Jul
17

Walmart is reportedly working on its own streaming service to challenge Netflix and Amazon, and it might cost less than $8 a month (WMT)

Walmart might be taking on some of the biggest names in video streaming with a service of its own — and its price might be lower than Netflix or Amazon.

According to The Information, Walmart is considering jumping into the streaming world. In addition to the paid subscription, which sources claim will be less than $8 per month, the company is also reportedly considering a free version of the streaming service that would include ads.

It's possible Walmart could roll out this streaming service through its Vudu subsidiary, which the company purchased in 2010. Vudu lets you stream full-length movies, and is available on most set-top devices and game consoles, including Roku devices, the Apple TV, smartphones, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the iPad.

Walmart hasn't officially commented on the matter.

Original author: Sean Wolfe

Continue reading
  56 Hits
Jul
17

Some pretty convincing photos of Samsung's big upcoming smartphone have leaked

Looks like Samsung's new and upcoming Galaxy Note 9 will look like a modern Galaxy Note device.

That's to say there isn't much to report on the Galaxy Note 9's design if two photos that were leaked on Slashleaks and supposedly show the Galaxy Note 9 are accurate.

If they are accurate, the Galaxy Note 9 is set up to look pretty similar to the Galaxy Note 8, which isn't a bad thing by any means. The Galaxy Note 8 is a very nice smartphone.

The photos also suggest that Samsung gave the Galaxy Note 9 the same fingerprint sensor redesign underneath the camera as the Galaxy S9. If it's anything like the Galaxy S9's fingerprint sensor, it'll be much easier to reach and feel for compared to the fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy Note 8.

It's also worth pointing out the "Do not leak" sticker on the back of the phone for comic effect.

You can also check out the front of the supposedly leaked Galaxy Note 9 on Slashleaks. Of course, take any and all alleged leaks with a grain of salt, but the Galaxy Note 9 will be revealed soon, for what it's worth.

Samsung sent out press invitations for an August 9 "Unpacked" event in New York, where's it's expected to announce the Galaxy Note 9. The invitation hints to vibrantly colored S Pens that come with the new Galaxy Note devices, and some rumors claim the Galaxy Note 9 itself will come in a variety of similarly vibrant colors.

Original author: Antonio Villas-Boas

Continue reading
  63 Hits
Jan
04

380th Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M - Sramana Mitra

Netflix's second-quarter subscriber shortfall wasn't the end of the world — but that doesn't mean it isn't something to worry about.

Indeed, it could be an indication that the company's growth path is getting more difficult.

Regardless, it should be a spur for the streaming media giant to start releasing more information to investors to give them a better idea of what to expect going forward. Because with Netflix's stock having more than doubled in the last year, the market is betting big on its further growth and investors ought to have a better idea if their bet is likely to pay off.

Monday's results indicated it might not be — and Netflix's stock was pounded as a result.

In the second quarter, Netflix's subscriber additions fell far short of Wall Street's expectations. The company added less than 5.2 million subscribers in the second quarter, which was the fewest it had added in a single quarter in more than a year, far off the pace of the 7.4 million it added in the first quarter and more than a million fewer than it forecast in April.

More worryingly for investors, the company predicted that things will actually get worse in the third quarter. It expects to add just 5 million subscribers then, which again, is about a million fewer than analysts had been projecting.

It's anyone's guess why Netflix's subscriber growth fell short of forecasts

Ryan Pierse/Getty Images The company's subscriber additions are important because its revenue is directly tied to the number of people it signs up to use its service. The faster it's able to add subscribers, the more bullish analysts and investors become on the company's eventual size and value, which has translated into its surging stock price.

On a video interview following Netflix's earnings reports, CEO Reed Hastings and company offered little in the way of an explanation for the shortfall. Instead, Hastings and his team just downplayed it.

The company's subscriber additions have fallen shy of expectations before but bounced back, they noted. Over the last 12 months, the company has added significantly more subscribers than it did in the same period a year earlier.

The company has a point. Indeed, it's a good idea not to get too excited about one quarter's performance good or bad. Any number of things could have potentially affected Netflix's subscriber additions in the period, many of them transitory.

Much of the second quarter was dominated by the World Cup soccer tournament, which could have drawn away viewers and potential subscribers. The company has used original shows like "Stranger Things" to drive subscriber growth, but it had a relatively light release schedule of Originals in the second quarter, which could have depressed sign-ups. And while company officials discounted this theory, it's possible that recent price hikes could have dissuaded some new customers from signing up or encouraged some older customers to drop the service.

The shortfall could point to a bigger problem

But there's reason to worry that the shortfall may be an indication of a bigger, longer-term problem for Netflix. The company's subscriber additions were particularly light in the US, the company's original and most mature market. It added little more than half the number that it had projected and analysts were expecting. Netflix now expects similar weakness in the third quarter.

That could be an indication that Netflix's growth prospects in the US are dimming. The company already has some 57 million US subscribers. That's nearly half of all US households and well more than half of the number of households that have broadband internet connections. While it still could add millions more, those are already high penetration rates for a consumer service.

And you have to figure that the company has already picked most of the low-hanging fruit, when it comes to its US customers. US consumers who don't have Netflix right now are likely to be older users who are much more likely to tune in broadcast or cable television instead, consumers who don't have broadband at home, or less affluent customers who haven't been able to afford Netflix's monthly price.

David Becker/Getty Images Convincing those consumers to sign up will likely prove more difficult than past customers. And Netflix, which offers its service on a month-to-month basis, will also likely find it more difficult to retain them. Recent price hikes almost certainly don't help either effort.

For consumers who still rely on cable as their primary TV outlet and don't see Netflix and other alternatives as an adequate substitute, the price hikes offer one more reason not to sign up. For consumers who couldn't afford Netflix before, the hikes only worsen things.

Investors should know Netflix's churn rate

One way Netflix could give shareholders a better sense of what's going on with its business and what to expect from it would be to offer more data. One figure in particular that could be helpful is its churn rate. Churn is the portion of a company's subscriber based that discontinues service in a particular period. It's a figure that's disclosed by many subscription-based businesses, including online ones such as Spotify.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's company disclosed its churn rate before going public this year. Greg Sandoval/Business Insider High churn rates can indicate customer dissatisfaction or a fickle customer base. Companies with high churn rates typically have to boost their marketing spending to try to bring in new customers to replace the old.

Netflix discloses the net number of customers it adds each quarter. But that number obscures its churn rate, because it includes — without identifying — both the number of new customers it signs up as well as the number who discontinue service.

The churn rate would help investors and analysts understand how Netflix's subscriber base is changing. If the company signed up few new subscribers, but its churn rate was low, it could be an indication that it's having trouble marketing its service. If it signed up lots of new subscribers, but its churn rate was high, it could be an indication that people aren't happy with the service or don't feel they're getting value for the money.

More importantly, if the churn rate increases over time and new subscriptions remain depressed, it could be a sign that the business has matured and no longer has the growth potential it once had.

That kind of insight is crucial for folks thinking about investing in Netflix. Because even with Tuesday's sell off, the company is still priced for near-perfection. And investors ought to have a better sense if that's even close to being reasonable.

Original author: Troy Wolverton

Continue reading
  66 Hits
Jul
17

Netflix has spent over $30 billion on content since 2014 — over a third of it in the last year alone (NFLX)

Netflix investors were less than pleased with the streaming platform's subscriber growth — the company's stock-driving metric, given its subscriber-based business model — when it released its Q2 earnings results on Monday.

In the three months ending June 30, Netflix said it added 5.15 million subscribers, bringing the total domestic and international subscriber count to 130.1 million subscribers, which was about a million shy of its targeted 131.2 for the quarter. Its stock responded with a 14% tumble to $344.04 in after-hours trading. The difference in subscribers may seem marginal, but for Netflix — which is unique to traditional networks in that it relies on subscribers' payments instead of advertising dollars to fund content — growing its monthly payments matters.

As this chart from Statista shows, the streaming platform has spent nearly $30 billion on streaming content since the beginning of 2014, with over a third of that sum being spent in the last 12 months alone. It owes $4.5 billion in content expenses by June 2019 and $3.6 billion towards the end of next year.

Shayanne Gal/Business Insider

Original author: Prachi Bhardwaj and Shayanne Gal

Continue reading
  71 Hits
Jul
17

Meal-kit company Chef'd suddenly shut down and laid off its hundreds of employees

Chef'd, a major meal-kit company, suddenly shut down services on Monday.

As of Tuesday, customers can no longer place orders on the meal-kit service's website. According to four sources with knowledge of the situation and an internal email viewed by Business Insider, the company alerted employees that it was immediately ceasing operations on Monday.

Chef'd's more than 350 workers — most of whom worked at the company's warehouses in Brooklyn, New York, and California — were told that the company was shutting down late on Monday.

"We have had some unexpected circumstances with the funding for the business," founder and CEO Kyle Ransford said in an email to employees on Monday evening.

"Due to setbacks with financing, unfortunately, we are ceasing operations for all employees, effective today, July 16, 2018," the email continues. "If we had been successful with these funding efforts, this difficult decision would have been avoided."

Most employees were alerted to the news prior to the email, during a 4 p.m. PST company-wide conference call, former warehouse workers told Business Insider. Miguel Gonzalez, who worked as a sanitation supervisor at Chef'd's Pico Rivera, California, location said that all employees were sent home immediately following the call, with the knowledge they no longer had jobs at the meal-kit startup.

"There were some tears," Gonzalez said.

According to the email, workers will receive wages through their last day of work, as well as accrued vacation days.

"I want to personally thank each of you," Ransford said in the Monday email. "It was an amazing run and while we didn't get to where we wanted to go, I hope you each take something away from this experience that will help you in the future. I will miss you and I will miss Chef'd."

Chef'd declined to comment following Business Insider's request for more details.

The news comes as a surprise, as it comes after a series of major announcements from Chef'd.

Last month, Chef'd announced it would sell its meal kits in 30 Duane Reade and Walgreens locations in New York. In late May, Campbell's announced it had made a $10 million investment in the company, following a $35 million round of investments in 2017 from Campbell's and pork producer Smithfield Foods. Also in May, Chef'd announced it would be partnering with Byte Foods to stock meal kits in the company's smart fridges.

Chef'd, which launched in April 2015, made its name as the biggest meal-kit service that didn't rely on a subscription model, like HelloFresh and Blue Apron. The company employed roughly 400 workers, primarily in warehouses in Brooklyn, New York, and California. Its headquarters was in El Segundo, California.

While the meal-kit business as a whole is trending, individual companies have hit some rough patches recently, with a number of competitors, including startups Sprig and Din, going out of business. With more companies creating meal kits of their own and Amazon looming large in the food industry thanks to its Whole Foods acquisition, the competition is stiff.

We have had some unexpected circumstances with the funding for the business. Due to setbacks with financing, unfortunately, we are ceasing operations for all employees, effective today, July 16, 2018. If we had been successful with these funding efforts, this difficult decision would have been avoided.

Everyone will receive wages through his/her last day of work, as well as any accrued vacation (as applicable). Eligible employees will have benefits through July 31, 2018.

I want to personally thank each of you. It was an amazing run and while we didn't get to where we wanted to go, I hope you each take something away from this experience that will help you in the future. I will miss you and I will miss Chef'd.

Best of luck and please be in touch,

Kyle

Original author: Kate Taylor

Continue reading
  66 Hits
May
21

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures (Part 1) - Sramana Mitra

Getty/Rick T. Wilking

Despite its share of issues, Amazon is still sitting pretty this Prime Day — but it's possible the worst is yet to come.

"The first ten hours Prime Day grew even faster, year-over-year, than the first ten hours last year," Amazon boasted in a press release.

According to Feedvisor, an e-commerce software provider, Amazon was able to sell 54% more in the first four hours of Prime Day when compared to last year, Bloomberg reported. The first hour, however, sales were down 5% when compared to last year.

Still, the website issues, which included broken links and the site going down for a period of time, frustrated a lot of customers. Some threatened to cancel their Amazon Prime account, which is required to shop the sales, because of the issues.

Customers began to flood social media when the issues started, with 80% of posts on Twitter about the website crash reflecting anger, according to Crimson Hexagon, an analytics company. Net sentiment remained high on Prime Day overall, however, with a dip in the middle.

"Yesterday shows that even Amazon isn't immune and regardless of the retailer, discounts alone aren't enough and without a seamless, enjoyable experience, the consumer will go elsewhere," said Robin Copeland, vice president at marketing firm Huge, which partners with retailers.

That means that, although customers are increasingly tied to Amazon and addicted to its services, if those services start to suffer, customers will start to look elsewhere.

"Amazon's business model has trained consumers to expect heavy discounts 365 days a year - so Prime Day isn't the shiny object it once was - with an easy, hassle-free and enjoyable shopping experience," Copeland said. "When there are technical glitches or anything that creates friction with the experience, we know that users abandon their carts at a much higher rate. In the case of the Prime Day glitch, users who were already 'primed' to shop may have in fact gone to competitor sites such as Target and Macy's, who were offering their own discounts this week."

Amazon has seen similar issues with its Prime two-day shipping and Amazon Fresh services, where customers become very upset if they view the service is in any way falling behind the high bar Amazon has set for itself.

Prime customers are hugely important to Amazon, as they are known as the site's most frequent and valuable customers.

Last year's Prime Day began later in the day, with deals starting at 9 p.m. ET on July 10 and running through July 11. This year the 36-hour event began at 3 p.m. on Monday, and it continues through the end of Tuesday, July 17.

Original author: Dennis Green

Continue reading
  50 Hits
Jul
15

The crypto boom has faded but this charting company is still basking in its glow

A TradingView chart. TradingView

LONDON — The cryptocurrency price boom is long gone but many companies are still profiting from the surge in business that it bought.

US charting startup TradingView saw a surge in sign-ups last year as investors piling into crypto turned to the tool to help with technical analysis. TradingView, which has a freemium subscription model, supports over two dozen cryptocurrency exchanges and has accepted bitcoin as payment for 5 years.

Customers almost quadruple from 2 million last June to over 8 million as the price of bitcoin and other crypto assets surged almost 1,000% against the dollar.

Much of that price rally has faded but Rauan Khassan, international expansion manager at TradingView, told Business Insider: "Unlike the decline that's been seen on most cryptocurrency exchanges, our user base continued growing."

Rauan Khassan, TradingView's International Expansion Manager. TradingView Crypto volumes have fallen in line with the price and many crypto businesses have reported a pull-back in revenues. But Khassan said TradingView has seen no drop-off in active users or revenue.

"We reached 7 million in December when the crypto market peaked," Khassan said. "Since then we are growing, definitely at a lower pace, but it remains in a positive territory."

Interestingly, he said that many customers who came for crypto were now moving towards other asset classes like stocks and foreign exchange. It suggests that crypto may have acted as a gateway drug for many customers.

"Users who initially came for trading opportunities in the crypto class, they actually move to covering FX," Khassan said. "In the end, most of those people were interested not in supporting the market itself, they were interested in the profit opportunity.

"As long as they see the market is not booming anymore and they get more and more doubtful, they are looking for more and more short-term profit opportunities, which are in more liquid markets."

Trading Views is not alone in crystallising the crypto business bump in this way. Plus500, a "contract for difference" provider that lets people effectively bet on asset prices, saw huge numbers of new sign up at the end of last year driven by cryptocurrencies. It said in February of this year: "It has been notable that these customers have traded the more traditional financial instruments as well as cryptocurrencies, implying that these newer customers will continue to trade even if cryptocurrencies lose favour."

TradingView is cash positive but Khassan won't say if it's profitable. The company raised a $37 million Series B funding round in May and Khassan said: "We definitely got more attention thanks to the crypto boom."

But he added: "I think one of the important points that made our investment confirmed was we were able to display in four consecutive months after crypto peaked [that] our community and our audience keeps growing independent from the crypto factor only.

"We are a survivor compared to the crypto scene, compared to crypto exchanges or crypto only projects. Their performance and activity is directly correlated to the performance of crypto itself. We see our key difference as being a universal platform."

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut

Continue reading
  130 Hits
May
20

The 34 hottest video games you shouldn't miss in 2018

Engineer and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk of The Boring Company listens as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel talks about constructing a high speed transit tunnel at Block 37 during a news conference on June 14, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. Getty Images/Joshua Lott

A British cave explorer who recently helped rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach from a Thailand cave network slammed Elon Musk's child-sized submarine proposal as a "PR stunt."

The Tesla CEO had traveled to Thailand earlier this week, touting his "mini-sub" that he said was built with rocket parts and could be carried by two divers.

But British caver Vernon Unsworth told CNN that Musk "can stick his submarine where it hurts."

In this undated photo released by Royal Thai Navy on Saturday, July 7, 2018, Thai rescue team members walk inside a cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach have been trapped since June 23, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand.Royal Thai Navy via APUnsworth, who lives in Thailand and has spent years exploring the Tham Luang cave system where the boys were trapped, said Musk's submarine wouldn't have made it past the first 50 meters into the cave after the dive start point.

"It just had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like," Unsworth said. "The submarine, I believe, was about five-foot-six long, rigid, so it wouldn't have gone round corners or round any obstacles."

When a CNN journalist pointed out that Musk had been inside the cave, Unsworth shrugged.

"And was asked to leave very quickly. And so he should have been," he said.

Musk was widely mocked on social media after the boys were rescued without the use of his submarine. He hit back at his critics this week, saying the dive team had instructed him to keep working on the submarine.

Musk even tweeted out a screenshot of what he said was his email exchange with Richard Stanton, a British diver who helped lead the rescue operation.

"We were asked to create a backup option & worked hard to do so. Checked with dive team many times to confirm it was worthwhile," Musk tweeted. "Now it's there for anyone who needs it in future. Something's messed up if this is not a good thing."

Original author: Michelle Mark

Continue reading
  134 Hits
Jan
03

Book: Principles by Ray Dalio

Sometimes, decades-old companies need to change their decades-old habits to stay in the game.

Adobe is one such company, in a high-value, competitive industry.

Adobe's vice president of human resources Donna Morris knew this, and in 2012 she decided something had to be done about its performance review and compensation structure.

At that time, Adobe's technology had been coming into the 21st century with a new cloud-based subscription business model, but it was having trouble retaining employees due to an antiquated annual review cycle that left people feeling demoralized.

"Voluntary attrition spiked every February, as waves of contributors reacted to disappointing reviews by taking their talents elsewhere," John Doerr said of the company's 2012 state in his book "Measure What Matters."

Morris wanted to replace those annual reviews with more frequent ones and rid the company of "stack rankings" — a somewhat arbitrary evaluation method in which managers or an HR team rank employees by comparing them to one another, and compensate them accordingly.

Unfortunately, the first person to know about her plans to change things up wasn't her internal team or Adobe's CEO — it was a reporter from the India Times. Morris started discussing her intentions on a plane en route to India where she was headed for a business trip, and Devina Sengupta published a story soon after, as the book tells it.

But it sparked something. Morris shared the challenge at hand in a post on the Adobe intranet asking questions like, "Do [reviews and feedback] need to be conflated into a cumbersome process?" and making calls to action like, "If we did away with our 'annual view,' what would you like to see in its place?"

The result was "one of the most widely engaged discussions in company history," and a system called Check-in was born that same year.

It was a "new mode of continuous performance management" that comprised of quarterly "goals and expectations," regular feedback, and career development and growth. Rather than rely on the human resources team to conduct sessions or base compensation off of feedback from those sessions, the new system asked leaders throughout the company take charge of the process and compensate employees based on things like performance.

The training that was put in place to teach employees and managers about the process had a 90% participation rate according to Morris, and the number of people quitting dropped sharply.

"Individuals want to drive their own success," she said in the book. " They don't want to wait till the end of the year to be graded. They want to know how they're doing while they're doing it, and also what they need to do differently."

Original author: Prachi Bhardwaj

Continue reading
  74 Hits
Jul
14

Meet the 30 healthcare leaders under 40 who are using technology to shape the future of medicine

For Reitano, the CEO of the New York-based men's health startup Roman, the focus of his company is very personal. Knowing a patient has erectile dysfunction can help doctors better check for other health concerns such as diabetes or heart disease. It's something Reitano refers to as a "check-engine light." In Reitano's case, erectile dysfunction signaled a heart condition.

It's personal too for Reitano's two cofounders, Schutz and Rahmanian, who watched their wives go though doctor's visits upon doctor's visits throughout pregnancy. When it came to their own health, it wasn't something they spent much time thinking about.

The three met while Reitano and Rahmanian were working at Prehype, a venture development firm that works with corporations to create startups. Schutz had been working for Bark & Co., the company behind Barkbox, which happened to be in the same building. The three put their heads together and realized that their experiences with men's healthcare could be turned into a startup.

Roman, which launched in November with $3 million in funding, has both a telemedicine practice and a pharmacy to distribute medications specifically for erectile dysfunction, such as Viagra and Cialis. The company hopes to expand beyond erectile dysfunction to treating other health conditions the "check-engine light" alerts Roman users to.

"One thing we're excited to do is apply best practices from e-commerce into healthcare," Schutz said.

Original author: Lydia Ramsey and Charlotte Hu

Continue reading
  126 Hits
Jul
14

Fortnite Season 5 is finally here — here are the biggest changes

Epic Games

"Fortnite: Battle Royale's" newest Battle Season is here, and it's a doozy.

In Fortnite, the changing of seasons brings a new theme to the game's Battle Pass, and often many cosmetic changes to the map. For example, in the days leading up to the beginning of Season 4, the game hinted that a meteor shower would change the island forever. When the meteor did hit, it caused a large crater in the enter of the map, turning Dusty Depot into the craterous Dusty Divot.

This time around, a one-time in-game event — involving a rocket launch and rifts in the space-time continuum — was a signal to players that this new Season would include massive changes to the island, and that transition to Season 5 would be the biggest one yet.

Here's what's new in Fortnite today:

Original author: Kaylee Fagan

Continue reading
  137 Hits
Jul
14

These newlyweds transformed a grain silo into a gorgeous tiny home — and they say it’s done wonders for their relationship

Christoph Kaiser originally bought the silo off of Craigslist to store his garden tools before eventually deciding to transform it into a home. Matt Winquist for Zillow

One Phoenix couple put their own spin on "tiny living" when they transformed a 366-square-foot grain silo into their home.

Among the challenges of adapting the metal structure was when the pair, Shauna Thibault, a stylist and boutique owner, and architect Christoph Kaiser, moved into the mini dwelling as newlyweds.

"It makes you confront issues more and it brings you together — there's camaraderie there that I don't think would be otherwise," Kaiser told Zillow, which featured Kaiser and Thibault's unique home in a company blog post.

Here's their story:

Original author: Katie Canales

Continue reading
  88 Hits
Dec
29

Historian Leslie Berlin talks about the rise of Silicon Valley

Reuters / Brendan McDermid

Twitter's turnaround from its spam struggles and the 2016 election is going faster than Wall Street has noticed, Goldman Sachs says. The bank raised its price target to $55 — 25% above current prices.Shares rose 2% following the bank's price-target increase.Follow Twitter's stock price in real-time here. 

Twitter has been a tear this year — with shares soaring 82% to hit their highest price in over three years — and Goldman Sachs says the gains may not be done yet.

The bank on Thursday raised its target price for the social-media stock to $55 from $40 — a full 25% above where shares were trading — saying Twitter is doing better on its turnaround than the rest of Wall Street gives it credit for.

"We continue to believe that consensus expectations underestimate Twitter’s ability to 1) drive incremental engagement through new features and information quality initiatives, 2) better monetize engagement as advertisers leverage newer targeting and measurement functionality, and 3) show significant operating expense leverage as incremental revenue flows to the bottom-line," Heath Terry, the bank's tech analyst, told clients in a note.

Twitter has had a choppy week, as reports of its upcoming purge of spam and inactive accounts worried investors that its closely-watched active users metrics could be be impacted. Earlier this week, the Washington Post quoted an anonymous company source who said the account deletions could affect the user metric when it reports earnings on Friday, July 27. Twitter's CFO publicly rebuked those claims.

"This is nothing new and is part of our ongoing work to improve the health of the public conversation on Twitter," Ian Plunkett, a company spokesperson, told Business Insider. "We have not and do not include spam accounts that we have identified in the active user numbers that we report to shareholders."

Goldman agrees with Twitter's assessment, saying its own research verifies what the company claims.

"While concerns around the impact the company’s information quality initiatives could have on reported user metrics have weighed on the stock in recent days, our advertiser checks and 3rd party traffic data suggest the impact of these ongoing efforts on user and advertiser engagement will be net positive," the bank said.

Even as Twitter becomes more expensive relative to its earnings — it is trading at 22 times its estimated 2019 EBITDA, compared with about 16 for its peers in the tech sector — Goldman says the increasing revenue and profit from its turnaround outweigh the risk of a stretched valuation.

"We believe the significant upside potential to those estimates, and additional option value in Twitter as a platform more than justify that premium multiple," Terry wrote.

Shares of Twitter rose 2% in trading Thursday, and were up 132% in the past year. 

Markets Insider

Original author: Graham Rapier

Continue reading
  120 Hits
Jul
14

This $1,000 camera is hiding a massive zoom lens and makes the moon appear within arm's reach

Nikon

A few years ago, Nikon released the Coolpix P900 that had an 83x zoom that could make the moon appear close.

On Tuesday, Nikon announced the P900's successor, which can zoom even further.

The Nikon Coolpix P1000 has a built-in lens with an astounding 125x zoom.

Nikon's executive vice president Jay Vannater calls it a "compact" camera, and he's not that far off. The P1000 is the size of an entry-level DSLR camera, but it weighs 50 ounces, or 1.4kg, which is pretty hefty. Still, nothing a tripod couldn't handle.

Check out the absurb zooming capabilities of the new P1000:

Original author: Antonio Villas-Boas

Continue reading
  106 Hits
Jul
14

Meet the 11 new tech billionaires that emerged in 2018

An elite club of investors, entrepreneurs, and heirs that spans industries and countries demands only one qualification of its members: Have a fortune of at least $1 billion.

The world's billionaires are tracked in real time by lists like Bloomberg's Billionaires Index and Forbes' World's Billionaires, which monitor net worths and recognize new members when their assets increase in value to surpass the billion-dollar mark.

For years, the technology industry has dominated this list. It's churned out names like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, who were briefly the three richest people in the world in July, and have for years sustained spots in the Top 10. It seems the tech industry isn't slowing down with regard to its contributions, either.

As of January 2018, the tech sector has already created 11 billionaires, according to Bloomberg's Anne Vandermey. While it's a long way to the top, these co-founders have joined the ranks of the most well-known names in the world by creating a newly public, newly acquired, or newly funded tech company that helped push them over the top.

Here are the 11 newest billionaires in tech in 2018, and the events that helped get them there:

Original author: Prachi Bhardwaj

Continue reading
  88 Hits
Jul
14

South Korea is building a $40 billion city designed to eliminate the need for cars

The International Business District (IBD) in Songdo, South Korea. Gale International

When residents of the International Business District (IBD) in Songdo, South Korea go to work, pick up their kids from school, or shop for groceries, driving is optional.

That's because the $40 billion district— currently a work-in-progress about the size of downtown Boston — was designed to eliminate the need for cars.

A project that began in 2002, the area prioritizes mass transit, like buses, subways, and bikes, instead of road traffic, according to Stan Gale, chairman of Gale International, the developer behind the IBD.

When completed by 2020, the district will span 100 million square feet. It's located on the northwest side of South Korea.

Take a look at the IBD's plan below.

Original author: Leanna Garfield

Continue reading
  118 Hits
Jul
14

Police busted the dark web's $1.5 billion cryptocurrency World Cup gambling ring

On Thursday, Chinese officials shut down an online gambling ring that had accumulated $1.5 billion in bets made on World Cup matches using cryptocurrencies like ethereum, bitcoin, and litecoin.

In a statement first reported by the South China Morning Post, police from China's southern Guangdong province said that they had detained six people who they suspect to be behind the gambling ring.

The gambling ring's website, which could only be accessed by using untraceable search engines, had attracted some 300,000 participants in just eight short months, the Post reports.

In a statement, Chinese officials said that the gambling ring was a pyramid scheme where recruiters could profit off of other members.

"[T]he bookmaker analyzes the gambler betting, manipulates the odds according to the bet ratio, and allows a small number of people to win," the statement reads, according to Google Translate.

The gambling ring is thought to be one of the very first crypocurrency crimes involving a major sporting event to ever occur.

Original author: Zoë Bernard

Continue reading
  189 Hits
Jul
17

How to design CX that saves money and minimizes customer effort

While the sight from the International Space Station is a beautiful one, jumping off of it won't be. It will be a deadly journey for any astronaut who jumps off the ISS to reach Earth's surface. Following is the transcript of the video.

Most skydivers jump off a plane flying 3.8 km above the ground. But imagine jumping off something even higher, like the International Space Station.

Unless you have a supersuit like Tony Stark, it's not gonna end well. But let's pretend Iron Man lends you one.

Ok, ready? 3 … 2 … 1 … Jump! Wait … what?

That's right, you wouldn't fall straight down. In fact, it'll take you at least 2.5 years before you reach the surface. So what's going on?

Height isn't the main reason your fall takes so long. In fact, if you fell like a normal skydiver, it would only take about 2 hours.

But the thing is, you don't fall straight down. You fall into orbit. The reason is speed. You see, the ISS might be called a station, but it's hardly stationary. It's actually moving 12 times faster than a jet fighter.

If you shot anything at that speed on Earth, by the time it was about to hit the ground, it would miss! In the same way, the ISS isn't floating in space, it's falling towards Earth and missing!

And when you jump off the ISS, you're initially moving at that same speed. So you end up in orbit, too — at least for a while.

Now, even though it's so high up, the ISS is pushing through a very thin atmosphere. And that friction slows it down. So the station fires engines to maintain speed and keep from crashing into the Earth.

But sadly your supersuit doesn't come with engines strapped to your feet. This has two consequences:

First, it means you can't maneuver and have to hope that any of those 13,000 chunks of space debris don't impale you. Second, without rockets to maintain your speed, you'll slow down and spiral toward Earth.

But it won't be quick. The Chinese space station Tiangong 1, for example, about 2 years to fall out of orbit. On the ISS, you're higher up, so you'll take roughly 2.5 years. But once you strike the atmosphere, your long wait is over. And it's go time.

As you re-enter, you have one goal: slow down. You're traveling at hypersonic speeds. So, if you deployed a parachute now, it'll shred to pieces.

And that's not the only problem. Falling through the atmosphere at such break-neck speeds generates a lot of pressure on your suit — at least 8Gs of force — that's 8 times the gravity you feel at sea level.

And if you're falling feet first, that'll push the blood away from your brain and toward your feet. So you'll probably pass out unless you're one of those fighter pilots who train to withstand up to 5Gs.

Now, if you don't pass out, you may worry about the freezing temperatures up here. But, it turns out, your suit's more likely to melt than freeze. You know how you can warm your hands by rubbing them together?

Now imagine your supersuit rubbing against air molecules in the atmosphere at least 6 times the speed of sound. You'll heat up to about 1,650 ºC — hot enough to melt iron!

In fact, the heat is so intense, it strips electrons from their atoms forming a pink plasma around you that will ultimately destroy suit.

If that's not enough of a problem, the drag will rip off your limbs. But thankfully, Tony Stark has your back, and somehow, your supersuit holds with you intact.

At 41 km up you've now reached the world record for highest skydive. In 2014, Alan Eustace wore a pressurized space suit as he rode a balloon up to this height. He broke the sound barrier on his way down before deploying his parachute and landed about 15 minutes after the drop.

But you'll be falling much faster than Eustace — about 3 times the speed of sound. So, in reality, you're not going to slow down enough to safely deploy your chute. That's where Iron Man can help us one last time. By 1 km up you've reached the territory of ordinary skydivers who don't need fancy suits to survive.

And at this point, your parachute can do its thing. And it's finally time to land softly.

Whew, what a ride! What sort of daring feat would you want us to try next? Let us know in the comments below. And thanks for watching.

A special thanks to Shawn R Brueshaber at Western Michigan University and Kunio Sayanagi at Hampton University for their help with this video.

Original author: Gene Kim and Shira Polan

Continue reading
  59 Hits
Jul
14

I was blown away by how well this $530 phone's camera compared to Google's $650 Pixel 2, the best smartphone camera in the world (GOOG, GOOGL)

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

What better way to test out a couple of the best smartphone cameras than on a casual stroll through town.

I was curious to see how the $530 OnePlus 6 fared against the $650 Google Pixel 2 — the latter of which sports the best camera on any smartphone at the moment. The OnePlus 6 performs way better than its price would indicate, so perhaps a significantly superior camera would help account for the the price difference with the Pixel 2.

At least, that's what I was expecting. After testing both smartphone cameras, though the Pixel 2 is still the leader for taking the best shots, but the OnePlus 6 isn't very far behind at all. I can't say the Pixel 2's camera is $120 better. Its camera even captures colors better than the Pixel 2, in some cases.

And as a sidenote, the OnePlus 6 has better overall specs than the Pixel 2, a larger screen, and it has a much, much better design, too. And yet, it costs $120 less than the Pixel 2.

To be fully transparent, I actually used the larger $750 Pixel 2 XL for this comparison, as it was the device I had on hand. But that doesn't affect anything, as the smaller Pixel 2 has the exact same camera as the Pixel 2 XL.

Check out photos taken with the OnePlus 6 and the Pixel 2 XL to see how close the cheaper OnePlus really is:

Original author: Antonio Villas-Boas

Continue reading
  100 Hits
Jul
14

6 shows Netflix should never have canceled, from 'Gypsy' to 'Sense8'

Netflix Not too long ago, Netflix famously never canceled shows.

But over the past year and a half, Netflix has been on a canceling streak, cutting shows like "The Get Down," "Girlboss," and "Gypsy."

After a few years of being lenient on letting shows survive more than one season, this came as a surprise, especially considering some of these shows shouldn't have been canceled in the first place — in our opinion.

Shows like "Everything Sucks!" which was canceled in less than two months and "Sense8," which has a lot more story to tell, deserved more seasons.

Here, we picked 6 shows Netflix never should have canceled, along with their Rotten Tomatoes critic and audience scores, and what made them special:

Original author: Carrie Wittmer

Continue reading
  86 Hits