Davemichels

For months, we’ve been itching to hear more details about Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer killer, codenamed “Project Spartan.”

Following the first preview release of Project Spartan’s desktop version late last month, Microsoft rolled out the mobile version of Project Spartan on Friday as part of its latest Windows 10 Technical Preview.

“An early version of Project Spartan is available in this flight. It uses our new rendering engine to give greater interoperability with the modern mobile web, and includes early versions of Reading View and Reading List,” Microsoft’s Gabe Aul wrote in a blog post.

Aul added Project Spartan isn’t the default browser in this preview yet, as it will be available alongside IE11. But Project Spartan’s Program Manager Kyle Pflug wrote in a separate blog post that it will eventually become the only browser included on Windows phones.

Pflug added some tweaks have been applied to the latest Project Spartan for mobile, including the address bar’s move up top, and the inclusion of a small actions bar at the bottom.

“We’ve heard your early feedback about the position of the address bar, and we are looking closely at the design. We encourage you to try out, see what you think, and continue to share your feedback with us,” Pflug wrote.

Other updates include new mail and calendar apps, as well as new phone and messaging apps. It also expanded the types of devices compatible with this preview.

The new Technical Preview is free and available at the Windows Insider Site here.

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NOW WATCH: This is what happens to your brain and body when you check your phone before bed

Amazon upping the pressure on the PC industry with the launch of a desktop app store that lets you subscribe to the business software you need on a monthly basis.

Amazon Web Services head Andy Jassy announced the move at the company's summit in San Francisco today. 

Last year, Amazon introduced a product called AWS WorkSpaces. It lets users access what looks like their very own personal computer from any device with an Internet connection. But this PC desktop is actually a virtual version, hosted on Amazon's servers and delivered over the Internet. Companies pay a monthly fee to Amazon of as little as $25/month for each one.

Virtual PCs could reduce the need for companies to buy new PCs for their employees. Instead, they could have employees access up-to-date business apps from old PCs that couldn't run those apps locally, or from so-called "dumb" terminals that are little more than a graphic display and a network connection. 

It's not a new idea — VMware and Citrix, particularly, have been providing similar solutions (known as "virtual desktop infrastructure," or VDI) for years.

But Amazon reckons companies are turning to AWS already to replace hardware they used to run in their own data centers. So why not offer customers a way to replace their other big hardware expense — the PCs that sit on every desktop? Johnson & Johnson is a major client, reporting that it improves their flexibility and drives down their costs compared with the need to buy and maintain high-performance computers for their employees. 

With today's announcement, Amazon is letting the CIOs and IT managers who keep track of those AWS WorkSpaces buy and maintain applications.

Pick and choose which Windows apps you want to make available to users, paid on the same kind of per-user pricing. The selection includes stuff like Microsoft Office, WinZip, CAD programs, GitHub for developers, and more.  You can even throw in any software your company developed on its own.

As long as the internet connection is stable, users shouldn't be able to tell they're not using a desktop app. Much like an Apple or Google app store, patching is handled automatically, and in the background, so users are always on the most current version of whatever software without the headaches of massive, constant patching.

Note that while AWS WorkSpaces and similar services could drive PC sales down, they shouldn't really affect the fortunes of Microsoft or the software providers. Every user still needs a license for the software they use. Whether they buy that license directly from the software company, or it comes as part of a deal with a service provider (like Amazon), the revenue going to the software company usually comes out about the same.

Amazon also made a couple other announcements today:

• A new Elastic File System service for storing files, which has the potential to bring Amazon into close competition with industry giants like EMC and Netapp.
• A new Machine Learning Service, which will help developers build smarter applications on top of Amazon's huge cloud.
• The general launch of Amazon's container service, helping customers ride the super-hot wave started by Docker; containers make it easier for developers to move applications between different cloud providers and on-premises services
• The expansion of its Lambda service that helps developers build applications that can scale to huge sizes in a smarter way.

Finally, the massive size of the AWS cloud came up a lot on stage today. In response to the hypothetical question of just how big a business cloud computing is and will be, Jassy had a reply at the ready.

"The short answer here is that we're growing really really fast," Jassy says. "Those remaining naysayers better get their heads out of the sand before they're staring at the tailights of their competitors."

It's still not disclosing (yet) how much money the massive service is making for Amazon, but usage of its core EC2 virtual server service is up 93% year over year, Jassy said. For a multi-billion dollar business, that's a solid growth curve. Amazon is planning to break out AWS financials in its next earnings report, which drops April 23.

 "Cloud computing is the biggest technology shift of our lifetimes," Jassy says.

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NOW WATCH: Here's How Much You Have To Buy To Make Amazon Prime Worth It

The reviews of the Apple Watch are in – and they're brutal.

The gadget goes on sale on Friday. Mainly, it's the tech folks who've checked out what was expected to be the finest smartwatch of them all. And the most fashionable. We'll have to wait for the high-end watch world to offer up its views.

However, if the Apple Watch is less than thrilling, hard to use, flawed – well, that would make it a typical first-generation gadget. Even from Apple. 

But whatever. If you must have one, you will. But you could also put your money into a real watch. 

"Real watch" – I know it's a provocative and snooty concept. The Apple Watch is a toy! The Patek Philippe Calatrava is a true timepiece, an shimmering example of Swiss horological skill and tradition!

Ugh. But let's say you now have some reservations about dropping $650 on the same stainless-steel Apple Watch with a Milanese loop band that the New York Times' Farhad Manjoo spent time with before writing his fairly ambivalent review. Here's what you should do with the money instead.

Use it for a down payment on an Omega Seamaster. You can get a certified pre-owned version for about $3,000. Make payments for a year or so and then own it free and clear. Forever. Because it will last ... forever, if serviced and cared for properly. It's easily the best value there is in high-end Swiss automatic watches. No, it's not a Rolex Submariner. But it's basically the same watch, and it's thousands less.

You could hang onto your $650 first-gen Apple Watch for 30 or 4o or 50 years and it might retain some historic value, but its actually value will be effectively zero. Heck, its actual value will pretty much be zero when the next gen appears in a year or so. This isn't news. Everyone has offered this observation.

Meanwhile, in 30 or 40 or 50 years, assuming the Swiss watch industry doesn't vanish from the Earth, your Omega Seamaster will still tell time and still enable you to go swimming with it on. You kids or grandkids may very well be eyeing it. And you will be able to sell it for at the very least a few hundred and maybe even a few thousands dollars. Over 30 years, it will have cost you $100 a year and served up decades of pleasure. 

Or you could just keep buying Apple Watches. 

All right, so maybe you don't want to spend $650 to start owning a fine Swiss sport watch.

You can buy a very nice Seiko dive watch that will also last forever for about $400 (before online discounts and markdowns). Not Swiss. But rock-solid Japanese, from a watchmaker that's been around for ages. Not as likely to hold its value as the Omega. But not a watch that you'll ever have anything to complain about.

So there you have it. Don't spend your money on this awful Apple Watch. Buy a real watch instead.

SEE ALSO: I'm going to buy an Apple Watch — in 3 years

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NOW WATCH: 7 things the Samsung Galaxy S6 can do that the iPhone 6 can't

It pays to code away from the office: Developers who work full-time remotely earn an average of 40% more than those who don't.

This is just one of the key findings in a new report from tremendously popular online programmer hangout Stack Exchange, which surveyed 26,086 developers from 157 countries, asking them who they are, where they work, what technologies they use, and other questions related to coding.

"Code is everywhere, and just about every coder uses Stack Overflow," says the website in its introduction to the report.

• 92.1% of all developers are male. "Our internal stats suggest the imbalance isn't quite as severe as the survey results would make it seem, but there's no doubt everyone who codes needs to be more proactive welcoming women into the field," comments Stack Overflow.
• 37.1% of women who code have been at it for less than two years, which might indicate that the gender gap is starting to close, very slowly.
• Salesforce was voted the "Most Dread" tech company by 72.2% of developers, beating out even Microsoft Visual Basic.
• 15.1% of women coders are from India, versus 4.8% in the United States.
• 17.7% of developers want to learn how to code for Android, making it the most desired skill set.
• Objective-C developers earn the highest average salary at $98,828 per year, just above Node.js and C# — unsurprising given that those are the relatively niche programming languages that power a lot of cutting-edge web and mobile apps.
• 48% of respondents have no formal education in programming.
• Luxembourg has the highest number of developers per capita, at 39.8 per 1,000 people. Somalia, Chad, and North Korea are tied for last place with zero. Next to last is Congo, with .004 developers per 1,000 people.
• The average developer is 28.9 years old. "He or she was born in April 1986, just as the Chernobyl meltdown was taking place," says Stack Overflow.
• Developers from Norway are the most-caffeinated, drinking just over 3 caffeine beverages per day.

Of course no survey is precisely representative of every developer. But with a data set consisting of "6,800 identified as full-stack developers, 1,900 as mobile developers, 1,200 as front-end developers, 2 as farmers, and 12,000 as something else," it's safe to say it's fairly representative.

SEE ALSO: 26 tech skills worth a $100,000+ salary

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NOW WATCH: Mindblowing Facts About How Much We're Using Our Mobile Devices

It's finally happening: At long, long last, "Star Wars" is going to be available online.

All six films in the series, from "The Phantom Menace" to "Return of the Jedi," are coming to numerous digital outlets. According to Variety, these include "iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Vudu, Xbox Video, PlayStation Store, and Verizon Fios."

USA Today reports that the recommended retail price of the films is $20 a pop — or $100 for the complete set. The movies will also come bundled with numerous bonus features included deleted scenes, bloopers, and voiceovers.

Interestingly, Disney has elected to keep "Star Wars" off streaming sites in favour of premium stand-alone downloads. It means rising powers in the industry like Netflix are missing out on what is guaranteed to be an extremely popular launch.

The launch comes in the run-up to the Dec. 18 release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," the first new "Star Wars" feature film in 10 years as well as the first since Disney bought the franchise in 2012.

Here is the official trailer for the launch:

And here is the complete list of bonus features, courtesy of StarWars.com:

Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace

Conversations: Doug Chiang Looks Back
Discoveries From Inside: Models & Miniatures
Legacy content includes "The Beginning"; The Podrace: Theatrical Edit; plus eight deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones

Conversations: Sounds In Space
Discoveries From Inside: Costumes Revealed
Legacy content includes "From Puppets To Pixels: Digital Characters In Episode II"; State Of The Art: The Previsualization Of Episode II; and "Films Are Not Released, They Escape"; plus Episode II Visual Effects Breakdown Montage and six deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith

Conversations: The Star Wars That Almost Was
Discoveries From Inside: Hologram & Bloopers
Legacy content includes documentaries "Within A Minute: The Making Of Episode III"; The Journey Part 1; and The Journey Part 2; plus six deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (20th Century Fox)

Conversations: Creating A Universe
Discoveries From Inside: Weapons & The First Lightsaber
Legacy content includes "Anatomy Of A Dewback"; Star Wars Launch Trailer; plus eight deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back

Conversations: The Lost Interviews
Discoveries From Inside: Matte Paintings Unveiled
Legacy content includes "A Conversation With The Masters" (2010); "Dennis Muren: How Walkers Walk"; "George Lucas On Editing The Empire Strikes Back 1979"; and "George Lucas On The Force: 2010"; plus six deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi

Conversations: The Effects
Discoveries From Inside: The Sounds Of Ben Burtt
Legacy content includes "Classic Creatures: Return Of The Jedi"; "Revenge Of The Jedi Teaser Trailer"; Return Of The Jedi Launch Trailer; "It Began TV Spot"; "Climactic Chapter TV Spot"; plus five deleted scenes.

Because they're available on iTunes, here is a gratuitous picture of Tim Cook holding a lightsaber.

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NOW WATCH: The First 'Star Wars: Episode VII' Trailer Is Here!

With free gourmet meals, in-house massages, and dry cleaning on campus, Google is known for its extensive list of perks. 

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin even brought up the myriad perks in their shareholders' letter when the company went public in 2004, promising their commitment to providing benefits that can "save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity." 

Google wants all its people programs to achieve efficiency, promote community, and spur innovation. Surprisingly, Google says it doesn't drop as much money as you might expect on those perks. 

"Most people assume Google spends a fortune doing special things for our employees," Google HR boss Laszlo Bock writes in his new book "Work Rules!" "Aside from our cafes and shuttles, we don't." 

Here's a chart that shows the cost and benefit of some of Google's most important perks:

"Most of the programs we use to delight and care for Googlers are free, or very close to it," Bock writes. "And most would be easy for almost anyone to duplicate."

If companies want to push themselves towards a more Google-y culture, it's less important to have a ton of money, and more important to try to say yes to employee ideas. 

SEE ALSO: The unconventional way Google snagged a team of engineers Microsoft desperately wanted

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NOW WATCH: This 9-year-old makes $1 million a year opening toys

Last Friday, a myterious product called Project Composer made its way to Product Hunt, the suddenly trendy online community where a lot of new products are getting shared and discovered.

Composer, which looks like an online word processor similar to Evernote and Google Docs, was available very briefly before users had access cut off multiple reports said.

According to people who tried it, Composer is a note-taking tool that allows for multiple users to edit and share files simultaneously. It would allow Dropbox users to create and edit documents on the spot, without having to do the work on a separate word processor before saving it on Dropbox.

It was pretty clear that Dropbox accidentally leaked its secret project, as it was hosted on the Dropbox.com domain and required a Dropbox account to sign in. The company declined to comment on it last week.

But when we talked to Ilya Fushman, Dropbox's head of product, business and mobile, on Monday, he confirmed that Composer is one of the new products it's been testing lately.

"We're always testing new products. We always have a bunch of stuff we're working on — and this is one of them," Fushman told Business Insider.

"We're excited it's got us on Product Hunt. I think you'll see us come out with some other stuff in that space," he added.

But Fushman declined to offer a specific timeline for Composer. He said Dropbox usually tests its new products with thousands of customers before officially releasing it, to make sure it has the right market fit.  

For example, Badge, a new feature that allows users to see who's working on the same file within Dropbox, was tested by more than 13,000 business partners before its official release last month.

"We want people to use them and get feedback," Fushman said. "We might find out that people don't like it." 

Document editing and collaboration is a space Dropbox has been focused on lately. Just about a year ago, it acquired Hackpad, a startup that made a simiilar software to Composer. It also acquired mobile document editing software CloudOn earlier this year.

Here's what Ryan Hoover, founder of Product Hunt tweeted on Friday:

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NOW WATCH: 5 Awesome Google Features You Didn't Know About

Microsoft has laid off hundreds more employees amid its continuing "restructuring" plan started last summer by CEO Satya Nadella. It is unknown exactly how many have been affected by the latest round of cuts.

Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella announced the "streamlining" of the company last July with the news that 18,000 jobs would be cut, representing 14% of the total workforce at the Redmond-based technology giant.

SEE ALSO: The race between Meerkat and Periscope is closer than it seems

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NOW WATCH: Watch Microsoft's Insane Holographic Computer In Action

On paper, the future of laptops looks disappointing.

A few days ago, we learned Apple's new MacBook is about four years behind in terms of performance. It has a gorgeous new design and a sharp display, but costs more and isn't as powerful as the entry-level MacBook Air.

Google is following a similar trend. Its newest computer, an updated model of the two-year-old Chromebook Pixel, starts at $999 but lacks a lot of the features you'd find in similarly-priced laptops. 

I wouldn't recommend either of those computers for most people. If you want a MacBook, get the MacBook Air. If you want a Chromebook, get one of the cheaper models like the $330 Toshiba Chromebook 2, which is one of the best.

But I do think the two devices serve as a representation of where desktop PCs are headed in the near future. They may not look like much today, but neither did the original MacBook Air when it launched in 2008. Now it's the best laptop you can buy.

I've been using Google's new Chromebook Pixel for a few weeks. Like all Chromebooks, it can't do everything Windows PCs and Macs can do. You have to do almost everything in the browser. You save files in Google Drive, Google's online storage service. You make documents like spreadsheets and presentations in Google Docs. You store and edit photos in Google plus. And many popular third-party apps like Evernote make web-based versions that work well in Chrome.

That's probably enough for a lot of people. Unless your profession requires some specialized software, chances are pretty good you can do everything you want to do in a web browser. That's also why cheaper Chromebook models are becoming increasingly popular. Why buy a $1,000 computer on top of your $700 smartphone, when a $500 computer is good enough? I've used the Pixel as my primary home computer for several days and only ran into a few instances — like streaming music on Spotify, when I needed to go back to my MacBook.

However, I think the Pixel is too expensive for what you get. It sticks to the same great design as the original model and sports a sharp touchscreen. Its guts are faster too, thanks to Intel's processors and ample memory options. But you don't necessarily need all those pricey specs in a Chromebook if you're just using the browser for everything, especially when there are plenty of Chromebooks available for much less.

What really excites me about computers like the Pixel and the upcoming MacBook is the direction they're pushing laptop hardware. Both have a new kind of port called USB C, which can be used for everything you need: Charging and power, file transfers, and video output to a monitor or TV. USB C plugs are thin, and it doesn't matter which direction pop them into your computer. That means no more fiddling around with cables.

But they're also rare. In today's world, that means using a lot of adapters. For example, if I want to connect the Pixel to my monitor, I have to use a separate adapter with the USB C port. Google sells four adapters for the USB C port in the Pixel for various connections. That can get annoying.Eventually, we'll get to the point where a lot of those tasks are done wirelessly. You won't need a super powerful laptop anymore, just something thin, light, and capable. As USB C becomes more prolific, it'll eventually become one of the only ports you see in computers. 

It's easy to scoff at the Pixel and MacBook now, but they are the shape of things to come.

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NOW WATCH: How to make your old MacBook Pro run like new again

Sonus is crashing.

Shares of the tech company fell by more than 30% to around $9.20 per share in trading Tuesday.

The company, which specializes in secure communication solutions like voice over IP, said Tuesday that it will receive less orders this quarter than it had expected.  

From the company's statement released Tuesday:

"The Company no longer expects to receive certain orders this quarter that had been expected to be received at the back end of the first quarter, and believes its planned cost reduction initiatives will help better align the Company's cost structure in light of these longer decision cycles."

The company also lowered its first-quarter guidance for revenue to $47 million-$50 million compared to previous guidance of $74 million. For the full year, the company expects sales to come in at $326-$330 million, down about 25% from its previous outlook. 

It will give details of the cost reductions in its earnings release next month.

Here's a chart showing the plunge:

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Big data is big news, but it's still in its infancy. While most enterprises at least talk about launching Big Data projects, the reality is that very few do in any significant way. In fact, according to new survey data from Dimensional, while 91% of corporate data professionals have considered investment in Big Data, only 5% actually put any investment into a deployment, and only 11% even had a pilot in place.

Perhaps the biggest reason is that Big Data technologies are still way too hard to use—and sometimes insufficient for the kinds of data enterprises want to put to work. 

But that's changing. Last week I sat down with Justin Langseth, CEO of Zoomdata, to drill into the future of big data, and to better understand the intersection between batch-oriented technologies like Hadoop's MapReduce and Spark, a real-time processing engine . While I published excerpts from that conversation in an earlier ReadWrite piece, it's really worth reading Langseth's observations in total. 

See also: Batch Your Big Data Jobs—Or Stream Them?

Real Time Gets Real

ReadWrite: Hadoop has been all about batch processing, but the new world of streaming analytics is all about real time and involves a different stack of technologies.

Langseth: Yes, however I would not entangle the concepts of real-time and streaming. Real-time data is obviously best handled as a stream. But it’s possible to stream historical data as well, just as your DVR can stream Gone with the Wind or last week’s American Idol to your TV. 

 This distinction is important, as we at Zoomdata believe that analyzing data as a stream adds huge scalability and flexibility benefits, regardless of if the data is real-time or historical.  

RW: So what are the components of this new stack? And how is this new big data stack impacting enterprise plans? 

JL: The new stack is in some ways an extension of the old stack, and in some ways really new. 

Data has always started its life as a stream. A stream of transactions in a point of sale system. A stream of stocks being bought and sold. A stream of agricultural goals being traded for valuable metals in Mesopotamia. 

Traditional ETL processes would batch that data up and kill its stream nature. They did so because the data could not be transported as a stream, it needed to be loaded onto removable disks and tapes to be transported from place to place.  

But now it is possible to take streams from their sources, through any enrichment or transformation processes, through analytical systems, and into the data’s “final resting place”—all as a stream. There is no real need to batch up data given today’s modern architectures such as Kafka and Kinesis, modern data stores such as MongoDB, Cassandra, Hbase, and DynamoDB (which can accept and store data as a stream), and modern business intelligence tools like the ones we make at Zoomdata that are able to process and visualize these streams as well as historical data, in a very seamless way. 

Just like your home DVR can play live TV, rewind a few minutes or hours, or play moves from last century, the same is possible with data analysis tools like Zoomdata that treat time as a fluid.

Throw That Batch In The Stream

Also we believe that those who have proposed a “Lambda Architecture,” effectively separating paths for real-time and batched data, are espousing an unnecessary trade-off, optimized for legacy tooling that simply wasn’t engineered to handle streams of data be they historical or real-time. 

At Zoomdata we believe that it is not necessary to separate-track real-time and historical, as there is now end-to-end tooling that can handle both from sourcing, to transport, to storage, to analysis and visualization.

RW: So this shift toward streaming data is real, and not hype?

JL: It's real. It's affecting modern deployments right now, as architects realize that it isn’t necessary to ever batch up data, at all, if it can be handled as a stream end-to-end. This massively simplifies Big Data architectures if you don’t need to worry about batch windows, recovering from batch process failures, etc. 

So again, even if you don’t need to analyze data from five seconds or even five minutes ago to make business decisions, it still may be simplest and easiest to handle the data as a stream. This is a radical departure from the way things in big data have been done before, as Hadoop encouraged batch thinking. 

But it is much easier to just handle data as a stream, even if you don’t care at all—or perhaps not yet—about real-time analysis.

RW: So is streaming analytics what Big Data really means?

JL: Yes. Data is just like water, or electricity. You can put water in bottles, or electricity in batteries, and ship them around the world by planes trains and automobiles. For some liquids, such as Dom Perignon, this makes sense. For other liquids, and for electricity, it makes sense to deliver them as a stream through wires or pipes. It’s simply more efficient if you don’t need to worry about batching it up and dealing with it in batches. 

Data is very similar. It’s easier to stream big data end-to-end than it is to bottle it up.

Lead image by Roman Boed

LinkedIn has acquired a small startup called Refresh to help you better prep for your professional meetings.

Refresh, founded in 2011, is a free iOS app that scours the web to provide users with a bunch of information about a person they're about to meet with. It also lets them keep notes about those meetings. 

The app will stop accepting new users today and will shut down completely by April 15.

A LinkedIn spokesperson tells Business Insider the company is still exploring different ways it will integrate Refresh's technology, but one of many apps, called Connected, seems like a natural fit. Connected brings up a list of the most important updates in your network — if it's someone's work anniversary or birthday, or if they changed jobs, or were mentioned in the news.

"Our joint passion for delivering insights that help professionals be more productive is what makes joining LinkedIn so exciting," founder Bhavin Shah wrote on the company's blog. "Plus, LinkedIn gives us an opportunity to share insights with more than 347 million professionals across the globe.

A spokesperson declined to comment on the price of the acquisition, but says that 12 of Refresh's 13 full-time employees will be joining the LinkedIn team.

This move further underscores LinkedIn's ambitions to become a resource for professionals beyond the small time period in which they're looking for a new job. The company wants to be a resource for building, maintaining, and strengthening users' professional identities at all points in their career. 

SEE ALSO: Tips and tricks for getting the most out of LinkedIn's apps

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NOW WATCH: The Secrets Behind Getting Your Profile Viewed On LinkedIn

Tech CEOs are some of the smartest people in the world.

And a lot of them want to share their ideas with anybody who will listen.

We’ve put together 15 of the best books written by current and former tech CEOs that will give you a peek inside their fabulous minds.

Peter Thiel - "Zero to One"

Author: Peter Thiel, former CEO/founder of PayPal, cofounder of Palantir, and early investor in Facebook and many other companies.

Book description: "Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1...Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique."

Amazon Rating: 4.5/5

Most positive review: "Zero to One is a refreshing intellectual deep dive into the motives behind entrepreneurship. It’s full of unique, practical insights, and discusses success in terms of human nature and culture."

Most critical review: "I had high hopes, but this book was just ok...Instead, the book is basically a series of rambling, disjointed essays that spell out Thiel’s philosophies on the world, none of which are particularly earth shattering."

Order here.

Marc Benioff - "Behind the Cloud"

Author: Marc Benioff, CEO/cofounder of Salesforce

Book description: "For the first time, Marc Benioff, the visionary founder, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, tells how he and his team created and used new business, technology, and philanthropic models tailored to this time of extraordinary change."

Amazon Rating: 4.5/5

Most positive review: "This is a fun to read book chock-full of no-holds-barred advice on everything a growth company faces...In short, this is a practical guide on how to grow a successful business without selling your soul to Mephistopheles."

Most critical review: "This is a well-written book I would have preferred some more in-depth stories rather than a series of management platitudes...In sum, this is a good but not great book."

Order here.

Andy Grove - "Only the Paranoid Survive"

Author: Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel

Book description: "Grove reveals his strategy of focusing on a new way of measuring the nightmare moment every leader dreads--when massive change occurs and a company must, virtually overnight, adapt or fall by the wayside."

Amazon Rating: 4.2/5

Most positive review: "Andrew Grove was at the center of this company from its inception, and this is his story in his own words...Warmly recommended as a must for all students of business."

Most critical review: "The book is chock full of common sense, backed up with case studies from the world of successful -- and not so successful -- American businesses."

Order here.

It's so hard to get a hotel room for Dreamforce, Salesforce's huge blockbuster annual tech conference, that the company has chartered the Dream Boat, a luxury cruise ship in which attendees can stay for the four nights of the show. 

"The Dream Boat offers a new housing option for Dreamforce attendees when hotel space is at a premium in San Francisco," Salesforce CMO Lynn Vojvodich told Business Insider in an email.

With 135,000 registered attendees last year, Dreamforce turns San Francisco into either a tech wonderland or a tourist-mired traffic nightmare (depending on your point of view) for one week a year. Locals complain about Dreamforce routinely — just try to make a restaurant reservation in San Francisco during the show and you'll see why.

The Dream Boat will be docked at Pier 27 in San Francisco for the duration. Attendees will be able to check into the Dream Boat on the morning of Monday, September 14th, and check out Friday, September 18th.

Rooms start at $250 a night for an "interior stateroom" without a window and go all the way up to $850 per night for a premium suite with a veranda. 

The boat itself is apparently pretty standard, by luxury cruise ship standards: An Internet lounge provides wireless access, while Dream Boat guests can make use of a fitness center, eat at on-board restaurants, or attend nightly entertainments. 

Salesforce has a strong attachment San Francisco, given that CEO Marc Benioff grew up here. Rather than try to move the conference outside the city, Salesforce turned to drastic measures to house its ever-growing roster of attendees. 

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NOW WATCH: This Boeing 747 Has Been Transformed Into An Awesome Hotel

The selfie phenomenon may reach new heights thanks to drone technology.

Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press and Chris Anderson/3D Robotics.

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Facebook is building a fleet of V-shaped unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, to help the company with its Internet.org project that aims to beam Internet access to the 5 billion people that don't have it yet.

According to a report from The New York Times, Facebook has a codename for its drone: Aquila, which is also the name of the eagle in Greek mythology that carries Zeus's thunderbolts for him.

Aquila can reportedly stay in the air for up to three months at a time, and beam high-speed internet from between 60,000 and 90,000 feet in the air. They'll be lighter than a small car, but as long as a Boeing 737.

The first flights will reportedly begin this summer, although "commercial deployment may take years," the Times notes. Facebook executives are not sure how much the final version of Aquila will cost the company.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted to Facebook to share the news about its future drones:

As part of our Internet.org effort to connect the world, we've designed unmanned aircraft that can beam internet access down to people from the sky.

Today, I'm excited to share that we've successfully completed our first test flight of these aircraft in the UK.

Aircraft like these will help connect the whole world because they can affordably serve the 10% of the world's population that live in remote communities without existing internet infrastructure. 

Aquila was accomplished via Facebook's acquisition of the drone maker Ascenta in 2014, according to the Times. But now that this project is under Facebook's wing, the company is also looking for partners to help get the project off the ground, in return for allowing those companies to use their data and technology.

The Internet.org initiative, which was created in August 2013, is one of the main ways Facebook looks to spread its influence. By partnering up with mobile companies like Samsung, Qualcomm, and Microsoft, Facebook hopes to eventually offer universal affordable internet access, similar to Google's Project Loon, where high flying balloons beam down WiFi to areas without internet.

Check out the whole story over at The New York Times.

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Yik Yak, an anonymous messaging app that's been fairly controversial at schools across the country, has been growing like crazy since its 2013 launch, really picking up momentum in the second half of last year. 

Based on estimates charted for us by BI Intelligence, Yik Yak had roughly 3.6 million monthly active users at the end of last year, peaking during the fall period as students returned to school. Students at more than 1,500 colleges currently report using the application, with nearly 50% to 80% of enrolled students using the app. Besides its widespread popularity among the college demographic, Yik Yak also reports high user engagement: Business Insider previously reported 22% of all users publish posts on the service.

SEE ALSO: How 2 Georgia fraternity brothers created Yik Yak, a controversial app that became a ~$400 million business in 365 days

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Slack, the business communication app that is now reported to be worth over $2 billion, has experienced hacker attacks on its central user database, resulting in a possible breach of user data, Slack wrote in a blog post Friday.

"We were recently able to confirm that there was unauthorized access to a Slack database storing user profile information. We have since blocked this unauthorized access and made additional changes to our technical infrastructure to prevent future incidents," it said.

Although Slack said there was no indication of hackers decrypting passwords or financial payment information, it did note hackers had access to the information contained in its user database, which stores user names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords.

The attacks occurred for about four days in February, the company's blog post said. Slack also said there has been suspicious activity in a "very small number of accounts," and those account owners have been notified individually.

As part of its effort to beef up security, Slack has released two new features Friday, including two-factor authentication and a new team-wide "password kill switch" that can instantly reset passwords of all team members. You can learn more about it at Slack's homepage here.

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Microsoft has acquired and started the process of shutting down LiveLoop, a tiny San Francisco startup that makes it easy to share Microsoft Office documents, ZDNet reports. 

"Microsoft is excited to welcome the talented team from LiveLoop to help build great collaboration across Office applications, as part of our strategy and vision to reinvent productivity," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email. 

LiveLoop's first product let you share a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation on the web with a simple URL, without the person on the other end needing to download any software or use a videoconferencing app like GoToMeeting.

As ZDNet notes, it would make a nice addition to the stuff Microsoft is already doing with teleconferencing, especially with its giant Surface Hub touchscreen conference room computers. 

Existing LiveLoop users will have until April 24th to get all of their stuff off of LiveLoop before it shuts down permanently, it said. At the time of writing, the LiveLoop website was down, perhaps due to a sudden rush of interest in the company in the wake of the acquisition. 

LiveLoop was funded by New Enterprise Associates and Columbus Nova Technology Partners, but the company never reported how much money it raised. Terms of the acquisition were not announced, although Microsoft did confirm the deal to Foley. (We've reached out to Microsoft to ask for comment.)

LiveLoop joins startups like Acompli and Sunrise in the roster of productivity-boosting startups snapped up my Microsoft. Acompli has become the basis of the lauded Microsoft Outlook for iOS app. We'll have to wait and see what happens to LiveLoop. 

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Amazon on Monday announced a new on-demand service for all sorts of home chores including routine cleaning, TV installation, painting, plumbing, and assembly.

It's called Amazon Home Services.

According to the news release, Amazon Home Services is an "invite-only marketplace" that offers hand-picked professionals, upfront pricing based on quality and availability, verified reviews, and a "happiness guarantee," which ensures that customers receive a refund if they are dissatisfied with the service. 

"In less than 60 seconds, customers can now browse, purchase, and schedule hundreds of professional services," Amazon said in its release.

Amazon Home Services is now available in several major US markets, including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Amazon included an interesting infographic in its release, which you can check out here:

Check out the full press release below:

Need Help Around the Home? Introducing Amazon Home Services

At launch, the Amazon Home Services store includes more than 2 MM unique service offers across over 700 professional services

Customers can now buy professional services with the same ease as products, and the services will be backed by Amazon’s Happiness Guarantee

Amazon brings 20 years of product marketplace experience with on-demand professional services

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 30, 2015-- Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced today the launch of Amazon Home Services (www.amazon.com/services), a new marketplace for on-demand professional services. In less than 60 seconds, customers can now browse, purchase and schedule hundreds of professional services from wall mounting a new TV to installing a new garbage disposal to house cleaning, directly on Amazon.com. Amazon Home Services features handpicked pros offering upfront pricing on pre-packaged services with helpful reviews from customers that have made verified purchases. Amazon’s Happiness Guarantee backs all service purchases, so customers know the job will get done right. With this expansion beyond physical and digital goods, Amazon is now making purchasing professional services as easy as buying products. Amazon Home Services is now available across the country in major U.S. metropolitan areas including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

Amazon Home Services provides customers:

• Handpicked Pros: Amazon curates an invite-only marketplace for professional service providers. Invited pros are background checked, required to maintain insurance, and expected to maintain a high performance standard.
• Happiness Guarantee: Amazon doesn’t just refer customers to providers, but stays with them every step of the way. All services purchased are guaranteed. If customers are not satisfied at the end of the service, Amazon will work with customers and the pro to ensure the job gets done right or provide a refund.
• Upfront Pricing: Service pros compete for a customer’s business based on price, quality and availability. If customers find a lower price for the same service and pro, we will match it. Customers can add pre-packaged services right to their cart with just a few clicks on Amazon and are only charged when the service is completed.
• Verified Reviews: All Amazon Home Services reviews are from verified purchases, so customers know they are hearing from real customers. No special sign up or subscription is required to read reviews and ratings.

To find the Amazon Home Services store from the Amazon.com homepage, customers can click on the “Amazon Home Services” link in the “Shop by Department” navigation or type terms including ‘home services’ or ‘local services’ into the search bar. In the new store, customers can purchase professional services within Home Improvement, Computer & Electronics, Lawn & Garden, Lessons, Automotive and many more categories.

SEE ALSO: Apple just invented an incredible technology that would help the iPhone further distance itself from every other smartphone

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The entire "Seinfeld" series may soon be available to watch online.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sony Pictures TV is in the process of shopping the show rights to digital buyers, including Hulu, Amazon, and Yahoo. The deal is expected to be done in the next few weeks.

WSJ noted on Friday: "The deal could fetch a price well north of half a million dollars per episode. There are 180 Seinfeld episodes."

That could put "Seinfeld" streaming earnings over $90 million, on top of the already reported $3.1 billion in TV syndication revenue the show has earned since 1995. 

While Netflix acquired "Friends" last year from Warner Bros. for more than $500,000 per-episode, a source told WSJ that Netflix is "taking a pass" on "Seinfeld."

The exact price of the "Seinfeld" deal will depend, in part, on the length of the deal.

According to WSJ: "The 'Friends' agreement with Netflix runs for four years, which may be too short for some of the 'Seinfeld' bidders. One suitor said a price tag higher than 'Friends' doesn’t make sense if the contract is for less than ten years."

Not that "Seinfeld" creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David are hurting.

In 2013, Seinfeld was named Forbes' highest-earning comedian for the third year in a row thanks to syndication royalties of the show and an estimated $27 million from more than 70 stand-up tour dates that year alone. Seinfeld's net worth is estimated at around $800 million.

Larry David, the co-creator and executive producer of "Seinfeld," recently discussed his wealth on "60 Minutes."

Post-the "Seinfeld" syndication deal, David's net worth was around $900 million.

When David and his wife of 14 years divorced in 2007, his fortune (no matter what it was exactly) was halved, thanks to California divorce laws. Today, the TV creator-comedian-actor's net worth is reported to be about $400 million. On "60 Minutes," Charlie Rose said David's net worth is closer to $500 million.

But David vehemently disputed rumors of his net worth to Rose during the segment.

In a clip available only on the CBS website, David insists "the figures that I read about the amount of money that I've made are so ridiculous, and it's absurd. It's unseemly, I don't have that kind of money!"

"My wife took half of it in the divorce," David confirmed.

When Rose asked if that was because he is generous, David responded, "No, that's the law."

Rose then asked if he would have preferred to have given her less, to which he replied: "Perhaps, who knows. No, after what I put her through I want her to be happy. It's not an easy job to be with me. I don't think of other people."

Getting back to his net worth, David says he finds the reports of his finances "embarrassing."

While he says "I honestly don't know" how much "Seinfeld" has earned in syndication, David admits, "I have a lot of money" but still says "the figures out there are crazy."

Rose tried to press David on an exact amount, telling his interview subject that he was worth "more than $500 million."

"Are you talking about me personally? Are you kidding me? Again, that's just nuts," replied David. "No, it's not [$500M]. And mind your own goddamn business."

This isn't the first time David has publicly denied his alleged net worth.

In 2011, he told Rolling Stone:

I don’t have anything near what I’m reputed to have. My wife got half of it, the whole thing is ridiculous, and yet people are obsessed with the fact that I’ve made millions of dollars from syndication.

It's okay for all these other people you've interviewed to have it, but not me? Jerry's not getting asked about how much money he has. Only I am. It comes down to, 'Jerry deserves it, he starred in it, you got lucky!'… It doesn't suit me, that's why, it's uncharacteristic for a person with my personality to have it, that's what's askew, right? Something's off, and I agree with you. I shouldn't! It's an anomaly!

David said that as he grew richer he developed an allergy to caviar, which "was the perfect metaphor for my life."

Celebrity Net Worth notes of David's massive fortune:

The real windfall came when Seinfeld was sold in to syndication to Columbia Tristar. The day Seinfeld was sold into syndication Larry earned an estimated $650 million. Add to that his prior personal fortune of $30 million plus all the money he has earned since starring in Curb and Larry is a very happy man. Another great annuity for David has been the periodic releases of Seinfeld DVD box sets. Every few years a new season is unleashed to a frenzied public with a huge marketing blitz. DVD sales can easily add another $40-50 million to Larry's bottom line. 

SEE ALSO: Larry David thinks reports about his massive net worth are 'absurd'

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For more than 100 years, UK police have been using pen and paper to take crime reports from members of the public.

That may be about to come to an end.

London's Metropolitan Police force wants to extend its trial of using iPads to fight crime. The capital's police have been testing out tablets while out on the beat. The iPads come with a specially designed app and were introduced in two south-west London boroughs last year.

The Met now wants to continue the trials and roll out the tech to additional areas of the city, Vodafone says in a press release. The mobile network provides the 4G connectivity for the devices. 

Vodafone says the iPads help to reduce paperwork and let officers look-up data/public details and file information to the police force's system instantaneously. So if a suspect is caught, officers can find out if they've come into contact with the law in the past far quicker than before. The devices also mean officers can get people's witness statements and signatures on the move, so people don't have to attend stations. Taking photos/recording crime scenes is easier too.

Officers have responded positively to the iPads. The first phase of the project involved more than 500 officers on the frontline. To kit out the entire Met it would cost around £200 million, GetWestLondon reports.

The Met's "Total Technology" scheme aims to use modern technology to help officers cut crime. Other measures include body-worn cameras and reporting crimes on mobile phones.

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The White House posted a clip on Vine on Friday that shows what's really going on behind the scenes when Vice President Joe Biden is on the phone with world leaders. 

In the brief video, Biden uses a weight to do bicep curls while making a phone call.

"I do a million of these a day," Biden declares.

The clip is part of an effort to promote First Lady Michelle Obama's "#GimmeFive" campaign, which encourages people to share five things they do to stay healthy.

In the clip, Biden urges viewers to "just give me five" after boasting about his arm curling prowess.

Watch the video below.

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