicate internally, just launched an update that might once again spare your inbox. The messaging service, which is used by over 1 million people each day, has proven to be a popular way to simplify ad hoc and daily communication between teams, but now it has revamped its… Read More
On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at BoxWorks, the annual conference held by enterprise storage company Box, and shared some of his thoughts about the enterprise market Apple has been going after lately.
"In the 12 months ending in June, it was about $25 billion," Cook said, referring the size of Apple's enterprise business. "So this is not a hobby, it's a real business."
Cook acknowledged that Apple's strategy in the enterprise sector is to partner with big players and expand its presence through the partners' expertise.
"We don't have deep knowledge of all the verticals of enterprises," Cook continued. "We can build incredible devices and an app ecosystem, but we’re not going to know the details of the finincial services vertical, healthcare, or whatever..,we know some things, but mostly it will be by working with companies like IBM, Cisco, and Box and others to give customers a full solution."
Apple partnered with IBM last year to work on building and selling enteprise apps together. Last month, Apple also partnered with Cisco to create a "fast lane" for iOS users in the enterprise. Box is also working with IBM to integrate its solution in the iOS apps Apple and IBM are building together.
"Now, you don't say I want an enterprise smartphone, just like you don't get an enterprise car or an enterprise pen," Cook added. "If you look today, the companies' mobility are too much around email, the basic things, not reinventing or transforming the business...so there's a huge opportunity for us."
You wait ages for the next gen of pro-privacy smartphones to come along and then a couple of contenders start making noise at once… Today Silent Circle’s Blackphone 2 has gone on sale — with an RRP of $799 (excluding taxes) — a few days after BlackBerry CEO John Chen finally confirmed the various leaks pointing to a forthcoming Android-powered BlackBerry, due to go on… Read More
When we hear people talk about the “Cult of Apple,” it’s usually tongue-in-cheek, and not a scholarly opinion on whether Apple resembles organized religion.
But the joke comes from somewhere.
Apple, with its emphasis on ceremony and its messiah-like cofounder Steve Jobs, does feel eerily close to a religion. And now Atlas Obscura has gotten a professional opinion on the subject, from cultural historian and NYU professor Erica Robles-Anderson.
Atlas Obscura asked the question: Is Apple a cult?
Robles-Anderson says that, despite appealing to the individuality of contemporary culture, Apple is, definitely, a cult. “It’s so obviously a cult,” she tells Atlas Obscura.
There is a powerful collective experience that Apple provides, and to understand it, you have to look no further than its iPhone release days.
To highlight what Apple does, Robles-Anderson looked at its competitor, Samsung, which recently opened a store near Apple’s in SoHo. On Samsung’s release day, they “had giant ropes outside, as if anticipating a giant crowd, and big bouncer-looking people in fancy suits,” she says to Atlas Obscura. “And then...crickets."
Samsung just didn’t get it.
Apple creates its the hype around its release days not by pushing exclusivity, but inclusiveness. Our own reporter Lisa Eadicicco saw Apple store employees clapping and cheering customers outside Apple’s iconic 5th Avenue store in New York City.
But it’s not just that. Apple's inclusiveness paired with a sense of awe is its spiritual special sauce.
Once you enter the Apple Store, Robles-Anderson says it seems you are meant to feel minuscule in the presence of a higher power.
“It creates a space that emphasizes your smallness when you walk in. You look at something far away, and that makes your body feel like you’re entering somewhere sacred or holy,” Robles-Anderson told Atlas Obscura.
If the Apple Store is a new type of cathedral, the Geniuses are its priests, according to Atlas Obscura. They give you counsel, and access to special knowledge. And they are marked as separate by their clothing.
Facebook's Tom Occhino delivers a presentation about ReactJS.
As much as we may cling to the Web on our PCs, apps are everything in mobile. Now consuming 90% of our mobile time, apps are everything on mobile devices.
Native apps, that is.
Ever since Mark Zuckerberg declared Facebook's early investments in HTML5 instead of native app development his biggest mistake, the mobile Web has been in steady retreat.
Until now. Thanks, ironically enough, to Zuckerberg's army of engineers at Facebook.
Let me explain.
Reacting To The Mobile Web
Just a year after Zuckerberg pronounced HTML5 dead, one of his engineers—Jordan Walke—was hatching ReactJS, a new approach to Web development.
ReactJS makes app development simple, allows developers to leverage their knowledge of JavaScript, and more. But among its various innovations, one of the most interesting is its use of a virtual DOM, which allows ReactJS to more efficiently update the browser's DOM, improving performance.
Web enthusiasts like Mozilla's James Long declares that "React.js is the right way to build apps.... This works. It feels like I'm developing for the Web. But I'm writing a real native app, and you seriously can't tell the difference."
Which is fine, so far as it goes. What else is a Web-centric developer going to say?
When An iOS Developer Meets React Native
That's why I found Marc Shilling's "Ode to React Native Joy" so compelling. Shilling, who works for app development agency Chalk + Chisel is a hardcore iOS engineer and, seemingly, a very good one.
Forced into using React Native for a project, Shilling fought it:
I was content in my Apple ecosystem bubble. React Native seemed like a fun little experiment, but in my mind any real native app would still need to be written the real native way. It seemed like a waste of time for me to not only learn JavaScript (I had no experience), but an entirely new way of building apps when I was already beginning to master building them the “real” way.
Part of the impetus for trying out React Native was the need to have "a clear path going forward to make this app available for Android as well." As much as Shilling likes iOS development, native Android development is "not great." In theory, writing in React allows a developer to apply the same code base to two different platforms.
As it turns out, the theory works.
Despite some teething pains as he learned the React way, Shilling has shifted completely in his thinking around app development: "Fast-forward a couple of months, and I’m confident enough to say I may never write an iOS app in Objective-C or Swift again."
Native No More?
And after using the Discovery VR app that he and his team built (it's kind of awesome), you may never know whether you're using a Web or native app again.
The distinction becomes meaningless in React Native.
There are still improvements to be made in React land. Better documentation and tooling, for example. But if Shilling's experience is emblematic of what other developers can achieve, the meaning of "native app development" may completely change over the next few years.
Jutting out off the shores of San Francisco’s iconic St. Francis Yacht Club were the familiar colors of Orange and Blue, this time on the sails; of Rob Theis’s J111, Aeolus. Looking to repeat their victory of the internationally recognized Rolex Big Boat Series, Team RingCentral finished one point ahead of the fleet securing their […]
iPhone users now have another note-taking app to choose from.
Google just announced that its Google Keep app, which has been on Android since 2013, will be launching for the iPhone on Thursday.
Google Keep is kind of like Google's version of Evernote. You can use the app to take notes, jot down to-do lists, set reminders, record audio, and more.
You can also organize your notes with different colored labels as well. Google Keep also supports location-based reminders, which means it'll remind you to run an errand or perform a certain task based on where you are (i.e. pick up dry cleaning while you're on your way home from work, etc.).
The announcement comes just days after Apple launched iOS 9, it's new big iPhone update, which includes a much improved version of its Notes app.
Apple's Notes app was fairly basic before, leaving room for apps like Evernote to win over iPhone users.
But now with iOS 9, Apple has added a handful of capabilities such as easier sharing, the ability to add links from Safari, formatting for bulleted lists, and more.
Google Keep will have a bit more competition now that Apple has improved its Notes app, which is placed on an iPhone's home screen by default.
Still, if you're an iPhone owner that's a fan of Google and already uses Google's other apps for productivity, Keep will be a welcome addition.
Here's the video Google posted when the app was initially announced in 2013 showing how it works on Android.
Smartphone users are on average connecting to fourth generation Long Term Evolution networks at much faster speeds than Wi-Fi, according to Open Signal, a circumstance that might surprise you.
In the past, users connected to Wi-Fi because it provided a faster connection than the mobile network. That might still happen, but, on average, LTE connections now are faster than Wi-Fi.
Open Signal points out that there is “tremendous variance” in Wi-Fi connection quality around the world.
In North America or East Asia, a consumer might see 50 Mbps or better connections on their home or office networks, but then find their internet connection timing out at a local coffee shop.
There’s also a lot of variance in Wi-Fi speeds between countries, with some of the fastest Wi-Fi speeds in Europe.
Of course, network loading and backhaul availability and cost are key parts of the picture.
Some of the earliest adopters of LTE -- like the U.S., Japan, Sweden and Germany -- are starting to fall behind in terms of data performance. In part, these older networks are suffering from their own success, Open Signal says.
In the U.S., for instance, LTE’s introduction in 2010 resulted in a huge base of LTE subscribers in the country today. Those subscribers are all competing for the same network resources, slowing down average speeds.
In comparison, newer networks in South America and Europe are more lightly loaded. But the U.S. has also failed to keep up with the rest world in both spectrum and technology, Open Signal argues.
Netflix is on a mission to bring down the "pilot" system of television, in which a TV show lives or dies on the success of its first episode.
And now Netflix has some hard data to back up its position. Netflix has done some analysis on which episode of a TV series actually gets us hooked, and it varies series by series, according to The Verge. The data point Netflix focused on was the one special episode after which 70% of people kept watching until the end of the season — in other words, the episode that got them addicted to the show.
Some shows took longer to grab viewers, like "How I Met Your Mother," whose pivotal episode was No. 8 ("The Duel"). Others bewitched the audience from the start: "Sons of Anarchy" and "Breaking Bad" both took just until Episode 2.
Below you'll find 25 of the most popular Netflix shows — in alphabetical order — along with their respective "turning point" episode and accompanying Netflix description of the episode.
Arrow: Episode 8
Vendetta:
Oliver trains Helena to be his ally. Later, her pursuit of vengeance leads Helena to kill the leader of the triad.
Bates Motel: Episode 2
Nice Town You Picked, Norma ...:
Dylan wastes no time causing trouble at home. Meanwhile, the Bates family is inexorably drawn into the dark underbelly of White Pin Bay.
Better Call Saul: Episode 4
Hero (from IMDb, not available to stream on Netflix):
Jimmy makes a bold move against Hamlin in an effort to attract potential clients.
When you come up to a red light, and are trying to make a right turn, it can be annoying when cars keep streaming by and blocking you. But when those cars are planes, it's pretty hilarious.
That's what happened last week in Orange County, California. Dashcam footage shot by a bystander captures the surreal moment as a small plane makes an emergency landing in the middle of traffic — all while seeming to obey all relevant traffic laws in the process.
"Are you kidding me?" an unidentified man in the video says as the Piper Cherokee aircraft rolls in front of a Cadillac Escalade.
So what actually happened?
According to the Orange County Register, the small plane was being flown by an instructor and student pilot, and had to made an emergency landing. No injuries were reported, and the cause of the crash is unclear.
Real-estate mogul Donald Trump attacked presidential rival and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) Tuesday night on Twitter.
In a single 140-character broadside, Trump declared that Rubio's middle name was "amnesty," highlighted his poor Senate voting record, and suggested the senator didn't have a foreign-policy "VISION" for the country.
With that tweet, Trump has now insulted almost every single one of his Republican rivals on Twitter.
The online trash-talk, which has become a featured method for Trump, usually comes in response to a shot fired by the opponent in question. Rubio, for example, recently said Trump had not provided enough specifics on national security.
Only a couple of candidates who refuse to criticize Trump have escaped unscathed — notably Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who has taken light shots at Trump but calls him a friend, has also largely avoided Trump's ire outside of some retweets attacking him.
Everyone else hasn't been so lucky. Business Insider collected Trump's best Twitter burns below.
Trump has made it very clear that he's not a fan of Fiorina's rocky tenure in the business world, her loss of a 2010 Senate race in California, or her voice.
I just realized that if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache. She has zero chance!
Trump unleashed a storm of criticism against the soft-spoken doctor after he said Trump was not as publicly religious as himself. Carson retracted his comments and Trump backed off as a result, only going after Carson's poll numbers and retweeting a supporter attacking his energy.
Wow, I am ahead of the field with Evangelicals (am so proud of this) and virtually every other group, and Ben Carson just took a swipe at me
Bush, another frequent Trump critic, is probably Trump's favorite target on Twitter. Trump has released multiple social-media attack ads against Bush and constantly taunts the former governor with gusto on a wide range of issues.
Jindal recently launched an all-out assault against Trump, calling him an "egomaniacal madman," questioning his conservatism, and much more. Trump initially said he wouldn't respond to someone so low in the polls — but eventually blasted him on Twitter.
Oh wow, lightweight Governor @BobbyJindal, who is registered at less than 1 percent in the polls, just mocked my hair. So original!
Did you? If you're running Safari, Firefox, or another web browser, it will simply fail to load. But if you're using Google Chrome? If you moused over the link, then your window just crashed. If you managed to click on it — or pasted it into a new window — the entire app just entirely crashed.
(Here it is again, unlinked: http://a/%%30%30)
It's a bug that was flagged up by researcher Adnris Atteka on September 18 and reported to Google. (We first heard about in The Guardian.) Chrome can't make sense of the address, and crashes in the process.
It appears to affect the most recent version of Chrome on both OS X and Windows. We tested it on OS X, and sure enough, it immediately crashed Chrome.
The bug is reminiscent of a previous issue affecting Skype. Sending a certain 8-letter message back in June would permanently break people's apps. The company began automatically censoring the offending message to stop the problem. In May, a similar issue affected iPhones: Sending a string of characters would crash the recipient's Messages app.
The Guardian points out that a fix has already been written for the Chrome bug. But it won't make it into a general (not beta) release of Chrome right away. (We've reached out to Google to ask about timeframe.)
Pandora shares shot up 5.74% in trading on Monday, closing at $20.83.
The spike happened after Pandora moved closer to a win in its dispute regarding music royalty rates. Pandora claims it should pay lower rates, and today a U.S. copyright official favored the company's arguments in an opinion, according to Bloomberg.
Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante supported Pandora’s position in the pending case regarding royalty rates from 2016 to 2020, Bloomberg reports. This turn means it's less likely that Pandora will suffer a "devastating loss" when the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) rules in December, Bloomberg analyst Matthew Schettenhelm wrote in a note.
Thomas Claps, an analyst at Susquehanna, called this new development “a significant, positive catalyst for Pandora,” in a note.
Pandora stock jumped as soon as the market opened, and trading had to be temporarily stopped at least twice early in the session because of the rapid rise in shares. The stock rose as high as $22.60 per share.
Pandora has so far had a strong year, even in the face of a new competitor, Apple Music.
CEO Brian McAndrews has previously said that fears about Apple Music are overblown. "Going forward, we feel really good about our trajectory and competitive position," he said. "With any big launch like [like Apple Music] and the noise in the marketplace, there could be some users that experiment with it and there could be some short term impact...But we don't believe that there will be any long-term impact."
After Carly Fiorina was fired as Hewlett-Packard's CEO in 2005, Seton Hall University business professor Dr. A.D. Amar took a deep look at what went wrong.
His conclusion?
"Fiorina took credit for HP's comeback, which went on after she was fired from HP and was a result of Hurd's efforts," he says.
Amar, a professor of business management at Seton Hall's Stillman School of Business, conducted his research throughout 2006, after HP started to bounce back under then-CEO Mark Hurd.
He published an academic paper in 2009 and later spoke about the research, too, long before Fiorina ran for president.
And, for what it's worth, he's also a registered Republican.
So after seeing Fiorina speak on the campaign trail about her time at HP, he felt compelled to share his research paper with Business Insider.
"She's not being honest to her own style," Amar says.
For instance, according to his his research, "Fiorina resisted sharing operating duties" and "has a self-centered style," and her "leadership was based on the notion that 'management is a performance' and her public presentations were choreographed like a rock star. She travelled in an entourage and emerged as one of the most recognized celebrity CEOs."
For instance, she reportedly passed out noisemakers to employees, which they were supposed to use when she took the stage at a company event, according to Bloomberg's Melinda Henneberger. This was not a well-received idea among HP's conservative pocket-protector culture.
She was also known at the company for hanging her portrait in HP's lobby between its two revered founders, William Hewlett and David Packard, Amar points out.
That would be like Apple CEO Tim Cook hanging his portrait between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Amar firmly credits Mark Hurd for reviving the company after Fiorina left. Under Hurd, HP's share in printers and PCs increased, Amar says, and, thanks to cost-cutting, he boosted operating margins "from 4% to 6.9%."
As we previously reported, Yale business professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld also stands by his opinion, first shared in 2005, that Fiorina deserved to be named among the worst CEOs of the day.
Fiorina's campaign counters Amar's opinion of her leadership style by saying that Fiorina's time at HP was great. A representative sent us this statement. (Note: It refers to Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2009, four years after Fiorina left HP):
Carly was brought in at a time when HP was stagnating and falling behind. She led HP through the dot-com bust while the NASDAQ dropped nearly 80 percent and unemployment in Silicon Valley soared to 9 percent.
While competitors like Gateway and Sun ceased to exist, Carly saved 80,000 jobs and added even more jobs. The person who led the board to fire Carly has since taken out a full-page ad in The New York Times to say he was wrong and she was right.
Americans are ready for a president who isn't afraid to challenge the status quo even when it's not popular with the powerful interests that benefit from the status quo. That is the leadership Carly has brought her entire career — whether at HP, AT&T, Lucent, or in the international charities she has chaired.
The retailer has teamed up with startup Techstars to improve the shopper experience, according to Fortune
Most notably, Target is working on a "concept store" that will open within in one to two years. This store might include robots.
Hardware store chain Lowe's has already been testing robots that can find and retrieve items.
“We know that technology will continue to revolutionize retail, and that Target’s future will be built on innovation,” Casey Carl, Target’s chief strategy and innovation officer, said in a press release.
Target is experiencing massive growth in its online sales, which rose 30% last quarter.
The company is also working to strengthen its e-commerce with retail developments such as a grocery delivery service and using inventory from stores to speed up online delivery.
Target's previous tech systems have been lagging — creating inventory and infrastructure problems, including many out-of-stock orders and slow delivery service.
Executives say that pairing with Techstars will give Target the tools it needs to be educated in successful e-commerce.
Techstars is exclusive, accepting only 1% of applicants for for its program.
According to the San Francisco-based company, approximately 60 percent of its 400 million users worldwide are already using Dropbox services at work anyway.
Han Solo is convinced that the Millennium Falcon is the fastest ship in the galaxy — and he's right if you're only counting the "Star Wars" universe.
But what about compared to spaceships in other sci-fi universes?
This awesome Fat Wallet graphic has the answer. It ranks spaceships featured in popular sci-fi stories from slowest to fastest.
It's divided between ships that are slower than the speed of light and ships that are faster than the speed of light. A proton flying through the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider at nearly the speed of light is a fun Easter Egg that separates the two sections.
In the first half, the ships that travel slower than the speed of light are ranked by g-force: the force on an object exerted by acceleration. It's a pretty comprehensive list that includes TIE Fighters like the ones that attack Luke while he's trying to blow up the Death Star in "Star Wars," Serenity from the beloved (and much-missed) TV show "Firefly," the escape pod that Superman uses to flee his home planet Krypton before it explodes, and even some real life NASA spacecraft like Voyager 1.
The second half includes ships that travel faster than the speed of light and they are ranked by c's, where one c is equal to the speed of light (about 186,282 miles per second). Of course all of the ships in this second half are fictional since no one has figured out how to make a real "Star Trek" warp drive yet.
So which ship is the fastest? Doctor Who's awesome time-traveling TARDIS is a close runner up (the physics of which are surprisingly not entirely science fiction), but anyone who's read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" won't be surprised by the winner. Sorry Han.
Facebook doesn't exactly make it easy for you to stay off its radar.
If you want to stay hidden on Facebook, however, we can help you out.
When you're finished with this process, no one but you will be able to see your Facebook activity, view your photos, or see where you've checked in. Your current friends will still be able to view your basic profile — there's no way around this — but all your activities will be blank.
Note: You don't have to block all the features we suggest. You can pick and choose.
First, click on the lock icon in the upper-right corner of your profile. Then click "See More Settings."
This brings you to the "Privacy Settings and Tools" menu. Now you'll need to change "Who Can See My Future Posts?" to "Only Me."
Next, you can change who can see your past posts by clicking "Limit Past Posts" and confirming the change. This will make it so your past posts are visible only to your friends, instead of the public or "friends of friends."
To help make the switch from Android to iOS easier, Apple created its first Android app, "Move to iOS."
The app was designed to quickly and easily transfer an Android user's contacts, message history, photos, videos, email accounts, calendars, and web-browser bookmarks over to their new iPhone when they switch. It's the first Apple app to exist in the Google Play app store, and Android fans are flooding it with one-star reviews to voice their displeasure at Apple.
The influx of low ratings has caused the app's rating to plunge to a 1.7-star average, with an astounding 24,813 reviewers giving the app a single-star rating.
"Apple sucks," wrote a reviewer who gave the app a one-star rating. "Seriously, iPhones are slow and everything is still restricted. Don't switch, it's just a bad idea."
"Do not install! Unless you want a lobotomy," wrote another one-star reviewer. "Seriously? You think people want to move to a restricted ecosystem that won't even allow you to try apps before you buy?? Google why did you allow them to put this app here? Oh that's right you promote innovation and don't charge for it or place restrictions on it...actually, I am surprised Apple isn't charging $20 for the app."
Yet another unhappy reviewer compared moving from Android over to Apple's iOS platform to be "like moving back with my parents," writing that Apple's closed ecosystem is like having your mom choose your clothes for you in the morning and being unable to stay up late and watch what you want on TV.
Most of the negative reviews appear to be coming from Android fans and Apple haters rather than people who have actually used the app. Reviewers that mention the actual experience appear to be satisfied, writing that the app "Does what it does" with "no issues."
"People giving 1 star just because it is from a specific publisher does not count as a review," wrote Naman Mittal, who gave the app five stars. "So the app does what it does and I didn't find any bugs or issues with it whatsoever."
This week, Lifesize announced the availability of WebRTC-based access to the Lifesize video cloud. Lifesize delivered integration of WebRTC-based video conferencing and web conferencing into its cloud collaboration solution through Google Chrome and WebRTC. This solution enables guests to participate in Lifesize cloud-based video, audio, and web conferencing apps from a browser without a plug-in or download.
There's nothing like getting under the skin of a fanboi (pronounced "fan boy" for those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept). Fanbois are known for how their brand-adoration could easily outstrip the allure of a real cult. Insulting the object of fanboi affection is like stabbing someone's mother. The responses are often swift, relentless, and never lacking in character assassination.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appeared at Salesforce's huge customer conference in San Francisco mostly to do a big demo of a bunch of new Microsoft's apps like Delve and PowerBI.
That in itself is amazing, since these two companies used to be major competitors and are now such happy partners that Microsoft was on stage showing off its own products, and how they work with Salesforce's products.
But before the demo, he talked for a bit with Wired reporter Jessi Hempel.
She asked him to explain what's up with the company, what his ultimate goal and objective is.
And he explained that the company has "3 big ambitions" as a company.
No. 1: Microsoft is trying to "reinvent productivity," creating technology that allows you to do your job better, as well as run your personal life better. He noted that Microsoft is "unique" in the tech world, in that its the "only company that obsesses about both" work and consumer tech "and the connection between the two, individuals and organizations."
Ultimately, he wants Microsoft to do its part to "drive individual success" as well as "organizational success."
No. 2: Microsoft is "building the intelligent cloud." This means more than just a cloud that hosts apps, or sells them as a service, but one that can "harness" data created in the cloud and convert it into intelligence, whether its business decisions for or fitness trackers for your body.
No. 3: He wants to make "computing more personal, more natural." With Windows 10 this is talking to your computer, to Cortana, for internet searches and other tasks. But its also typing in an ordinary language into other apps, like PowerBI, to ask a business question and get an answer, even pulling in data from Twitter, Salesforce, other sources. It also includes computer vision, Windows 10 can recognize your face to login.
Very soon, with the Internet of Things will be making every object around you a "smart" object.
"Computing is going going to be ambient, everywhere" he says, and Microsoft is trying to make it all easier to use.
And all three ambitions are "interlocking," he says, "but that's what we're up to."
Unfortunately, dreaming it and making it work are two different things.
During his on stage demo using Cortona to ask a natural question, Cortona never understood his question. After three attempts and one frustrated "aw come on!" muttered at Cortana, the demo was rescued by a technician backstage, who made Cortana do what he was asking.
Still, his ambitions are big, the tech is new and if he can pull it off, Microsoft will not just survive in the post-PC era, but thrive.
Facebook for Work, the enterprise version of the social network built specifically for businesses, will likely launch out of beta by the end of the year, Julien Codornious, the exec running the efforts, told Recode.
Facebook for Work is almost exactly like regular Facebook, but tweaked slightly to fit a corporate environment. The idea is that it will be super easy for people to use it in a business setting because they already know how to use it socially.
Facebook employees have been using Facebook to fulfill work responsibilities for a long time and the closed beta, which Facebook launched in January, has had more than 100 companies testing it so far.
Facebook plans to launch the product for free and will offer premium features that businesses can choose to pay for (no ads, ever). By vying to be the main internal communication tool for businesses, Facebook is strongly challenging other established products like Yammer, owned by Microsoft, or Slack, which is one of the fastest-growing business apps of all time and now worth an estimated $2.8 billion, having raised $160 million.
Facebook told Business Insider the company is rolling out the "for work" product to hundreds of more test companies, and that companies that have already signed on, like Heineken and Hootsuite, are "experiencing solid daily engagement rates" and"seeing increased productivity using the Groups and News Feed features."
Facebook sent over some screenshots of how Facebook For Work could look in action.
Here's a company's main group page:
Facebook for work will also have its own standalone app (so you never have to miss an update about the printers):
Instead of "friending" your coworkers, it looks like you'll be able to "follow" them:
Some problems arguably are not possible to solve, as much as we want to believe that all problems, given will and effort, are in fact capable of being resolved. Meaning no disrespect, perhaps Sprint continues to be a case of the problem that cannot be solved, as hard as smart talented people continue to try.
Moody's Investors Service has downgraded several ratings of Sprint Corporation debt obligations.
“Today's rating action reflects Moody's view that the numerous operational and network initiatives, management changes, and funding plans recently announced by Sprint and its parent company and majority shareholder, SoftBank Group Corp. ("SoftBank"), will be insufficient to stabilize Sprint's operations in the next few years,” Moody’s said.
“The brutal competition now playing out in the US wireless industry will pressure the financial performance of even the strongest operators,” said Moody’s.
The problems are that Sprint's cash consumption remains high, liquidity remains weak and leverage high. That means concern about Sprint’s ability to refinance its large upcoming debt maturities.
Despite some improvement in operating metrics (reduced churn, decrease in postpaid handset losses), capital markets will require more collateral.
That is why Sprint is creating two leasing companies to finance customer devices and network equipment.
Hard work, talent and even luck sometimes are not enough. Sometimes companies just run out of time, assets to sell and cash.
Slack, the $2.8 billion valued company behind the messaging app that is changing how many businesses communicate internally, just launched an update that might once again spare your inbox. The messaging service, which is used by over 1 million people each day, has proven to be a popular way to simplify ad hoc and daily communication between teams, but now it has revamped its… Read More
You wait ages for the next gen of pro-privacy smartphones to come along and then a couple of contenders start making noise at once… Today Silent Circle’s Blackphone 2 has gone on sale — with an RRP of $799 (excluding taxes) — a few days after BlackBerry CEO John Chen finally confirmed the various leaks pointing to a forthcoming Android-powered BlackBerry, due to go on… Read More
When we hear people talk about the “Cult of Apple,” it’s usually tongue-in-cheek, and not a scholarly opinion on whether Apple resembles organized religion. 
That would be like Apple CEO Tim Cook hanging his portrait between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Very soon, with the Internet of Things will be making every object around you a "smart" object.
