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Watch the state certifications, the state legislatures, and the courts.

President Trump is refusing to concede the election. Most Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, won’t yet acknowledge that president-elect Joe Biden won. And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday there will be a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration” (though perhaps he was joking).

So, you may be wondering ... what’s going to happen?

With GOP politicians’ rhetoric all over the place, it’s useful to focus on concrete matters. Two things will happen over the next five weeks that ordinarily would be formalities, but in a disputed election will be crucial.

First, states will certify their election results — December 8 is the deadline set by federal law, but most states have set earlier deadlines. Second, once state results are certified, the Electoral College will cast the votes that will officially choose the next president, on December 14.

Both of these processes are currently on track to make Biden the next president. And despite all the sound and fury, nothing happening yet appears likely to get in the way of either process.

That could change, however. The dangerous scenario would be if some combination of Republican state officials, Republican legislators, and Republican-appointed judges attempts to block the certification of results in key states Biden won, or to replace Biden electors with Trump electors — likely citing assertions that the election results were plagued by some type of fraud.

But up to this point, Trump’s lawsuits have had little success. Republican state officials involved in the counts have insisted they’ve found no fraud, and there are no solid plans among GOP state legislators to change the outcome. To assess whether Trump’s ploy to overturn the election results is successful, keep an eye on whether any of these change in the coming weeks.

The state of things

Currently, Biden leads by about 146,000 votes in Michigan, 48,000 votes in Pennsylvania, 36,000 votes in Nevada, 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, 14,000 votes in Georgia, and 12,000 votes in Arizona. (All of these states, except Georgia and Arizona, have been called for Biden by every major election analyst desk.)

For Trump to get 270 electoral votes, he would have to change the outcome in at least three of those states — a very tall order. Counting is still continuing, but it’s nearly done in all of these states.

In some of these states, there could be recounts. For a much closer election in only one state, it would be possible that a recount could change the outcome. But recounts typically don’t change the initial tally much. Out of more than two dozen statewide recounts since 2000, the most an initial vote count has changed after the recount was 1,247 votes (that’s the 2000 Florida presidential election). So don’t expect recounts to save Trump when he’s down by 12,000 or more votes in all these states.

Certifications and electors are the two crucial next steps

Once the counting (and in some cases recounting) is completed, the next step is for these state officials to officially certify these vote totals — and then, officially appoint the winner’s chosen slate of electors (the people who make up the Electoral College and cast the votes that choose the next president).

Republicans who have been sympathetic toward Trump’s refusal to concede, such as McConnell, have pointed to these two processes — certifications and electors — as a deadline of sorts for challenges.

“At some point here we will find out finally who was certified in each of these states and the Electoral College will determine the winner,” McConnell said Tuesday.

So for Trump to overturn the results of the election, he would have to prevent at least three of the six key swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia — from certifying their results showing Biden winning and/or appointing Biden electors.

State officials appear unlikely to go along

If the law and the facts were all that mattered, Trump’s prospects for blocking the certification of results or the appointing of electors would be nil.

But one question is whether Trump can harness the power of raw partisan politics to make it happen anyway, by asserting that the election is fraudulent, and getting various Republican legislators, state officials, or GOP-appointed judges to fall in line.

As far as certifications are concerned, the early signs have not been encouraging for Trump. The only Republican secretary of state in any of the six key swing states is Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, and he has pushed back against assertions that voter fraud changed the outcome:

In Arizona, though Republicans control the state government, Democrat Katie Hobbs, the elected secretary of state, is in charge of certifying the state’s elections. “We have no irregularities, we have no fraud,” Hobbs said last week.

Pennsylvania and Nevada have Democratic secretaries of state as well. In Wisconsin and Michigan, bipartisan boards are in charge of certifications. All four states have Democratic governors. None of them are going to go along with Trump’s baseless claims that the election was stolen.

Accordingly, the Trump campaign has also been filing a flurry of lawsuits in state and federal court attempting to challenge the outcomes and delay state certifications of results. None have been particularly successful, but it’s possible that some will land before conservative judges who will find reasons to side with the Trump campaign. And of course, the last stop of any federal lawsuit is the Supreme Court.

There are also Republican legislators and GOP-appointed judges

Though Democrats control most key state offices in the six key swing states Biden won, there’s a catch — Republicans control the state legislatures in five of them (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia). Might these Republican legislators try and overturn their state’s results by appointing Trump’s electors, rather than Biden’s?

One, Wisconsin state Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R), has already endorsed this idea. “You either have to toss this election out and have a whole new election, or we have our delegates to the Electoral College vote for the person they think legitimately should have won,” Sanfelippo said this week. And he is not just a random back-bencher — he’s on the committee that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) has told to investigate the election. (Though Vos himself said Tuesday he doesn’t expect the investigation to change the outcome in Wisconsin.)

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Republican senate majority leader, Jake Corman (R), has long claimed that the state legislature plays no role in selecting electors. But in recent days he has begun to hedge that statement somewhat, saying this would be the case “in normal circumstances.” (“Pressure has begun mounting on Corman and other GOP state leaders to reverse course and somehow overturn the results of the race,” Politico’s Holly Otterbein reported Tuesday.)

Yet in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, there is a process codified in state law for choosing electors, and it gives the legislature no part. (As Corman wrote just last month, “Pennsylvania law plainly says that the state’s electors are chosen only by the popular vote of the commonwealth’s voters.”) Furthermore, both states have Democratic governors, so the legislatures can’t pass a new law changing these rules after the fact.

Except there may be one more catch. Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh recently embraced a legal theory that, in Gorsuch’s words, “state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules.”

If three other Supreme Court justices agree with this line of thinking, they could potentially grant partisan state legislatures far more leeway to do what they want with elections, without having to worry about pesky governor’s vetoes, secretaries of states, or elections boards. And of those partisan state legislatures want to appoint electors who will give Trump a second term — well, maybe the Supreme Court will let them do it.

Watch the certifications, the state legislatures, and the courts

To recap: a scenario for Trump overturning the election’s outcome is for Republican legislatures in multiple states to go around their governors and defy their own state laws by appointing Trump’s electors rather than Biden’s, and for GOP-appointed Supreme Court justices to then agree with the legislators.

It’s a far-fetched scenario. Biden appears to have secure leads in too many states for this to work out.

But it’s tough to outright declare it won’t happen. Partisanship can be a powerful thing, and Trump is trying to make “the election was stolen” the standard Republican position. If Republican voters believe him, and demand their representatives take action, then it will get harder for state legislators to explain why they’re not doing anything about it.

So to get an idea of what may happen in the coming weeks, watch the state certifications, the state legislators — and, of course, the progress of the Trump campaign’s various lawsuits.

If the certification process and the elector appointment process remain on track, the rhetoric from Trump’s allies will be just that: empty rhetoric. But if we start to see certifications being delayed by the courts, or state legislators preparing serious efforts to appoint their own electors, then an attempt to steal the election from Biden could really be taking off.

His trademark grin. The giant, oversized coffee mug. The time he ignored the public, killed net neutrality at the request of telecom lobbyists, then gleefully danced with a pizzagater thinking it made him look good. But with a Joe Biden win, Pai’s controversial tenure as head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon be coming to an end.

Traditionally, the party in control of the Presidency enjoys a 3-2 majority over the FCC and the top chairman spot. With a Biden win, the FCC majority reverts to Democratic control next January. As such, Pai will lose his top spot at the FCC, and experts say he’s likely to leave the agency altogether.

Pai’s tenure was a minefield of controversy. In no small part due to Pai’s repeal of net neutrality, which not only eliminated rules preventing ISPs from behaving anti-competitively, but much of the FCC’s authority to police widely-disliked telecom monopolies at all.

Instead, that responsibility fell to the FTC, an agency experts say lacks the authority or resources to hold telecom giants accountable (the entire point of the telecom industry gambit).

Pai repeatedly and falsely claimed that net neutrality had stifled sector innovation, job growth, and U.S. broadband investment. He then repeatedly claimed that repealing the rules would drive a massive investment in new broadband networks. But earnings reports, independent research and CEO statements alike made it clear that never actually happened.

Pai also actively blocked law enforcement inquiries into the use of fake and dead people used to create the illusion of broad support during the FCC comment proceeding — efforts later linked to the broadband industry and Trump allies such as Roger Stone. In reality, a large bipartisan majority of Americans supported the rules and opposed the repeal. 

Meanwhile, the jostling to determine the makeup of the new Biden FCC has begun in earnest. 

In recent months, Trump has attempted to use the FCC to target social media giants the administration has falsely claimed are engaged in rampant censorship of Conservatives. To do so, he’s demanded that the FCC take aim at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

But a parade of experts have warned the FCC lacks the authority to regulate social media giants, and eroding the law would be a disaster resulting in social media giants censoring more content than ever. When Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly politely pointed this out at a speech last summer, he was effectively fired by the Trump administration.

Trumpland has subsequently rushed to replace O’Rielly with Trump ally Nathan Simington, who will be the subject of a Congressional confirmation hearing in DC this week.

“This guy is even worse than Ajit Pai,” activist group Fight For the Future said of the nomination. “His only qualifications are his steadfast loyalty to an outgoing wannabe tyrant and his undying love for convoluted attacks on Internet freedom.”

Simington helped write the Trump administration’s executive order targeting Section 230, and has been supported by many of the same telecom companies that paid top dollar to neuter net neutrality, the group complained.

But several sources familiar with the process tell Motherboard that while Simington’s hearing will proceed, he’s unlikely to get a confirmation vote. Instead, sources suggest the GOP hopes to next year give O’Rielly’s spot to Crystal Tully, currently the Deputy Staff Director at the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation.

With only two Republican seats on a Democratically-controlled FCC, that means either Ajit Pai or fierce Trump loyalist Brendan Carr could be headed for the exit. Matt Wood, General Counsel of consumer group Free Press, told Motherboard that Pai likely isn’t keen to stick around to watch his work on behalf of the telecom sector get reversed.

"I think the race for those two seats is still very much up in the air,” Wood said. “The only thing that would surprise me is Chairman Pai sticking around to occupy one of them by taking a demotion back down to the commissioner level. Chairs almost always resign once their party loses power, and Pai has already been there as a commissioner and chairman now for more than eight years."

With a 3-2 majority the Biden FCC is widely expected to restore both net neutrality and the FCC’s authority to hold giant ISPs accountable. A Biden FCC is also likely to reverse Pai’s repeated attacks on media consolidation rules that have slowly allowed giants like Sinclair Broadcasting to dominate the local news ecosystem to the detriment of local journalism.

A Biden FCC is also expected to reverse many of Pai’s attacks on programs designed to bring broadband to low-income households, and to take a far more active role in protecting consumers from problematic monopoly behavior during the Covid crisis.

Pai, meanwhile, is likely to move on to post-FCC political ambitions, hopeful that Millennial voters don’t have a long memory.

2020 shattered another record when subtropical storm Theta, the 29th named storm this season, developed overnight in the Northeast Atlantic. There has never been an Atlantic hurricane season on record with more storms strong enough to earn a name.

The World Meteorological Organization burned through its regular list of storm names nearly two months ago and had to resort to using Greek letters to label storms this year for only the second time in its history. This is the first time Theta has ever been used as a storm name.

The last time the WMO resorted to Greek letters was in 2005, which held the previous record for the most named storms in a single season. That year will still be known for one of the most devastating storms in American...

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Apple has announced its first MacBook Pro laptop that will run on an Apple-designed processor at its “One More Thing” event, ushering in a new era of Mac computers.

It’s not just that Apple is making an Arm-based Mac — it’s that Apple is specifically making an Arm-based MacBook Pro, products that it has emphasized as a core part of its lineup for both creative and technical professionals.

The new MacBook Pro comes in a 13-inch size and starts at $1,299. It’ll feature Apple’s new M1 processor, which the company says features the “world’s fastest CPU core,” the fastest integrated graphics, and big power and performance gains compared to the Intel chips it had previously used. Both laptops will launch with macOS 11 Big Sur, which Apple...

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• Whole Foods Market and Progressive Insurance have teamed up to create a turkey "insurance plan" ahead of Thanksgiving.
• The first 1,000 people who make a turkey cooking mishaps claim will receive a $35 Whole Foods gift card under the Thanksgiving Turkey Protection Plan.
• In order to qualify for the "insurance" plan, soon-to-be turkey cooks need to purchase their Whole Foods branded turkey between November 11 and 22, and the claim needs to be made between November 26 and 27.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Whole Foods Market and Progressive Insurance have teamed up to create a Thanksgiving Turkey Protection Plan.

The plan is simple: Whole Foods turkey purchasers will be eligible for "turkey insurance" — a $35 Whole Foods gift card — in case a cooking mishap tanks the grand Thanksgiving centerpiece.

According to a statement from Whole Foods' vice president of meat and poultry Theo Weening in a news release, the unique "insurance" was created for this year's influx of "smaller Thanksgiving gatherings and first-time cooks tackling turkey preparation," an inevitable result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the US.

Read more: Inside Amazon's 'whirlwind courtship' of Whole Foods, as told by the grocery chain's founder John Mackey

“The Thanksgiving Turkey Protection Plan allows customers the freedom of culinary exploration, knowing all is not lost should their cooking go astray,” Weening said in the news release statement.

Source: Whole Foods Market

To qualify for the insurance plan, soon-to-be turkey cooks need to purchase their Whole Foods branded turkey — either in-store or delivered with Amazon Prime — between November 11 and 22.

If the turkey ends up "overcooked, undercooked, burnt, dry, or just doesn't end up cooking like you thought it would," customers can submit a claim for the $35 gift card between November 26 and 27.

Unsuccessful cooks will need to submit the Whole Foods receipt, a picture of the turkey, and a quick explanation of the turkey blunders.

However, the gift card is limited to the first 1,000 claims.

• Bill Russo, a top advisor on President-elect Joe Biden's press team, on Monday published a series of tweets tearing into Facebook for the disinformation that has spread on its platform since Election Day.
• Russo on Sunday also posted a retweet — which was swiftly deleted — that suggested the Biden administration may target Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
• Russo's more recent Twitter thread suggests Facebook may have a tough four years dealing with the Biden administration.
• Biden said in January that he wanted to revoke Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a part of US law that grants sweeping liability protections to tech companies for content posted on their platforms.  
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A top advisor to President-elect Joe Biden has tore into Facebook in a thread on Twitter.

"If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after," Bill Russo, a deputy communications director on Biden's campaign press team, tweeted late on Monday.

Russo then attacked Facebook over the course of eight tweets for allowing violent and misinformative content to flourish on the platform in the week following Election Day.

He referenced a video of Steve Bannon calling for the head of Dr. Fauci on a pike and the proliferation of "Stop the Steal" Facebook groups.

—Bill Russo (@BillR) November 10, 2020

He specifically criticized Facebook's decision to allow posts from President Trump labelled as misinformation to be widely shared — whereas Twitter placed restrictions on labeled tweets meaning they couldn't be retweeted.

Facebook began limiting the spread of posts, rather than just flagging them, on November 5, after Election Day.

"We knew this would happen. We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not. Our democracy is on the line. We need answers," Russo's thread concluded.

This isn't the first time Russo has come after Facebook. On Sunday he reposted a tweet from actor Sacha Baron Cohen with a picture of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shaking Donald Trump's hand, captioned "one down, one to go."

Russo added the words "Hell yeah" to his retweet, which was quickly deleted.

The fact Russo has now doubled down with a lengthy thread detailing Facebook's failures is an ominous sign for the social media giant, which now has to prepare for potential attempts to regulate it by a Biden administration.

Biden told The New York Times in January that he wanted to revoke Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a part of US law that grants sweeping liability protections to tech companies for content posted on their platforms.  

In that interview, Biden referred to Facebook and the spread of misinformation on the platform. "It should be revoked because [Facebook] is not merely an internet company. It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false," he said.

Russo's tweets reinforce the sense that the Biden administration could make the next four years very uncomfortable for Facebook.

Facebook did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats lost seats in the Senate and House because of a lack of online advertising, including on Facebook.
• "If you're not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders," she told the New York Times. "And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders."
• The comments come as Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives field blame from centrist Democrats who say their causes and messaging caused the party to lose seats in the House and Senate.
• Ocasio-Cortez pushed back and said the upset was instead due to a lack of a robust digital ad campaigns. She said in a tweet last week that some campaigns spent $0 on digital advertising the week before the election.
• Democrats maintain control of the House, but they lost a number of incumbent congresspeople in the 2020 election, and control of the Senate hinges on Georgia's two runoff elections in January. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times in an interview that the reason Democrats lost seats in the Senate and the House is that they didn't invest as much in digital advertising as Republican candidates did.

The congresswoman told the Times that "if you're not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders."

She said Democratic candidates were "sitting ducks" while Republicans were more actively campaigning online and were vulnerable because "they weren't even on the mediums where these messages were most potent."

"Our party isn't even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence," Ocasio-Cortez told the Times.

AOC's comments come after the Democratic Party lost a number of seats in the House and the Senate in the 2020 election. However, Democrats will maintain control of the House, and control of the Senate hinges on Georgia's two runoff elections in January.

Read more: House Democrats plan to keep going on their high-profile investigations into President Trump even after he leaves the White House

As Ocasio-Cortez mentions to the Times, some centrists in the Democratic Party have pinned the blame of the lost Senate seats on progressives for supporting policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal and movements like Black Lives Matter. House majority leader Rep. Jim Clyburn said on Sunday that Democrats lost seats in Congress in part because of South Carolina Democratic candidate Jaime Harrison's call to "defund the police."

Ocasio-Cortez has pushed back, saying Democrats have instead lost seats because of the lack of digital advertising. Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet last week that some campaigns spent $0 on digital advertising the week before the election.

"If I spent only $12k on TV the week before an election & then blamed others after, you'd ask questions," the congresswoman tweeted last week. "That's how it looks seeing this."

Ocasio-Cortez said in the same interview with the Times that the hostility she has faced from her own party due to progressive causes has made her question her future in politics.

"I don't even know if I want to be in politics," she told the outlet.

If you’re like us, you probably haven’t thought about the Slingbox in a good long while; the idea of beaming your own TV over the internet has largely been replaced by streaming TV services, even if watch-anywhere DVRs like the Fire TV Recast do still exist.

But if you are still relying on a Slingbox of your very own, you’re officially on notice: Dish subsidiary Sling Media is discontinuing all Slingbox products and will permanently shut down the Slingbox servers on or around November 9th, 2022 — “at which point ALL Slingbox devices and services will become inoperable,” says Sling.

Why now? Please enjoy this illuminating explanation:

Right then!

The company’s also nixing a variety of its...

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• Inrupt, the company founded by World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, announced Monday it's releasing its data management platform Solid for enterprises.
• It already has several big-ticket clients, including Britain's National Health Service (NHS), NatWest bank, and the BBC.
• Berners-Lee told Business Insider the ultimate goal of Solid is to give people more say over how their data can be used, and stop it ending up in "social network silos."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, is on a mission to redesign it.

On Monday, Inrupt, cofounded by Berners-Lee, announced it was a step closer to realizing his ambition of building a more decentralized internet.

Inrupt announced that it was releasing its first enterprise-ready version of its data platform Solid, and it already has some major clients, including the BBC, NatWest Bank, the UK's National Health Service, and the Flanders Government.

In a blog post Berners-Lee called the announcement a "huge milestone," adding that he hopes Solid getting out into the world will "drive groundbreaking new opportunities that not only restore trust in data but also enhance our lives."

What is Solid?

In 2018, Berners-Lee announced his intention to help build a fairer, more decentralized internet using an open-source project he was working on, called Solid.

Solid aims to make people's data massively more portable, giving individuals far more control over how all their personal data moves around the internet. 

When Berners-Lee announced the launch of Solid in 2018, he simultaneously announced the creation of a company to go with it, called Inrupt. Since then, Inrupt has grown to a team of 29 developers, CEO John Bruce told Business Insider, and is working with both contracted partners and the open-source community to get Solid ready to ship.

In an interview with Business Insider, Berners-Lee said that the web, as it currently exists, fragments our data into "social network silos," over which individual users have very little power.

"They're not really webbing, they're not connecting together as peers," he said. 

In his blog post, Berners-Lee said these "silos" are ripe for exploitation, "leading to increasing, very reasonable, public skepticism about how personal data is being misused."

Berners-Lee hopes that Inrupt can help serve consumers who are used to having their personal data hoovered up and occasionally mishandled by Big Tech companies like Facebook.

Personal data bundled up into "pods"

"Every now and again some big social network drops a bunch of private data on the floor," said Berners-Lee. "[People] have assumed in the past that 'well, we have to use these big social networks because there's no other way the world works,' but that is getting challenged on a whole lot of fronts," he added.

The goal of Solid isn't to lock up people's data where social media giants can't find it. Instead, the idea is to make it much easier for individuals to control where their data can go, using various personalized hubs it calls "pods."

"It's not just about privacy, it's actually about enablement. About a year ago a lot of people were writing in the business press about privacy and imagining that the user's desire is to hoard [...] But when they get into Solid then really the empowering thing is about being able to use their data," he said.

For the near future though, Solid's use case is more to do with system architecture, giving clients a better way to join together data they already possess.

Inrupt CEO John Bruce used the NHS as a possible example, saying the Solid platform would allow the service to collect bits of health data about a patient in one accessible place.

"They take pieces of data about you and write it into your pod, your storage area. So now when you go visit your doctor, you can take it all with you and you can say, look, there's everything about me, a holistic view of my health experience. And now they can make a better diagnoses," Bruce told Business Insider.

The partnerships with the NHS and other organizations are still early days and quite small scale, Bruce said. The aim is to nail the applications for now, rather than pursue bigger projects.

"I don't think overmuch about 'wow how are we going to build a huge, scaleable business here.' It's much more about how do we really get after this, and deliver the kind of promise that we believe we can, make these use cases fly, be really successful, and we'll figure all the rest out," he said.

• Ikea is doing a giveaway of its tiny home on wheels that was intitially unveiled in fall 2020.
• The tiny home sits inside of Escape Homes' Vista Boho XL model, which has a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom.
• The interior is primarily equipped with Ikea furniture.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ikea is doing a giveaway of its 187-square-foot tiny home on wheels that was first unveiled in fall 2020 in partnership with Vox Creative and Curbed to promote sustainable tiny living.

Source: Curbed

The tiny home on wheels was initially built by Escape, which specializes in creating these moving mini homes. Escape's homes on wheels can be attached to a vehicle, like a pickup truck, to be towed around to any destination.

"[Tiny living] is a very hot trend that has become hotter as people move away from cities, crowded apartments, and condos due to COVID-19 and into safe spaces of their own," Escape's founder Dan Dobrowolski told Insider in the email interview in 2020.

Now let's take a look around the interior. Despite the home's wheels, the unit has all the functions of a non-moving house, including a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room.

Ikea has played a quiet role in the tiny home movement, in part by offering small living friendly furniture. Now, it's using these pieces to furnish its own tiny home.

This includes the kitchen, which has Ikea's Kungsbacka series made of recycled wood and bottles, and the living room, which has the foldable and storage-equipped Norden dining and work table.

Like the Norden table, many furniture pieces throughout the tiny home are multipurpose, such as the bed, which has under-bed storage.

The tiny home can sleep up to two people, but the original non-Ikea iteration from Escape can fit more with a couch-bed.

The small space also has plenty of storage units, including the aforementioned under-bed storage, hanging storage racks, kitchen cabinet, and shelves near the ceiling.

Source: Ikea

The interior walls are painted white to make the space feel larger, according to Ikea and Vox's video explainer about the Tiny Home Project. The white walls then complement the neutral tones of the furniture.

Source: Curbed

Many aspects of the interior are also eco friendly to stay true to Ikea's sustainability-focused goals for the tiny home. This includes the use of LED lights, roof-mounted solar panels, and faucets that save water.

Source: Ikea, Curbed

If you're interested in winning your own Ikea tiny home, head to the furnishing giant's Instagram. Ikea has been posting different puzzles and clues on its Instagram account - and will continue to do so until May 12 - to create a social media-based scavenger hunt.

These hints all point to a secret six-letter "password" that participants will then need to identify. In order to enter the contest, the participants will have to submit the password, an essay about the importance of sustainability, and an Ikea family number by May 14.

For further explanation of the rules, or to enter the contest yourself, head to Ikea's website.

Source: Ikea

Inrupt, the startup from World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee, announced an enterprise version of the Solid privacy platform today, which allows large organizations and governments to build applications that put users in control of their data.

Berners-Lee has always believed that the web should be free and open, but large organizations have grown up over the last 20 years that make their money using our data. He wanted to put people back in charge of their data, and the Solid open source project, developed at MIT, was the first step in that process.

Three years ago he launched Inrupt, a startup built on top of the open source project, and hired John Bruce to run the company. The two shared the same vision of shifting data ownership without changing the way websites get developed. With Solid, developers use the same standards and methods of building sites, and these applications will work in any browser. What Solid aims to do is alter the balance of data power and redirect it to the user.

“Fast forward to today, and we’re releasing the first significant technology as the fruits of our labor, which is an enterprise version of Solid to be deployed at scale by large organizations,” Bruce explained.

The core idea behind this approach is that users control their data in online storage entities called Personal Online Data Stores or Pods for short. The enterprise version consists of Solid Server to manage the Pods, and developers can build applications using an SDK to take advantage of the Pods and access the data they need to do a particular job like pay taxes or interact with a healthcare provider. Bruce points out that the enterprise version is fully compatible with the open source Solid project specifications.

The company has been working with some major organizations prior to today’s release including the BBC and National Health Service in the UK and the Government of Flanders in Belgium as they have been working to bring this to market.

To give you a sense of how this works, the National Health Service has been building an application for patients interacting with them, who using Solid can control their health data. “Patients will be able to permit doctors, family or at-home caregivers to read certain data from their Solid Pods, and add caretaking notes or observations that doctors can then read in order to improve patient care,” the company explained.

The difference between this and more conventional web or phone apps is that it is up to the user who can access this information and the application owner has to ask the user for permission and the user has to explicitly grant it and under what conditions.

The startup launched in 2017 and has raised about $20 million so far. Bruce and Berners-Lee understand that for this to take root, it has to be easy to use, be standards-based and and have the capacity to handle massive scale. Anyone can download and use the open source version of Solid, but by having an enterprise version, it gives large organizations like the ones they have been working with the support, security and scale that these companies require.

• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the watchdog for workplace safety, just released guidance on how offices can better ventilate spaces to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 through small particles in the air.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said small COVID-19 particles can travel longer distances in enclosed spaces that have "inadequate ventilation."  
• OSHA recommends offices introduce fresh air by keeping windows open where possible.
• The US recorded 103,000 cases of COVID-19 on November 5, the highest single-day count of new daily COVID-19 cases.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US regulator for workplace safety just recommended offices open windows to decrease the spread of COVID-19. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that inspects workplace safety, released guidance on November 5 instructing offices to "consider steps to optimize building ventilation." OSHA said heating, ventilation, and air conditioning professionals can help offices ensure the building ventilates air efficiently. 

The new coronavirus continues to spread across the US, as the country recorded the highest single-day count of new daily COVID-19 cases with 103,000.

OSHA instructs workplaces to ensure all HVAC systems are functional and filters with a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value rating of 13. OSHA also recommends offices introduce fresh air by increasing the HVAC's outdoor air intake or open windows where possible, and to keep exhaust fans running at maximum capacity in restrooms.

Scientists agree that COVID-19 primarily spreads when an infected person releases droplets in the air when talking, coughing, or sneezing. These droplets typically travel up to 6 feet, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said smaller COVID-19 particles can travel longer distances in enclosed spaces that had "inadequate ventilation." 

Thus, enclosed offices that don't have proper ventilation can pose a risk to staff. A recent study on an outbreak in a call center in South Korea found that 44% of infected workers sat on the same floor, and almost all of them sat close together.

"In such a tightly enclosed space without vigorous air movement for a short period of time, I'm afraid you might be exposed," William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University told Business Insider's Aylin Woodward. 

Ventilation, or the process of introducing outdoor air indoors, can reduce the COVID-19 particles circulating indoors. Along with keeping windows open and bringing fresh air inside, offices can reduce the spread of coronavirus by staggering shifts, keeping remote work, and enforcing flexible schedules, Rachel Morrison, a professor of work psychology at the Auckland University of Technology, wrote in The Conversation.

• Apple has ordered 2.5 million units of its first Apple silicon-based laptops for early 2021, according to Nikkei Asian Review.
• That's said to represent roughly 20% of Apple's Mac shipments for the entire year of 2019, says the report.
• Even though the company hasn't unveiled its first Apple silicon laptops yet, Apple is reportedly preparing to launch another computer running on its own chip in Q2 2021.
• Apple is holding an event on November 10 where it's expected to reveal the first Apple silicon MacBook.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple has yet to introduce the first Mac laptop that will run on the new homemade chip it announced back in June, but an early report suggests the company is expecting demand to be strong.

Apple has ordered 2.5 million units of its first MacBooks running on Apple silicon for early 2021, according to Nikkei Asian Review. That's equivalent to almost 20% of Apple's total MacBook shipments for the year 2019, says the report.

Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Apple doesn't report unit sales for specific product segments like Mac computers or the iPhone. But its Mac business generated $28.6 billion in revenue during the company's fiscal year that ended on September 26.

Apple is widely expected to unveil the first MacBook laptop running on Apple silicon during an event on November 10. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Debby Wu have reported that the company is indeed expected to unveil Apple silicon devices next week.

The company is also gearing up to introduce another new Apple silicon computer in the second quarter of 2021, according to Nikkei Asian Review. That would seemingly line up with the details reported by Bloomberg, which indicate that Apple may unveil 13-inch Apple silicon-powered MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops next week and later debut a 16-inch MacBook Pro running on the new chip. 

Apple is ramping up production of its upcoming Apple silicon products as it's faced shortages for its new iPhone 12 line, according to reports from Bloomberg and Nikkei Asian Review. The launch also comes after Apple reported strong fiscal-fourth-quarter performance for the Mac product line as remote work and education because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The move to create its own Mac chips gives Apple more control over the launch cycle for its laptops and desktops as well as the features that go into them. Until this point, the Mac has been the only major Apple product that doesn't run on the tech giant's own chips. The iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV all run on the company's own processors. 

The switch also means Mac laptops will be able to run iPhone apps, significantly expanding the selection of available programs for Apple's notebooks and desktops and making the experience more consistent with its mobile products. 

Still, that doesn't mean Apple is completely moving away from Intel just yet. The company said it expects the transition to take two years and it will continue supporting Intel-based Macs.

As is typically the case with Apple, the company has been vague about what to expect from its upcoming event.

But Apple CEO Tim Cook teased that there are more product announcements to come in 2020 during the company's recent fourth quarter earnings call on October 29.

"Without giving away too much," he said. "I can tell you that this year has a few more exciting things in store."

• The US reportedly surpassed 103,000 COVID-19 new daily infections on Wednesday, the COVID-19 Tracking Project reported. 
• Experts have warned the US is entering the "deadliest" wave of the pandemic as cold weather sets in and people begin hunkering down indoors.
• Close to 9.5 million Americans have already been infected with COVID-19 and over 233,650 have died. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US surpassed 103,000 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day count, according to The COVID-19 Tracking Project on Wednesday

Cases of the virus in the US have been on the rise, consistently breaking previous records. The seven-day average is about 86,363. According to data from John Hopkins University, that is more than twice what it was on September 4, just two months ago. 

So far close to 9.5 million Americans have caught COVID-19 and over 233,650 have died. 

Experts including Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force have warned that the most "deadly wave" is approaching the US. 

Birx in an internal report warned top officials in President Donald Trump's administration that without "much more aggressive action" the pandemic could enter the "most deadly phase" yet and said the US could see as many as 100,000 cases a day this week. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the US, also warned that the upcoming winter season could be catastrophic in terms of record infections and deaths if more stringent measures are not taken to curb the spread of the virus. 

Fauci also said Americans are "in for a whole lot of hurt" as infection numbers continue to rise.

Doctors and public health officials have also sounded the alarm that their hospitals may not be able to handle an influx of patients. In some regions, hospitals are nearly full.

• The FBI is investigating reports of suspicious robocalls and texts urging voters to "stay safe and stay home" on Election Day, a senior cybersecurity official told reporters on Tuesday.
• "Robocalls of this nature happen every election" and are a "voter intimidation" and "voter suppression" tactic, an official from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said during a media call.
• The Washington Post reported that about 10 million such robocalls had gone out to voters across the US in recent days.
• As Business Insider has reported, even during the coronavirus pandemic, in-person voting is still a safe option, and there are several tips voters can follow to securely cast ballots on Election Day.
• Overall, US officials have taken more steps this year than in previous election cycles to make the public aware of malicious efforts to suppress the vote, manipulate the electoral process, and sow chaos ahead of Election Day.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The FBI is investigating reports of suspicious robocalls and texts urging voters to "stay safe and stay home" on Election Day, a senior cybersecurity official told reporters on Tuesday.

"Robocalls of this nature happen every election," the official from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said during a media call, adding that the calls were a "voter intimidation" and "voter suppression" tactic.

The Washington Post reported that about 10 million such robocalls had gone out to voters across the US in recent days and started in the summer. Officials in Michigan said that some voters in Flint — part of a county that leans Democratic — also received calls telling them to go to the polls on Wednesday to avoid long lines on Tuesday.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said on Tuesday that state officials would "work quickly to stamp out misinformation," and the FBI's focus on the matter signals that federal officials are also taking it seriously.

Dana Nessel, Michigan's Attorney General, said she'd also received reports of calls telling voters that, due to long lines, they should vote on Wednesday instead. "Obviously this is FALSE and an effort to suppress the vote. No long lines and today is the last day to vote. Don't believe the lies," she tweeted.

Similar robocalls were reported in Kansas and Nebraska. In both states, officials urged voters to ignore the false claims and head to the polls. 

—KS Sec. of State (@KansasSOS) November 3, 2020

—NE Secretary of State Robert Evnen (@NEvnen) November 3, 2020

The official Twitter account for the Kansas Secretary of State's office also reported similar robocalls. "Disregard these calls. If you have not already voted, today is the day!" officials wrote on  tweeted.

And in Nebraska, Secretary of State Robert Evnen said Tuesday that residents had received similar calls. "Our polling places across the state are open. Our voters and our poll workers will be kept safe," he tweeted.

As Business Insider has reported, even during the coronavirus pandemic, in-person voting is still a safe option, and there are several tips for voters to safely and securely cast ballots on Election Day.

Overall, US officials have taken more steps this year than in previous election cycles to make the public aware of malicious efforts to suppress the vote, manipulate the electoral process, and sow chaos ahead of Election Day.

The US intelligence community determined over the summer that Russia and China were interfering in the 2020 election: China wanted Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, to win, while Russia wanted President Donald Trump to stay in power.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe also announced late last month that Russia and Iran were attempting to "influence public opinion" ahead of the election.

Ratcliffe said Iran was meddling to "damage President Trump" — but Politico reported that the reference to Trump was not in Ratcliffe's prepared remarks and blindsided FBI Director Christopher Wray and Chris Krebs, a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security, both of whom flanked Ratcliffe during the announcement.

Ratcliffe also said Russian and Iranian actors had obtained some voter-registration data, though as ProPublica's Jessica Huseman noted, most of that information is public anyway, and Ratcliffe did not indicate whether any election systems had been breached. He added that officials "have not seen the same actions from Russia" but "are aware that they have obtained some voter information just as they did in 2016."

The New York Times reported that officials thought Russia planned to meddle in the election to help Trump in part by "exacerbating disputes around the results." Ratcliffe did not share that information during his announcement, and The Times said some officials believed that, contrary to what Ratcliffe said, Russia posed a far greater threat to the election than Iran.

US officials' latest discovery about Russia's actions had several parallels to the Kremlin's elaborate and wide-ranging campaign to interfere in the 2016 campaign to boost Trump and denigrate his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

This time, Russian actors breached state and local networks that could allow them "broader access to American voting infrastructure," The Times said. However, just like in 2016, there is no evidence that the hackers changed vote totals or manipulated registration information.

• Elon Musk said Monday that SpaceX will send several thousand more invitations out for Starlink's satellite-internet service in the coming days.
• Musk also said the Starlink public beta, which is currently confined to northern US and southern Canada, could be in Florida by January, in Europe by February, and in India by the middle of 2021.
• SpaceX has told public beta users to expect speeds of between 50 and 150 megabits per second (Mbps), but some users are getting download speed even higher than that.
• SpaceX has not said how many people are signed up to the Starlink internet public beta, which costs $600 upfront. Nearly 900 Starlink satellites are currently beaming internet down to Earth.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk said Monday that "several thousand" more invitations for the company's Starlink internet public beta will be sent out in the coming days, and that the scheme could expand to Europe early next year.

The Starlink service beams internet down to Earth from a network of 900 satellites — the public beta launched on October 26, and some users are already reporting blistering speeds of more than 160 megabits per second (Mbps). 

"Several thousand more Starlink beta participation invitations going out this week," Musk posted on Twitter Monday evening.

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2020

SpaceX has started testing the service in the northern US and southern Canada, where SpaceX has better satellite coverage.

In follow-up tweets, Musk indicated when other locations would get Starlink internet.

He said European countries will get access as soon "as the company get country approval," which he estimated would start in February or March.

"This is required for each country individually, as no EU-wide approval system exists. Probably start receiving final (there are many steps) approvals around Feb/March," he said.

Florida could get the public beta in January, he said, adding that "lower latitude states need more satellites in position."

India can expect connectivity in mid-2021, "as soon as we get regulatory approval," Musk replied to another user.

The company has not said how many people are taking part in the beta, but in June, it said nearly 700,000 people across the US had expressed interest, per CNBC.

Read more: Elon Musk's management style is a case study in why micromanagers are a big risk for business — and especially talent retention

SpaceX sent an email on October 26 to an unspecified number of people who showed interest in signing up for the service on the Starlink website. The email said users should expect speeds of between 50 and 150 Mbps.

The aerospace manufacturer is charging $99 a month for a subscription, plus $499 upfront for a kit with a tripod, a WiFi router, and a terminal to connect to the Starlink satellites. 

Musk's firm has nearly 900 Starlink satellites in orbit. It wants to launch around 12,000 Starlink satellites by mid-2027, though this could reach up to 42,000. Its ultimate goal is to beam high-speed internet around the world.

• The 2021 Ferrari Roma is the newest prancing horse in Maranello's stable, a gorgeous grand-touring car that costs just over $200,000.
• The coupé features a 3.8-liter, twin-turbocharged V8, making 611 horsepower, but also a cabin crammed with touchscreens, a design departure for Ferrari.
• The Ferrari Roma is a modern masterpiece, thoroughly beautiful and blissful to drive.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It isn't hard to talk yourself out of absolutes.

I tell myself some cars are as lovely as Ferraris. Aston Martins. Jaguars. Even an Audi or a Maserati, every once in a while. Heck, Enzo Ferrari himself considered the Jaguar E-Type to be the most beautiful car ever designed.

This state of well-seasoned ignorance can persist for a while — usually, when I'm between Ferraris. But then along comes another prancing horse, and the unjustified, irrational absolute is restored. Sorry, every other car, but Ferraris just look the best. Absolutely.

The latest evidence of this fact is the new Ferrari Roma, a grand-touring coupé that now represents the entry-level hardtop for Maranello. What we have here is a beauty so breathtaking, so thorough, and so sleekly rendered that words such as "timeless" enter the imagination. 

When it comes to breathtaking beauty, Ferraris are special. But this Ferrari is more breathtaking than others. It takes your breath away and doesn't want to give it back. 

There were moments, during a gloriously sun-splashed jaunt up to Connecticut from my home in New Jersey, when I gazed upon the Roma situated against an impeccable autumn landscape, that I felt the rotation of the planet slow, as small creatures of the wood emerged in a time-warped frame to join me as I was enveloped by the car's aesthetic power.

Overstatement aside, Ferrari doesn't need to make its cars this pretty. Several years ago, annual sales were slated to rise from 7,000 vehicles a year to 10,000, and mission accomplished on that front. Ferrari sells every single vehicle it makes and could sell a lot more, so eternally and strategically undernourished is global demand. 

But Maranello isn't going to slap the badge on another few thousand same-old-same-old cars and make bank. Instead, Ferrari designers consider the thrown-down gauntlet of a beautiful challenge and they scoop it up. The jaw-dropping Roma is the result.

Ferrari's objective was to create two clear product lines with the Roma, completely distinguishing the GT cars from the mid-engined sports cars such as the F8 Spider I sampled earlier this year. 

Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni led the group effort in Maranello. "We had been wanting to create very formally pure Ferrari tourers for some time," he told Ferrari magazine, the company's in-house publication.

"Elegant, refined cars with lines kept as sober as possible and influenced as little as possible by the technical requirements," he added.

The Roma's suave exterior can't be neatly separated into thirds, but while the hood is fairly elegant, it isn't as long as what we'd find with the 812 Superfast, Ferrari's big V12-powered grand tourer. It's compact and purposeful, and the arrangement allows the exceptional fascia to integrate fully with the flowing design.

And that front end truly is remarkable, with a simple — yet utterly captivating — gridded body color grille defining the Roma's face.

The back-swept headlamps are bisected by LED running lights, and the carbon-fiber front spoiler is a straightforward, low curve that frames a wide scoop.

The minimalism is notable, but it isn't an exercise in subtraction; rather, it helps the entire exterior design make sense, bumper to bumper.

The rear end doesn't fill out the final third of the Roma but takes its form from the curve of the roof, which continues through the backlight as a sort of convex fastback, culminating in a recessed, tail light to tail light swoosh that has an automatically deploying wing at its center. 

The quad exhaust ports are tucked beneath gentle swells in the rear haunches, giving the Roma's rear track a powerful, athletic look that isn't too wide. The effect is a car that looks as though it could literally turn on a dime.

The Roma is supposed to evoke the legendary 250 GTs of the 1950s, and while you could say "mission accomplished" on that score, the car sets its own example. At first, it does resemble Astons and Jaguars, but when you zero in on the details and really consider the machine, it rapidly rises to the level of unique, and not just thanks to the unusual grille.

For me, picking up my test car in Manhattan before setting off on a drive north, I savored some early thrills because the Roma was clad in an electric-blue paint job, and I love blue Ferraris — not that there's anything wrong with red.

But my previous two prancing horses had been yellow, so I was ready for something a bit more subdued. And the truth is, the Ferrari of my dreams isn't rosso, it's blu. That color also makes a better backdrop for the yellow Scuderia Ferrari badge on the Roma's flanks (the Scuderia recalls Enzo's original race-car workshop), as well as the yellow Ferrari badge on the hood.

Slip inside the interior — mostly black in my tester, with dollops of chrome, topstitching, and carbon-fiber judiciously applied, with faux suede injudiciously layered in — and it's something of a whole new ball game for Ferrari. 

Maranello has either smartly avoided the rush to build screens into every interface or lagged the rest of the auto industry. I count myself in the former camp, but our days are clearly numbered: the Roma is a screen-fest, by Ferrari standards.

A mixed-success, in my view. For example, the famous red manettino selector switch for drive modes remains steering-wheel-mounted. But it now activates a selector screen. The start-stop button, also on the wheel, is touch-based.

The instrument cluster is all-digital. And the passenger has their own touchscreen to play around with. 

I didn't much care for any of it, although the setup is fully functional and when I grew frustrated with aspects of the system, I could pivot over to Apple CarPlay, which has long been a feature for Ferraris, given that Apple vice-president Eddy Cue serves on Ferrari's board.

Being a "2+2," the Roma has a kinda-sorta usable back seat, but it's usable in the same way that a Porsche 911's back seat is. Which is to say, not usable for grownups over trips that surpass a few minutes in duration. 

The trunk is, by contrast, ideal for a weekend getaway's worth of luggage.

And that, ultimately, is what GTs are for: these are sophisticated, powerful cars that can travel over long distances at high speeds and carry enough gear for a few days.

A target customer is an affluent person who wants a ride that can transport a couple in blissful style and not at the posted speed limit.

Under the hood, we find a 3.8-liter, twin-turbocharged V8, making 611 horsepower and 561 pound-feet of torque, with the oomph sent to the back wheels through an eight-speed dual-clutch. 

Ferrari has tuned the engine to serve up lag-less turbo torque, and it is a mighty impressive thing. I ended up preferring it to the slightly larger 710-horsepower V8 in the F8 Spider. The Roma is lustier, seemingly louder, but it's possible that I'm in a front-engine mood these days. 

A cool element is the adjunct gear selector on the center console.

The Roma's dual-clutch is engaged using the long, long column-mounted paddle shifters, but reverse and manual mode are controlled by this little console unit when has been cleverly designed to resemble a gated shift pattern from a bygone Ferrari that had a real stick-shift.

At the conclusion of my two days with the Roma, I was smitten. Previously, I'd been an 812 guy. But the Roma won me over in a hurry.

What Ferrari did here is to create a car of monumental beauty that also embodies a new embrace of technology and still vacillates gracefully between high-speed comfort and extreme velocity wild-animal mode. The 0-60 mph dash is over in 3.5 seconds, and the Roma tops out at 200 mph. 

At no point in exploring the torque curve or pushing the perfectly calibrated suspension to manage some back roads curves did the Roma even appear that it might break a sweat. 

But trying to fluster such magnificence is hardly worth the effort. Instead, follow the Roma's lead and allow it to be your performance tour guide. Above all, this car showcases Maranello's wisdom, hard-earned and refined over the decades, on racetrack and roadways.

The starting price is around $220,000, a lot by everyday measures, but ... affordable in Ferrari World. My tester was well-optioned, with about $90,000 in extras, but such is the honor of Ferrari ownership. You get to spend and spend and spend some more to possess the best.

Ferrari has squared a circle with the Roma. All the traditional values are present, from the snarling, burbling V8 to the edgy sense of slight danger that even seemingly calm highway drives serve up when you're behind the wheel. But this Ferrari is also packed with technology, more than I've encountered in a Prancing Horse in the past six years.

Bravo, Ferrari! But they didn't forget that beauty is the most important value of them all.

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

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Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

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Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

Ferrari Roma

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Ferrari Roma

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Ferrari Roma

• SpaceX's public beta test of its Starlink satellite-internet service is giving some users download speeds of more than 210 megabits per second (Mbps) — faster than 95% of US connections, according to the speed-test provider Ookla.
• Nearly 900 Starlink satellites are beaming internet down to Earth as part of the beta.
• A list compiled by Reddit's Starlink community shows the fastest download speed since July was 209.17 Mbps, recorded in New York.
• One Starlink customer in Montana said on Reddit that their download speed was nearly 215 Mbps. "Think I beat the record download this morning," they said.
• SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, said in an email to beta-test subscribers last week that they should expect speeds between 50 and 150 Mbps, with intermittent outages. Most speeds in the list fell in that range.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SpaceX tried to lower expectations when it launched its Starlink satellite internet beta on October 26 - but some users say they're already hitting download speeds of more than 210 megabits per second (Mbps), which speed-test provider Ookla says is faster than 95% of US connections.

Although the fastest speed recorded on a list compiled by Reddit's Starlink community was 209.17 Mbps, in New York, one person in Utah posted a link December 10 on the community showing a download speed of nearly 215 Mbps. "Think I beat the record download this morning," they said.

They were one of many to share their Starlink internet speed since July.

SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, said in an October 26 email that users in the "Better Than Nothing Beta" - in which a network of nearly 900 satellites is beaming internet service down to Earth - could expect speeds of between 50 Mbps and 150 Mbps.

Most user tests compiled in the list on Reddit fell within that range, though most were from before the public beta test began.

A Starlink customer based in rural Missoula, Montana, posted on Reddit December 8 saying they'd hit download speeds of 212 Mbps. "New confirmed record for me," the user said.

Another person living in rural Montana said in November their download speed was 174 Mbps and that their upload speed was 33 Mbps. "Starlink will forever change the game," they said.

A subscription to the beta test costs $600 up front: $99 a month, plus $499 for a kit with a tripod, a WiFi router, and a terminal to connect to the Starlink satellites. Some users are willing to spend even more for a better setup - one person said on Reddit that they spent an extra $100 on a sturdier mount.

Read more: SpaceX's plans for Microsoft's mobile data centers should spook Amazon - and may give a boost to YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu

Users of SpaceX's "Better Than Nothing Beta" test have seen speeds of 175 Mbps even in high-speed winds, deep snow, and freezing temperatures, proving that Starlink still works in extreme weather conditions.

In the email to users, SpaceX said it was trying to "lower your initial expectations" about the beta test. The company aims to eventually beam internet service around the world with Starlink.

It said users could expect "brief periods of no connectivity at all" - and some have seen that during the trial. One user with fast speed on the West Coast said "interruptions are about ten to fifteen seconds, and seem to happen every few minutes."

The user added that there were "a couple of trees in the way, but getting steady high speeds."

• WhatsApp is testing a self-deleting message feature called "disappearing messages."
• The feature lets users choose for their messages to self-destruct seven days after being sent or received.
• A WhatsApp spokesperson told Business Insider the company hopes to roll out disappearing messages worldwide soon.
• Users will be able to toggle disappearing messages on or off for each individual conversation.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

WhatsApp has officially begun testing its disappearing messages feature. 

As spotted by WABetaInfo, an FAQ page on WhatsApp's website entitled "about disappearing messages" says that, once the feature is enabled, both sent and received messages will delete after seven days.

You can toggle this on and off for individual conversations, or for group conversations if you are an admin. 

A WhatsApp spokeswoman confirmed to Business Insider that a small number of users are testing the feature, which the encrypted-messaging service hopes to roll out globally soon.

In some circumstances, specific messages won't entirely vanish, per WhatsApp's FAQ. If you reply to a message that's due to disappear, the quoted version of that message will remain after the seven-day limit. The same applies to forwarded messages.

WABetaInfo first noticed WhatsApp was playing around with the feature last year, when WhatsApp began testing group messages capable of self-deleting after increments of between five seconds and an hour.

The feature is present on many other messaging services, including encrypted-messaging rivals Telegram and Signal. Both of these services offer much shorter timers, giving users finer control over exactly when their messages self-destruct.

At the time, WhatsApp experimenting with disappearing messages was seen as another instance where Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, was considering cloning a feature made popular by Snapchat. Facebook has been criticised for this multiple times in the past, including by Rep. Pramila Jayapal during an antitrust hearing in July.

• Corporate earnings are coming in much better than expected, according to new data from FactSet.
• With 64% of S&P 500 companies having reported third quarter earnings as of Friday, a record 86% of them beat EPS estimates, FactSet said
• But despite largely better-than-feared results, earnings are still down 9.8% year-over-year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Here's where third quarter earnings stand as of Friday's close, and where they can go from here, 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As corporate earnings continue to roll in, it's increasingly clear that analyst expectations were too pessimistic. Still, it's becoming increasingly more difficult for companies to impress skeptical investors. 

According to FactSet data released late Friday, 64% of S&P 500 companies have reported third quarter earnings as of Friday, and a record 86% of them have topped earnings estimates. Usually, only 73% have beat expectations over the past five years. 

If current trends hold through the rest of this quarter's earnings season, it would represent the highest percentage of S&P 500 companies reporting a positive EPS surprise since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2008.

And the earnings beats are sizable. According to FactSet, on average, companies are reporting earnings that are 19.3% above the estimates, which is well above the 5-year average of 5.6%.

The earnings beats are being driven by companies within the Communication Services, Energy, Industrials, and Consumer Discretionary sectors, according to FactSet.

Read more: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway swung from extreme caution to a flurry of deals in 6 months. We asked a bunch of experts to analyze its shifting strategy

81% of S&P 500 companies that have reported third quarter earnings so far posted a positive revenue surprise, also representing the biggest beat since 2008, if that number holds steady.

Still, despite the better than feared third quarter results, earnings are still down 9.8% year-over-year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If that 9.8% decline holds steady until all companies report earnings, it would represent the sharpest earnings decline since the third quarter of 2009, when earnings fell 15.8%, according to FactSet.

That may be the reason why investor reaction to the strong earnings beats have been muted. Strong earnings beats from large cap technology stocks and financial bank stocks have been met with a tepid reaction from investors, with many stocks selling-off despite earnings beats thanks to bleak outlooks or lowered future guidance. 

"Companies that have reported positive earnings surprises for Q3 2020 have seen an average price decrease of -1.7%
two days before the earnings release through two days after the earnings release," FactSet highlighted.

This trend may continue into the fourth quarter, as analysts expect an earnings decline of 11.2%, according to FactSet. But investors can expect earnings growth to return in the first quarter of 2021 at a clip of 14.5%, FactSet said, citing aggregate analyst estimates.

Read more: An unusual wrinkle in Wall Street's fear gauge is warning that the upcoming election could trigger a prolonged period of stock-market chaos — one that's much worse than the aftermath of 2016

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the Raspberry Pi 400, a compact keyboard with an ARM-based computer built in. Just plug it into a TV or monitor using one of its two micro HDMI ports, insert a microSD card, attach a power cord and mouse, and you’ve got yourself a basic computer for day-to-day tasks, coding, or media playback. It’s available starting today as a standalone machine for $70 or in a bundle including a mouse, power supply, microSD card, HDMI cable, and beginner’s guide for $100.

The hope is the Pi 400’s form factor, plus these optional bundled items, makes it more approachable and user-friendly. That’s important when you’re selling an affordable computer, and it’s especially important when you’re selling an accessible...

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• Top US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Americans are "in for a whole lot of hurt" with the current surge in coronavirus cases, according to The Washington Post.
• The comments provide a stark contrast from the picture the White House has painted of the pandemic. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the country is "rounding the turn" on COVID-19.
• On the same day of Fauci's interview with The Post, the US reached nearly 100,000 daily new cases, the most that has been recorded in a single day since the start of the pandemic.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Top US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Americans are "in for a whole lot of hurt" with the current surge in coronavirus cases, according to The Washington Post. 

"It's not a good situation," he told The Post in an interview Friday. "All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."

The comments from the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases comes at a stark contrast from the picture the White House has painted of the pandemic.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the country is "rounding the turn" on COVID-19, despite the US shattering records for the number of daily new cases.

Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said the US needs to make an "abrupt change" to its COVID-19 strategy, The Post Reported. He also predicted a rise in deaths as cases surge.

The same day of the interview, the US reached nearly 100,000 daily new cases, the most that has been recorded in a single day since the start of the pandemic.

Fauci also said Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was taking coronavirus seriously from a "public health perspective," according to The Post, while Trump's perspective was focused on the "economy and reopening the country."

The White House responded to Fauci's comments in a statement: "It's unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President's Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump's actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics."

Announced alongside Microsoft’s Q1 2021 earnings, Microsoft Teams now has 115 million daily active users, up 40 million from 75 million in April 2020.

Microsoft defines daily active users (DAU) as the count of unique users performing an intentional action in a 24-hour period in any of the Teams clients—desktop, mobile, or web. Intentional actions include sending or replying to a chat, joining a meeting, or opening a file in Teams. They don’t count passive actions like auto boot, minimizing a screen, or closing the app.

No doubt the pandemic has had a big influence on usage. Microsoft doesn’t publish usage figures on a fixed schedule, but here are the public figures. Pretty impressive growth in just over a year from 13 million users in July 2019!

• October 2020: 115 million DAU
• April 2020: 75 million DAU
• March 2020: 44 million users
• November 2019: 20 million users
• Jul 2019: 13 million users (first public numbers since public preview in 2016 and GA in 2017)

Microsoft 365 daily collaboration minutes (DCM)

Microsoft push in their blog that Microsoft Teams is more than just meetings; “People don’t just open Teams to join a meeting and then close it when the meeting is over; they work in Teams all day”. Microsoft is pushing the use of a new Microsoft 365 daily collaboration minutes (DCM) metric.

Microsoft 365 Daily Collaboration Minutes (DCM) is defined as the sum of all user minutes spent in a 24-hour period across meetings, chat, calls, document collaboration, and co-authoring, and other activities across Microsoft 365 apps during the last quarter. It includes active usage in Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, SharePoint, OneDrive, Stream, and Yammer. Teams and Stream usage is calculated across platforms. All other active app usage is calculated for Windows 10 only.

This quarter, Microsoft 365 users around the world generated more than 30 billion collaboration minutes in a single day.

We’ll see if this metric sticks around in the future or if it’s just a one-off.

Microsoft blog: Microsoft Teams reaches 115 million DAU—plus, a new daily collaboration minutes metric for Microsoft 365