A self driving Volvo vehicle, purchased by Uber, stops at an intersection in Tempe, Arizona, U.S., December 1, 2017. Photo taken on December 1, 2017. REUTERS/Natalie Behring

SAN FRANCISCO — Uber is "likely" not at fault in first-of-its-kind fatal self-driving car crash on Sunday in Tempe, Arizona, the local police chief has said.

On Sunday night, one of the transportation company's vehicles operating in autonomous mode hit and killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, in what is believed to be the first time a self-driving vehicle has killed a pedestrian.

Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, Tempe police chief Sylvia Moir said that "I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this incident."

There is video of the crash, which investigators are examining but not been released to the public. "It's very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway," Moir said. Police have previously said Herzberg was not using a crosswalk.

There was a vehicle operator in the driver's seat at the time of the crash, and "the driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them," she said. "His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision."

But, she reportedly added: "I won't rule out the potential to file charges against the (backup driver) in the Uber vehicle."

Tempe Police Department did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment outside of regular business hours.

The vehicle was travelling at around 40 miles per hour at the time of the collision, a police spokesperson previously said, and did not appear to slow down when Herzberg entered the road.

Uber has halted all its self-driving car operations while the investigation takes place.

In an earlier statement, an Uber spokesperson said: "Our hearts go out to the victim's family. We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident."

Ripcord founder Alex Fielding Ripcord

Alex Fielding, the founder of $250 million robotics company Ripcord, is stepping aside as CEO in the wake of an investigation into a 19-year-old former employee's allegations that she was fired after complaining of a toxic working environment.

However, Fielding will stay with the company: He'll be taking a new role as Chief Product Officer at Ripcord. He will also stay on Ripcord's board of directors. The Ripcord board is already searching for a new CEO.

"We are committed to building a team and company culture that everyone at Ripcord feels proud to be a part of," says a statement from a Ripcord spokesperson, in part. "Our Board engaged external investigators to conduct a thorough review of specific allegations as well as Ripcord's culture more broadly."

In early February, 19-year-old former Ripcord employee Perry Coneybeer published a bombshell Medium post, saying that her time with the company was characterized by "objectification, marginalization, and outright harassment."

In one instance, Coneybeer alleged that Fielding himself discussed pornography in front of her; in another, he allegedly made a lewd comment about her. Furthermore, Coneybeer said she was fired after officially complaining about these problems — along with the Ripcord cofounder who had stood up for her.

While the investigation "did not substantiate all claims that were made," according to the spokesperson, it "highlighted instances of inappropriate behavior and aspects of company culture that the Board does not condone and will not tolerate moving forward."

Fielding did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Ripcord spokesperson said it was handling press inquiries on Fielding's behalf and not to expect a comment from him.

In addition to the removal of Fielding as CEO, the startup is "taking a number of steps to improve Ripcord's culture, including but not limited to increased training, reporting mechanisms and Board oversight," says the spokesperson.

Last year, Ripcord raised $85 million in four separate funding events from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Lenovo-affiliated firm Legend Star, Telstra Ventures, and GV (formerly Google Ventures). Fielding is a friend and one-time mentee of legendary Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who also invested in the company.

"We are committed to building a team and company culture that everyone at Ripcord feels proud to be a part of. Our Board engaged external investigators to conduct a thorough review of specific allegations as well as Ripcord's culture more broadly. More than a dozen current and former employees were interviewed, and the Board deeply appreciates their participation. While the investigation did not substantiate all claims that were made, the review highlighted instances of inappropriate behavior and aspects of company culture that the Board does not condone and will not tolerate moving forward. We are taking a number of steps to improve Ripcord's culture, including but not limited to increased training, reporting mechanisms and Board oversight. Additionally, Alex Fielding will be transitioning from his role as CEO to a new role as Chief Product Officer. The Board is beginning a search for a new CEO and is committed to ensuring a respectful and productive work environment for all Ripcord employees, now and going forward."

Uber founder Travis Kalanick. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

On Wednesday night, several groups of Uber employees sat in a cavernous space underneath Waterloo station in London and watched "Brilliant Jerks," a play that recreates the downfall of Uber's founder, Travis Kalanick.

Of course, the crowdfunded play couldn't specifically name Kalanick or Uber for legal reasons. So it was about a nameless taxi app, and Travis Kalanick became "Tyler Janowski."

Uber employees watched as the key events in Kalanick's downfall were recreated by actors: There was the infamous trip to a karaoke-escort bar in Seoul, South Korea. And there was the incident where female employees weren't given leather jackets, but the male members of the team were.

The actors recreated the kind of alleged workplace sexism that former employee Susan Fowler described in her explosive blog post that contributed to Kalanick leaving the company he founded.

One actor played a female employee who likened Uber's code base to a cathedral, built by many people over time to become a giant, intricate work. But the actor playing her manager discounted her metaphor, instead heaping praise on a male employee who had a similar idea.

It could have been uncomfortable viewing for the Uber employees in the audience, and for some it appeared to be as they looked on awkwardly. But others laughed along with the jokes and seemed to enjoy the performance.

The play told three stories: The downfall of Kalanick, the experience of a young woman who works as an Uber driver, and an Uber employee's difficult time working at the company.

But it also introduced new themes to the story. It grappled with subjects such as alcoholism, drug addiction, adoption, HIV, and homophobia. The cavalcade of issues became distracting after a while, but it helped to broaden the story beyond a focus on Uber.

"Brilliant Jerks" takes its name from a comment by Uber board member Arianna Huffington, who stepped in to help the company during its crisis last year.

"I made it very clear that we were going to abandon this cult of the top performer which is often what excuses bad behaviour," Huffington told CNN in October. "So I called it from now on, no brilliant jerks will be allowed."

This isn't the first time that employees of a large technology company have taken a trip to see a critical depiction of their employer.

In 2010, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took staff to a screening of "The Social Network," a film which depicted the founding of Facebook. "To celebrate a period of intense activity at Facebook, we decided to go to the movies. We thought this particular movie might be amusing," a Facebook spokesperson told Reuters at the time.

"Brilliant Jerks" is being performed at the VAULT Festival in Waterloo until March 18.

A screenshot showing an example of Blue Vision's technology. Blue Vision Labs

Google Ventures led a $14.5 million (£10.3 million) round of funding in a UK startup that has created technology to allow lots of people to use augmented reality (AR) at the same time.

Blue Vision Labs has operated in stealth since it started in 2011, but the company is now detailing its product. It works on the premise of "shared AR," meaning that multiple people using their smartphones see the same augmented reality environment.

You can think of it as taking "Pokémon Go," the viral augmented reality game, and putting together lots of players' experiences.

"'Pokémon Go,' the application, showed a huge potential for augmented reality games," said Blue Vision Labs CEO Peter Ondruska. "And what we are doing is to allow [developers] to take this to a new level."

A demonstration video produced by the company shows how its shared AR environments work for lots of different people using different devices, unlike current AR apps:

Blue Vision Labs isn't making any of its own apps for the shared AR technology. Instead, it's starting to work with developers to give them access to it.

Blue Vision Labs

The company has raised a total of $17 million (£12.1 million) in funding, including an earlier round of seed funding. Existing investors including Accel, Horizons Ventures, and SV Angel also participated in its most recent round of funding.

Google Ventures' investment in Blue Vision Labs was lead by partner Tom Hulme. He told Business Insider in an interview that he found out about Blue Vision Labs from people in London's technology scene, as well as academic contacts. "Often with those two scenes you'll triangulate on a company, and that's what happened in this case," he said.

The Blue Vision team. Blue Vision Labs One example that Hulme felt showed off Blue Vision's technology was navigation apps. "If I wanted to actually go and meet James Cook who was sat at a festival with an unspecific GPS position, it would very difficult to find you," he said.

"These guys unlocked that, and actually it's reciprocal, so you could actually see me walking towards you as well. Now, you can scale that up indefinitely and it enables you to manage games at scale with many people."

Hulme said that augmented reality is an area that Google Ventures is looking at "deeply" for further investments.

"We're now able to use mobile devices to deliver AR in a way that you still can't really do, even with brilliant projects like Google Cardboard, we can't do with VR as of yet. I actually think the distribution, the channel is there for AR," Hulme said.

Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of blood-testing firm Theranos.WSJ

Good morning! Here is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.

1. Blood-testing company Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes have been charged with 'massive fraud' by the SEC. Holmes has settled with the SEC.

2. A former Equifax executive was charged by the SEC with insider trading for selling shares before the firm's massive breach was made public. Jun Ying allegedly made around $1 million from exercising his stock options, then selling the shares.

3. Apple reportedly rushed its smart assistant Siri for the iPhone 4S, and the service has now become the tech firm's albatross. According to The Information, Siri's team didn't find out that Apple was working on its HomePod speaker until 2015.

4. Facebook has banned pages belonging to Britain First, the far-right group once retweeted by Donald Trump. The company cited hate speech as the reason for the ban.

5. Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation behind Wikipedia, said it wasn't told of YouTube's plan to add Wikipedia articles beneath YouTube videos. The organisation suggested that it expected something from YouTube in return — like testing for increased article vandalism.

6. WhatsApp has agreed not to share European user data with parent Facebook until the pair can comply with strict upcoming European privacy rules. The decision comes after an investigation by the UK's data watchdog.

7. The UK government said it would consider adding warning labels to social media sites such as Facebook. The labels would indicate that the sites could be harmful, a little like cigarette labels.

8. Lyft has received a $200 million investment after partnering with automotive components supplier Magna. The two will work on self-driving vehicles.

9. Spotify is testing voice search feature that lets people ask to play certain playlists or artists. It's just a test for now, but could pave the way for a smart speaker.

10. Uber has updated its app in the UK to make it clearer that its London drivers are licensed by the local transport regulator, and that it accepts ride bookings before dispatching a driver. The changes are part of the firm's ongoing legal battle to win back its licence in London.

Stephen Hawking in April 2016.Getty Images

Stephen Hawking, who's known for his explorations of time and discovering that black holes can evaporate, died today at age 76 in his home in Cambridge.

I was lucky enough to see him speak in person twice, but I first got acquainted with the British physicist during a long Boy Scout trip in Ohio.

Hawking, of course, wasn't riding on our body-odor-filled bus. Instead, I saw his image on a paperback copy of his 1988 book, "A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes". In the photo, the bespectacled author sat in a wheelchair in front of a star field.

I don't recall why a friend handed me the book. But that introduction to Hawking's writing influenced the arc of my life, and undoubtedly that of millions of other people.

How Hawking helped change me with words

Amazon

Like many tweens-going-on-teens in the 1990s, I was trying to fit in at school with limited success.

"A Brief History of Time" became a magical escape hatch. In reading it, I could leave behind probing questions about girls I liked, peer pressure to make a clown out of myself (which I excelled at), and chaotic and sometimes cruel social circles.

Instead, I could join Hawking on fantastical adventures to the edges of black holes and inside time-traveling spacecraft; shrink down to the infinitesimal scale of subatomic particles; and journey to the birth and eventual death of the universe. He was like a Time Lord from the show "Doctor Who," though he scurried about the universe via words instead of a phone booth.

The book — which had sold millions of copies even then — was dense, for sure. But to me it read like a riveting sci-fi tale and murder mystery rolled into one. And it was real. What Hawking wrote represented a digestible guide to the limits of human knowledge.

I had only a crude knowledge of mathematics, so I didn't understand half of what Hawking wrote, at least at first. Yet his prose was eminently readable. I read the book cover-to-cover, again and again, extracting new understanding each time.

"We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?" Hawking wrote.

His book not only helped answer those questions for my teenage self, but also instilled in me new curiosities, such as "Is there a theory of everything?" and "Will we ever detect evidence of multiple universes?"

More importantly, Hawking revealed how science was thought through and performed.

The things that once felt exciting and mysterious to me, like astrology, ghosts, UFOs, suddenly seemed foolish. Why clamor for evidence of the occult when the greatest source of mystery in our existence — the universe itself — was at our fingertips?

Smitten by the ultimate

A view of Africa taken by Apollo 11 astronauts on July 20, 1969.NASA/Flickr

I eventually returned the book to my friend in a dog-eared and tattered state. But its wonder stuck with me.

Hawking — whose struggle with the neurological disease ALS t left him increasingly unable to move his body — summoned the courage and resolve to turn his curse into a gift. He put forth bold ideas, thoughtful writing, and an uncanny ability to make the exceedingly complex comprehensible (and at times hilariously entertaining).

His work helped me see the purpose and excitement of learning to do math and science. It's also why Hawking and "A Brief History of Time" are the first two things I think of when asked why I became a science writer.

The book was my first exposure to the technically challenging, murky frontiers of human knowledge. It gave me the desire and the language to chase "the ultimate." Hawking's work is probably why I'm still smitten by absurdly complex topics like gravitational waves, black holes, nuclear physics, and space exploration. And it's why I spend my workdays striving to understand these frontiers and their profound, surprising relevance. (Have a gold or platinum ring? Thank a pair of colliding neutron stars.)

Now more than ever with his passing, I hope others will continue to find the boundless yet grounded curiosity he helped me discover at a young age.

I hope my work, in the footsteps of Hawking's, will spur someone to look up at the night sky (preferably in the middle of nowhere) and see more than "just" moons and stars. Hopefully they will understand a bit about the beauty and interconnectedness of the universe, how little we know about it, and how much we have yet to learn while stuck on a rock that's drifting through the void.

Remembering Stephen Hawking:

Lyft CEO Logan Green announced a deal Wednesday with Magna to develop self-driving car technology. Laura Buckman/Reuters

Lyft has a big new partner in its effort to developer self-driving cars — Magna, one of the automotive industry's top-tier component manufacturers.

The companies announced Wednesday they are working together to speed the deployment of autonomous vehicles on Lyft's network. Lyft will lead the development of the autonomous vehicle systems, while Magna will head up the manufacturing of the parts.

Magna is investing $200 million in Lyft as part of the multiyear partnership.

"There is a new mobility landscape emerging and partnerships like this put us at the forefront of this change," Swamy Kotagiri, Magna's chief technology officer, said in a statement.

Although Magna is developing the self-driving technology with Lyft, the parts supplier will be able to offer it to other companies.

The companies declined to say when they expected to the first cars with their technology to be in use. In their press statement, they said they expected the system to be "market-ready" in "the next few years."

Lyft and Magna are among numerous companies developing self-driving car technology. Others include: Uber, General Motors, and Waymo, a Google spinoff.

Many of the companies developing autonomous vehicle technology are largely doing it themselves. But Lyft has been aggressive about teaming up with other companies in its own effort. Last summer, it opened a self-driving car research lab in Palo Alto, California that included space for partners including Waymo; General Motors; nuTonomy; an autonomous vehicle startup out of MIT.

As part of a demonstration of its technology, Lyft offered rides in an autonomous vehicle at the CES trade show in Las Vegas in January. Attendees could summon the vehicle with Lyft's app.

BI Intelligence This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Over the past five years, the world has seen a seemingly unending series of high-profile data breaches, defined as incidents in which unauthorized parties access and retrieve sensitive, secure, or private data.

Major incidents, like the 2013 Yahoo breach, which impacted all 3 million of the tech giant's customers, and the more recent Equifax breach, which exposed the information of at least 143 million US adults, has kept this risk, and these threats, at the forefront for both businesses and consumers. And businesses have good reason to be concerned — of organizations breached, 22% lost customers, 29% lost revenue, and 23% lost business opportunities.

This threat isn't going anywhere. Each of the past five years has seen, on average, 1,704 security incidents, impacting nearly 2 billion records. And hackers could be getting more efficient, using new technological tools to extract more data in fewer breach attempts. That's making the security threat an industry-agnostic for any business holding sensitive data — at this point, virtually all companies — and therefore a necessity for firms to address proactively and prepare to react to.

The majority of breaches come from the outside, when a malicious actor is usually seeking access to records for financial gain, and tend to leverage malware or other software and hardware-related tools to access records. But they can come internally, as well as from accidents perpetrated by employees, like lost or stolen records or devices.

That means that firms need to have a broad-ranging plan in place, focusing on preventing breaches, detecting them quickly, and resolving and responding to them in the best possible way. That involves understanding protectable assets, ensuring compliance, and training employees, but also protecting data, investing in software to understand what normal and abnormal performance looks like, training employees, and building a response plan to mitigate as much damage as possible when the inevitable does occur.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together a detailed report on the data breach threat, who and what companies need to protect themselves from, and how they can most effectively do so from a technological and organizational perspective.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

In full, the report:

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

AP

President Trump's potential plan to target Chinese electronics and other imports with as much as $60 billion in tariffs has investors worried, including those who focus on the tech sector.

But those fears are overblown, at least where they concern the biggest tech names, said Daniel Ives, a financial analyst who focuses on the sector for GBH Insights, in a research note Wednesday. Any tariffs should have "minimal" effect on Apple, the world's largest tech company, and the so-called FANGs — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google— even if it sparks a retaliation from China, Ives said.

"It's scary headlines," Ives told Business Insider. But when you scrutinize the potential effects on the companies, "the financial ramifications are a lot more de minimis than the scary worries."

The president, prompted by concerns about Chinese companies stealing US intellectual property, is reportedly pushing for a plan to slap tariffs on a range of electronics and telecommunications products made in China. Such a move, on the heels of steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the President earlier this month, has stoked fears of a larger, cross-Pacific trade war with American tech companies caught in the crossfire.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 249 points on Wednesday, as concerns of of a looming trade war roiled the markets.

Apple in particular would seem to be especially vulnerable. Not only are the iPhone, iPad, and its other major products manufactured in China, but China — together with Hong Kong and Taiwan — has become its third largest regional market around the world.

Of the big tech companies, Apple is indeed the most at risk in a trade war with China, Ives said. The internet-focused FANGs generally do little business in China, in part because Google pulled out of the market years ago and Facebook's service is blocked by the government. But even Apple is unlikely to suffer much as a result of Trump's potential tariffs or any corresponding moves by China, Ives said.

The tariffs would be a rounding error for Apple

The tariffs the administration is considering would likely add about $50 million in costs to what Apple pays to manufacture goods in China each year, Ives estimated. Even if those tariff-related costs doubled, the total effect on Apple would be basically insignificant, he said. Just by comparison, in the holiday quarter alone, Apple spent $54 billion manufacturing, shipping, and distributing its products.

Apple CEO Tim Cook waves as he attends a talk in Beijing in 2014. Thomson Reuters "If you look at it in the scheme of things, [$50 million] is a rounding error," Ives said.

The bigger concern for Apple is not the tariffs the Trump administration may impose, but how China may respond. The country could potentially make it difficult or much more costly for Apple to do business. That could be problematic for Apple, considering that the Greater China region accounted for 20% of its total sales and 28% of its operating income last year.

But Ives thinks China will be careful to not harm Apple, even if it does retaliate in a trade war. Under CEO Tim Cook, Apple has gone to great lengths to be on good terms with the Chinese government and has invested billions of dollars into the country, including through its investment in Didi, China's counterpart to Uber. China will likely be loath to destabilize those investments or its relationship with Apple, Ives said.

"When all is said and done, I think the bark's worse than the bite there," he said.

Amazon can absorb any tariff pain

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with one of the company's Fire tablets. Mark Lennihan/AP Of the FANGs, the one that could see the most effect is Amazon, Ives said. Many of the electronics products it sells through its store are made in China. That includes its Echo smart speakers, which are part of the company's big push into selling its own hardware.

But Amazon's Echo sales are still a relatively small part of its overall business, Ives noted. And at most, the tariffs will likely increase what Amazon pays for the electronics goods it sells by 1% to 2%, he said.

"That's something they could easily pass on or absorb. It's pretty insignificant," Ives said.

He continued: "For now, I view this as more noise than actually having an impact to the bottom line."

A screenshot of "Stephen Hawking's Favorite Places," an Emmy Award-winning series.CuriosityStream

Stephen Hawking, who died today at age 76, was known for his work on the science of time travel and black holes.

The British physicist penned several bestselling books and even worked on an Emmy Award-winning documentary trilogy, called "Stephen Hawking's Favorite Places."

In the show, which is one of the last Hawking ever worked on, he flies around in a spaceship called the "S.S. Hawking" and explores deep scientific mysteries.

The show was created by CuriosityStream, and its description reads: "Mixing recollections from his childhood and family life that inspired his work as a scientist, he goes in search of the ultimate mystery: the theory of everything. Along the way, time travel and a precarious free fall to Venus, plus questions about aliens, God, and truth, offer unprecedented insight into this genius mind."

The fictional "S.S. Hawking" spaceship.CuriosityStreamCuriosityStream planned to release the third and final episode, which in part dives into Hawking's fears about artificial intelligence, in mid-April.

But a representative for the company told Business Insider that, following the death of Hawking, its creators decided to release the last episode today.

Through March 23, Anyone can also watch the series for free for a limited time. It's normally packaged in a streaming subscription that costs between $2.99 and $11.99 per month.

You can find all of the "Stephen Hawking's Favorite Places" episodes at curiositystream.com/hawking.

A monitor shows various cryptocurrencies' exchange rates against Japanese Yen including NEM coin (middle in the top) at 'nem bar', where customers can pay with NEM coins, in Tokyo Thomson Reuters

Trading Technologies, which creates trading software used across Wall Street, has launched a cryptocurrency trading platform aimed at retail investors.

The new product is a spin-off of its professional trading platform TT, which provides users access to futures and options, and recently added crypto capabilities. People familiar with the matter told Business Insider the retail product is in the soft-launch phase with just a few customers using it.

The point of the new product is to deliver a Wall Street trading experience to the every-day crypto trader, the people said. It's the first product by TT to target a retail clientele. It is currently being teased on TT's website:

"GDAX access for crypto-only traders will be available through TT later in 2018. You will receive details via email when they become available."

The platform provides users with the same automated trading features that can be found on its professional platform, which costs clients $400 a month. The crypto platform will be free for a certain amount of time to kick things off.

A number of non-crypto companies have jumped into the cryptocurrency market to capitalize on its breakneck growth.

Cboe Global Markets and CME Group launched bitcoin futures in December, which allow for the most part institutional investors to bet on the future price of the digital currency, and ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, launched a crypto index for trading firms and hedge funds.

As for TT, this isn't the company's first move in crypto. The company recently announced it was teaming up with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to enable spot and bitcoin futures trading on its professional trading platform, Business Insider previously reported.

DVIDS

The Air Force recently released two new videos of A-10 Warthogs taking out Taliban narcotics production facilities in Afghanistan, as the Trump administration continues to quietly ramp up the US' nearly 17-year war in the country.

The videos are rather shocking. One shows several missile strikes that turned the black and white video nearly all-white for a few seconds before flames can be seen rolling up.

"The Taliban have nowhere to hide," Gen. John Nicholson, commander of Resolute Support in Afghanistan, said in February, after the Air Force dropped a record number of smart bombs from a B-52 on Taliban training facilities.

"There will be no safe haven for any terrorist group ... We continue to strike them wherever we find them. We continue to hunt them across the country."

But a BBC study published in late January showed that the Taliban operates in about 70% of Afghanistan, and fully controls about 4% of the country.

The Taliban's numbers have also reportedly grown three-fold in the last few years. In 2014, the Taliban's forces were estimated to be about 20,000. Currently, they're estimated to be at least 60,000-strong.

The US announced in November 2017 that it would begin targeting the Taliban's revenue sources, much of which is opium and heroin, with airstrikes.

"October and November were two of the deadliest months for civilians," according to the latest SIGAR report. "Press reports stated several civilians were killed during the November bombings."

These casualties "could erode support for the Afghan government and potentially increase support for the insurgency," the SIGAR report said.

Around the same time that Nicholson announced that the US would hit the Taliban "where it hurts, in their narcotics financing," Afghan farmers told Reuters that drug labs only take about three to four days to rebuild.

Analysts speaking to Reuters characterized the US' strategy in Afghanistan as a pointless game of "whack-a-mole."

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary James Mattis said that the US is seeing signs that the Taliban are interested in returning to the negotiating table with Kabul.

"Mattis offered few details about the Taliban outreach and it was unclear whether the latest reconciliation prospects would prove any more fruitful than previous, frustrated attempts to move toward a negotiated end to America's longest war," Reuters reported.

Johannes Simon / Stringer / Getty Images

Playboy enthusiasts will soon have a new option when paying for pornography: cryptocurrencies.

Playboy Enterprises, the company behind the experimental media empire, announced Wednesday that it will launch a crypto payment wallet across its digital content and online games.

The wallet will enable users to pay in bitcoin, ethereum, and alt-coins like the Vice Industry Token. Playboy expects to release it by the end of 2018.

It's easy to be skeptical of Playboy's announcement. Bitcoin and blockchain pivots are having a moment with companies leaning into the craze as a means of marketing otherwise-unrelated businesses.

Who could forget the company formerly known as Long Island Ice Tea, which got a second wind on the NASDAQ when it rebranded as Long Blockchain, or Kodak, which similarly saw its shares surge following the announcement of a Kodak coin.

Playboy has also never been shy when it comes to experimenting with the latest tech — the company already has both augmented and virtual reality content. But there is a case to be made that cryptocurrencies could truly impact how the company does business.

Playboy struggles to monetize content, but the brand is strong

Though Playboy launched as a print magazine in 1953, today the majority of its profits come from the trademark and licensing agreements that have made Playboy Vodka and Playboy Bunny recreational wear a thing.

Playboy Enterprises is considering folding its print magazine. Playboy Playboy doesn't share its financial information, but in 2015, the company made $38 million from its magazine and digital publishing efforts, and $55 million from licensing, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In January, The Journal reported that Playboy is considering folding its print magazine, which reportedly looses as much as $7 million annually, to focus on Playboy as a brand.

One of the issues for larger companies in the adult film industry is that so-called "tube sites," like RedTube and PornHub, often host pirated content — at least until the copyright infringing videos get flagged and removed, but it's often a game of whack-a-mole as others are uploaded. This means advertising dollars are spread thin, and not always making it into the pockets of the companies creating the content.

It is 2018, after all. Porn is free, and print is dead. But maybe, just maybe, crypto could help monetize the struggling industry.

One idea: gamify the porn watching experience with crypto

Playboy's decision to accept payments in bitcoin and ethereum doesn't do much beside put its brand in the cryptocurrency conversation, and make life a little bit easier for users that prefer to pay with digital currencies. Bitcoin itself can be remarkably expensive and inefficient for small payments, and usually a credit card will do just as well.

Duncan said he has no intention of listing VIT on a cryptocurrency exchange, but noted that the tokens could accrue value the way Magic: The Gathering cards do.Wikimedia

Alt coins, though, could provide new ways to think about monetization in an industry that relies heavily on clicks and advertisements.

One of the coins Playboy plans to accept is the Vice Industry Token, or VIT, a cryptocurrency designed specifically to monetize adult content by incentivizing high user engagement.

VIT was started in 2017 by Stuart Duncan, a Canadian entrepreneur and CEO of an adult cable network called Ten Broadcasting. The project has raised nearly $15 million in an initial coin offering fundraiser, which ends next week. Duncan said the blockchain network should be fully operational by summer.

The idea behind VIT is that users get coins for being highly engaged content consumers across the porn industry. Users will earn these coins across various adult film producers and brands as long as those brands have the blockchain running on its website. Users can then use those coins to buy premium content from companies like Playboy.

Duncan said adult film companies were already exploring cryptocurrency for anonymous payments. But he thought he could build a better model.

If VIT keeps users engaged, Playboy could get more ad revenue

The result, if all goes as planned, is a blockchain network that anonymously gathers data about pornography viewing habits from users around the ecosystem and encourages porn viewers to spend more time on websites.

Producers like Playboy get higher engagement, which could mean more money from advertisers.

It's basically just a loyalty card, Duncan said, which could make a big different in a market as saturated with free content as the porn industry.

As it stands, if a company like Playboy accepts VIT from a customer, it cannot use those coins outside of the VIT eco-system. So these companies won't make money directly when they accept VIT as payment.

Duncan said he has no intention of listing VIT on cryptocurrency exchanges himself, and emphasized that VIT is not a security, and not subject to regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But he did compare VIT to another collectible in his life: Magic: The Gathering cards.

"I was going to Magic card shops and trading Magic cards. I could be paying $50 bucks. But I would be able to sell those cards to other people," Duncan said. "That's the future that we're bringing. We're not making it a tradable coin, but I'm gonna have a utility token that trades across our huge network."

Jay Janner/Associated Press

South By Southwest has long been a sacred annual pilgrimage for brands, tech companies and ad agencies alike, offering a heady mix of technology and creativity under the Texan sun.

But amid the sprawling chaos of downtown Austin, navigating through thousands of sessions, events, people and parties can easily feel like making your way through a dizzying maze.

So we asked two marketing executives to plot out what a typical day in their lives looks like during SXSW. And while we were at it, we also decided to have some fun — by pitting an executive from a classic ad agency and an executive from a consultancy (gasp!) against each other to see how similar or different their days were.

Los Angeles-based Chrissie Hanson is a communications planning lead on the ad agency side at OMD, helping brands such as Sony chart out their media strategies. She is at the festival documenting her observations for the agency.

Jeriad Zoghby, on the other hand, helps Accenture Interactive clients like Carnival design bespoke and personalized marketing experiences for customers. The Austin native is a panelist at SXSW this year.

Both Hanson and Zoghby mapped out how they spend their time at SXSW on Sunday, March 11. Despite the two coming from distinct parts of the industry, it turns out that their days aren't quite as different from each other as you'd expect. The excerpts have been lightly edited:

Chrissie Hanson,Global Communications Planning Leader, OMD chrissie hanson The Ad Agency POV: Hanson's Diary

7:00 a.m.: Alarm goes off. The clocks went forward so it's a little disorientating. I fire up the laptop and finish writing my article from Day 1. The most pertinent lessons for me came from Daniel Pink's session "Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing," who said that our daily patterns profoundly affect our mood, and that focused analytical thinking should be done in the morning, while creative endeavors and workouts should be saved for the second peak later in the day. I'm going to re-jig my schedule today to make that happen.

9:45 a.m.: I shower, have breakfast, get myself sorted, and head to the Convention Center. The streets are so quiet that I think I left too early.

10:20 a.m.: No, I did not leave too early. I arrive at Ballroom D to find the longest queue snaking around the building. Thankfully, the SXSW app shows that the session is still green, which means we'll get in. Nice.

11:00 a.m.: Amy Webb, Founder of Future Today Institute comes on stage and tells us that her entire "2018 Emerging Tech Trends Report" is available open source. The audience loves her immediately! Webb reminds us that "knowing individual trends is not enough, it's the connections between them that is critical." Her report contains 255 trends across 20 industries. This will be excellent fodder for our strategists.

12:15 p.m.: I hot foot it over to the Pinterest House to catch Doug Rozen, OMD's Chief Digital & Innovation Officer sharing his thoughts on "Building a 21st Century Entertainment Brand." He predicts that future of entertainment content will include more elaborate and immersive voice-led productions and that we must fill our organization with curious people who are different from ourselves if we want to be successful at digital transformation. Hurrah for podcasts and media misfits!

1:30 p.m.: It's a blustery day and I need to get out of this biting wind. I nip back to my hotel to change into something warmer, make a couple of calls, and then head over to the W Hotel for MediaLink's private-event "Innovation Conversations." A group of conference-goers whizz past me on Showtime-sponsored bikes — why didn't I think of that?

3:10 p.m.: Next up is "Making Impressions Count - Not Just Counting Them," where the panelists discuss the importance of holding onto creativity to ensure that it doesn't get lost in the complexity of tech and data. Beth Brady, CMO Principal Financial Group, says that they rely on their agencies to "remember the human… to provide meaningful insights around what humans care about most."

4:30 p.m.: I head over to the Fairmont Hotel and line up for "Westworld: Establishing a Transmedia Franchise." It's filled with adult fans hanging onto every word as the HBO team shares how they systematically split up and delivered the series' storylines over multiple channels in order to create super-fans and broader viewers. It's an impressive case study and the room erupts in applause at the end.

6:15 p.m.: I meet up with a colleague from London and we head over to El Naranjo for dinner. It's a moment of calm set against the exuberance of the outside activity that runs along Rainey Street. We swap notes from our sessions and agree that SXSW is inspiring and exhausting in equal measure.

8:00 p.m.: I walk home past the food stalls on Red River. The smell of tacos and pulled pork is glorious. I stop by the DC Comics Pop Culture Experience where there are Batmobiles from each film, a statue of Super-Man and artists standing in glowing balls waving light sabers. It's a quick burst of fun before heading back in my hotel room to write my article for Day 2.

9:30 p.m.: I head down to the gym and log my 51st ride on my Peloton app.

10:15 p.m.: Back in my room to finish my article. As I reflect upon the day, a sentence sticks in head; 'In order to see the future of one thing, you must see the future of many things.' It's an excellent reminder that to be a better strategist, you need to look beyond your own industry and see the connections with the world around you and consider perspectives different from your own. I'm looking forward to learning more on Day 3.

Jeriad Zoghby, Global Lead for Personalization, Accenture Interactive Jeriad Zoghby Zoghby's Diary:

8:05 a.m.: I'm a night owl and last night wasn't any different, as I was getting ready for my talk today. Sadly, I didn't call it a night until 2 a.m., which felt like 3 a.m., thanks to daylight savings. I had a great night though, including a surreal stop over at the Governor's mansion before getting home and hanging out with the kids.

8:30 a.m.: I'm about to head out the door, but not before grabbing some allergy meds as Austin's allergy season is in full swing. Austin is a lot greener than people realize, and I love the trees here… But they don't always love me back.

9:45 a.m.: It's time for the most important stop of the day. I had a long night and have a big day ahead, so I treat myself to some breakfast on the way in to the Fjord Austin studio. And no, I'm not having breakfast tacos. It's just a myth that we eat them daily. Plus, you don't come to Kerbey Lane Cafe for breakfast and not get pancakes.

10:30 a.m.: The studio is wonderfully empty, which is a rarity — it is the weekend after all. But it's perfect, as I put some finishing touches on the materials for my talk this afternoon. I head over to our Accenture Interactive Experience Cantina, which is already buzzing with the day's festivities.

11:30 a.m.: I'm getting some last-minute photos of one of our artificial intelligence demos for part of my talk. That's what I get for launching a demo for the first time ever, about 24 hours ago. But that's SXSW for you — if you're not willing to be innovative and take some risks, then this is probably not the place for you.

12:15 p.m.: I get a text from the head of the product innovation lab to meet one of my clients to meet at the Cantina. It's a good meeting. Quick, but fun nonetheless.

1:00 p.m.: I race back to the studio to add the final creative elements for my talk. Lunch? No time for that. A bag of pretzels and a Topo Chico will have to do today.

3:00 p.m.: I search for my French colleagues, who are joining me on stage for a live-demo of a personalized catalog. It's a really cool concept where you see yourself instead of a model in various clothes. Unfortunately, they went to the wrong hotel for the talk, but we were able to figure it out pretty quickly. Problem solved.

3:15 p.m.: Team shows up and quickly finds a willing crowd volunteer to be a part of our live shopping catalog demo stage. They take her into another room for her photo to be featured in the personalized catalog demo. Thanks Suzanne!

3:25 p.m.: We are sound-tested and ready to go. I am really excited about the talk - but a little nervous to get going.

3:30 p.m.: Off we go. My talk is about how customers don't want brands to predict or define their journeys, but to design experiences that help them create their own. It's the only way to truly scale personalized experiences. The best part is being able to show off some real work where this is happening.

4:30 p.m.:…And that's over! I'm exhausted, but what a blast it was.

5:00 p.m.: I head back to the Experience Cantina for chips and salsa with a few of my clients, who are CPG executives, plus a celebratory margarita …or two.

7:00 p.m.: It's happy hour time with one of our local clients, the iconic Whole Foods Market 365.

10:30 p.m.: Finally, I'm on my way home. I catch up with my wife after a long, but very fun day.

11:00 p.m.: I'm wiped out and it's definitely time to call it a night. I just need to finish packing for my overseas trip to London tomorrow so I can get some rest.

BI Intelligence

This is a preview of a research report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about BI Intelligence, click here.

The voice app ecosystem is booming. In the US, the number of Alexa skills alone surpassed 25,000 in January 2018, up from just 7,000 the previous January, in categories ranging from music streaming services, to games, to connected home tools.

As voice platforms continue to gain footing in homes via smart speakers — connected devices powered primarily by artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled voice assistants — the opportunity for voice apps is becoming more profound. However, as observed with the rise of mobile apps in the late 2000s, any new digital ecosystem will face significant growing pains, and voice apps are no exception. Thanks to the visual-free format of voice apps, discoverability, monetization, and retention are proving particularly problematic in this nascent space. This is creating a problem in the voice assistant market that could hinder greater uptake if not addressed.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, explores the two major viable voice app stores. It identifies the three big issues voice apps are facing — discoverability, monetization, and retention — and presents possible short-term solutions ahead of industry-wide fixes.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

In full, the report:

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

Lester Holt. AP

NBC News doesn't think very highly of Facebook, and it isn't holding back.

The news division's Group Chairman Andy Lack and its SVP of Digital, Nick Ascheim were highly critical of Facebook's relationship with the media industry at an event on Wednesday, questioning whether the social network has any real interest in the news business or dealing with the myriad problems it faces related to fake news.

The two executives expressed a growing frustration regarding working with Facebook over the years, casting doubts over whether the tech giant will ever help media companies make money. Lack said that NBC executives have even taken to calling Facebook "Fakebook."

Ascheim said as of now, Facebook is "just a marketing vehicle. We don't put our content there because we don't think they value premium content the way some of our other partners do."

"They don't have any value to publishers," Lack added. "That's the dirty secret ... they take all the value out [of content]."

NBC isn't just mad about Facebook's algorithm. It's everything.

Ascheim noted this NBC News's position isn't a reaction to Facebook recent algorithm changes, which have hit media companies hard.

"We've taken this position with Facebook for a long time," added Ascheim. He said that NBC News' officials have had numerous conversations with Facebook behind the scenes regarding these issues well before the algorithm tweak. "We weren't' seeing any progress. We're certainly not alone in that."

Facebook has been under fire from many corners over its role in the 2016 Election and its inability to police fake news on its platform. And of course, the company dropped the hammer on the media world by tweaking its news feed to favor content from friends and family over news.

After living in fear of losing Facebook's digital distribution power for years, media executives have taken to speaking out more regularly against the platform, including leaders at Vox Media, BuzzFeed, and even mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Ascheim said Wednesday that when evaluating digital distribution partners, NBC looked at three things: You need traffic, revenue or brand value.

"They were checking no boxes," he said.

NBC News is in love with Snap

NBC said that increasingly, platforms like YouTube and Apple News are checking more of those boxes. And while Lack and Ascheim were tough on Facebook, the two executives heaped praise on Snapchat for being a strong media partner. NBC's daily Snapchat series "Stay Tuned" now has 5 million subscribers since launching last July, the pair said.

The show is shot specifically for Snapchat, and features two hosts with little previous TV experience. "It's off to an unbelievable start," said Ascheim.

Already, in March, the show's on pace to "destroy those numbers," Ascheim said. That's in spite of some publisher complaints about the impact of Snap's recent redesign.

Of course, it should be noted that NBCUniversal is an investor in Snap. So the company may get some preferential treatment.

Lack said that the quick, mobile-centric formats that have clicked for "Stay Tuned" could prove to be game changers in news. "I've been chasing millennials for a better part of a quarter century. Most of them aren't millennials anymore. They are the most elusive [demographic for news organizations to reach]."

Yet the majority of NBC News' Snap audience is under 25.

Moreover, Lack raved about how collaborative Snap's team has been in both developing the show and creating an equitable business relationship - particularly compared to Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, addresses a gathering during the Internet.org Summit in New Delhi October 9, 2014. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi "What's frustrating to me about Facebook is you can't have a relationship with them," Lack said. "You can't have a partnership with them. They don't really have any interest in content in the way that we do. They are distributors. I don't think they are good actors in the game for us as news providers or anyone quite frankly who's providing quality content. That's a problem across the board."

Facebook has yet to respond to a request for comment on this story.

Facebook needs to take more responsibility, says NBC News

Ironically Facebook is suddenly looking to court news organizations to produce content for Facebook Watch. NBC executives said they'd listen to such a pitch but had doubts.

"We're hopeful," said Lack. "But decreasingly hopeful," added Ascheim.

Meanwhile, Lack wants Facebook to take more responsibility. Yet there are only two things that the company seems to respond to, he said: pressure from advertisers and fear of intervention from the government. He stopped short of calling for Facebook to be regulated, but implied the company is held to a different standard.

He recalled top NBC News officials being called before Congress in 2001 following the previous year's presidential election, when each of the broadcast networks had to backtrack from too-early calls on the extremely tight race between George Bush and Al Gore, which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Facebook has sent some of its technology executives to address the US government. "I haven't seen Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg sit in any of those chairs," Lack said.

Second Home founders Rohan Silva and Sam Aldenton. Second Home

Take a walk around the new floor that opened recently in trendy office space company Second Home's Spitalfields location and you'll see 11,000 coloured hats suspended from the ceiling. They are there to muffle sound, apparently. Step outside, and there's a body of water, complete with aquatic plants, which works its way around the balcony and the startups working inside the building.

Across the street, Second Home runs the Libreria book shop which features a mirrored wall and books organised by theme rather than whether they're fiction or non-fiction. The company also has an office in Holland Park in West London, a site in Lisbon, an inflatable building it calls "Second Dome," and it purchased the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, which it plans to ship to Los Angeles to hold events in.

Second Home is an unusual place to work. According to its founders, its unconventional design attracted visits from architect Bjarke Ingels and designer Thomas Heatherwick before they began drawing up ideas for Google's new London office. 

Second Home has ambitious plans to expand to two sites in Los Angeles, a new space for corporates in Clerkenwell, and a family-focused office in London Fields. The company has attracted investment from investors including Index Ventures, Bebo founder Michael Birch, LocalGlobe, and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.

Some of the 11,000 coloured hats in Second Home Spitalfields. Second Home

Founders Rohan Silva and Sam Aldenton have enviable career experience for establishing the business. Silva was a senior policy advisor working under then-Prime Minister David Cameron. And Aldenton helped to start a series of creative businesses including the Dalston Roof Park, the Rooftop Café, and Feast.

Yet the pair said they have faced "incredibly frustrating" planning delays, and also increasing competition from rival office company WeWork, which is expanding aggressively in London.

Second Home's new London office will be designed for corporates

Second Home has long been associated with startups. Sure, large corporates like Ernst & Young and Volkswagen have rented desk space, but the colourful office spaces always seemed better-suited to smaller companies.

That's all going to change with Second Home's new office space in Clerkenwell, which cofounders Silva and Aldenton announced in an interview with Business Insider.

The new top floor at Second Home's Spitalfields site. Second Home

"What excites us about Clerkenwell is it's the place in London where corporates are most comfortable working alongside startups," Silva said. "It's really one of those spaces in London for hundreds of years where, because it's outside of the City of London [and] the Square Mile, people who think differently have been able to live there and work there."

Second Home's planned Clerkenwell office space. Second Home

The new office, which is scheduled to open in the autumn, will have space for startups on the ground floor, Silva said, but the other six floors will be occupied by teams from corporates. Second Home plans to include features like biometric locks, a podcast studio, desks that can rise and fall as needed, and a series of talks designed to appeal to corporate customers.

Aldenton said that Second Home also plans to install "a mirror on a ceiling and a mirror on a floor and create an optical illusion that will give you an incredible sense of energy when you arrive" on the ground floor of the building.

But does expanding to a new building focused on corporates risk selling out, in a way? Silva disagreed: "The day we opened we had Cushman & Wakefield and Santander here."

Another render of Second Home's planned Clerkenwell office. Second Home

"And we've always been banging on about this point that we want to try to bring together as many industries and organisations of different stages and sizes. The reason being that actually it's really hard to do business with people if you're all at the same stage."

Silva criticised competing office space companies like WeWork for focusing on startups and early stage companies. "Lots of workspaces are just full of startups," he said. "And that's fine and everything, and broadly a good thing, but it also just means that those startups can't really do business with each other."

A breakdown of the kinds of companies who work from Second Home's offices. Second Home

Rohan Silva still wants to build homes — but the planning system 'makes it almost impossible'

Back in November 2016, Silva told Business Insider that he planned to look at ways to build affordable housing in London in 2018. But since then, he's found that London's planning systems have made it difficult to get the permission he needs to build living spaces.

"It just became clearer and clearer as we got through the planning system that actually the planning system makes it almost impossible to build [and] to really innovate when it comes to housing," Silva said.

"These rules are put in place for well-meaning reasons and they do stop bad things happening, but they can also stop good things happening. So the more we've looked at it, the more it's clear that's a real challenge."

Second Home member Sharmadean Reid, founder of WAH Nails Second Home

That became more clear when Second Home had to back out of a plan to build a living space next to its office in Spitalfields. It changed its plans for the building from housing to office space, and eventually ended up dropping the proposal, as The Financial Times reported in February.

Silva complained that The Financial Times' reporting on Second Home was "deeply unbalanced," and he emphasised that Second Home voluntarily removed its application. "We didn't have to do it and we had seven successful planning applications and this will be the eighth," he said. "We'll probably have some other successful ones in between. But we chose to do it in order to work with the council, not against them."

Silva said that Second Home would resubmit its planning application "shortly." And as for his plan to build affordable homes, he said that the company now plans to build housing in a separate project in central London which he said would open "in a couple of years time."

Second Home has faced 'incredibly frustrating' delays in building another new office space in London Fields

Another Second Home project that has faced issues is the company's plan to build a family-focused office space and creche in London Fields. Aldenton said that Second Home has faced "incredibly frustrating" issues in getting planning permission for the project.

"The sad thing is actually that the local authority are supportive of Second Home," Aldenton said. "But because of the bureaucracy involved in this process, it's taken us introducing people in the same organisation to each other, which makes no sense when the will is there to do it but they get tangled in their own red tape."

Silva was also unhappy with the delays. "We've waited 18 months for council approval for that site," he said. "It's really frustrating because we get stuff built really fast. Second Home here, when we opened, that was 16 weeks of construction and we found the site in January, we signed the lease in March, we got planning permission in June, and we opened on the start of November. We work that fast, all of our projects have been that quick. Clerkenwell will be that fast, et cetera."

Silva said that construction work had just started on the future London Fields office space after 18 months of delays, and Second Home plans to open the office in September.

The company is preparing to open 2 new office spaces in Los Angeles

In contrast to the delays faced in London, Second Home's expansion in Los Angeles is on track, Aldenton said. "We've been working with some very experienced partners out there who are leading the construction work on our behalf. We're actually 90% permitted."

Construction on the Los Angeles office will start in several weeks, Aldenton said, and the company plans to open its first US location in either Spring or early Summer 2019. Silva also said that "we're actually working already on a second location in LA."

Architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano in front of the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion. Getty Images Europe

Second Home plans to ship the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, which the company purchased for "big six figures" in 2015, out to Los Angeles. "That'll be up in LA at the end of this year ... beginning of next year," Silva said, "and we're going to be hosting a great programme of art and film and music and everything."

Rohan Silva is 'much more optimistic' about Brexit

Second Home founder Rohan Silva. Second Home

Silva's background in government means he's well-placed to look at the potential impact of Brexit on businesses in the UK.

"I think the thing that will screw London and the UK is if we make it much harder for talented people to come here," Silva said. "I think the good news is that politicians seem to be pretty united right now in saying we don't want that to happen."

"I think entrepreneur visas, which I was responsible for getting set up, could be broadened out massively. I think we can make it much, much easier for small businesses to become sponsors."

"There is still a lot to do but I am actually much more optimistic than I was a year ago that things are heading in the right direction on that so I think, all being well, we'll be in good shape."

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

It seems Wall Street has a new obsession: What's Amazon going to Amazon next?

In the past week, there has been a flurry of analysis from Wall Street on how Amazon could affect various industries, including banking, healthcare, logistics, and online travel.

Banking

Amazon is reportedly in talks with several large US banks to launch a "checking-account-like product," and it's hiring for its global Consumer Payments team to expand its payment products internationally.

That has some on Wall Street fearing the effect Amazon could have on consumer banking.

The Bain & Co. partners Gerard du Toit and Aaron Cheris said in a post:

"We could imagine Amazon's banking services growing to more than 70 million US consumer relationships over the next five years or so — the same as Wells Fargo, the third-largest bank in the US.

"The estimate assumes that slightly more than half of Amazon's estimated US customer base chooses a financial relationship with the firm — the same share of people who said in our new global survey that they expect to buy a financial product from a major technology firm over the next five years."

Investing

Amazon's potential in checking accounts — as well as the threat of platform companies to big finance more generally — has some wondering whether the tech giant could go head-to-head with Wall Street in investments.

For example, what would happen if Amazon decided to launch a roboadviser, a blanket term used to describe automated financial advisers, in a red-hot market?

It's a question Cynthia Loh — a vice president at Charles Schwab, which manages more than $20 billion in assets through its roboadviser Schwab Intelligent Advisory — has on her mind.

She told Business Insider she saw Amazon as a bigger threat to existing roboadvisers than to the big banks.

"A Google or Amazon robo would keep me up at night more than Morgan Stanley's new robo," Loh said.

Logistics

UBS analysts led by Thomas Wadewitz and Eric Sheridan said in a note to investors on Friday that Amazon would continue to put pressure on the likes of UPS and FedEx.

First, by investing in its own logistics networks, Amazon saves about $1 billion a year, the analysts said — money that could have gone to rival logistics providers.

And the rollout of Shipping with Amazon in Los Angeles hints at longer-term competition with these providers.

"With their 'Shipping with Amazon' offering for 3P sellers, the company appears to be planting the seed for offering logistics capabilities to unrelated third parties (experts believed ~8-10 years out before scaled)," the analysts said.

In a separate note, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Adam Jonas described the effect Amazon could have on Tesla's aspirations in trucking:

"AMZN has a vested interest in taking the marginal cost of transportation to its lowest possible level. Look no further than AMZN's 'fulfillment' and 'shipping' expense line items in its income statement.

"In aggregate, fulfillment and shipping was $46bn in 2017, and Morgan Stanley Internet Analyst Brian Nowak expects it to reach $64bn in 2018 and $291bn by 2027.

"We're in no position to say whether AMZN would be a partner or a potential competitor to Tesla in the area of transport, trucking, and logistics, but we point out the scale that large e-commerce players can bring, which could lead to surprisingly deflationary long-termtrends in some of Tesla's core initiatives."

Online travel

Amazon has tried to enter the online travel market a couple of times without success. And according to Morgan Stanley analysts led by Nowak, while there's no obvious sign that it will try again, the size of the opportunity is significant.

Nowak said:

"The online travel industry is built on ad spend efficiency and conversion ... and AMZN's platform of 300mn+ estimated buyers and its entrenched position in consumers' lives lay a foundation to compete in online travel.

"Further, AMZN's focus on selection/service, pricing, and frictionless payment that drive conversion and stronger user economics also translate directly to travel. Our rough ad efficiency analysis (ad spend/transaction) speaks to AMZN's ability to drive repeat/direct traffic ... as its estimated $0.75 ad spend/transaction is a fraction of what BKNG/EXPE spend."

Nowak and team think an Amazon entry into online travel booking could generate $600 million in annual operating profit in a conservative scenario and $1.5 billion in a more bullish scenario.

"We argue that a robust hotel selection combined with AMZN's ability to use data/machine learning/personalization would change travel consumer behavior and drive adoption," the note said. "The integration of the Amazon Prime Rewards credit card and 5% cash back would likely accelerate it."

Healthcare

Amazon's ambitions in healthcare have become more apparent over the past year, leading to speculation about what the company might do if it got into the prescription-drug business.

One potential victim of such a move, according to the Bernstein analyst Lance Wilkes, is Express Scripts, set to be acquired by Cigna in a $67 billion deal.

And now there's a chance Amazon could partner with UnitedHealth Group, Wilkes said.

Of the Cigna-Express Scripts deal, he said:

"We would view this as increasing the likelihood of UNH and Amazon partnering with Amazon entering retail pharmacy. We had been increasingly focused on Amazon forcing its way in network, potentially aided by the coalition with JPM and Berkshire. While we continue to see that as a focus, consolidation activity may make UNH a more willing partner as they seek to differentiate themselves."

The home

Amazon is acquiring Ring, a startup that specializes in smart doorbells with video cameras.

That could help give Amazon another connection to consumers' homes, with Ring meeting arrivals at the door, Prime beaming movies and shows to the TV in the living room, an Echo speaker playing music in the kitchen, and Alexa acting as an audio assistant.

It could also be part of a high-tech pipeline to deliver retail goods and groceries straight to consumers.

"The trifecta of Alexa, Echo, and Prime should enable Amazon to further penetrate the consumer, expand Prime membership and retail spending patterns, while widening the company's consumer competitive moat with the Ring acquisition putting further fuel in this smart home engine for Amazon," Daniel Ives, an analyst at GBH Insights, wrote in a note to investors.

Our 2017 Bentley Continental SuperSports. Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider

All good things must come to an end. After 15 years of unprecedented success, it was time for the Bentley Continental GT to say goodbye.

Launched in 2003, the Continental GT proved to be an immediate success. In fact, the 12-cylinder grand tourer was so much of a success that it increased Bentley's global sales five-fold by 2005. That year, it was also revealed that demand for the Continental GT was so massive that there was a one-year waiting list for the car.

In 2010, Bentley updated the Continental GT with fresh styling and a added a new V8 engine option. Over the years, Bentley has worked hard to tweak and improve the Continental.

After a decade and a half, Bentley and parent company VW Group decided it was time to bid farewell to the best selling model.

Last August, Bentley unveiled the new second-generation Continental GT. It'll arrive later this year as a 2019 model.

But before sailing off into the sunset, Bentley decided to do its trusty workhorse a solid with the introduction of the Continental Supersports. It's the fastest and powerful Bentley ever built. It's the Bentley Continental in its ultimate form.

Recently, Business Insider had the chance to spend a few days with the stylish English brute on the roads in and around San Francisco.

The 2017 Bentley Continental Supersports starts at $293,300, but $35,065 in options and fees pushed the as-tested price up to $328,365.

Unfortunately, the Continental Supersports Coupe is no longer on sale. However, the slightly pricier, Supersports Convertible is still available as a 2018 model.

Here's a closer look at the Bentley Continental Supersports.