After touting his space tourism mission (now set for 2019) and defending Amazon's work with the US Department of Defense, Jeff Bezos also weighed in on the current state of social media and the internet in general on Monday.

"I think the Internet in its current incarnation is a confirmation bias machine," the Amazon CEO said. "I worry that some of these technologies will be very useful to autocratic regimes to enforce their will."

Bezos, who was interviewed at the Wired 25 conference in San Francisco, California, thinks the problems with social media are worrisome, but similar to other technologies in their early phases.

"Having technology that increases confirmation bias probably isn't good. It is going to lead to more tribalism," he said. "The book was invented and people could write really evil books and lead bad revolutions with them. And create fascists empires with books. It doesn't mean the book is bad. Society develops an immune response eventually to the bad uses of new technology, but it takes time."

In Bezos' view, the current problems with social media — especially the issue of identity politics — will be corrected for over time and are worth the pains of today.

"A bunch of things are going to happen that we aren't going to like that come out of technology but that's not new. That's always been the case. And we will figure it out," he said. "The last thing we'd ever want to do is stop the progress of new technologies."

"Fortnite: Battle Royale" will add a new tournament mode to the in-game events menu, giving players across all platforms a chance to play against each other in a competitive format. According to developer Epic Games, tournaments will be open to all players and will eventually be used to award prizes to top players and help them qualify for future "Fortnite" esports events.

Tournament competition takes place over the course over several days with different formats. Players will be awarded points based on how long they survive, and how many players they eliminate during each battle royale. Teams or individual players with high scores will be placed in matches with other high ranked players for a greater challenge, while those who struggle will be placed alongside beginners. Each tournament will have a target score and players who reach the target will earn an in-game pin to mark the achievement.

Tournaments will pit players from all platforms against each other, from PC to console to mobile devices, regardless of whether they use a regular controller, mouse & keyboard, or touchscreen controls. In the statement announcing in-game tournaments, Epic Games said that players will be on an even playing field regardless of what device or control scheme they prefer.

"We've been observing the performance of controller players in our Summer Skirmish, PAX West, and Fall Skirmish tournaments while playing against mouse and keyboard players at the highest levels of competition," the statement reads. "Competitors such as NickMercs, Ayden, KamoLRF, and AmarCoD have shown that controller players can be successful while competing against some of the best PC players in the world."

Epic says that grouping everyone into a single competition group will increase visibility for the best players and help increase prize pools. They will continue to monitor competitive results and are already considering limiting some esports competitions to specific platforms or control devices in the future. The first in-game tournament will be a event for solo players running from October 16 to October 21, and the second will be a "duos" tournament for partners playing between October 23rd and October 25th.

"Fortnite's" Fall Skirmish event series will culminate at TwitchCon 2018. "Fortnite"/Epic Games

"Fortnite" is also in the middle of its Fall Skirmish event, a series of weekly competitions with $10 million in prize money on the line. Epic invited 500 "Fortnite" players to compete in the event, dividing them into five different teams for the six-week skirmish season. The teams will split $4 million in prize money and players can earn points during skirmish events to improve their team's share. The rest of the $6 million prize pool is awarded to the winners of specific events each week.

The Fall Skirmish will conclude with a pair of in-person tournaments at TwitchCon 2018, held at the end of October. The first will be an open duos competition with a prize pool of more than $1.1 million split between the top 50 teams; the winning team will receive $400,000. The second competition will be an invitational event for 50 Fortnite content creators and 50 random TwitchCon attendees with another $350,000 in prize money.

You can watch the Fall Skirmish events each week on the official Fortnite Twitch channel. Nearly 80 million people played Fortnite during the month of August, and new content was recently released for season 6 of the game. Epic plans to invest $100 million in prize money for the 2018-19 competitive season, which will include the 2019 Fortnite World Cup.

Twilio, the $7.4 billion company that helps apps and websites send texts and make calls, is acquiring SendGrid in an all stock deal valued around $2 billion. The transaction, which was announced Monday, is expected to close in the first half of 2019.

SendGrid, which is based in Denver, sells an email marketing platform that enables its customers to send newsletters, marketing and email confirmations en masse. As of late last year, it sent around 36 billion emails a month on behalf of customers like Uber and Spotify. Indeed, SendGrid is a Twilio partner, helping their mutual customers keep in touch with users.

The company went public in November 2017 and closed its first day of trading with a valuation around just $725 million. At the closing bell on Monday, SendGrid was valued at $1.43 billion.

In a letter to staff filed publicly on Monday, SendGrid CEO Sameer Dholakia confirmed that he will stay in his role, and that SendGrid will function as its own autonomous division of Twilio.

"Joining Twilio will allow us to accelerate our journey toward a shared vision of offering one trusted platform to fuel the future of customer communications," Dholakia said. "Today's announcement will enhance our brand among developers, give us immediate scale, and expand opportunities to cross sell and invest."

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson highlighted the importance of email tools like SendGrid in Twilio's growth plan.

"Increasingly, our customers are asking us to solve all of their strategic communications challenges - regardless of channel," Lawson said in a statement.

"The two companies share the same vision, the same model, and the same values," he said. "We believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring together the two leading developer-focused communications platforms to create the unquestioned platform of choice for all companies looking to transform their customer engagement."

Facebook will show British voters which political parties, pressure groups, and other organisations might be paying to influence their vote and opinions through online advertising.

The decision means that, starting on Tuesday, Facebook will show how Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and other political parties and groups target voters with advertising.

The social network will on Tuesday release a library of political ads showing who has paid for individual political ads on its main site and on Instagram, approximately how much was spent, and which demographic the ad was aimed at. All ads will appear in the library, no matter how small the target audience is.

It will also label political ads in the News Feed with a "Paid for by" label showing which organisation is behind a paid post.

Any ad that references political figures, parties, elections, and legislation or referenda that are in the news will automatically be classed as a political ad. That means any ads relating to Brexit, next year's local elections, or anything about prime minister Theresa May or Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn would likely be classified as political advertising.

Facebook will use a mix of human moderators and machine learning to categorise ads. It will also rely on users to flag subtler political ads.

While Facebook will indicate spend on particular ads, it won't break down in detail how ads are targeted. For example, Facebook won't show whether a party targeted ads by "interest", which can sometimes indicate more sensitive information like race.

Facebook will add labels to political ads showing who paid for them. Facebook

Articles from British media relating to politics will also appear in the ads library, though under a separate label.

To try and stamp out fake actors posting divisive ads, Facebook will ask anyone who wants to post a political ad on behalf of a party, candidate, or organisation to go through a verification process.

Individuals posting a political ad will need some form of official ID, such as their driving licence, and a valid UK address before they are allowed to post a paid ad. Facebook will post a code to that address, which the individual will need to enter into the site before they can continue posting ads.

There is a grace period until November 7, before which political parties and individuals can self-identify as political advertisers. After that, Facebook will automatically begin categorising ads into its library. It will keep political ads in its searchable archive for 7 years, and that library will be available to anyone with or without a Facebook account.

The new tool was created directly in response to global criticism at Facebook's role in the US presidential election, the UK's Brexit referendum, and other elections around the world. A UK parliamentary committee, led by Conservative MP Damian Collins, wrung a promise from Facebook's chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer that the company would begin labelling political ads before local elections in 2019.

The company has made similar tools available in the US and Brazil.

Facebook's shift towards transparency around online advertising will likely be seen as a welcome first step. For the most part, it is currently hard for voters to see how political parties and other groups target particular individuals or groups through online advertising. A library of ads will allow the media and public to scrutinise political messages and the intent behind them.

Increased transparency may also give political parties pause before they launch highly targeted, divisive ads that are targeted at a small online audience but might normally go unnoticed by the political press. Now every ad will be visible for seven years via Facebook's political ad library, and anything that looks divisive may come back to haunt a candidate or party in later years.

The new transparency tools are not explicitly designed to prevent misinformation campaigns by foreign trolls. Facebook instead has a dedicated team to sniff out what it describes as "inauthentic behaviour." Rather, they allow voters (and rival parties and candidates) to see what messages parties are peddling.

Facebook will allow researchers, journalists, and third-parties access to its ads library data through a set of APIs, the company said.

A spokesman for the UK's election watchdog, the Electoral Commission, told Business Insider: "We welcome any changes that will help voters see who is targeting them with political messages online. This Facebook initiative is an important first step in providing voters with improved transparency. We will be monitoring how these changes are implemented and the impact they have, and we look forward to proposals from other digital advertising platforms in the UK."

A spokesman for the Labour party said: "Labour welcomes efforts to ensure that in the future, campaigning on social media is just as transparent as more traditional campaigning methods."

The Conservatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Thread, the startup that helps men who hate shopping buy clothes, has raised $22 million (£16.7 million) in venture capital backing to expand its technical capabilities and to cement itself as a household name.

Thread has more than a million customers signed up to its service, which takes a few registration details about a user's fashion taste and budget, then uses that information to recommend new outfits.

As customers buy more clothing through the app, Thread's algorithm learns more about what they like and makes new recommendations accordingly. It also learns from clothes customers click on but don't buy, what they scroll past, and what the weather's like.

The idea is that men who hate rifling through racks of clothes in physical stores can still look smart and on-trend by buying through Thread. Well-known brands such as Barbour and Hugo Boss are available through the service.

The startup employs 10 full-time stylists who curate outfits and write personalised messages to customers. But much of the recommendation load is handled by Thread's homegrown machine learning algorithm, much like Spotify's algorithm recommends music.

Chief executive and serial entrepreneur Kieran O'Niell said a quarter of Thread's users buy all their clothing through the service. It's currently only available to male shoppers in the UK, but O'Niell said the plan was to introduce womenswear to the app some time in the future.

It has, he said, taken almost four years to get the machine learning aspect right. "If you use off-the-shelf approaches, you get boring results," he said. "Like if you buy a black T-shirt, you would be recommended a grey T-shirt. So we had to create something that would understand what you like... and factor in individual preferences, plus what the weather is like, and stuff you already own."

One thing the service could do better, he said, was adapt to customers' changing tastes. "What we're not good at is someone who did want [certain] stuff, has changed, and now wants more adventurous stuff. There's more we can do on that side."

O'Neill added that most of Thread's customers were aged between 25 and 45. "I was surprised our customer base is as old as it is," he said. "I would have thought a younger guy would be more fashion-conscious, it turns out lots of guys between 25 and 45 want to dress well [and] don't like shopping."

Thread's latest round was led by new investors Balderton, Forward Partners, Beringea and H&M's investment arm. The round included a small amount of debt financing from Triplepoint Capital. High-profile previous investors include DeepMind cofounders Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman, and prestigious Silicon Valley bootcamp Y Combinator.

O'Neill also plans to follow a startup trend set by the likes of Monzo and BrewDog: letting customers buy in. The company will open up to crowd investors via Crowdcube in November. The plan is to raise £500,000 to £1 million, though O'Neill said Thread may cap the round.

"From the beginning we we always wanted to hold back part of it so customers can invest," he said. "The main reason we have succeeded is because of loyal customers, and it's just a way of offering them the chance to invest in the business. We're not doing it to raise lots of extra cash."

For years, Senator Elizabeth Warren has touted the fact that she's part Cherokee, expressing pride in her Native heritage.

President Donald Trump has routinely mocked that assertion, using the nickname "Pocahontas" for Warren. In a July rally, Trump even said that if she could prove, based on DNA testing, that she has Native American ancestors, then he would donate $1 million to the charity of Warren's choice.

On Monday, Warren answered that call.

"A famous geneticist analyzed my DNA and concluded that it contains Native American ancestry," Warren wrote on Twitter.

On a webpage connected to her reelection campaign in Massachusetts, she also posted a video and a detailed ancestry report from the lab of Stanford genetics professor and DNA-sequencing expert Carlos Bustamante.

"In the Senator's genome, we did find five segments of Native American ancestry with very high confidence where we believe the error rate is less than 1 in 1,000." Bustamante said in the video posted on Warren's site. He said those results suggest that Warren "absolutely" has a Native American ancestor.

What Warren's test tells us

Senator Warren has not responded to Business Insider's request for information about precisely how she conducted the test, but most genetic tests that US consumers use today rely on cheek swabs. Users collect a bit of saliva that way, then send the spit in for analysis.

Typically, more than half the cells in someone's spit can include viable, intact genomic data about that person. Blood samples tend to have more DNA data, but saliva can be a decent way to extract genomic data with considerably less pain.

The DNA tests that are available to consumers, such as 23andMe or AncestryDNA, zero in on hundreds of thousands of locations on a person's genome. By doing so, they can pinpoint spots that give scientists clues about who a person's relatives could be.

Bustamante's analysis seems to have been done in a similar way. Warren's sample "contained information on 764,958 sites of genetic variation," according to the report. These are the special spots in Warren's genetic code that make her different from everyone else, since most human DNA (about 99.9%) is identical from person to person. That other 0.01% is responsible for our differences, from the color of our eyes to the pigment of our skin, and even our genetic predispositions for disease.

The scientists compared Warren's sample to others from the 1,000 Genomes Project Consortium, which sequenced the genomes of 2,504 people from 26 populations around the world. Warren's DNA was compared to 148 people's fully-sequenced genomes: 37 of those individuals were from Europe, 37 had Sub-Saharan African ancestry, 37 were from the Americas and had Native American ancestry, and 37 came from China.

When scientists compare genomes in this way, they're looking for meaningful patterns: signs that one person's DNA shares certain tell-tale markers with another. That's a sign that the individuals may be distantly related, but it's not proof that one person is necessarily related to another.

Warren's sample had a lot of markers that are common to European ancestry, and a few that are common to what the researchers think could be Native American ancestry. The reason Bustamante thinks Warren probably has a Native American ancestor is that some DNA segments in her sample matched with segments from people native to Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. Those similarities suggest Warren likely had a Native American relative about eight generations ago.

"The largest segment identified as having Native American ancestry is on chromosome 10," the researchers wrote. "This segment is clearly distinct from segments of European ancestry, and is strongly associated with Native American ancestry."

Why genetic testing is not a perfect science

Michaela Rehle/Reuters

Consumer DNA testing is rapidly taking off. Today, more than 12 million people have tested their spit, according to MIT Technology Review.

But the genetic-testing kits that many people are trying don't always give accurate results about their lineage. A 2018 study published in the journal Genetics in Medicine suggested that 40% of the differences in genes reported in direct-to-consumer DNA tests were due to testing errors (false positives).

The tests are also raising concerns about privacy. A study released last week estimates that 60% of white Americans— who are the biggest consumers of DNA testing services— could now be identified up to a "third cousin or closer" using available DNA test data. The authors of the study said that information could implicate more criminals like the Golden State Killer in coming years, if more investigators compare DNA evidence from crime scenes with publicly available genetic information that's tied to people's names. That technique probably couldn't be applied to minority groups, though, because scientists don't have as much data from those groups. In fact, for some ethnic groups like Native Americans, scientists have hardly any data at all.

In Warren's case, the test didn't conclusively say whether her DNA matches that of current Native American tribal populations in the US. The researchers said making that connection wouldn't be possible, since "Native American groups within the US have not chosen to participate in recent population genetics studies."

At least 95% of Warren's DNA is likely of European origin, according to the test.

Should DNA decide who gets to be considered Native American?

In an article published in the Native Voice in 2004, racial politics professor Kim TallBear (a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota) and biological anthropologist Deborah Bolnick pointed out that "eligibility for Native American rights is ultimately a political and cultural issue that will never be satisfactorily answered by genetics."

So although Trump may have suggested that Warren should prove her background using a DNA test, native groups certainly didn't ask her to. In fact, the Cherokee Nation sent a statement to the Oklahoman voicing the group's disapproval.

"Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person's ancestors were indigenous to North or South America," Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said. "It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens."

Warren is not a tribal citizen, a fact she readily acknowledges on her website. For that, most US tribes require a "blood quantum" of one-quarter, which Warren most likely doesn't have (or purport to have).

Plus, as TallBear has said, nobody should be boiled down to the chromosomes in a spit sample, anyway.

"I worry about the way Native American identity gets represented as this purely racial category by some of the companies marketing these tests," she told New Scientist in 2014. "The story is so much more complicated than that."

For her part, Warren tweeted at Trump on Monday, asking him to send a $1 million check to the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, a nonprofit that works to curb domestic violence and improve the safety and well-being of native women. A 2007 report from Amnesty International found that Native women were 2.5 times more likely to be the victims of rape or sexual violence than other women in the US, and that nearly 86% of the rapes were committed by non-Native men.

Paul Allen, who cofounded Microsoft with Bill Gates, died Monday afternoon after a battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, his family confirmed to Business Insider. He was 65.

Allen, a tech billionaire, was a philanthropist and the owner of the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers. He operated Vulcan Ventures, a venture-capital fund.

Allen was first diagnosed with the cancer in 2009, and disclosed earlier this month that it had returned after a period of remission. At the time, Allen said that he planned on staying involved with his various business ventures. It was the third time that Allen has been diagnosed with some form of lymphoma. He survived Hodgkin's lymphoma after being diagnosed in the 1980s.

Allen, a Seattle native, and Gates were childhood friends. In 1972, while in high school, the pair launched Traf-o-Data, a software company that tracked and analyzed traffic patterns. When Gates went to Harvard, Allen stayed local and went to Washington State University, though he ended up dropping out.

It was Allen who suggested that the two work together to make a BASIC language interpreter for the then cutting-edge Altair 8800 microcomputer, which became Microsoft's first product. The name "Micro-Soft" for their joint venture was Allen's idea.

This photo of Paul Allen and Bill Gates is on display in the Microsoft Visitors Center at its Redmond headquarters. Below the photos are Gates' and Allen's first-ever Microsoft business cards, circa 1975. Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Further, Allen was responsible for the key deal that made Microsoft a major player in the PC revolution: When Gates promised IBM in 1980 that Microsoft would supply an operating system for its flagship PC, it was Allen who went and purchased the rights to the "Quick and Dirty Operating System," or QDOS, from developer Tim Paterson. Microsoft rebranded QDOS as MS-DOS, or the Microsoft Disk Operating System, and supplied it to IBM per the deal.

In 1983, Allen stepped aside from day-to-day operations at Microsoft, not long after beginning treatment for his first diagnosis with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He remained on the company's board of directors until 2000.

Allen would later write that his departure was marked by a period of friction with Gates, where they disagreed over the direction of the company. Allen said that Gates tried to buy out his shares in the company, but that he ultimately decided to hang on to his stake — which made Allen his fortune when Microsoft went public in 1986.

Allen was also known as a musician. As a guitarist, he fronted a band called The Underthinkers, and wrote or cowrote every song on their 2013 album. He also founded Seattle's Experience Music Project, or EMP, which was originally a museum devoted to his hero Jimi Hendrix. Allen also started the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, in the same building as the EMP. The two have since been combined into the Museum of Pop Culture.

Allen's net worth was pegged at $20 billion.

Lymphomas are cancers that attack the lymphatic system. Non-Hodgkin's is more common than Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Jody Allen, Paul's sister, issued the following statement:

My brother was a remarkable individual on every level. While most knew Paul Allen as a technologist and philanthropist, for us he was a much-loved brother and uncle, and an exceptional friend. Paul's family and friends were blessed to experience his wit, warmth, his generosity and deep concern. For all the demands on his schedule, there was always time for family and friends. At this time of loss and grief for us - and so many others - we are profoundly grateful for the care and concern he demonstrated every day.

Paul Allen's contributions to our company, our industry and to our community are indispensable. As co-founder of Microsoft, in his own quiet and persistent way, he created magical products, experiences and institutions, and in doing so, he changed the world. I have learned so much from him - his inquisitiveness, curiosity and push for high standards is something that will continue to inspire me and all of us at Microsoft. Our hearts are with Paul's family and loved ones. Rest in peace.

Bill Hilf, the CEO of Allen's holding company Vulcan Inc., said:

All of us who had the honor of working with Paul feel inexpressible loss today. He possessed a remarkable intellect and a passion to solve some of the world's most difficult problems, with the conviction that creative thinking and new approaches could make profound and lasting impact.

Millions of people were touched by his generosity, his persistence in pursuit of a better world, and his drive to accomplish as much as he could with the time and resources at his disposal.

Paul's life was diverse and lived with gusto. It reflected his myriad interests in technology, music and the arts, biosciences and artificial intelligence, conservation and in the power of shared experience - in a stadium or a neighborhood - to transform individual lives and whole communities.

Paul loved Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. The impact of Paul's efforts can be seen here at every turn. But the true impact of his vision and generosity is evident around the globe.

Paul thoughtfully addressed how the many institutions he founded and supported would continue after he was no longer able to lead them. This isn't the time to deal in those specifics as we focus on Paul's family. We will continue to work on furthering Paul's mission and the projects he entrusted to us. There are no changes imminent for Vulcan, the teams, the research institutes or museums.

Today we mourn our boss, mentor and friend whose 65 years were too short - and acknowledge the honor it has been to work alongside someone whose life transformed the world."

The long-term cost of sexual harassment

Electric scooters are back in SF

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History was awesome. Given that Sears filed for Chapter 11 today, I’ll start with some perspective from 1976.

America is remarkably dynamic. Humans constantly create narratives about things and how they work. Suddenly, popular books are appearing, such as Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, that challenge the relevance of our narratives.

There is so much to reflect on when reading a book like Fantasyland or Sapiens. Pondering the meaning of life is an endless human pastime.

It’s particularly interesting in the context of the growth and development of a country, which in and of itself is a temporary construct, just like everything else.

I’ve always loved reading fantasy. And, after reading Fantasyland, I realize I’ve been living in it also.

Also published on Medium.