The tech world has responded to The New York Times report that the Trump administration is considering rolling back transgender rights.

On Thursday, more than 50 companies — including tech giants like Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, and Airbnb — signed a letter opposing any actions by the administration to legally define sex as binary and determined upon birth, Axios reports.

The letter read, in part:

"We, the undersigned businesses, stand with the millions of people in America who identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex, and call for all such people to be treated with the respect and dignity everyone deserves. We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and regulations."

Read more: The Trump administration's reported proposal to make an 'unchangeable' definition of sex based on genitals isn't backed by science — here's why

Companies outside of tech, like Nike and Levi Strauss, signed the letter as well.

In a company blog post, Cisco's Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, Francine Katsoudas said: "We must protect and advocate for the equality of transgender, intersex, and gender-expansive people inside and outside the workplace."

IBM's Vice President, Global Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Tia Silas, said: "We believe no one should be discriminated against for being who they are."

The 56 companies that signed the letter on Thursday employ nearly 4.8 million people. According to the press release, more companies are expected to sign the letter in the coming days.

After a plateau in the US, subscriptions to streaming services are growing again thanks to a boom in Netflix and Hulu subscribers this year, a report from Ampere Analysis found.

The report found that subscriptions to SVOD — streaming video on demand — services had steadily increased from the third quarter of 2015 until the first quarter of 2017, when numbers began to stagnate. But subscriptions have been rising consistently since the beginning of this year, according to Ampere.

Ampere Analysis

Toby Holleran, an Ampere senior analyst, told Business Insider that an older generation rooted in pay TV was catching on to the benefits of SVOD services.

"Traditional users were more ingrained in the pay-TV space, and there was slightly less awareness of SVOD during that period" of plateauing, he said, "whereas now, especially with older demographics, we're starting to see more and more growth in those."

"I feel the plateauing was taking place among younger demographics because they formed such a large proportion of the overall SVOD base, whereas now with older demographics slowly familiarizing themselves with SVOD that's actually starting to grow again," he added.

That could be bad news for pay-TV companies, which could see an acceleration in cord-cutting if older generations find a viable alternative in streaming.

Read more: Data suggests that Hasan Minhaj's 'Patriot Act' could succeed where other Netflix talk shows have failed

Exclusive content is also key for streaming services, Holleran said, as Netflix has been heavily investing in its catalog of original content in an effort to have 1,000 original TV shows and movies by year's end. Hulu also has acclaimed shows like "The Handmaid's Tale," which won the Emmy for best drama last year.

As the SVOD landscape rapidly evolves, more players are entering the game. Disney is set to launch a competitor late next year and is already developing Marvel and "Star Wars" TV series for it. Meanwhile, AT&T recently announced it would roll out a service next year that would include HBO.

That could lead to a new form of SVOD bundle — but Holleran urged caution, saying that the best course of action for streamers is to give users as many options as possible for the best price.

"I think forcing bundles upon people might not be the best move," Holleran said. "It depends on the price point. Additional costs may turn away consumers who may only want to take one service."

The same day that thousands of employees walked out of Google headquarters in protest of sexual misconduct allegations against company executives, Google CEO Sundar Pichai gave an expansive interview at New York Times Dealbook conference in New York.

"How do you feel…right this second, when you see these headlines, what are you thinking?" asked New York Times editor at large Andrew Ross Sorkin on stage at the conference.

"This anger and frustration within the company — we all feel it," said Pichai. "I feel it too. At Google we set a high bar and we clearly didn't live up to our expectations. The first thing is to acknowledge and apologize for past actions. Words alone aren't enough, you have to follow up with actions."

Read more: PHOTOS: Google employees all over the world left their desk and walked out in protest over sexual misconduct

"We didn't always get it right," Pichai continued. Previously, he a pologized to employees in a company-wide e-mail.

Thursday's walkouts were the result of a New York Times report published last week that revealed multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against former Google executive Andy Rubin, known as the "father of Android." The Times report also said that Rubin was given a $90 million severance package when he left Google, following an internal investigation into his behavior.

While Pichai admitted that the company is still grappling with questions raised by the report including whether or not employees should be expected to sign confidentiality agreements in cases of sexual harassment, he said that Google hopes to evolve as a company.

"Moments like this show that we didn't always get it right," Pichai said, referring to the New York Times report.

Pichai emphasized that Google still hopes to champion one of the company's cardinal tenets: a culture of openness and transparency. Pichai also said that he applauded the women who had come forward with allegations of sexual harassment.

"I want to acknowledge the women who step up to do this," he said. "It takes extraordinary courage and we want to support them better."

Beyond discussing Google's culture, Pichai's remarks touched on China, matters of regulation, and the continuing importance of artificial intelligence.

There are plenty of mysteries in Netflix's hit new horror series, "The Haunting of Hill House," but the biggest was hidden in plain sight the entire time.

That means that director Mike Flanagan had to go to great lengths to keep the secret of the "Red Room" hidden from the audience. Throughout the first season, the characters are unable to open a red door when living in the haunted Hill house as children. When they return to the house as adults, they finally discover that they had each actually been in the room countless times, and it acted as their own personal spaces that nobody else could unlock.

Flanagan told The Wrap that to conceal what the Red Room was from viewers, the set was "constantly refined."

"But we needed one element to be constant so that once the reveal occurred, a second viewing would feel like it was always obvious," Flanagan said. "We chose that distinct vertical window. We also made sure to shoot the room from the same angle in all of the episodes leading up to it, so that even the camera framing was familiar. We really just hoped that Hill House was so sprawling, people would assume there were just a lot of rooms they hadn't seen. What's odd if they look a little similar?"

READ MORE: Netflix's 'The Haunting of Hill House' cast revealed what disturbed them most about the show

Flanagan also explained why the room never opened for Hugh Crain, the father of the series, played by Henry Thomas in the past and Timothy Hutton in the present.

"Hugh is a man who fixes things," Flanagan said. "He exerts control over the house, on a physical level. He is in charge of the physical work being done to it, and that gives him a sense of security, comfort, and order. To put him in a position where he is incapable of something as simple as opening a door strikes to the very heart of his confidence as a character. Between that and the mold, I think it erodes his sense of competence, and everything else tumbles for him as a result."

But that doesn't mean that Flanagan didn't envision what the room would be like for Hugh, saying that it would have been "full of tools and other things from his work."

When traveling during the holiday season, there's always a risk for weather disruptions and flight cancellations. Knowing which airports would be the best and the worst to be stranded in for an extended period of time seems like helpful information.

Luckily, one travel aggregator decided to study this scenario and make a definitive ranking.

Orbitz.com, a top travel website featuring searches and booking data for hotels, flights, car rentals, cruises, and vacation packages, recently completed a study where they published findings on the best and worst airports to be stranded in during the holiday season.

Using only the 15 busiest airports in the U.S. included in a 2017 Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Airport Traffic Report, Orbitz then studied certain aspects about each travel hub to determine how attractive each one is to be stuck in.

Orbitz's methodology included nine specific metrics: number of shopping outlets, number of dining outlets, WiFi speed, number of members-only lounges, the price of members-only lounges, the number of public lounges, the price of public lounges, the percentage on flights leaving on time, and the percentage of flights canceled.

They applied points to each metric on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being the highest, and then divided the difference of the highest and lowest number within each metric in order to grant points where other airports sat relatively on the scale.

Read more:These are the 15 coolest things at airports around the world

The study used over 18 separate websites and included information from the Bureau of Transportation.

"We know most travelers can't realistically pick and choose which airports to avoid this holiday season," said Carey Malloy, brand director at Orbitz brand in a public statement. "But even if you're traveling to an airport near the bottom of the list, this information can help you plan a more rewarding trip. Whether that's peace of mind knowing you can quickly download a last-minute movie for the kids at Sea-Tac or as extravagant as ice skating at the Denver airport before takeoff, this list is here to help."

Take a look below at how each of the 15 busiest airports in the country scored, ranked from lowest to highest.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Matthew Walker: My name is Matthew Walker, I am a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and I am the author of the book "Why We Sleep."

We certainly know that a lack of sleep will actually prevent your brain from being able to initially make new memories, so it's almost as though without sleep the memory inbox of the brain shuts down and you can't commit new experiences to memory. So those new incoming informational emails are just bounced, and you end up feeling as though you're amnesiac. You can't essentially make and create those new memories.

We also know that a lack of sleep will lead to an increased development of a toxic protein in the brain that is called beta-amyloid and that is associated with Alzheimer's disease because it is during deep sleep at night when a sewage system within the brain actually kicks in to high gear and it starts to wash away this toxic protein, beta-amyloid.

So if you're not getting enough sleep each and every night, more of that Alzheimer's-related protein will build up. The more protein that builds up, the greater your risk of going on to develop dementia in later life.

What are the effects of sleep deprivation on the body? Well, there are many different effects. Firstly, we know that sleep deprivation affects the reproductive system. We know that men who are sleeping just five to six hours a night have a level of testosterone which is that of someone ten years their senior. So a lack of sleep will age you by almost a decade in terms of that aspect of virility and wellness.

We also know that a lack of sleep impacts your immune system. So after just one night of four to five hours of sleep, there is a 70% reduction in critical anticancer-fighting immune cells called natural killer cells. And that's the reason that we know that short sleep duration predicts your risk for developing numerous forms of cancer. And that list currently includes cancer of the bowel, cancer of the prostate, as well as cancer of the breast.

In fact, the link between a lack of sleep and cancer is now so strong that recently the World Health Organization decided to classify any form of nighttime shift work as a probable carcinogen. So in other words, jobs that may induce cancer because of a disruption of your sleep rate rhythms.

We also know that a lack of sleep impacts your cardiovascular system because it is during deep sleep at night that you receive this most wonderful form of effectively blood pressure medication. Your heart rate drops, your blood pressure goes down.

If you're not getting sufficient sleep, you're not getting that reboot of the cardiovascular system, so your blood pressure rises. You have, if you're getting six hours of sleep or less, a 200% increased risk of having a fatal heart attack or stroke in your lifetime.

There is a global experiment that is performed on 1.6 billion people twice a year and it's called daylight savings time. And we know that in the spring, when we lose one hour of sleep, we see a subsequent 24% increase in heart attacks the following day.

Another question, perhaps, is what is the recycle rate of a human being? How long can we actually last without sleep before we start to see declines in your brain function or even impairments within your body? And the answer seems to be about 16 hours of wakefulness.

Once you get past 16 hours of being awake, that's when we start to see mental deterioration and physiological deterioration in the body. We know that after you've been awake for 19 or 20 hours, your mental capacity is so impaired that you would be as deficient as someone who was legally drunk behind the wheel of a car. So if you were to ask me what is the recycle rate of a human being, it does seem to be about 16 hours and we need about eight hours of sleep to repair the damage of wakefulness. Wakefulness essentially is low-level brain damage.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published on December 26, 2017. Lamar Salter contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.

The Obamas have acquired the rights to Michael Lewis' new book, "The Fifth Risk," as part of their production deal with Netflix to make original TV shows and movies. Lewis confirmed the deal on a Katie Couric podcast, The New York Times reported.

"The Fifth Risk" is critical of Trump and his administration at its very core. Its publisher's description starts with the question, "What are the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works?," and describes the US government as "under attack by its own leaders."

This choice of a first (publicly confirmed) project will no doubt stoke the ire of conservatives, many of whom have been furious at Netflix for both the Obama deal and the presence of Susan Rice on its board of directors.

A spokeswoman for the Obamas' company told The New York Times that the project would not be used to take shots at Trump. It would instead be a "humorous series demystifying the little-known ways in which federal agencies improve our lives and serve our nation, from the food we eat to the planes we travel on."

Regardless of how political it turns out, it is unlikely that it will hurt Netflix's bottom line.

Despite online threats to boycott Netflix for a perceived anti-conservative bias, in an August survey conducted by AlphaHQ for Business Insider, of those surveyed who had once subscribed to Netflix, but then canceled, only 5% said it was for political reasons.

Netflix declined to comment and an Obama spokeswoman told Business Insider that "we are exploring projects but nothing has been green-lit at this stage."

Apple provided soft guidance for its all-important holiday quarter which fell on the low end of analyst expectations, and iPhone sales were essentially flat from last year and below analyst expectations.

The stock fell over 7% in after-hours trading.

Apple projects that it will generate between $89 billion and $93 billion in the holiday quarter, versus Wall Street consensus expectation of $92.74 billion.

On the bright side for Apple investors, the average price of an iPhone was up 28% from last year, driving huge gains in profit per share, which was up 40% year-over-year. Revenue was also up 20% from last year.

Apple also highlighted its services revenue, which reached $10 billion. That segment is comprised of fees from companies like Google, revenue from the App Store, and services like iCloud and Apple Music. Apple also noted that it shipped its 2 billionth device running iOS in the past quarter.

"We are heading in to the holiday quarter with our strongest product lineup ever, and we could not be more bullish on Apple's future," Apple CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call with analysts.

According to Apple's CFO Luca Maestri, the company spent over $23 billion on dividends and share repurchases in the quarter, bringing Apple's total capital return for its fiscal 2018 to "almost $90 billion."

Another factor in Apple's slide was that the company announced that it would no longer reveal unit sales for its hardware, which are metrics that investors use to see if Apple's business is growing.

While Apple will still report revenue by product line, investors and analysts will now need to estimate total unit sales and average selling price.

"As we have stated many times, our objective is to make great products and services that enrich people's lives, and to provide an unparalleled customer experience, so that our users are highly satisfied, loyal, and engaged," Maestri said.

"As we accomplish these objectives, strong financial results follow. As demonstrated by our financial performance in recent years, the number of units sold in any 90-day period is not necessarily representative of the underlying strength of our business," he continued.

"Our installed base is growing at double digits, that's probably a much more significant metric for us from an ecosystem point of view and customer loyalty, et cetera," Cook explained.

At first, investors appeared to be unenthusiastic about yet another quarter where Apple seemed to be wringing more money out of flat sales, with Apple's share price down about 4% after earnings were released.

But investors seem to have strongly disliked that Apple will limit its unit sales disclosure, and the stock tumbled farther, trading down 7% in after-hours trading.

Notes from Apple's conference call with investors:

6:01: Thanks for tuning in, we're done here!

5:58: Apple won't announce unit sales going forward, bringing the possibility that unit sales are going to go negative. Maestri is taking all unit-oriented questions. "One of the things we are doing and it's in addition to the information we're going to provide to investor, is starting with December quarter, we're going to be providing information for revenue and cost of sales for both products and services. First time gross margin for services ... We can assure you it's our objective to grow unit sales for every product category we have ... Unit sales for iPhone at top end of line have been very strong for September quarter, we're attracting customers to most recent ... you don't see that in the number that's reported ... we'll provide qualitative commentary when it's relevant ... we make decisions to optimize revenue and gross margin dollars."

Tim Cook added: Our installed base is growing at double digits, that's probably a much more significant metric for us from an ecosystem point of view and customer loyalty, etc. This is a little bit like if you go to the market and you push your cart up to cashier, she says, how many units do you have in there. It doesn't matter a lot in terms of the overall value of what's in the cart.

5:56: Question about India. Tim Cook expects to be able to open stores eventually on the sub-continent. "Discussions are going quite well ... I am a big believer in India."

5:53: "These trade relationships are large and complex," Cook says.

5:52: Question about trade and Chinese supply chain. Tim Cook says, "they're kind of manufactured everywhere." Says R&D is done in United States, and parts come from everywhere.

5:51: Tim Cook on AR: A year ago, we came out with ARKit 1 ... we recently came out with ARKit 2, the number of things you can do are growing significantly, the number of developers that have done something or working on something is growing tremendously, categories from gaming to shopping ... in China, saw it in an art exhibit, I was in Berlin and saw it being used in a historical educational kind of sense, I'm seeing it everywhere I go now. We are in early days, and it will keep on getting better and better, but happy with where things are at the moment.

5:49: We want to double services from 2016 by 2020, and Apple is still on pace to achieve that, Maestri said.

5:48: We have a very large and growing install base, Luca Maestri says, all product categories is at all-time high. We've added new services to our portfolio, we've added advertising business on App Store, and would want to continue to offer new services over time.

5:46: "Our intention is to continue to give revenue guidance at the company level, and gross margin in the other categories, our guidance isn't changing, it's our report that's changing," Cook said.

5:43: Here's the full reasoning why Apple is not providing hardware unit sales going forward:

5:41: Maestri gave an answer about headwinds, providing no insight into why guidance for the next quarter is soft.

5:39: Apple on health. "Non-monetized services so far, don't want to talk about the future, but this an area of major interest to us."

5:38: Tim Cook: Subscription business itself is nearly as broad as the App Store itself is. And that's the value proposition, the vast majority of people are very happy with it, including the most important people, which are the user.

5:36: Tim Cook:"Slowdown or moratorium on new game approvals...new regulatory setup in China, things are not moving the way they were moving previously, we did see a few games approved recently, but it's very far below the historic case."

5:31: Questions have started. BAML asking about deceleration in App Store in emerging markets. Certain markets "are not growing the way we'd like to see," Cook said.

5:29: Other products, which includes products like HomePod and Apple Watch, will be renamed to "Wearables, Home, and Accessories."

5:29: No more unit sales data for iPhone, iPad and Mac starting next quarter. This takes away one of the biggest signals investors look for. Maestri said that sales don't properly reflect the breadth of Apple's value proposition.

5:27: Apple will start reporting revenue as well as cost of sales for total products and total services starting next quarter, Maestri says.

5:25: Apple's net cash position is $122.6 billion, once you subtract debt from its cash pile, Maestri says. Also spending a lot of time talking about how much Apple's spend on share buybacks and dividends.

5:23: Deployment of iOS is growing with retailers, Maestri says, highlighting Apple's enterprise business. Lots of little enterprise nuggets in his prepared remarks.

5:20: Apple is on pace for its 2020 goal for services revenue, Maestri says. There are 30,000 subscription apps on the App Store, largest accounts for 0.03% of services revenue, Maestri said.

5:18: CFO Luca Maestri going through regions and satisfaction surveys. The action on these calls happens during the question and answer period, anyway.

5:14: Tim Cook highlights two items that doesn't show up in financial statements. First, education: More than 5000 schools are now using "Everyone Can Code," a free coding curriculum from Apple. Next, environment: Milestone year for Apple's commitment to the planet. In April it announced that 100% of global operations are powered by renewable energy and now it's working on the supply chain. Says that aluminum for MacBook Pro will be 100% recycled, a new alloy "developed by Apple."

5:13: 74,000 kids attended "Apple Camp," a session at Apple stores, Tim Cook says.

5:12: Apple Watch will be able to identify irregular heartbeats soon. We look forward to making more contributions to the health space, Tim Cook says.

5:10: Tim Cook calls the new Mac Mini "small but muscular." Wearables, which includes headphones and Apple Watch, was up 50%.

5:09: Tim Cook keeps talking about record revenue without mentioning flat unit sales.

5:08: Tim Cook says that services growth was 27% and that App Store, iCloud, AppleCare and Apple Pay all hit records. Spends some time talking about Apple Pay stats: transaction volume tripled, and compares it favorably to PayPal.

5:03: Tim Cook says it's the best September quarter ever. "Our revenue grew by a Fortune 100 company this past year."

5:01: We're getting started. Tim Cook is speaking. The Brooklyn event is an "exclamation point" on 2018 and he says this year had the strongest fiscal results in Apple's history.

4:54: We're waiting to get started. You can listen in here, from any browser, including Google Chrome.

Here is what Apple reported:

Here are the key tables, directly from Apple:

Apple

Apple

Charts:

BI Intelligence BI Intelligence BI Intelligence BI Intelligence BI Intelligence

For consumers seeking alternatives to linear TV, the options seem boundless.

Walmart, WarnerMedia, and Disney have all announced options coming to market — not to mention digital upstarts like Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube.

But armed with an arsenal of NBCUniversal content and the largest cable TV subscriber base in the US, Comcast isn't looking to join the list of companies offering overt-the-top (OTT) services, or television delivered over the internet.

"When you look at over-the-top services, it's very difficult for us to identify a business model that makes sense, especially when you see some players selling video at a negative gross margin," Matt Strauss, the executive vice president of Xfinity Services, told Business Insider. "Out of footprint OTT doesn't look nearly as attractive to us as the opportunity to continue to grow our broadband share in footprint and to deliver other products and services as part of that broadband."

Comcast seems so averse to the thought of streaming that Strauss mentioned the ability to bundle other products and services, like Xfinity home security, as a more attractive upside opportunity for the company than a streaming service.

Perhaps prior attempts at streaming contribute to Comcast's reticence to jump into the field. NBC shuttered its comedy streaming service Seeso last year, and couldn't get the app Watchable off the ground.

The timing of Comcast's aversion to streaming is interesting. A highlight of the third quarter earnings call was a separate presentation on Sky, which Comcast recently acquired. Sky already has an OTT service called Now TV, and with 23 million satellite subscribers in Europe, Comcast now has a large customer base to convert over to OTT subscribers.

That option is so attractive that some analysts predicted Comcast might focus on a global Netflix challenger, building out Now TV, which already has a strong content portfolio with exclusive rights to run HBO shows like "Game of Thrones" and "Westworld" across Europe, as well as the majority of Premier League TV rights and exclusive rights to the German Bundesliga. Comcast also has a 30% stake in Hulu, with majority ownership from Disney, which would directly compete with Comcast's newly-acquired Now TV, Sky's OTT platform. That has led some analysts to predict Comcast will sell its Hulu stake.

"Comcast may divest its stake in Hulu given it will now have its own Now TV platform and would likely have no interest in feeding its content to a direct competitor to both sides of its business," according to a research note by Cowen analysts.

In the US, Comcast's recent attention has been on the OTT integrations on its X1 set-top box.

X1 is the number one platform for Netflix in its footprint, according to Strauss, and Comcast has integrated YouTube service into its platform, with Amazon Prime Video coming soon. Comcast's goal is to offer to customers a seamless way to access all of its content in one place.

"We really see X1 as the premium destination for allowing customers to get access to all of their TV choices in one place," Strauss said. "Some say the future of TV is apps, we really believe it is more and more around aggregation."

(Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Getty Images)

Peak Theory founders Zac Park and Spencer Markel

Watch the following one minute video and ponder whether or not you were that kid (or have one of those kids.)

I was totally that kid. But, most of it was in my mind, which I why I ended up being a software version of that kid. About the only machine I played with was my Apple ][ because it was a computer. I hated the lawnmower, never worked on cars, was afraid of the Cuisinart we had (and all the sharp blades), ignored power tools, and stayed away from anything that plugged into an electrical socket on the wall.

Ironically, I have excellent hand-eye coordination which I think came from three things: (1) playing video games, (2) playing tennis, and (3) having crummy eyesight.

I still have crummy eyesight. Even though my glasses correct most of it, I know that my brain works extra hard to compensate for it. So, as a kid, even though I played a lot of sports, I often played them without my glasses on which made some things worse but forced me to work even harder to deal with hand-eye coordination.

I didn’t realize until I was an adult that I have a very difficult time with any sort of near vision stuff (I’m very nearsighted and have terrible astigmatism.) When I reflect on this, I realize that I avoided doing anything that required near-focus mechanical dexterity. So, I spent a huge amount of time in my head. You would often observe me sitting around programming the computer, or reading, or going for long runs and pondering things by myself.

I wish I’d had littleBits then. While I did fiddle around with the hardware on my Apple ][, I avoided anything else that included tools, wires, nails, bolts, and screws. That was a huge miss on my part, as I’ve found that I love to play around with physical hardware products and electronics as an adult. And, I love to invest in companies that make hardware that makes physical stuff, especially for kids.

So – if you are that kid, or have that kid, jump into things with littleBits. Post something on social media as part of their #MakingChangemakers campaign. Write a blog post about why being that kid helped you achieve what you are today. Share the video above. For every 100 RTs, shares or Likes your post receives, littleBits will donate a Code Kit to an at-risk classroom of your choice to celebrate that kid everywhere.

Also published on Medium.