A pedestrian walks past the City of London financial district, in London, Britain, January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

Kay Swinburne MEP: Britain must "embrace" blockchain post-Brexit to help the City "stay relevant." Blockchain, a distributed ledger technology, was first developed to underpin bitcoin but now has potential in everything from mainstream finance to healthcare. Swinburne, a senior Tory MEP, calls for the FCA and the Bank of England to embrace the new technology.

LONDON — An influential British MEP believes the UK needs to embrace blockchain technology post-Brexit in order to help the City of London "stay relevant."

Kay Swinburne MEP told Business Insider: "For me, this whole distributed ledger technology, we have to embrace it.

"The UK post-Brexit: how does the City of London stay relevant? The City of London stays relevant by suddenly becoming the proponents of the new technologies and not just patching existing systems to make them work post-Brexit, actually leapfrogging."

Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology, is the name for the next-generation database technology first developed to underpin the digital currency bitcoin.

The technology allows for the creation of a shared database, meaning all parties see the same version. It uses complex cryptography and group authentication to police the editing of the ledger. The technology has almost endless applications for other industries and processes that involve a trusted middleman or central authority — everything from recording births to trading securities.

Banks and trading businesses are particularly keen to adopt blockchain, as its inbuilt security and trust checks can cut out middlemen in processes like settlement and clearing. This, in turn, cuts down costs. Santander estimated in a 2015 report that the technology could save banks as much as $20 billion.

Kay Swinburne MEP. European Parliament

"We have a unique opportunity to actually make our markets more efficient using the new platforms," Conservative MEP Swinburne told BI.

She compared it the potential of distributed ledger technology in the UK to the "Big Bang" of the 1980s, when a wave of financial deregulation led to an explosion of activity in the City.

"I am not a natural risk taker but I genuinely think this is the UK’s opportunity, as it did with the Big Bang moment in the 1980s, this is it’s moment to leapfrog."

Swinburne is one of the UK's most senior MEPs and has been called the "architect of Mifid II" for her central role in drafting the European financial regulation, which came into force in January. A former banker, she is the most senior British legislator on the EU's influential Economic and Monetary Committee.

"I want to see not just the FCA, I want to see the Bank of England, embrace [distributed ledger technology]," Swinburne said. "I want them to be the first central bank to open up and say, maybe the monetary policy of the future doesn’t involve issuing notes all the time, maybe it involves other alternative payment systems."

The FCA is developing several proof of concepts involving blockchain technology and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said the technology has the potential to "transform" payments, clearing, and settlement.

Swinburne said: "We’ve got proof of concept of DLT in so many areas. It now needs to be scaled up. We’ve got to take some risks. We have the opportunity to really make a difference in a way that I don’t think Europe post-Brexit is going to be able to do.

"We need to start opening up our minds as to how we leapfrog. The conservative status quo is now too risky with Brexit. We need to leapfrog to stay relevant. The City needs to stay relevant."

Swinburne voted to remain in the EU but has since said she would now vote to leave because she is concerned about the union becoming "a more centralised system."

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut

A display from the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea. NBC Sports Live

Winter Olympics organizers say a cyberattack hit their computer servers during the opening ceremonies, Yonhap reported on Saturday. The attack only affected "non-critical systems," the organizers said. Cybersecurity firms said they uncovered computer malware they called "Olympic Destroyer." The cyberattack follows a string of previous incidents involving various Winter Olympics computer systems, including a spying operation that is believed to have originated from North Korea.

Winter Olympics organizers say their computer servers experienced a cyberattack during opening ceremonies, Yonhap reported on Saturday.

Organizers said that internet-connected televisions crashed at the press center, according to officials cited by the report. The targeted servers were shut down, which also took down the official Winter Olympics website for some time.

The committee said in a statement that the attack only affected "non-critical systems" and said the safety of attendees was not compromised.

Cybersecurity firms on Monday said they uncovered computer malware they called "Olympic Destroyer." According to experts, the malware's aim is to delete backup files on a computer and meddle with boot-up files needed to power up a computer, Axios reported on Monday.

Experts speculated that the malware would be able to spread to other computers on the same network, and that the attackers may have stolen the network's credentials prior to programming it into the malware, Axios reported.

Getty Images

The Winter Olympics were hit by cyberattacks in the days leading up to the opening ceremony, with some experts estimating that over 300 Olympics-related computer systems were affected.

Though it may take months to figure out who is responsible for the attacks and why they were executed, experts say the evidence points to the "hallmarks of a nation state," The New York Times reported.

In a previous cyberattack, documents from Winter Olympics organizations were stolen and leaked by a campaign tied to Russia, while North Korea has also been suspected of spying on the event's various organizations, a Wired report said.

Hacker groups originating from Russia have been on the radar for some time. Russian athletes were prohibited from officially representing the country during the Winter Olympics after a state-sponsored doping scandal, a ban which some believe may be a possible motive for the cyberattacks.

Fancy Bear, a Russian hacker group that reportedly has ties to the 2016 hack on the Democratic National Committee, is believed to have infiltrated Olympic-affiliated systems in November and December — around the same time the "Olympic Destroyer" malware was compiled, Axios reported.

"The Olympics involve so many countries, and so many sports, many of which have their own infrastructure, that it has become a rich target environment for many adversaries," John Hultquist, a director at the cyber security firm FireEye, said in The Times.

Original author: David Choi

Original author: Kif Leswing

Apple is reportedly focusing the next version of iOS, the iPhone software, on performance.This is great news for iPhone owners, who have increasingly been noticing bugs and glitches in Apple's software. Apple is expected to release the new version of iOS in September. 

If you use an iPhone, you've probably encountered an annoying glitch or bug on your iPhone recently. 

In the past few months alone, iPhone owners have run into some real whoppers. For instance: 

D0es this mean that the quality of Apple software is slipping, as experts and armchair analysts have been debating for the last year? It's hard to tell for sure — software always has bugs, and as Apple sells more iPhones, it increases the potential pool of people who will encounter any given glitch. 

But the biggest sign that this is an issue comes from Apple itself, as it upends its traditional software release strategy. 

This year, when Apple releases the next version of iOS, it likely won't have a major redesign of the home screen or a big killer new feature, as previous versions of iOS have brought. Instead, the update will focus on bug fixes, stability, and getting things right, according to reports from Bloomberg and Axios.

Instead, when the next iOS comes out — probably in beta this summer, with a global rollout in the fall — it'll probably be very similar to your current iPhone experience, but faster, more stable, and more reliable.

And isn't that what everyone wants?

Marching to a drum

U.S. Army Reserve color guard soldiers carry the colors on Fifth Avenue during the annual New York City Veterans Day Parade in New YorkThomson ReutersThe decision to focus on bug fixes reveals a huge change in the way Apple develops software going forward.

One thing that makes Apple special among big tech companies, according to people who have worked at Apple, is the importance of the hardware release schedule across the company. Hardware needs to be designed, programmed, built, and shipped by a certain date, and you can't go back and fix it after it's done.

So the whole company keeps its eyes on the all-important product release schedule. Some compare it to an army marching: everyone moves forward in lockstep, with whole swaths of the company working towards a common goal. 

But it trickles down to software as well. In recent years Apple has launched one big new version of iOS alongside the new iPhone. Those new releases come with so-called "tentpole" features — big new additions to iOS that the company uses to market the iPhone itself. Management assigns those "tentpoles" to a software group, who toil day and night to deliver the features by the phone's release date. 

So the fact that Apple is now taking a longer, less deadline-driven view to "tentpole" features is a big change. In fact, according to Bloomberg, engineering managers now have the authority to push back at management if they feel a feature can't be properly implemented in time.

From Bloomberg: 

"Instead of keeping engineers on a relentless annual schedule and cramming features into a single update, Apple will start focusing on the next two years of updates for its iPhone and iPad operating system, according to people familiar with the change. The company will continue to update its software annually, but internally engineers will have more discretion to push back features that aren't as polished to the following year."

The change suggests that Apple now realizes that the vast majority of iPhone users are not necessarily the technology super-experts, as they might have been in the early days of the iPhone or iPad.

Instead, iPhone owners regularly use the devices as their main computer, day-in and day-out. For them, reliability is much more important than a software update that may add a feature their older phones don't even support like the lip-syncing Animoji, currently an iPhone X exclusive. And that's especially true if those software updates introduce the possibility of new bugs or glitches that complicate their experience.

So ultimately, this change is very good news for any iPhone owner. Innovation at Apple won't stop — it still needs to sell new phones every year — but it suggests that Apple won't be pushing out half-baked features just to make old iPhones feel new. 

It's probably also good news for software engineers at Apple, who may get to take a break now and then from the relentless marching forward of the army. Still, some all-nighters are probably yet in their future. 

Don't panic

AppleIn many ways, the shift reported by Bloomberg and Axios show that Apple understands that the iPhone is no longer a young product. Ten years-plus, it's fully mature.

And mature products don't necessarily need to change every year for comparatively arbitrary reasons.

This line of thinking was highlighted by Steven Sinofsky, a former Microsoft executive and current Andreessen Horowitz board partner, who argued in a long series of tweets on Monday that Apple's bugs aren't necessarily more common than they were in the past. Instead, he says, the reported change to its software focus isn't a reaction to outside criticism — it's simply what any big tech company needs to do after a few years of building out its core product.

In other words, Sinofsky argues, what's happening at Apple is a natural reaction to the balance a giant project like iOS needs. 

And the "buggy feeling" is due to the fact that hundreds of millions of people use iPhones for hours per day. "What is different is that at scale a bug that happens to 0.01% of people is a lot of people," he tweeted. "A stadium full or more."

His takeaway? Don't panic: Apple knows what it's doing, and whatever change to its development process is currently going on will make Apple stronger in the long run.

This isn't a move made out of desperation. Apple is deciding to head off a process that had stopped producing the desired output. A grand rethinking of how it's going to produce software for iPhones is a very good development for all Apple users, especially those who value reliability and consistency. 

The next iPhone update may not have super-Animoji. But if it crashes less, lots of people should be happy. 

Original author: Kif Leswing

Toru Hanai/Reuters

A growing number of brands and social stars that have built followings on Instagram now fear that the platform is killing their business. They are certain that fewer people are seeing their posts in recent weeks, and fear that Instagram could follow in the footsteps of Facebook's News Feed change. But Instagram says it has not rolled out any changes that would impact reach for a particular type of account, and that its algorithm is based on machine learning and is constantly evolving. 

Instagram has helped foster a unique crop of social media-savvy brands and stars, ranging from the cosmetics company Anastasia Beverly Hills to food influencer brunchboys.

But some of those Instagram-born creators are starting to lose faith in the platform. 

Ever since Facebook announced its massive News Feed shake-up last month, many publishers and social-media-dependent brands have been in panic mode, believing that the days of quickly building audiences on the social network organically (i.e. without paying for them) — are numbered.

Now, some are worried they are seeing the same sort of trend unfold on Instagram. Specifically a growing number of creators are worried that fewer people are seeing their posts.

A post by Anastasia Beverly Hills Anastasia Beverly Hills

"The new Instagram algorithm is hurting the artist community, small brands and even those with lots of followers as most posts are hidden unless they spike in engagement right away," beauty brand Anastasia Beverly Hills posted on its Instagram page. The post has racked up over 310,000 likes and over 30,000 comments since it was first posted on January 25.  

Anastasia Beverly Hills is hardly the only one. Cosplay creator Jessica Nigri recently told Business Insider that she felt that Instagram was starting to restrict creators' reach. Ryan Babenzien, CEO and Founder of Brooklyn-based sneaker startup Greats echoed Nigri, adding that small brands and creators were losing their trust in the platform.

"One should assume that announcements of algorithm changes to the public are the final product, and not what Instagram has been testing without telling anyone," he told Business Insider, saying that the brand had seen its reach fall recently. "When Greats started we gained 10,000 followers completely organically within a matter of weeks. Let's just say those days are over."

Creators say their Instagram audience is not what it used to be

Jeremy Jacobowitz is yet another example. He is the creator of brunchboys, a popular food account on Instagram with nearly 450,000 followers. He says that he feels that his reach has tanked in recent months due to some sort of change in the algorithm, but not necessarily his engagement. 

Jeremy Jacobowitz from brunchboys Jeremy Jacobowitz

"My reach, and consequently my growth, has fallen," he told Business Insider. "I'd get 1,000 new followers a day; now it's less than half."

Unlike its sibling Facebook, Instagram has not publicly announced any changes to its algorithm since 2016, when it switched from a chronological algorithm to one that tailors posts for each specific user. This algorithm uses machine learning to rank posts in users' feeds, so it is constantly adapting and improving over time based on new data, a company rep told Business Insider.

Instagram says it has not rolled out any changes that would impact reach for a particular type of account, regardless of how many followers it has, and no content posted by an account is ever "hidden" from the feeds of those who follow that account.

A spokesperson said that the reach of individual accounts can vary based on a number of factors, and a typical Instagrammer followers hundreds of accounts and has hundreds or even thousands of posts in their feed every day, so it is normal for people to not see them all. 

Instagram's quiet tweaking may be feeding creators' paranoia

Regardless, a series of recent behind-the-scenes changes have led some in the Instagram world to predict that the app will follow sibling Facebook's lead and significantly adjust its algorithm — and severely impact how content is discovered.

Instagram added two new features in December that have yet again altered users' feeds: The ability for users to follow hashtags and surfacing hashtag-focused posts in its feed as well as a "Recommended for you" section that will show posts that users' friends have liked. 

These add to an already cluttered feed, worrying creators and brands that posts that are not backed by a robust paid Instagram strategy are likely to get buried further.

"The platform has been less vocal about any recent changes to its algorithm," said Ben Arnold, managing director at We Are Social North America. "There is a concern that Instagram will go the way of Facebook — which effectively 'switched off' the remaining organic value of content on its platform last month."

Arnold added that while there hasn't been enough data yet to prove a decline in reach over the past one month, these concerns may be valid as the trend leading up to this point has been to increasingly prioritize posts which have driven interactions, in the forms of likes or comments.

Some experts are also viewing this all as a bid to push small brands to pay for more ads on Instagram. Brands of all sizes have been paying to play on Facebook for years, which in turn has seen a tremendous growth in its ad revenue coming from small businesses. So it was only a matter of time before Instagram took a page out of its parent company's playbook, the thinking goes.

"When you look at the commercial success that Facebook has delivered through the monetization of its platform, you would expect Instagram to follow suit at some point in time," Arnold said. "Using Instagram to grow organically as a small brand is definitely going to be tricky."

"Any time a company that makes all its money on advertising controls the throttle and reach — which at one point was purely organic and now is pay-to-play — you can assume that it will affect any brand or person on Instagram while allowing Instagram to increase their ad revenue," said Greats' Babenzien.

Some marketers are seeing plenty of Instagram success

Not everyone in the Instagram world is freaking out. In fact, some brands and creators, such as oral hygiene brand Quip and haircare brand Function of Beauty, say that they have actually seen improvements in their reach and engagement in recent weeks. 

An Instagram post by Function of Beauty Function of Beauty

Comparing January to October, for example, Quip actually saw a 118% increase in organic likes per post and a 56% increase in organic reach per post. Function of Beauty too said that both its reach and engagement grew consistently between October 2017 and January 2018, with the brand reaching over 923,000 collectively in the same time period.

"We have always valued engagement over anything else, and our content is tailored for our very engaged audience," said Zahir Dossa, CEO and co-Founder at Function of Beauty. "Instagram is a meritocracy and has a democratic process in place where everyone is given a platform and where good posts get traction."

Ultimately, quality content will win, said Andy Amendola, senior director of digital strategy and media at The Community. And even if audience growth plateaus and creators reach a smaller audience, one way of looking at it is that audience will engage more meaningfully.

"It’s not personal; the machine learning and AI behind the algorithm doesn’t take sides," he said. "If you create engaging content, your audience will continue to get it."

Anna Lee, vp of growth at women-focused digital publisher PureWow, agreed.

"Success in this environment for any business — small or large — starts with great content," she said. "It's impossible to predict what will happen next, but great, value adding content will always be a sound investment on this platform."

Original author: Tanya Dua

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Markets Insider

Major cryptocurrencies are all rising on Thursday morning but bitcoin is still down 20% over the last 7 days. World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim compared cryptocurrencies to Ponzi schemes.

LONDON — Cryptocurrencies are rallying strongly on Thursday morning.

After getting hosed earlier in the week, all major cryptocurrencies are solidly in the green this morning. Here's how the scoreboard looks at 8.10 a.m. GMT (3.10 a.m. ET):

Despite the rally, bitcoin is still down around 20% over the last 7 days, as the chart at the top illustrates.

The London Block Exchange, a UK bitcoin startup, writes in its daily market report on Thursday: "As we approach the weekend - traditionally a period with less trading volume and therefore more prone to wild movements, with a tendency to dip - we continue to recommend closely watching bitcoin's price to gauge the direction of the crypto markets.

"While today's early hours have been positive, with bitcoin rising 8% and leaving the past day's bear channel, it's impossible to predict the short-term direction."

The rally in the market comes despite more skepticism from the world of traditional finance. World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim compared cryptocurrencies to Ponzi schemes at an event in Washington on Wednesday night.

Bloomberg reports that Kim said: "In terms of using Bitcoin or some of the cryptocurrencies, we are also looking at it, but I’m told the vast majority of cryptocurrencies are basically Ponzi schemes."

You can get live cryptocurrency prices on Markets Insider.

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut

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A clip of Michael Douglas giving the 'Greed is good' speech in "Wall Street" was shown during the Uber-Waymo trial. YouTube

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

1. Smart thermostat company Nest is being spun back into its owner Google, and will sit alongside Google's Home smart speakers and its Pixel smartphones. Nest was originally spun out when Google reorganised under the umbrella of Alphabet in 2015.

2. Uber's former chief executive, Travis Kalanick, has denied in court that his firm stole trade secrets from Google's self-driving company Waymo. During the third day of the colourful trial, Waymo's lawyers showed a clip of Michael Douglas' famous "Greed is good" speech from "Wall Street."

3. An anonymous user posted core iPhone source code online, which one specialist described as "the biggest leak in history" according to Motherboard. The code may allow security researchers to find vulnerabilities in iOS and achieve iPhone jailbreaks.

4. Amazon has started offering Whole Food deliveries through its Prime subscription service, though only in four US regions of Cincinnati, Austin, Dallas, and Virginia Beach. Now subscribers can receive Whole Foods deliveries within one or two hours.

5. Google is apparently thinking of building a game streaming service, and even a gaming console. The firm is working on a streaming site that is codenamed Yeti, and has been in talks with developers.

6. Samsung's incapacitated chairman, Lee Kun-Hee, has been accused by South Korean police of tax evasion of up to 400 billion won ($368 million, £265 million). Police said Lee Kun-Hee, currently hospitalised after a heart attack, had bank accounts with the funds registered in other people's names.

7. Amazon's market cap was briefly close to beating Microsoft's for the first time. Amazon’s stock was down 1.14% bringing its valuation to $690.4 billion (£498.34 billion), while Microsoft’s 1.83% decline pushed its market cap down to $690.3 billion (£497 billion).

8. Softbank has already invested around 40% of its $100 billion Vision and Delta tech funds, according to financial filings. Chief executive Masayoshi Son noted that deals like Softbank's $8 billion (£5.6 billion) investment in Uber were "impossible" for traditional venture capital to make.

9. Reddit chief executive Alexis Ohanian will step down from day-to-day duties and focus on his early-stage fund, Internalized Capital. Ohanian said the timing related personal factors such as his marriage to Serena Williams, and the subsequent birth of their daughter.

10. Instagram is apparently experimenting with allowing users to "Regram" posts to Stories. The feature would let you share either your or others' past public posts to a Story.

Original author: Shona Ghosh

Original author: Edoardo Maggio

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STR/AFP/Getty Images

China's military has spoken out in protection of the country's military and technological innovations by suggesting the country tighten its control over its intellectual property.  The military suggested that China needed to create intellectual property rights barriers over its technological developments, like supercomputers, drones, dredgers, and rocket launch simulation technology. The US has launched an investigation into whether China has stolen its intellectual property. 

China's military has suggested the country increase its intellectual property control of military and technological innovations.

In an article in  China National Defence News , reported by South China Morning Post, the military said China needed to create intellectual property barriers to its equipment, including supercomputers, drones, dredgers, and rocket launch simulation technology. 

According to the Post, the article highlighted that China has made several scientific breakthroughs over the last decade and needed to protect them. Otherwise, the article added, technology could be utilized by a foreign power and may even threaten national security.

“We must work on protecting technology as much as we have on researching and developing it,” the article said.

China achieved numerous scientific breakthroughs over the last year alone, including building the world's fastest wind tunnel to test weapons, as well as launching test spy drones in a near space area called the "death zone."

The military said that while many new innovations had been created in China's private sector, they have not focused on helping protect China's national security.

“There have been dangerous cases involving some privately owned companies, research institutions and individuals in pursuit of economic interests or academic honour,” the article said.

The military added that the country's intellectual protection laws lag behind other countries.

"We must work fast to close the gap,” it said. 

The US has accused China of stealing its intellectual property 

The military's comments follow an August investigation by the US into whether China stole its intellectual property. 

US President Donald Trump instructed the US Trade Representative to look into "Chinese law, policies, and practices which may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation, or technology development," and last month said there was a "potential fine" that will "come out soon."

China has been accused in the past of trying to force companies to give away their intellectual property by spying, hacking, or intimidating companies, an allegation which Beijing denies. One report estimated the cost to the US economy at $600 billion a year.

Several US tech giants including Apple and IBM spoke out on the topic in October during the first hearing in the US' investigation. The companies allege China’s rules on inbound investment violate the intellectual property rights of their companies.

China likely sees the US investigation as an act of aggression, because it provides a loophole for the US President to take actions against its economy without consulting with  the WTO.

Original author: Rosie Perper

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Reuters

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says Model 3 production bottlenecks are being caused by the battery module assembly line at the company's Gigafactory in Nevada.  Musk said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday that Tesla became "too confident" in its ability to make batteries, which contributed to its current production problems.  But Musk said that the company is still on target to produce 2,500 Model 3 vehicles by the end of Q1 and 5,000 units per week by the end of Q2. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Model 3 production problems are a result of the company being a little too confident in its ability to make batteries.

“It’s ironic since battery modules should be the thing we are best at,” Musk said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “We were a little overconfident, got too comfortable with our ability to do battery modules.”

The company has struggled to build its first mass-market car, the Model 3, because of bottlenecks in battery module production.

Tesla built a new assembly line at the Gigafactory to make its Model 3 batteries. But the company ran into problems with the new production line. 

“Two of the zones that were subcontracted to other companies flat-out didn't work. We were promised they would work and they just didn't work,” Musk said during the call.

The bottleneck has caused major delays in Tesla Model 3 production targets.

Tesla originally said it planned to build 5,000 of the cars per week in December, but in November the company changed the timeline and said it would hit that number by the end of the first quarter in 2018. And in January, Tesla revised its projections yet again, stating that it now intends to hit 5,000 per week by mid-year.

Despite the production hiccups, the company still aims to make some 1 million cars per year by 2o20, Musk said on Wednesday. Considering the company made just over 100,000 vehicles in 2017, it still has a long way to go. 

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

Original author: Cadie Thompson

Tesla's master of destruction. Matthew DeBord/Business Insider

Rosie Mottsmith is a staff engineer at Tesla. A former physicist who also once worked on organic farms, she recently helped develop the high-strength glass that went into the Tesla Semi. She and her team developed a special cannon to launch projectiles at the glass to test it.

Editors Note: Business Insider had the chance to speak with four Tesla employees from different parts of the company to learn more about their work. And what we discovered were some of the coolest jobs at Tesla. This is the second in the series. You can read about what a Tesla quality inspector does here.

Everybody knows that engineers build stuff. Bridges, buildings, airplanes, robots.

But engineers also destroy stuff, because they have to identify weaknesses. A weak bridge collapses into a river, a flimsy building teeters, a flawed aircraft falls from the sky, and a bad robot can't do its job.

At Tesla, staff engineer Rosie Mottsmith has an appetite for destruction. For months, she and a team of engineers fired various projectiles from a cannon of their own design at sheets of Tesla's innovative Armor Glass — glass designed to wrap around the cabin of the Tesla Semi that CEO Elon Musk revealed in spectacular fashion in Los Angeles in November.

It wasn't a job she ever imagined doing, even in her wildest dreams.

Originally a physicist, Mottsmith started out at the Bay Area's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, trying, as she puts it without a trace of arrogance, to "make a new light source."

"Ten years from now, that might have led to new research, and 10 years from now that might lead to a new discovery that would lead to a drug that might help somebody," she recalls, sipping tea in a cafeteria at Tesla's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

The Tesla Semi. Alexandria Sage/Reuters

Physics research was too abstract for Mottsmith's tastes, so she ventured out into the real world and spent some time at a nonprofit, as an elementary school teacher, and as an organic farmer before heading to Stanford to get an advanced degree in materials science and engineering. She joined Tesla in 2014 as a reliability engineer and worked on both drivetrains — chiefly the dual-motor all-wheel-drive system — and Tesla Energy's Powerwall battery.

With a Model 3 on the way to her driveway to join her husband's Model S, she's "all in" with the company, she says.

"What's wonderful about Tesla is how motivated everybody is by the mission," she says. "Not always the easiest place to work — what helps you push through it is knowing that your work is potentially affecting the entire world."

Putting herself in the mind of a trucker

Tesla Armor Glass had to be extra tough. Tesla

Mottsmith might think about glass the way most of us do, as a critical automotive component as well as an aesthetic element; the Tesla Semi features a stunning view of the road for a driver.

But Mottsmith, like most engineers — and unlike most non-engineers — also has a mind that's trained to operate behind the scenes, to peer around corners, to expect the unexpected. For her, the Semi's huge glass windshield is a vital safety feature and a way of keeping a trucker on the road. That understanding came from designing the experiments that entailed firing the cannon thousands of times — "We put on some Judas Priest and blew off stress," Mottsmith says — but also from spending a day on the road with working truck drivers.

"It's a hard job," she says. "Truckers are basically mechanics and handymen. If anything goes wrong, they have to fix it themselves. A lot of times people think about engineers as optimizing things, but true engineering is understanding how your product is going to be used. It doesn't matter what happens in the lab if that doesn't keep the trucker safe."

Mottsmith and her team hurled everything from rocks to shredded tires to tow-hitches at sheets of Tesla Glass, seeking to serve the requirements of truckers while preparing the Semi to face countless problems on the road both seen and unforeseen.

The unique, glass-wrapped cab of the Semi. Tesla

The Semi had to be game changing in many respects, from its rethinking of the traditional big-rig cab to its performance, designed to be far superior to that of diesel-powered trucks. According to Mottsmith, that produced challenges.

"Distinguishing between the impossible and very difficult can be a speed bump," she says. "But what enables our process is pushing things to the limit and not accepting 'no' unless it's dictated by physics."

Joining the revolution

Mottsmith travels between Northern California and Southern California for her job and says she "has no plans to go elsewhere." A typical day could find her in Palo Alto working to interpret data to "find out what all the destruction means," walking the assembly line at the factory in nearby Fremont, consulting with other engineers, or venturing down to the Los Angeles area to shoot cannons at Tesla Glass in the Tesla Design Studio at SpaceX's factory.

"It's great that I don't spend every single day destroying things," she says, adding with a twinkle that "destroying things is really satisfying."

Ultimately, participating in the Semi project has been an amazing experience, even though she is excited about whatever she winds up doing next at Tesla. "The Semi is something completely new — it's going to change everything," she says. "You can just feel it in your gut that will be revolutionary."

Original author: Matthew DeBord

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This photo taken on February 5, 2018 shows a police officer wearing a pair of smart glasses with a facial recognition system at Zhengzhou East Railway Station in Zhengzhou in China's central Henan province. AFP/Getty Images

Railway police have begun using facial-recognition eyewear to catch criminals. In tests the glasses identified faces within 100 milliseconds. Seven people have been arrested for a range of previous crimes, and another 26 were banned from travel. China has been ramping up its use of facial-recognition technology as it moves toward a nationwide database that can recognize any citizen within three seconds.

Chinese railway police are using facial-recognition sunglasses to catch suspects at train stations in Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan province.

The eyewear, which looks similar to the original Google Glass, was unveiled earlier this year and has already helped identify seven alleged criminals, according to the Communist Party's official newspaper People's Daily.

The glasses are linked to a database that can match travelers with criminal suspects. It is unclear how long it takes for a match to be made in the real world, butWu Fei, the CEO of LLVision Technology which developed the glasses, told The Wall Street Journal that, during testing, the system could identify faces from a database of 10,000 in 100 milliseconds.

So far the glasses have identified people suspected of misdeeds ranging from traffic infringements to crimes like human trafficking.

A further 26 people using fake identity documents were also prevented from traveling.

In China, people must use identity documents for train travel. This rule works to prevent people with excessive debt from using high-speed trains, and limit the movement of religious minorities who have had identity documents confiscatedandcan wait years to get a valid passport.

While this is the first time Chinese officials have used glasses to implement facial-recognition, the technology is widely used by police. China is also currently building a system that will recognize any of its 1.3 billion citizens in three seconds.

These programs have been condemned by human-rights groups that say this implementation of the technology infringes on people's right to privacy.

“Chinese authorities seem to think they can achieve ‘social stability’ by placing people under a microscope, but these abusive programs are more likely to deepen hostility towards the government,” Sophie Richardson, China director of Human Rights Watch, previously said about different facial recognition technology being used to monitor religious minorities. “Beijing should immediately stop these programs, and destroy all data gathered without full, informed consent.”

The glasses are likely here to stay, having arrived just weeks before Chinese New Year when it is expected that 389 million train trips will be taken between Feb 1 and March 12.

Original author: Tara Francis Chan

Yoky Matsuoka, Nest's chief technology officer, shows off the company's updated product lineup at a press event in September. Stephen Lam/Reuters

Google is folding Nest into its hardware division; the move comes two years after Google set up the smart-home product maker as an independent subsidiary of parent company Alphabet. The move comes as Google is facing an existential threat from Amazon, whose Alexa voice agent could undermine Google's search advertising business. The search giant is trying to shore up Google Assistant, its rival to Alexa, to help thwart the danger from Amazon.

Google is clearly worried about Amazon.

If that wasn't obvious before, it should be now, after the search giant announced it was going to bring Nest, the smart-home product company it spun out as one of parent company Alphabet's other bets two years ago, back in house.

Google spun the decision as a way to boost both Nest and Google's own hardware business. That may be true, but it's just as much about responding to the unique — even existential — threat Amazon presents.

Purchased by Google more than three years ago for $3.2 billion, Nest makes a line of smart-home devices, including its famous connected thermostat. After setting up Nest as one of its sister companies under the auspices of Alphabet, Google is now folding the smart home company into its hardware division, which oversees it Pixel phones, Home smart speakers, and other devices.

Google Assistant is a core part of Google's Pixel phones. Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

The move comes as Amazon has taken an early lead in voice-based computing with its Echo smart speakers and its Alexa assistant. Amazon's Echo line dominates the market, and Amazon has been aggressive about getting Alexa everywhere, from refrigerators to connected cars.

Alexa poses a big threat to Google's search-advertising business

Alexa's rise poses a big challenge to Google, because it doesn't rely on the search giant's stockpiles of data. Instead, to answer users' questions about traffic, restaurant hours, or trivia, it taps into a mix of other sources, including Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing search engine. The danger for Google is that as people use Alexa more, they'll potentially use Google's search engine less. 

But Alexa's threat to Google goes beyond search to advertising, its core business. Amazon has been quietly building its own advertising business. This year, it will reportedly start selling product placement and other ads that will be spoken by Alexa. Should Alexa's user base continue to grow as Amazon thinks it will, Alexa could start to steal advertising dollars and market share from Google. 

Amazon's challenge has forced the search giant to push forward with Google Assistant, its Alexa competitor. If it doesn't stem Amazon's growth now, Google could stand to lose major ground in the near future. 

All of Google's current crop of hardware is powered by Assistant or has the technology built-in. Assistant is the default voice agent on the Pixel phones. It's at the core of the Home smart speakers, the company's competitors to Amazon's Echo devices.

Amazon's Cloud Cam is a direct rival to Nest's cameras. Amazon

Bringing Nest back could boost Google Assistant, the search giant's Alexa rival

Folding Nest into its hardware division offers Google the opportunity to more easily incorporate Assistant into additional devices and give the smart agent new capabilities. Assistant could already be used to control most Nest devices, and Nest had already announced plans to build Assistant into its IQ cameras. But you can expect more such developments going forward.

That could make all the difference as Amazon continues to build out its lineup of Alexa-powered devices. In addition to its smart speakers, its Fire tablets and some of its Fire TV devices have the voice assistant built-in. And Amazon recently introduced the Cloud Cam, a competitor to Nest's camera lineup. 

Even with the move to bring Nest in house, there's still plenty of uncertainty and potential danger ahead for Google. It hasn't yet demonstrated a clear strategy for linking Google Assistant to its core search-advertising business, though it's made some moves with sponsored content and games from the likes of Disney. Just as importantly, Amazon's Echo line is still vastly outselling the Google Home lineup. 

But Google isn't out of the race. Even though the search giant is lagging behind in smart speaker sales, Google Assistant is on 200 million devices, when you factor in the Pixel devices and all the other Android phones that have the agent built-in. That's an install base Alexa has yet to match.

With their respective hardware efforts, Google and Amazon are betting on a future of the technology industry in which the center of computing moves away from the PC and the smartphone to other devices. For its part, Google is trying to build that future before anybody else does — particularly Amazon.

Original author: Matt Weinberger

John McNeill is leaving Tesla to join Lyft as COO, Bloomberg reported.He was head of sales and service at Tesla.The news broke as Tesla was conducting a Q4 earnings call.

Executive leadership changes are usually announced at the top of an earnings conference call, not in the middle of them.

But after Tesla reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter losses and while CEO Elon Musk was on a call with analysts, Musk announced thatJohn McNeill was leaving the company.

"McNeill was president of global sales and service at Tesla and an influential figure at the automaker," Bloomberg reported.

Musk said that he would be effectively taking over the position and that “there are no plans to search for a replacement.”

McNeill gained some serious attention in the industry when it was reported in 2017 that he would receive a $700,000 bonus if Tesla achieved its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3s per week, The Drive reported.

Tesla fell far short of that goal, so McNeill didn't have the cars he needed to sell.

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

Original author: Matthew DeBord

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Tesla

Tesla will take a self-driving car across the US in autonomous mode during the first half of 2018, CEO Elon Musk said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.  The company had originally planned to drive from Los Angeles to New York in a self-driving Model S or Model X during 2017.  Musk said the company delayed the demo because the code was not ready to roll out to all Tesla vehicles. 

Tesla will drive one of its vehicles across the US in autonomous mode sometime during the first half of 2018, CEO Elon Musk said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. 

Musk had originally aimed to do the road trip during 2017, but he hinted during a second-quarter earnings call last year that the event would be delayed. 

Tesla began rolling out its new Autopilot hardware in all cars in October 2016. Musk has said that the new hardware will be able to support full self-driving capabilities once the software is ready. But even then, a rollout will depend on whether or not regulations are in place for autonomous vehicles. 

During the call on Wednesday, Musk said that the reason the company has delayed the drive from Los Angeles to New York is because the code isn't quite ready to roll out to all Tesla vehicles. But Musk said that the technology is well on its way. 

"The upcoming autonomous coast-to-coast drive will showcase a major leap forward for our self-driving technology. Additionally, an extensive overhaul of the underlying architecture of our software has now been completed, which has enabled a step-change improvement in the collection and analysis of data and fundamentally enhanced its machine-learning capabilities," Musk stated in the fourth quarter earnings letter. 

Because all of Tesla's cars are equipped with the software and hardware necessary to collect data that can be used to improve its ML system, the electric-car company could have a huge edge against other automakers and tech companies working on autonomous vehicles.

"Our neural net, which expands as our customer fleet grows, is able to collect and analyze more high-quality data than ever before, enabling us to rollout a series of new Autopilot features in 2018 and beyond," Musk said in the letter. 

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

Original author: Cadie Thompson

Tesla CEO Elon Musk admires Henry Ford's most famous factory.River Rouge was a model of vertical integration.Musk wants to replicate it in the 21st century with Tesla's factories.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to reinvent the factory. In fact, as he made clear on a conference call after the company reported fourth-quarter 2017 earnings, he wants to make factories his most important product.

Automation is key. And Henry Ford and his most famous factory is Musk's inspiration.

"The Model T wasn’t the product, it was River Rouge," Musk said, in response to an analyst's question.

"Anybody could make the Model T," Musk said. "Not everybody could make River Rouge. The factory is going to be the product that has the long-term, sustained competitive advantage."

Way back in 2014, Tesla outlined how it's massive Nevada Gigafactory, where it manufactures batteries, might work. In a letter to investors, the company wrote: "Processed ore from mines will enter by railcar on one side and finished battery packs will exit on the other."

Anyone who knows the history of the auto industry will recognize in that description a reference to River Rouge, a sprawling facility that for decades symbolized the might of the US auto industry and the virtues of "vertical integration" in manufacturing. This is a simplification, but for all practical purposes, iron ore went in one end and finished cars rolled out the other. Everything required to build an automobile was on-site.

The gargantuan plant operated until 2004.

Tesla's ambitions for the Gigafactory are huge. It's been noted by industry observers that if the company succeeds in building 500,000 vehicles per year, there won't be enough lithium-ion batteries in the world to supply its needs. So Musk and his team must build the battery capacity that the globe currently lacks.

As Tesla strives to increase production, Musk has begun to stress that more vertical integration is the way forward for the car maker. This runs counter to a multi-decade trend in the auto industry, where so-called "lean" or "just in time" manufacturing has been the preferred operational mode.

Check out these images and stats from the River Rouge factory (they're from an old film that's on YouTube — it's worth watching but, at a half an hour in length, is a bit too long to embed here).

The factory was literally located on a river — the Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan, where Ford still has its HQ.

Wikimedia Commons

It consisted of nearly 100 buildings.

YouTube

That many structures required a lot of glass, to provide light and ventilation!

YouTube

Materials were moved in and around the plant by a vast network of railroad tracks.

YouTube

It goes without saying that the symbol of America's industrial age was a major employer in Michigan.

YouTube

But in many places, those employees were dwarfed by the plant's impressive machinery.

YouTube

Get the latest Ford stock price here.

Original author: Matthew DeBord

"If we can send a Roadster to the asteroid belt, we can probably solve Model 3 production," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.Musk was referring to SpaceX's successful Falcon Heavy launch on Tuesday, which included a 2008 Tesla Roadster as its payload.Tesla struggled to produce the Model 3 in 2017, but said it aims to increase its production rate to 5,000 vehicles per week by the end of the second quarter.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's space exploration company, SpaceX, launched its Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday. The rocket was SpaceX's largest to date and the largest launched in the United States since the 1970s, and Musk repeatedly warned about the potential for failure before the launch. 

But the launch went off without a hitch, leaving Musk feeling confident heading into Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call. 

"If we can send a Roadster to the asteroid belt, we can probably solve Model 3 production," he said during the call, referring to the 2008 Tesla Roadster that was included as the rocket's payload. SpaceX posted a livestream of the Roadster's journey toward Mars, which turned the launch into the world's best car commercial.

But here on Earth, Tesla is still struggling to produce the Model 3, its first mass-market electric car.

At one point, Musk said the company would be producing 20,000 Model 3 vehicles per month by December 2017, but it ended up delivering just over 1,500 Model 3 vehicles during the entire fourth quarter. The company hopes to increase its production rate to 2,500 per week by the end of the first quarter and 5,000 per week by the end of the second quarter, so it has plenty of work to do to reach those goals.

A CNBC report on January 25 included accounts from Tesla employees who claimed the company was making parts of the Model 3 batteries by hand with inexperienced workers in its Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. Tesla called the report "extremely misinformed and misleading" in an email to Business Insider.

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

Original author: Mark Matousek

Snapchat is launching a new feature, called "Live," which will let users view live TV broadcasts. It's going to debut alongside NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics, starting on Saturday. CEO Evan Spiegel has said that he sees deals like this as a way for Snapchat to make a bigger dent in Facebook's and Google's ad marketshare.

 

For the first time ever, Snapchat will let you use the photo chat app to watch live television, the company announced on Wednesday. And to kick it off, Snapchat will be airing highlights from the 2018 Winter Olympics on Saturday.

Snapchat is calling the service "Live." It allows broadcasters to air "snippets" of live content on Snapchat's Discover section.

Snapchat's first deal with Live is with NBCUniversal, which invested $500 million in Snapchat when the company went public. Basically, Snapchat Live will air a single clip per day of a "pivotal moment," simultaneous with NBC's primetime broadcast of the Olympics.

These clips will typically last 2-6 minutes, Snapchat confirmed with Business Insider. And users can opt in for push notifications when Snapchat will be showing a clip live.

Users will be able to watch key moments from the Pyeongchang Games in Snapchat's Discover section.Courtesy of SnapThe announcement comes on the heels of Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company, exceeding Wall Street earnings estimates on Tuesday. At the time, CEO Evan Spiegel lauded the company's efforts to partner with broadcasters as a way to capture some of the advertising dollars it's been losing to Facebook and Instagram.

The Live broadcast of the Olympics won't include advertising, The Wall Street Journal reported. But Snap told The Journal it is considering monetizing broadcasts in the future.

While it certainly could present a new revenue stream for Snapchat, not everybody is so convinced. Dan Rayburn, principal analyst at Frost and Sullivan, tells Business Insider that "it's too early to tell" what Snap could do with this — but that because the videos are so short, it may be harder for Snapchat to display multiple ads per video.

"We're still talking about short-form video here. This isn't a long video where they can put in 5 or 6 different ads. So I don't think this will impact Snap's bottom line at all," says Rayburn. 

And yet, he says, the Olympics is a good fit for Snapchat and its audience: "It's not surprising Snap is doing this. Look at Snap's audience, it's a younger demographic. They want to promote content they think will appeal to a younger crowd," says Rayburn.

Snapchat appears to be doubling down on an already successful partnership with NBCUniversal, which produces "Stay Tuned," an original, Snapchat-only news program. E! Network and EPSN also have partnerships for original programming on the platform.

Get the latest Snap stock price here.

Original author: Rachel Sandler

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

Original author: Lydia Ramsey

Ross Bailey, centre, the CEO and founder of Appear Here. Appear Here

Appear Here lets businesses rent pop-up space and has been called the "Airbnb of retail." The London startup raised $20 million last year and is currently planning international expansion. CEO Ross Bailey sat down with Business Insider to talk department stores, skipping university, and how to maintain company culture.

LONDON — Ross Bailey wants to talk about department stores.

"If analysts walked around some of them I think they would be trading at less than 30% their net asset value," Bailey says, referencing the already bombed out US "mall" sector.

He whips out his phone and starts scrolling through pictures that illustrate his point — dreadful carpets, too much stock cluttered together, and bad paintings hung up near concessions.

"If you saw that in someone's house you'd think they've got bad taste," he says in his typically enthusiastic style.

Why does he spend his time photographing poorly designed department stores? "It's my passion."

Appear Here, which Bailey founded in 2012, is a startup trying to do for retail space what Airbnb did for hotel rental. Bailey spends his days engrossed in retail — both good and bad.

His platform lets people and brands rent "pop up" space across cities, letting aspiring entrepreneurs trial ideas like takeaway porridge stalls or designers launch capsule collections.

Over 1,000 spaces are listed by Appear Here in the UK, with 1,000 in New York, where it launched last year, and even more in Paris. Everyone from Google to Moleskin has used the platform to book space and Made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing used Appear Here for the launch of his sweet brand Candy Kittens.

A pop-up in London's Old Street station publicising Netflix's Black Mirror and booked through Appear Here. Appear Here

Bailey had the idea for the business while running his own pop-up. He quit school at 16 to move from his home in Buckinghamshire to London and was involved in several entrepreneurial endeavours before running a temporary fashion stall in Soho to coincide with the 2012 London Olympics.

He noticed that people were coming up to him to ask about he'd managed to secure the space — Under Armour even approached him at one point.

"There's a pricing issue in real estate," Bailey, now 25, says. "It's based on 10-year leases. That model doesn't work anymore. Now we're seeing rent is a variable cost, not a fixed cost."

Retail occupancy rates are declining around the world as traditional players grapple with the rise of e-commerce. Shops are closing, sales are down, and fewer people are visiting.

Real estate needs to move more towards a more flexible pricing model, Bailey argues, like Uber's surge pricing or how hotel prices rise when a conference is in town.

"If you can make 70% of your revenue in December, you shouldn't be saying the same price for the space in January when there are no sales," Bailey argues.

"A few years ago people said it was a stupid idea, landlords will never do it. Now it's a case of OK, this is definitely going to happen."

Ten of the biggest landlords in the US have signed exclusive deals with Appear Here, including Blackstone and Simon, the biggest mall operator in the US. (Bailey didn't say whether he'd critiqued their carpets.)A New York pop-up organised by Warner Brothers using Appear Here's platform.Appear Here

Appear Here raised $12 million last year to go global and Bailey is currently scoping out a location for a new US office. Property VC Fifth Wall, which is backed by the likes of CBRE and Loewe's, has also invested an undisclosed sum and Bailey hints at another deal with a "fashion fund" that will be announced shortly.

It's all very impressive for someone still just in his mid-twenties. "Instead of uni, this has been my learning curve," Bailey says.

Six years on, what has he learned?

"I think I've definitely learned to delegate. You need to jump between high-level stuff and details."

Bailey logged 80 flights between London, Paris, and New York last year. He says he is always tired but it doesn't show — he is a whirlwind of ideas and opinions, talking a mile a minute. Towards the end of our conversation, though, a solitary yawn escapes.

"A big focus over the last six months was building out the exec team," Bailey says. Appear Here recently hired two execs from Uber to run the London and Paris offices. The company has also hired a new CTO and a new chief strategy officer.A pop-up for Kanye West's Life of Pablo album in London.Appear Here

The company has yet to file a set of full accounts, claiming small company exemption, but Appear Here says it has booking requests worth $110 million made every week across its platform — although not all are successfully fulfilled.

Appear Here charges a 15% booking fee, meaning that if even a small fraction of that $110 million figure is actually being booked, it is likely making tens of millions a year in revenue.

The future looks rosy for Appear Here but Bailey is keen to maintain the company culture as it grows. All employees use the same company issued notebooks and pens — a small touch, but one that's clearly important to Bailey — and all 70 staff still have lunch together on Fridays.

"You have to build a company that you're going to love and attract people with the same values," Bailey says.

Where did he learn that? During our interview, he mentions lunches with Net-A-Porter founder Massenet and hanging out with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in San Francisco ("He loved our brand").

Bailey in Appear Here's offices. Appear Here

Net-A-Porter and Airbnb are two of the three companies Bailey most admires. The other is Nike. He has just finished reading Shoe Dog, the memoir of Nike founder Phil Knight, and implores me to read it.

"Nike defined an industry," Bailey says. Before Nike, "if you weren't running track, you didn't buy trainers. We want to be the Nike for entrepreneurs and creatives."

Around 40% of pop-ups on Appear Here are food and drinks stalls, while the rest are fashion, consumer goods, or other retailers like florists. Around 125,000 people have registered on the platform to rent space.

"I love the idea that we can help everyone bring their ideas to life," Bailey says.

Tokyo, Manchester, and even Toulouse come up when we talk about cities that could be interesting to Appear Here — but Bailey won't be drawn on specifics.

"We've got to be where the best ideas are," he says simply.

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut