Davemichels

This article was prepared by a guest contributor to ProgrammableWeb. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the view of ProgrammableWeb or its editorial staff.

The business model is not clear, but it seems as if the Delhi government will pay a fee of some sort to the providers, based on end user consumption.

In one incredibly dooming GIF.

Last week, the Obama administration released the final draft of its controversial Clean Power Plan, which calls for sweeping cuts in carbon emissions from the nation's power plants. In his speech, the President illustrated the need for such a plan with a reference to how dramatically the National Geographic has had to alter its atlas to reflect the effects of global warming.

Read Full Story

 Symantec announced today that it had sold its Veritas division to The Carlyle Group, a Washington, DC-based private equity firm for $8 billion in cash. The move comes after Symantec, mostly known as a computer security company, announced it was splitting into two separate publicly traded companies last fall. The first was going to be Symantec, which as you might expect focused on security… Read More

On Monday, the last 20,000 of a total of 96 million 'shadeballs' were rolled into a reservoir in Los Angeles, NPR reports.

The black plastic balls are used as a cheaper alternative to tarps, which would normally be used to accomplish two main goals: 1) keep algae out and 2) keep the water in.

The balls also help block the formation of cancer-causing agents called carcinogens, which can develop when sunlight reacts with certain chemicals in the water. 

The covering of the reservoir surface is expected to save about 300 million gallons of water every year, according to NPR, and is part of California's latest attempt to avoid worsening its ongoing four-year drought. The total cost for the deployment of the shadeballs amounts to $34.5 million.

According to Bloomberg, the four-inch-wide shadeballs are coated with a UV-light blocking chemical. They're hollow and filled with water to keep them from flying away. Each one costs around 36¢ to make. 

Sydney Chase, the CEO of XavierC, a company that specializes in the manufacture of those balls, told Bloomberg that she calls them "conservation balls" as they help keep water bodies clean and preserve water.

The balls can also be used in reverse, when distributed on toxic waters in order to keep animals out. The balls are also designed not to degrade and are expected to last 10 years before being recycled. 

The Los Angeles Reservoir is the latest body of water to be filled with 'shadeballs.' Three others are already filled with the floating devices. 

The shadeball mania started in 2008 after Los Angeles realized that two of its reservoirs had unusually high levels of bromate, a suspect cancer-causing agent. Since bromate is formed when sunlight reacts with bromide (a chemical found in water) and ozone or chlorine (both of which are used to disinfect water) the city decided to shield the water from sunlight.

The 'shadeballs' were the most convenient and cheapest option and were introduced to the Ivanhoe reservoir in 2008.

READ MORE: Devastating photos of California show how bad the drought really is

SEE ALSO: One of California's biggest sources of water just disappeared

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A devastating look at the California drought

Would you spend $400 on a shower head?

Probably not. But this isn't any ordinary shower head — this is a Nebia, a shower system that's been backed by some pretty powerful players, including startup seed fund Y Combinator, Google chairman Eric Schmidt's Family Foundation, and even Apple CEO Tim Cook, who was the company's first angel investor.

Nebia's Kickstarter page for the shower head went live on Monday night. And as of Tuesday morning, it's already surpassed — even doubled — its $100,000 goal.

Nebia CEO Philip Winter explained why the Nebia shower head is so special in its Kickstarter video and in an interview with Venturebeat.

Nebia cofounder Carlos Gomez Andonaegui was concerned that his fitness club was using too much water. So he and his father Emilio set out to find a solution.

Together with Philip Winter, the team spent five years working on dozens of prototypes to make a more efficient shower head.

Nebia says over 500 people have tried its shower head, including Tim Cook and Eric Schmidt.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: The iPhone hologram projector is real — here's how to make one

Xiaomi, the largest smartphone vendor in China, has announced that it's going to start making smartphones in India.

Indian residents have been able to buy Xiaomi smartphones for over a year, and the company has now announced that it's partnering with Foxconn to produce phones locally. 

The first Xiaomi smartphone to be made in India will be the Redmi 2 Prime. It's the company's latest smartphone, and will cost Rs. 6,999 (around £70). Xiaomi says that all of the Redmi 2 Primes sold in India will be manufactured in the country.

International development is a big part of Xiaomi's current strategy. It used to stick to China, and only sold its products there. But it had steadily been growing an overseas presence, and now operates in countries such as India and Brazil.

This isn't the first time that Xiaomi has announced that it's going to manufacture its products outside of India. The Wall Street Journal points out that it already makes some phones locally in Brazil.

Xiaomi has also started selling products in the US and Europe, but not its smartphones. Its Mi.com online store sells headphones, earphones, and fitness trackers. Xiaomi executive Hugo Bara previously said that the company won't sell its cheap Android phones in the West for "a few years."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This $200 million plane is called the 'most lethal fighter aircraft in the world'

For the last few years, I’ve been proposing that the way to conceptualize Google is as two separate entities: Google A and Google B.

Roughly speaking Google A was the R&D^[1] organization and Google B was SG&A^[2]. You can find the operating expenses of running each of these organizations in the company’s income statement.  In the last quarter R&D was about $2.8 billion and SG&A was about $3.5 billion^[3]. The two entities are further distinguished as follows:

• Google A was led by Eric Schmidt and Larry Page and Google B was led by persons unknown, but mostly represented by the “Chief Business Officer” Omid Kordestani.
• Google A spends money. Google B collects money.
• Google B sends a check to Google A while Google A sends data to Google B (which then sells it on to advertisers and collects money).
• Google A communicates frequently with optimism and enthusiasm about the future. Google B remains quiet.
• Google A solves problems of humanity, Google B solves problems for advertisers.
• Google A has users, Google B has customers (to whom it sells users.)

In summary, Google A is altruistic, Google B is pragmatic. Google A engages in research, Google B engages in commerce. Google A operates in a structure similar to a Bell Labs for the good of humanity^[4],  Google B operates in a structure similar to AT&T and collects monopoly rents but without any government oversight.

This was an effective construct for analysis which explained to me much of how Google operated and how it made decisions. So what do we make of Google’s new Alphabet? Is this a dissolution of the Google B/Google A dichotomy?

My initial answer is no. We don’t have a change in this core structure. What we have instead is a split of Google A into Google A and Google A+.

A+ is the crème de la crème of the altruistic Google A. It’s the stuff that really does not make money. It’s the laboratory of Bell laboratories. It’s the moonshot manufacturer. It’s the incubator where hobbies are hatched. It’s the funder of ventures.

After A+ is carved out, Google A and Google B remain exactly as they were, now under a new CEO. The previous CEO no longer has any day-to-day input in the running of Google A and is no longer soiled by association with Google B.

Alphabet is therefore the “holding company” of Google A+, Google A and Google B. I can only suppose that the separation of A+ from A (and the previous A from B) allows the founders to distance themselves even further from the purchase decisions which, through pricing signals, determine where value lies and how resources should be allocated. That must be a great relief.

Notes:

1. Research and Development
2. Sales, General and Administrative
3. Sales and marketing was $2.1 billion and General and Administrative was $1.5 billion
4. Using a definition of Good as established by the founder

Some analysts are worried that Apple's next iPhone won't be good enough to grow Apple's iPhone business.

KGI Securities, which is known for making accurate predictions around Apple's upcoming product announcements, is now forecasting zero or negative growth of iPhone sales in the fourth quarter of 2015. The firm shared its predictions in a new note, which was picked up by Taiwanese blog Apple Daily.

KGI believes Apple is only likely to sell between 65 million and 75 million iPhones in the last quarter of 2015, while it sold 74.5 million in Q4 2014. 

Jefferies made similar predictions in its most recent note, downgrading Apple's price target from $135 to $130 due to "uncertainty for iPhone primarily in China." Jefferies thinks Apple will sell 70 million iPhone units in the December quarter, which is down from previous estimates of 78 million.

KGI thinks the weak economy in China will have an impact on Apple's iPhone sales in the last quarter of the year. The firm also doesn't believe Force Touch — which is rumored to be the marquee feature upgrade in the iPhone 6S — will be enough of a change to make the next iPhone a runaway success like the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were.

Force Touch is a pressure-sensing technology Apple has added to its newer MacBooks and the Apple Watch. It can sense how hard you're pressing in addition to where you're pressing and whether you're tapping and swiping. Multiple reports have cited it as the main characteristic that will distinguish it from the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. 

The new predictions from KGI and Jefferies reiterate a concern among analysts that we've been hearing about for months. Since the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were such blockbuster hits, it will be difficult for Apple to show that its iPhone business is still growing with its next release.

This is especially notable coming from KGI, however, since the firm is known for its accuracy thanks to Ming-chi Kuo — an analyst that's nailed several details about Apple's previous products and seems to be really plugged into the company's supply chain. 

This worry also materialized last month when Apple reported that it sold fewer iPhones than analysts had expected, which caused stock to drop despite the fact that the company's overall earnings numbers were great. 

During its earnings call, Apple reiterated the areas in which the iPhone has room to grow, saying that it's seen the highest rate of switchers from Android to the iPhone this year than it has ever before. It also noted that only a fraction of Apple's installed base has upgrade to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, leaving a huge opportunity for customers with older models to upgrade.

Despite the unsure attitude toward Apple's next iPhone, some analysts believe the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will continue to sell well through the end of the year — especially if Apple lowers the prices of these phones.

"It's a multiyear cycle, and once you come to grips with that I think you're going to feel better about Apple and what's happening with the bigger phones here," Brian White, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald, said in a previous interview with Business Insider.

SEE ALSO: Here are the features analysts expect to see in Apple's iPhone 6S

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 2 texting tricks you didn't know you could do on your iPhone

When Evernote's founding CEO and current chairman Phil Libin started his productivity app company with cofounder Stepan Pachikov in 2007, he began seeking out mentorship from some of the biggest names in tech, like Amazon's Jeff Bezos and LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman.

They were generous with their time and remain role models to Libin, but it was Hiroshi Mikitani, founder and CEO of the multibillion-dollar e-commerce conglomerate Rakuten, who gave him perhaps the most readily actionable advice he's received as a manager, he tells "The 4-Hour Workweek" author Tim Ferriss on Ferriss' podcast.

Mikitani calls it "The Rule of 3 and 10": Every time a company triples in size, "everything breaks."

Mikitani grew Rakuten from the ground up, and today it has roughly 12,000 employees. He noticed that from one to three employees, from three to 10, from 300 to 1,000, etc. (the rule rounds up to multiples of 10 for ease of understanding), that everything stops working as it should.

"And by everything he means everything," Libin tells Ferriss. This includes how the company handles payroll, how managers schedule meetings, how teams communicate, how it budgets, and how its hierarchy is balanced.

The problem, Libin says, is that many CEOs of rapidly growing startups "blow right through these triplings without even realizing it."

Libin, using his own company as a hypothetical example, tells Ferriss: "We're at 400 people now at Evernote. And when I really think about it, it's like, OK, we're at 400 people now, but some of our processes and systems have been in place since we were 30 [people]. So we kind of skipped a few steps. And everything is creaky and broken, and you really have to try to adjust."

Regardless of where your company is in its life, being aware of the Rule of 3 and 10 is "super eye-opening," Libin tells Ferriss. "That's one of the most actionable pieces of advice I've gotten."

You can listen to the full episode at Ferriss' website or iTunes.

SEE ALSO: Dollar Shave Club CEO shares the twice-a-day habit that rejuvenates him more than coffee

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The surprising reason 'Shark Tank' investor Robert Herjavec started his own company

The company is also simplifying its monthly plans by taking a cue from the fast food industry, offering plans in small, medium, large and extra large.

Messaging apps are everywhere: Facebook has Messenger and WhatsApp, Snapchat is ubiquitous among teens, and special-purpose apps like Kik, Yik Yak, and Whisper are all having their time in the sun as well.

But despite all these choices, US teens still prefer the good old text message. According to Pew Research statistics compiled by Statista, more than half of teens text their friends every single day — that's more than twice as many who send instant messages to friends every day (27%) using platforms like Gchat, and who see their friends in person every day (25%). Only 14% use messaging apps every day.

Texting is still the only universal way to get in touch with all your friends (at least if they have a cell phone with text capabilities, and who doesn't?). Most messaging apps work only with friends who happen to be on the same platform.

SEE ALSO: Here's the next step in Netflix's plan for global domination

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A bunch of teens used Skype to meet and learn from kids from all over the world

Big Blue has acquired Merge Healthcare, and the marriage of the two company's technology should give Watson a new vision skill set.

IBM's famous cognitive computer can already beat the world's best Jeopardy players. It can create gourmet meals (sort of), help banks with complex financial operations, and attack important health care problems. Now you can add seeing to its skill set.

Read Full Story

One of Apple's latest patents could revive the idea of the mixed tape for the digital age.

If the patented system were to go live, it looks as though the option to create and gift a personalised album would be added to iTunes. The person sending the "digital mixtape," as the patent calls the system, would be able to pick the songs they want to add and what sequence the album should play in.

This doesn't have to be limited to songs either. The mixtape could be made up of a combination of audio files, images, movies, or photos from the user's library or the online store.

The person gifting the album could also choose to hide the names of songs until each one begins to play, kind of like a cassette mixed tape where there was no way to tell what was coming next.

Once the album was complete, the store would send out a push notification to tell the recipient that there is a mixed tape waiting for them. If they accept it, then the sender would be charged a fee for creating it, and probably for the media taken from the iTunes store. If the recipient decides they don't like the idea of getting such a thoughtful gift from that person, they can refuse it, and the sender will get their money back.

If the sender doesn't want to waste all their hard work, they could also send the digital mixed tape on to a third party.

Apple doesn't always create the features of products it patents, so there's no way of telling whether this feature will be added to iTunes anytime soon, if at all.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: All the incredibly useful things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

In a recent blog post OnSIP noted that some hosted PBX customers using Polycom SIP phones were receiving phantom calls from an internet source. Such calls are known as Spam-over-Internet-Telephony, aka “SPIT.” They have been a topic of discussion in VoIP security circles for years. As has been mentioned many times, we have a number of […]

It's turning out to be a disastrous week for Android.

Read more: http://www.techinsider.io/stagefright-vulnerability-is-bad-news-for-android-2015-8#ixzz3i2dmWJGi

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: All the incredibly useful things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

Media stocks got crushed on Thursday and Viacom was the big loser. 

On Thursday, shares of the media giant lost 13.6% after the company reported revenue that disappointed.

Viacom cited lower-than-expected ad revenue from its US cable business and is the latest piece of bad news for the cable industry.

Earlier this week Disney was in focus, losing 9% on Wednesday, after giving some bad news about future subscriptions for its flagship ESPN sports channel. On Thursday, Disney shares lost another 1.8%. 

And now many media peers are following lower as markets weigh the implications of a cable-bundle legacy that could be facing a major shake-up, if not outright extinction.

Some of the other damage on Thursday included:

• 21st Century Fox: -6%
• Comcast: -1.8%
• Time Warner: -0.8% (after an 8% decline on Wednesday)
• AMC Networks: -4.4%

On Wednesday, Disney shares fell after the company lowered expectations for subscriber growth at ESPN.

On Disney's earnings call, CEO Bob Iger defended ESPN, which has been under fire recently as analysts question the network's position as the most dominant component of the current cable bundle.

ESPN gets about $6 per cable subscriber, while its nearest competitors command fees of $1.50 or less.

A New York Times report on Thursday also asked whether the future of cable was doomed.

In its report, The Times quoted BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield, who said: "You have both legs of the media stool being kicked. The consumer is shifting, and these media companies are not built to take advantage of technological disruption."

Markets closed broadly lower on Thursday, but an existential crisis in the cable industry was making some of the sector's biggest players the day's biggest losers.

Here's the last week of trading in these stocks, which is about as ugly as it gets.

SEE ALSO: ESPN has one big advantage that will save it from the death of cable

Join the conversation about this story »

The percent on your iPhone is dangerously low, and so you're going to need a lifeline. Fotunately, it's in your pants.

Welcome to #Hello, a line developed by Joe's Jeans, where the denim classic is being turned into a mini charging booth for iPhones. The mid-rise skinny currently makes room for the iPhone 5, 5s, or 6 (but not a 6 Plus), along with a custom battery pack, reported Mashable. 

#Hello might make a dent in your wallet with its pricetag of $189, especially since it doesn't come with the battery pack itself, which is an additional $50 but fitted specially for #Hello. 

Another caveat: the jean and pack duo can charge the iPhone 5 and 5S up to 85 percent, and the iPhone 6 only up to 70 percent. 

It looks like fashion designers have been increasingly molding their visions around the Apple smartphones. Mashable reported the American Eagle spokesperson saying, "currently our men's pockets already accommodate the larger phones including the iPhone 6 [and 6 Plus]. Women's is still being evaluated."

L. L. Bean also noted that it has adjusted pocket sizes for iPhone 6 owners.

 

SEE ALSO: Apple has a clever idea that could replace the charging port in your iPhone

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: You should never wash your jeans — here's how to clean them

Google and AT&T have both filed motions in a US federal lawsuit that alleges Apple wire-tapped users who ditched their iPhones for Android phones.

Apple denies the claims.

The entry of the two companies into the Apple lawsuit will be interesting because it raises the possibility that both of them will get a look at some of Apple's internal communications and documents regarding a three-year-long technical fiasco in which iPhones could not reliably send text messages to Android phones. Apple finally fixed the problem earlier this year.

The plaintiffs — former Apple customers Adrienne Moore and Adam Bachaut — are claiming that Apple's iMessage system prevented text messages sent from iPhones from being delivered to Android phones if the phone number had previously been used for an iPhone. Moore and Backhaut were both former iPhone users who switched to Android phones and then found that they were not receiving texts from other iPhone users.

They claim that iPhone texts are "illegally intercepted and interned by Apple" when sent to Android users. The "intercepted" messages are held indefinitely, the suit claims, and that allegedly counts as "unauthorized access" to a computer system and a violation of both the Stored Communications Act and the Federal Wiretap Act. (The specific flaw in iMessage was that once a phone number was registered as an iPhone number via Apple's iCloud system, then messages were not delivered if the phone was not attached to iCloud. Android phones, of course, can't connect to iCloud.)

It is possible to transfer a phone number from an iPhone to an Android, but as many customers found to their cost, you could only do that successfully by following this multi-step, 45-day-long procedure.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

The company has argued that the lawsuits should be thrown out. Apple can’t wire tap its own facilities, the company's lawyers have argued. Users authorise and consent to Apple accessing their iMessages, and because Apple acted in good faith and without the necessary intent to literally spy on texts to Android customers, there is no case, the company has said in court.

Google and AT&T have both filed motions requesting that material they disclose in the lawsuit's "discovery" phase will be kept confidential, under seal. So we won't know exactly what they're telling Apple or the plaintiffs, or what Google and AT&T will learn from Apple, if anything.

Google, naturally, will be curious to know what Apple's employees knew about the way iMessage hobbled text-delivery to Android, and how fast Apple moved to fix it. 

AT&T's appearance in the case is also interesting because former AT&T and Apple employees have told Business Insider in emails that they lost sales on Android phones because of the issue. Customers would return new Androids to the store when they discovered they weren't receiving texts, and swap them for iPhones.

Apple has requested — and been granted — permission to conduct much of the litigation in secrecy. So we don't know how much of Apple's internal information will ever see the light of day. 

However, one filing in the case requests that certain internal emails remain confidential, including one addressed to CEO Tim Cook on April 28, 2013. The email has been sealed.

Other papers indicate that several Apple employees have been required to write affidavits about what they knew, or been questioned in depositions. Those employees include Justin Wood (an engineering manager), Andre Boule (software engineer) Gokul Thirumalai (engineering manager), AmolPattekar (an engineer), Bill Heilman (senior director, AppleCare engineering & enterprise support),  John Kelly (manager of Wireless diagnostics) and Jeffrey Kehlmann and Laura Heckman, whose roles at Apple are unclear.

The fact that so many of those job titles are in software or engineering suggests that the litigation is focusing in part on exactly how iMessage handled texts that were not being delivered to Android phones.

Below, we have collected a few highlights from the case, which give you a taste of just how far Apple has gone to make sure no one sees what is going on in the case.

Lawyers are already getting their hands on Apple's internal emails regarding the iMessage issue, including one addressed to CEO Tim Cook.

Here are the types of things that Apple wants to keep secret. Note that Apple admits that there was something wrong with iMessage that required "investigation" and "resolution."

Here, Apple admits that deregistering your phone number from iMessage takes 45 days.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: How to clear out a ton of space on your iPhone superfast

The startup said the difficulties of dealing with digital rights management proved too daunting.

Pluto is perhaps the most beloved object in our Solar System.

So when the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto on July 14 — a nearly 10-year, 3-billion-mile journey — we weren't too surprised to learn NASA saw unprecedented traffic to its website, and that the news made the front page of 450 newspapers.

Alan Stern, the lead scientist behind the New Horizons mission, had a lot to celebrate that day:

The mission to Pluto was meant to complete the exploration of the planets in the Solar System. But scientists reclassified Pluto from a planet to a "dwarf planet" shortly after New Horizons launched in 2006.

That reclassification split the space science community.

But Stern has a clear opinion about Pluto's demotion:

"It's bullshit," he told Tech Insider (and said we could quote him on that).

The problem, Stern said, is that the reclassification largely stemmed from the opinions of astronomers, not planetary scientists. His beef here is that astronomers study a large variety of celestial objects and cosmic phenomena, while planetary scientists focus solely on planets, moons, and planetary systems.

"Why would you listen to an astronomer about a planet?" Stern said.

He compared it to going to a podiatrist for brain surgery instead of a brain surgeon.

"Even though they're both doctors, they have different expertise," Stern said. "You really should listen to planetary scientists that know something about this subject. When we look at an object like Pluto, we don't know what else to call it."

That's because Pluto meets the main criteria for planethood: It is rounded by its own gravity.

But there's more than that, Stern said. Pluto is unexpectedly complex. It has more moons than the entirety of the inner Solar System. It possesses close to a million times the amount of atmosphere that Mercury has. The surface has water ice mountains that could rival the Rocky Mountains here on Earth. It's frozen plains are lined with ridges that scientists think are caused by some kind of ongoing geological process.

"We were just dumbfounded by what a wonderland it is scientifically," Stern said.

A non-planet shouldn't be so active.

"[Pluto] qualifies in every respect," he said. Astronomers — not planetary scientists — "made up a definition, which is actually bogus."

Of course there are other criteria for planet status, and there's plenty of room for argument. Pluto is far smaller than any of the planets; in fact, it's about a quarter of a percent as massive as the Earth.

Pluto also doesn't orbit the sun on the same plane that the planets do. Its elliptical path even crosses in front of Neptune's orbit during its 248-year-long revolution around the sun:

As New Horizons continues to beam back more data over the next 16 months, we'll learn a lot more about Pluto that may or may not change people's minds about its classification.

You could argue that it doesn't really matter what we call Pluto. Judging by all the attention New Horizons has drawn, Pluto is an interesting object regardless of its status.

SEE ALSO: Here's how much a mission to Pluto costs

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pixar's next movie shows what would have happened if dinosaurs never went extinct and it looks gorgeous

Another big carmaker takes a step to avoid the fate of the handset business.

IBM and pharmacy chain CVS Health have announced a first-of-its-kind new partnership to put IBM's supercomputer Watson to work for millions of Americans with chronic health conditions.

Watson will watch data from what IBM describes as an "unprecedented mix of health information sources" including a person's medical health records, prescriptions, environment, even fitness devices.

It will then spit out suggestions on how to improve that person's health care to save the person money and help the person feel better.

But the ultimate goal of this partnership is really pretty astounding: IBM and CVS hope to find people at risk for illnesses before they've gotten sick and create custom programs to help them avoid the illness.

Some examples of the type of conditions Watson hopes to help include hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. 

CVS has 7,800 retail drugstores with nearly 1,000 walk-in medical clinics, managing pharmacy benefits for more than 70 million people. So this partnership with IBM, puts Watson within reach of a huge number of Americans.

IBM CEO Ginny Rometty believes her legacy will be to transform healthcare with Watson, a super computer that can can consume huge amounts of data, analyze it, make predictions and then discuss it with humans using natural language.

Rometty recently called healthcare IBM's "moonshot." In an interview with Charlie Rose, she said.

I'm telling you, our moonshot will be the impact we will have on health care. It has already started. We will change and do our part to change the face of health care. I am absolutely positive about it. And that, to me, while we do many other things, that will be one of the most important.

She's also recently predicted, "In the future, every decision that mankind makes is going to be informed by a cognitive system like Watson," she said, "and our lives will be better for it."

She's extricating IBM from its dependence on declining markets and pushing into new growth areas, such as big data and analytics.

One of her main tactics is new-and-unusual partnerships, such as this one. Others include IBM's partnership with Apple for mobile, with Twitter for big data, with Tencent for cloud computing in China.

SEE ALSO: This woman pleaded with IBM on LinkedIn to hire her as its 'oldest intern'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The tragic story of Cecil the lion and the American dentist that killed him

By Sheila McGee-Smith
Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise creates tailored technology solutions to improve communications and more in hotels.

Global tablet shipments totaled 44.7 million units in Q2 compared to 48 million during the same period the year prior. Shipments slipped nearly 4 percent compared to just last quarter.

Citrix stock is up about 10% on Wednesday, the highest it's been in about three years.

Investors are cheering the news that 21-year CEO of Citrix Mark Templeton is retiring, the company is giving one board seat (and possibly two) to activist investor Elliott Management, and is planning to sell its GoTo family of webconferncing products (something Elliott was pushing for).  

This on top of reporting a decent quarter Tuesday that beat expectations: Q2 earnings per share of $1.00 was above the 82 cents expected, and revenue of $796.76 million (+1.9%  over the year-ago quarter) was a beat by $6.39 million.

The company, an American multinational software company, raised its profit outlook, too, now expecting$3.65 - $3.75 EPS for the year, up from $3.55 to $3.60 EPS, on $3.22 billion - $3.25 billion in revenue.

Templeton, 62, announced plans to retire early last year after a brutal 2013, a year in which his son died. But by June, he changed his mind and made "a multiyear commitment" to stay on as CEO. 

Now, after wrangling with Elliott, Templeton says that when Citrix appoints a CEO replacement, he won't be staying on the board either.

Elliott's Jesse Cohn is joining the Citrix board immediately, replacing Asiff Hir, a former chief information officer who rose to COO of TD Ameritrade and is now working at HP as its "chief restructuring officer."

Elliott is also helping Citrix find another independent board member.

The company has been in turmoil for more than a year and did a big restructuring earlier this year, included laying off 700 employees, 200 contractors. Top leaders have been leaving, too.

Employees loved Templeton for creating a warm-and-fuzzy culture at Citrix. He had an 83% approval rating on Glassdoor and despite the turmoil, his high approval remained steady. 

"The CEO (Mark Templeton) is a man you can die for," one Citrix director wrote on Glassdoor about him.

But another director saw what Elliott saw, that the company was having trouble with focus and execution. 

"Many acquisitions made by the company failed to yield any real fruit. There are certainly exceptions such as NetScaler and GoTo, but there are many more dead ones that lay it the wake of Citrix. The board should have gotten an operational/execution CEO who has taken a company in excess of $5-10B. Mark T is a great visionary though," wrote this company director.

So while investors rejoice, the search for a new CEO is officially back on.

SEE ALSO: Salespeople at these 10 tech companies get paid tons of money

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: People doing backflips on a two-inch wide strap is a real sport called slacklining

Windows 10, the latest version of Microsoft’s iconic operating system, launched on Wednesday. Microsoft has given the interface several nips, tucks and full-on reconstructive surgeries since the first version released some 30 years ago in the early days of personal computing.

Flip through the slides above to see how Windows has evolved new features, typefaces and designs, while retaining that essential concept of the computer screen as a “window” onto the computer’s features.

It certainly captures the spirit of the software better than Microsoft’s original codename, “Interface Manager.”

SEE ALSO: You're going to love Windows 10

Windows 1.0: The seminal version of Windows released on November 20, 1985. Users could run programs in multiple windows simultaneously, sparing them the nuisance of quitting one application before launching another one.

Windows 95 released on August 24, 1995, equipping users with their first Start menu, as well as minimize and maximize buttons. Roughly 8 in 10 of the world's PC's were running Windows at the time of its release.

Windows 2000 launched on February 17, 2000. Rocker Carlos Santana performed his song "Smooth" at the launch party, but the rollout proved bumpy due to several hack attacks that made headline news. Microsoft was forced into defense, releasing security patches throughout the product's lifecycle.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: Scientists are astonished by these Goby fish that can climb 300-foot waterfalls

For about $40 you can turn yourself into a cyborg — at least in part.

Dangerous Things, which is an online biohacking store, has simplified the process of hacking the body by selling kits packed with the necessary supplies so that anyone can embed technology into their flesh.

For the last two years, Amal Graafstra, the founder and CEO of the Seattle-based company, has sold implantable devices including near-field communication (NFC) chips, radio-frequency identification chips (RFID), biomagnets, and other materials to people who want to “upgrade their body” to be more connected to the devices around them for easier accessibility.

“It’s fundamentally changing the human condition, one step at a time, incrementally, to give you more freedom,” Graafstra told Tech Insider.

Implant powers

How exactly do these implants give you more freedom?

For now, these devices primarily act as identifiers, enabling people to use them to replace keys, passwords, and things you would keep inside your wallet, like loyalty cards, Graafstra said.

For example, Graafstra, who has an RFID chip implanted in each hand, has almost completely stopped using keys and passwords. His chips enable him to do things like lock and unlock doors and log into his computer and password-secured websites. He even rigged his motorcycle and car so that he could start it without a key. 

If you have a NFC enabled phone, like most major Android phones, you can also unlock it with an implanted device just by holding it.

Eventually, implantable devices could even be tied to your bank account so that you can make transactions, Graafstra said. 

Prices for products range from $39 for a basic RFID/NFC glass tag to $99 for a NFC injection kit and take only a few minutes to implant into the hands. It's worth mentioning that there is no battery or power supply in these devices; they're powered by the readers you bring them close to. 

While each implant comes with a manuals on how to implant the device, Graafstra recommends not performing the procedure yourself.

Instead, the company has partnered with professional piercers and body modifiers across the country to create a network of individuals it recommends to use for installation.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved RFID chips for human implantation in 2004. However, the legality of a piercer performing the procedure varies depending on your location. Some states have specific laws about what a piercing is, so it's technically illegal for a piercer to implant devices in these states. But a person can still legally implant the chip in themself. 

Natural evolution?

While some might consider implanting a device inside the body to get easier accessibility a bit extreme, Graafstra argues it’s really not as unnatural as it seems.

“We have been picking up things like rocks and sticks forever and used them as tools.  That is nothing new and this is just a natural progression of that. We are just now putting our tools inside of our bodies,” Graafstra said.

“In my opinion, these implants are perfectly designed. They are not this obtuse, destructive, difficult thing to deal with. It’s just that I have this new capability. I can talk to machines in this very low level magnetically coupled way, whereas I couldn’t before."

As more of our devices become connected we will want to interact with them in more natural ways, and biohacking is one way to accomplish this, he said. To date, Dangerous Things has sold several thousand implants and the client base has expanded to a much more diverse group of people, Graafstra said.

In fact, Graafstra said he launched Dangerous Minds in 2013 because he was being bombarded with inquiries regarding the best equipment to use.

“There is more interest in this kind of thing, biohacking in general, because people look at the body and because we know so much more about it now, we can recognize that it operates more or less like a machine,” Graafstra said.

“The body isn’t this spiritual, sacred, mysterious vessel anymore. And like with anything when you remove the mystery and you look at the truth of the matter, it kind of becomes less romantic and more utarian.”

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This real-life cyborg can hear color