SpaceX is one giant grain-silo launch closer to reaching Mars.

The aerospace company, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, launched and landed an early prototype of a potentially revolutionary rocket system called Starship at 7:57 p.m. ET on Monday. The flight occured at SpaceX's expanding rocket factory, development, and test site in Boca Chica, a relatively remote region at the southeastern tip of Texas.

"Mars is looking real," Musk tweeted shortly after the flight of roughly 492 feet (150 meters) into the air, later adding: "Progress is accelerating."

SPadre.com, which has a camera trained on SpaceX's launch site from about 6 miles away on South Padre Island, captured the entire launch from start-to-finish with a 24-hour live feed on YouTube. In the background audio of a livestream hosted by NASASpaceFlight.com (which caught yet another view with a different camera and angle), audible cheers could be heard coming from on-site SpaceX employees and contractors.

The clip below shows a profile of the whole flight from SPadre's feed.

In the movie, the prototype takes off using a single Raptor rocket engine, translates across the launch site, deploys a set of short landing legs, and touches down on a concrete pad.

Musk later tweeted that Starship's next set of landing legs "will be ~60% longer" and that a version farther down the line "will be much wider & taller" like the legs of a Falcon 9 rocket booster, "but capable of landing on unimproved surfaces & auto-leveling" — in other words, optimized to landing on the moon or Mars.

LabPadre, which hosted a live feed of SpaceX's launch site featuring multiple camera views, also recorded the flight.

Below is that YouTube channel's edited recording of the experimental launch.

If Starship and its Super Heavy rocket booster end up being fully reusable, Musk has said, the system may reduce the cost of launching anything to space by about 1,000-fold and enable hypersonic travel around Earth.

But first, SpaceX has to see if its core designs for Starship work. To that end, the company is moving briskly to build, test, and launch prototypes.

Monday's "hop" flight — Musk said ahead of the flight that SpaceX was targeting an altitude of 150 meters (492 feet) — represents the first flight of any full-scale Starship hardware. It's also a crucial step toward informing future prototypes and, ultimately, launches that fly Starships into orbit around Earth.

SpaceX had hoped to attempt a flight of SN5 on July 27, but Hurricane Hanna damaged a component that had to be fixed, Musk said. A previous notice to airmen, or NOTAM, suggested the company would try to fly SN5 on Sunday — the same day as its attempt to land two NASA astronauts in the Gulf of Mexico — but the launch window came and went. (SpaceX's Demo -2 was an historic test flight of the company's Crew Dragon spaceship, a vehicle developed with about $2.7 billion in NASA funding.)

SpaceX's serial no. 5 or SN5 prototype of its Starship rocket system undergoes a static fire test with an attached Raptor engine on July 30, 2020, in Boca Chica, Texas. Elon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter

The above photo shows the SN5 prototype from above during a test-firing of its engine on July 30.

SN5 is the latest of several full-scale Starship prototypes that SpaceX has built in Texas. The previous versions have either crumpled during tests or, as was the case on May 29, catastrophically exploded.

Starship Mark 1, or MK1, sits on a stand in Boca Chica, Texas, in September 2019. The vehicle's hull was later breached during a pressure test that November. SpaceX Each failure has taught SpaceX valuable lessons to inform design and material changes — tweaks that Musk says are already being worked into SN6, SN7, and SN8 prototypes, which are in various stages of assembly within the company's expanding and bustling work yards in South Texas.

The steel vehicles don't have wing-like canards or nosecones attached, in case something goes wrong in their earliest phases of testing, so they look more like flying fuel tanks or grain silos than rocket ships.

However, as last year's test launch of an early Starship prototype called Starhopper showed, the flights of even experimental vehicles (shown above) can impress: On August 27, Starhopper soared to a similar height as SN5, translated across a launch site, and landed on a nearby concrete pad.

SpaceX obtained a launch license from the FAA to send Starship prototypes on a "suborbital trajectory," meaning the experimental rocket ships could reach dozens of miles above Earth before returning and landing. However, it's uncertain if SpaceX eventually plans to launch SN5 on such an ambitious flight path after Monday's "hop."

The company couldn't attempt more ambitious flights until late August at the soonest, though. On July 23, SpaceX asked the FCC for permission to communicate with prototypes flying as high as 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) within the next seven months. The earliest date noted on the request, which is still pending, is August 18.

Musk said after the flight of SN5 that the next phase of testing won't fly prototypes very high, at least initially.

"We'll do several short hops to smooth out launch process, then go high altitude with body flaps," he tweeted on Tuesday.

SpaceX is also pursuing a launch license for full-scale, orbital-class Starship-Super Heavy vehicles. Musk hopes Starship will launch a cargo mission to Mars in 2022, send a private crew around the moon in 2023, return NASA astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024, and even begin sending people to Mars the same year.

This story has been updated with new information.

Original author: Dave Mosher and Morgan McFall-Johnsen

The EU Commission has announced it is launching an in-depth probe into Google's proposal to acquire wearables maker Fitbit."The Commission is concerned that the proposed transaction would further entrench Google's market position in the online advertising markets," it said in a statement.Google says the deal is about the devices, not the data.But after Google broke a major promise after acquiring DoubleClick in 2008, regulators are wary. Last week's antitrust hearing was a reminder of that.Are you a Google or Fitbit insider with more to share? You can contact this reporter securely using encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 628-228-1836) or encrypted email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It's been nine months since Google announced its intentions to buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion, and the deal still hasn't closed.

Now, the companies will have to wait even longer: the EU Commission just announced it has launched an in-depth probe into the deal with a decision to be made by Dec. 9, potentially extending the entire process to over a year.

Compared with talk of Microsoft potentially snapping up TikTok for as much as $50 billion, Google's Fitbit deal might look like small potatoes, but it still would be one of the largest acquisitions Google has ever made.

More importantly, the data of more than 28 million users would be sucked up into the Google mothership, and it's this bit that regulators are worried about. 

Or, as the commission put it in a statement announcing the investigation:

"The Commission is concerned that the proposed transaction would further entrench Google's market position in the online advertising markets by increasing the already vast amount of data that Google could use for personalization of the ads it serves and displays."

In an effort to push the deal through, Google promised to keep this data in a separate "silo" away from its advertising business, but the EU said the pledge was "insufficient" and didn't cover "all the data that Google would access as a result of the transaction and would be valuable for advertising purposes." 

The last time Brussels launched an all-out probe into one of Google's acquisitions was in 2007 when it investigated the company's plans to buy the internet advertising company DoubleClick.

At the time, Google promised it wouldn't combine DoubleClick's database of user's web browsing information with Google's own account data, and the deal was approved following an extended investigation by the EU.

Then in 2016, the company quietly removed that firewall and just meshed the two together anyway.

Four years later, Google's move is coming back to bite it as regulators decide whether to approve or veto the Fitbit deal.

Indeed, during last week's antitrust hearing, Val Demmings (D-FL) pressed Google CEO Sundar Pichai on whether he signed off on Google ultimately merging DoubleClick data with its own in 2016.

"I am concerned that Google's bait and switch with DoubleClick is part of a broader pattern where Google buys up companies for the purposes of surveilling Americans," Demmings told Pichai.

Like DoubleClick, user data is at the center of Google's Fitbit acquisition, and consumer groups from around the world have petitioned the regulators to closely scrutinize the deal. The European consumer organization BEUC said the deal would be a "test case" for analyzing potential data monopolies brought about through an acquisition.

The Commission apparently listened, and says it will now investigate whether obtaining Fitbit's data would put Google at an unfair advantage, what the merger could mean for digital healthcare, and whether Google could "degrade the interoperability" of rival wearables that connect with Android.

Google, for its part, insists this is all about hardware. "This deal is about devices, not data," said Google's SVP of devices and services Rick Osterloh in a statement, echoing a sentiment that Google has been sharing with reporters since the deal was announced.

And if it were just about hardware, then Google would have a case. After all, Apple dominates the wearables market right now – something we were reminded of last week when the company announced its Q3 earnings.

But the commission is more interested in the potential ramifications of Google grabbing Fitbit's data trove, and experts say the DoubleClick case is a lingering reminder for them to tread carefully. 

Some commentators also believe that privacy should play a more central role in the investigation, which is currently focused primarily on competition.

"I've argued generally that privacy is a competition problem," Tommaso Valletti, a professor of economics at Imperial College and prior chief economist of the Directorate General for Competition, told Business Insider.

"I really hope that we won't repeat the same mistakes with DoubleClick," he said.

Original author: Hugh Langley

Self-driving-car engineer Anthony Levandowski was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a federal judge in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, after pleading guilty to one count of trade secret theft in May.The once-celebrated engineer was at the center of Waymo's legal fight with Uber.Levandowski was a founding member of Google's "Project Chauffeur," which eventually became Waymo.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After pleading guilty to trade secret theft, Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer at the center of a massive legal fight between Waymo and Uber, was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a federal judge Tuesday afternoon.

He also agreed to pay Google $756,499 in restitution, to compensate the company for helping the government prosecute the case. Levandowski will not begin his prison sentence until the COVID-19 pandemic has entirely passed, and will also be charged a fine of $95,000.

Levandowski, 40, was indicted on 33 criminal counts of trade secret theft and attempted trade secret theft in August 2019.

The Department of Justice alleged he had left Google with troves of confidential technical documents with the intent to use them for his personal gain. Those same charges were at the heart of Waymo's 2017 lawsuit against Uber, which did not name Levandowski as a defendant.

The engineer left Google's team — which he had helped found in 2009 — in January 2016 to found a trucking-focused startup called Otto. The Google effort, meanwhile, took on the name Waymo in December 2016, when it became a standalone company under the Alphabet umbrella. A few months after Otto was founded, Uber acquired the small outfit for a reported $680 million and put Levandowski in charge of its entire self-driving effort. 

Waymo alleged that the ride-hailing giant set up the deal with Levandowski so it could use Google IP to accelerate its self-driving research, which then-CEO Travis Kalanick believed was key to Uber's long-term survival. After a year of legal wrangling, the case went to trial in February 2018, only to be settled within a week. By then, Kalanick had fired Levandowski, who declined to testify in the case, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Levandowski soon founded another self-driving truck startup, Pronto, but resigned his post as CEO when the DOJ indicted him. He initially declared himself innocent and promised to fight the charges, which could have landed him in prison for decades. In March, he accepted a deal in which he pled guilty to one of the 33 counts, involving a weekly report that tracked the Google team's progress, detailed technical challenges, and included notes on how the team had solved various problems in the past.

As part of his plea, the engineer acknowledged that that document counted as a trade secret, and that he had intended to use it for personal gain. He also admitted to downloading about 14,000 files from a Google server and moving them onto his personal computer. "I'm happy to put this behind me," he told Wired at the time. 

In his hearing, Levandowski's attorneys asked that he serve 12 months in home confinement at his house in Marin County, California, citing respiratory problems (he's suffered two bouts of pneumonia in recent years) and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Levandowski also proposed he do community service involving talking to engineering students about lessons from his case. 

"Mr Levandowski can solve big problems," Judge William Alsup — who also tried the Waymo v. Uber case — said. "I respect that. I want you to know that." But, Alsup said, "This was not a small crime...This was the biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen." He cited the importance of deterring others from committing such crimes. "I want them to think, 'I could end up in federal prison.'"

Alsup also instructed Levandowski that, after serving his sentence, he must give a speech to a total of 200 people, titled "Why I Went to Federal Prison." 

Original author: Alex Davies

Social media platforms have enacted bans on disinformation related to COVID-19 and other issues, but researchers say that banning content after it's already gone viral can do more harm than good.  For example, the platforms recently banned a viral video of doctors urging COVID-19 treatment with hydroxychloroquine, which federal agencies have called ineffective and dangerous. That ban prompted news coverage and charges by conspiracy theorists that the video contained truth being suppressed by authorities. Social media platforms say they are addressing disinformation as quickly as they can.  Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Disinformation campaigns can rocket to virality by capitalizing on the very bans that social media companies have enacted to address them, researchers and analysts say. 

A key case in point is the "America's Frontline Doctors" video posted on July 27 in which a white-coated group urged treatment of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine, which federal agencies have called ineffective and potentially dangerous. The video went viral after President Trump tweeted it, and the platforms removed it that day. But posts about it spiked July 28, the day after Twitter banned it, researchers say. Why? Viral posts about a video that was suddenly unavailable piqued interest even more, they say. 

The social media companies' bans are "stopping viral disinformation at a very high rate of engagement — once they have already been established," says Annie Klomhaus, cofounder and chief operating officer of the Austin internet and social media research firm Yonder. By cutting off the content after it's already gained so much steam, the bans end up putting the disinformation in a media spotlight. In the case of the "Frontline Doctors" video and the controversial drug, its proponents can then claim the ban is part of a suppression campaign connected to the government, furthering their conspiracy theory. 

In the case of the video, it spread through a formula that's proven incredibly effective for disseminating other messages (or disinformation), too. The groups pass around videos and other disinformation in private groups, which Facebook doesn't closely monitor. Once the content has momentum, users post it to Twitter and seek to engage large influential accounts that share the same ideology. At that point, it is difficult for social media companies to take any action that doesn't exacerbate the issue, in part because of intense coverage by traditional media, which will write up both the fact that disinformation has gone viral and its removal.

"The companies are in a really hard place," Klomhaus says. "They're trying to do the right thing,  but addressing something that is already viral is a really hard problem." 

Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, who has authored recent widely-cited research on social media disinformation, agrees. 

"By the time platforms even notice the existence of such a video, it's often gone viral, and millions of people have seen it, possibly being misled on important issues such as the effectiveness of supposed medical cures," he said. "What's more, the very act of taking down such content can feed into conspiracy theories that the material is being suppressed by malign interests."

Twitter has said its moderators take action swiftly when disinformation is discovered. In the case of the "Frontline Doctors" video, a Twitter spokesperson says, "Tweets with the video were in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy. We are taking action in line with our policy."

A Facebook spokesperson said, "It took us several hours to enforce against the video and we're doing a review to understand why this took longer than it should have." The company said it has removed more than 7 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram for violating its policy against sharing COVID-19 misinformation.

Some familiar social media influencers helped to make the "Frontline Doctors" video go viral. The video picked up momentum in private Facebook groups, then made the jump to Twitter, where the right-wing youth group Turning Point USA amplified it. (That group has opposed masks and social distancing despite its cofounder's death from COVID-19.) 

The far-right blog Breitbart News picked the story up, as did several programs on a favorite news source of the president, Fox News. The video reached millions when it was tweeted by President Trump and his son, Don Jr. This led to bans by Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Those bans were widely covered by news agencies, and the disinformation campaign reached its peak of 120,000 social media posts about the drug the day after Twitter banned the video. In the week before, there were 18,000 posts about the drug, according to researchers at Yonder. 

Records on the Politwoops website show President Trump deleted tweets promoting a disinformation video. Politwoops/Propublica

This may have been exactly what the groups promoting the video wanted. One of the main promoters of the video appears to confirm that view. 

A doctor thrust into the spotlight by the video, Stella Immanuel, posted on Twitter that her religious ministry – which says some health issues are caused by people having sex dreams about "demons" – benefited from the TV coverage brought about by the social media ban. 

"CNN, MSNBC etc are doing free commercials on our deliverance ministry," she said in a tweet on July 28, the day after Twitter banned the video. 

Immanuel did not respond to several requests for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When asked about his sharing of the video last week, President Trump said, "[Immanuel] said that she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients, and I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her."

The group is backed by Tea Party Patriots, a conservative group that has supported protests against lockdown measures.  The New York Times reported that the group posted the video to its YouTube channel on July 27 before it went viral. 

Klomhaus of Yonder notes that a similar hydroxychloroquine disinformation campaign followed this path in April, and more disinformation campaigns are likely to exploit this process, especially as the pursuit of a coronavirus cure continues, along with the upcoming election.

"As a vaccine comes closer to coming out, this narrative will probably continue," Klomhaus said. "If it follows the previous pattern of recurring in a few months, that would put this kind of viral politicalization of the virus squarely right in front of the election." 

For example, there are many many conspiracy theories about Microsoft founder Bill Gates and COVID-19 that have no basis in fact that are spreading in similar ways on social media, Klomhaus says. 

Barrett of NYU says social media platforms must address the holes in their techniques for addressing disinformation, because there's no way the problem is going away in the leadup to November's election. 

"Unfortunately, the platforms have no choice but to improve their technical and human content moderation methods and press ahead with removing content that is dangerous to users," he said. "The platforms cannot just throw up their hands and say the problem has no solution."

Original author: Jeff Elder

Hi and welcome to Insider Advertising, weekly edition. I'm Lucia Moses, deputy editor. To get this in your inbox daily, go here.

This week: Microsoft's play for TikTok, Netflix's new secret weapon, and takeaways of the Facebook ad boycott.

Original author: Lucia Moses

A explosion at a port rocked the Lebanese capital city of Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least dozens of people.As videos of the explosion spread across social media sites, some users claimed an atomic bomb caused the disaster due to the appearance of a mushroom cloud.The Lebanese prime minister says the blast came from a stockpile of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse.Nuclear weapons experts say the detonation was definitely not triggered by an atomic bomb.Atomic explosions are characterized by a blinding flash of light, a pulse of searing heat, and radioactive fallout, none of which were detected.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When an enormous explosion created a mushroom cloud over Beirut, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands more, online commentators and conspiracy theorists quickly jumped to a frightening claim: A nuclear bomb had gone off in Lebanon's capital city. But as state officials say, and contrary to those fast-spreading rumors, the explosion was almost certainly not caused by a nuclear weapon.

Even before Lebanese officials said the explosion was caused by a large stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at the port, according to The Guardian, experts who study nuclear weapons quickly and unequivocally rejected the idea that Beirut had been hit with a nuclear bomb.

Key to those rejections are the videos that Beirut residents managed to record video of the huge detonation.

People trained cameras on the Beirut port at the time of the blast because a worrisome cloud of smoke rose beforehand. Some of those videos show small flashes of light and reports (or sounds) that are distinctive to fireworks. Moments later, the huge explosion — which came with a visible blast wave and mushroom-like cloud of smoke — rocked the area, destroying nearby buildings and shattering distant windows.

In a tweet that accumulated thousands of likes and reshares before it was deleted, one user wrote: "Good Lord. Lebanese media says it was a fireworks factory. Nope. That's a mushroom cloud. That's atomic."

Vipin Narang, who studies nuclear proliferation and strategy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, immediately spiked the claim. "I study nuclear weapons. It is not," Narang tweeted on Tuesday.

Martin Pfeiffer, a PhD candidate at the University of New Mexico who researchers the human history of nuclear weapons, also rejected assertions on social media that a "nuke" caused the blast. "Obviously not a nuke," Pfeiffer tweeted, saying later: "That's a fire setting off explosives or chemicals." 

Pfeiffer indicated that the explosion lacked two hallmarks of a nuclear detonation: a "blinding white flash" and a thermal pulse, or surge of heat, which would otherwise start fires all over the area and severely burn people's skin.

The explosion did trigger a powerful blast wave that apparently shattered windows across Beirut, and it was briefly visible as an expanding, shell-like cloud — something often seen in historic footage of nuclear detonations. But Pfeiffer noted such blast-wave clouds, known to weapons researchers as a "Wilson Cloud," are made when humid air gets compressed and causes the water in it to condense. In other words: They aren't unique to nuclear bombs.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation reshared on Twitter by Narang suggests the blast was equivalent to around 240 tons of TNT, or about 10 times as large as the US military's "mother of all bombs" or MOAB is capable of unleashing. By contrast, the "Little Boy" bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 was about 1,000 times as powerful.

As a counterpoint to suggestions the Beirut explosion was caused by a nuclear weapon, Pfeiffer offered a video showing the detonation of a rocket-propelled "Davy Crockett" nuclear weapon, which exploded with a force equivalent to about 20 tons of TNT.

The Davy Crockett was one-tenth as strong as the Beirut explosion, but had a distinctive flash that's missing from Tuesday's blast. No reports suggest there was any radioactive fallout after the Beirut blast, which would have been quickly detected.

It's not crazy to wonder if a large blast in a populous city might be an act of nuclear terrorism, of course. In fact, it's one of 15 disaster scenarios that the US government has simulated and planned for (to the point it created scripts for local authorities to use after such an attack).

But in this case, Beirut's tragedy was not in any way nuclear.

Original author: Dave Mosher

On Tuesday, Uber announced that corporate employees will have their voluntary work from home policy extended through June 2021. Corporate employees will also be given a $500 stipend for a home office setup. Uber is joining a growing list of companies that have extended their work-from-home polices into 2021.The company has still not issued a uniform policy for drivers during this time.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On Tuesday, Uber announced that corporate employees will be allowed to voluntarily work from home through June 2021. 

"As a company built on flexible working, we want to provide our team with flexibility, choice and longer term clarity so they can plan ahead," the company said in a statement to Business Insider.

In order to accommodate this change, Uber will be offering a $500 stipend to help employees with their home office setups. 

If local offices open before June 2021, employees will have the option returning to the office if they feel comfortable. Uber said that whatever decision employees make will not factor into performance reviews.

While the company said it will be reevaluating the policy for a possible extension in the spring of 2021, the policy itself will not be shortened.

For drivers, Uber is offering financial assistance guides and a website for drivers to find other forms of employment if they are unable to make the same amount of money as they were in March before the coronavirus pandemic curbed the demand for ride sharing. The company has not announced any stipend for drivers at this time.

Uber is joining a long list of companies that have extended their work-from-home policies into 2021. Facebook and Google have also announced similar policies.

Original author: Barbara Smith

In an interview with The Verge this week, Sen. Ron Wyden, a key voice in Congress on internet policy issues, accused President Donald Trump of "working the refs, bullying the tech companies, and forcing Twitter and other platforms to print his lies."

In a surprising move Monday evening, the Trump administration withdrew its nomination of Michael O'Rielly, a Republican, to serve another term as one of the five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission.

Wyden called the administration's reversal a "disaster" and warned that pushing nominees to the FCC — an independent agency — who only swear loyalty to the president could cause the agency to lose "any sense of independence," according to The Verge.

"One nomination after another is brought up, and the litmus test is: will the nominee do exactly what the president of the United States wants to do on any given issue at any particular moment?" Wyden told The Verge.

The Trump administration pulled O'Rielly's nomination just days after he expressed concerns about the FCC regulating how social media companies moderate content on their platforms, which Trump's controversial executive order seeks to do by empowering regulators to curb the companeies' legal protections.

"The First Amendment protects us from limits on speech imposed by the government — not private actors — and we should all reject demands, in the name of the First Amendment, for private actors to curate or publish speech in a certain way," O'Rielly said during a virtual event hosted by The Media Institute.

"Like it or not, the First Amendment's protections apply to corporate entities, especially when they engage in editorial decision making," he said.

Trump issued the executive order — which specifically named Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube — in May after Twitter fact-checked his tweets falsely claiming that mail-in ballots lead to voter fraud, alleging that the platforms are biased against him and conservative viewpoints.

The order directs federal regulators, including the FCC, to review, and ultimately curtail, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives social media companies broad legal authority to moderate speech on their platforms.

Legal and tech policy experts said the order was legally dubious and wouldn't hold up in court. (It is already facing one such legal challenge).

"The First Amendment protects Twitter from Trump. It does not protect Trump from Twitter," Ashkhen Kazaryan, the director of civil liberties at the libertarian think tank TechFreedom told Business Insider's Sonam Sheth and Ashley Gold.

Wyden, one of the co-authors of Section 230 — which is widely credited with enabling the growth of today's internet platforms — also slammed Trump's order.

"This is a deeply flawed idea. Beyond the fact that this is a colossal Constitutional mess, I don't think even Donald Trump believes he's going to be able to get away with this," Wyden told The Verge.

Trump isn't alone in his dislike of Section 230, however. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have ramped up their criticisms of Section 230 in recent months, but for very different reasons.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has also called for Section 230 to be revoked, citing platforms' reluctance to enforce their policies against misinformation and hate speech, arguing the current law disincentivizes them from taking action because they're not held liable for content published by users.

Republicans, in particular Sen. Josh Hawley, have pushed to get rid of Section 230 protections in an effort to combat what they claim is anti-conservative bias by social media companies. Lawsuits alleging such bias have been largely rejected by courts, also on the grounds that the First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies.

Original author: Tyler Sonnemaker

Disney's parks and products business missed out $3.5 billion in operating income during the third quarter, as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered its theme parks around the world. Disney's theme parks, including its flagship Walt Disney World location, are reopening in phases. But Wall Street analysts have said the business still faces a long recovery.Analysts at Goldman Sachs, while optimistic about the long-term recovery of Disney's parks, projected in July a downside scenario in which Disney's parks business doesn't fully recover until 2023 because of social-distancing constraints.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

This post was originally published on July 16, and has been updated to reflect Disney's third quarter earnings.

Disney's parks and products division missed out on billions in potential operating income last quarter as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered its theme parks around the world. 

The media giant said on Thursday that the segment took a $3.5 billion hit to operating income during its third quarter, ending in June, as revenue fell 85% year over year. The parks segment, which posted a $2 billion operating loss, was the hardest hit business within the company, according to the company.

Disney's US and Disneyland Paris locations were closed for the full quarter, while its parks in Asia were closed for part of the period.

Disney is reopening, in phases, many of its parks including its flagship, Florida-based location, Walt Disney World.

But Wall Street analysts have said the business still faces a long recovery.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Wells Fargo estimated that Disney's park business, which had been its most stable business until the pandemic, could weigh on the company's financials through its next fiscal year, or until a vaccine for the coronavirus is publicly available. The parks aren't yet reopening to full capacity, as part of the company's safety precautions.

"Until the time at which there is significantly improved testing and/or a widely available vaccine, it's tough for us to imagine long lines for Rise of the Resistance, no matter how much folks might want to go to WDW deep down," Wells Fargo analysts wrote in April.

During the second quarter, Disney also missed out on $1 billion in operating income due to park closures. Disney World, Disney's largest park by attendance, was closed for about two weeks during that period.

Goldman Sachs analysts wrote on July 13 that they're assuming attendance and revenues at Disney's parks, resorts, cruises, and experiences won't fully recover until fiscal year 2022 as a base case, or 2023 at worst. However, the analysts said they expect to update their models based on the latest earnings report. 

"When Disney reopened its Shanghai park in May, the company operated well below the 30% capacity constraint imposed by the government and ramped up to 30% over the following weeks," the analysts wrote. "While operating at these levels may reduce operating losses in both Disney and Comcast's parks divisions, it may not lead to a significant positive contribution to operating profit either."

Goldman Sachs' downside scenario for Disney estimates 30% less revenue from Disney's parks and experiences in 2021 than the firm's $15.75 billion projection, and 20% less revenue in 2022 than its $22.8 billion projection.

During Disney's 2019 fiscal year that ended in September, the parks and experiences division posted $26.2 billion in revenue, more than any other segment. The division brought in $13.9 billion in revenue during the first nine months of fiscal 2020, 30% less than during prior year.

As of now:

Walt Disney World is openDisney's Shanghai and Tokyo theme parks are openDisneyland Paris is openHong Kong Disneyland, which reopened on June 18, was forced to close again, after a surge in cases led the local government to bring back social-distancing measuresDisneyland in California is still closed due to state restrictions

Disney World is by far Disney's largest theme park by attendance. It recorded 58.8 million visitors in 2019, 80% more than its next most-visited park, the Themed Entertainment Association estimated. Disney took the rare step of shutting Disney World's gates on March 15, as the coronavirus pandemic first gripped the US.

The Goldman Sachs analysts said they're confident Disney's parks business will eventually recover, with a little help from the broader Disney machine, including its new streaming service, Disney Plus.

"We believe Disney's track record of material outperformance in Parks and Film will persist as the economy recovers from the COVID pandemic, and that synergies between these segments and Disney+ are underappreciated by investors," the note said. "For example, we anticipate that over time marketing costs for tent-pole movie franchises such as Marvel and Star Wars films and for its parks and resorts could trend down as some of this spend could be supplemented or replaced by interconnected Disney+ series."

Evidence from UBS also suggests that a subset of parkgoers are eager to get back to Disney World, pandemic or not. 

The firm surveyed 2,000 adults in June, and found that about 30% of respondents had to either cancel or postpone planned visits to a Disney park due to the pandemic. Of those respondents, 48% planned to return within the first six months of reopening, while 12% had no plans to return in the first 18 months.

Social distancing was the most common reason given among those who didn't plan to return to Disney parks right away.

"We believe this provides a good sign for demand once parks are able to open," the UBS analysts wrote in a June 25 note, which also said "a vaccine is key not only for demand but capacity limits."

Original author: Ashley Rodriguez

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Microsoft's Xbox One X and Xbox One S. Microsoft The Xbox One X is still the most powerful video game console on the market, and Microsoft has confirmed that Xbox One games will be playable on its upcoming Xbox Series X as well.Low cost subscription services, like Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass, also bring tons of value and affordable games to the Xbox One.Below, we've compiled the best deals on Xbox consoles, games, accessories, and subscriptions.Right now, "Rage 2" is on sale for $10.99, which is $49 off its regular price.

Microsoft debuted its first Xbox console less than 20 years ago, but the brand has blossomed into one of the titans of the video game industry. Its current flagship console, the Xbox One, has shipped more than 50 million units worldwide and dedicated fans are eagerly awaiting the launch of the next Xbox console, the Xbox Series X, later this fall.

For now, the Xbox One X is the most powerful video game console on the market, out performing the PlayStation 4 Pro and Nintendo Switch. The Xbox One S is a strong console as well, boasting 4K resolution playback, HDR support, and a host of media center features that make it an ideal centerpiece for your home entertainment setup.

Microsoft has worked to create a robust ecosystem for Xbox fans, which will include letting them play Xbox One games on the upcoming Series X. Services, like Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass, also bring extra value to the console, offering thousands of games to players for a low price.

We've collected the best deals on Xbox One consoles, games, subscriptions, and accessories below. These should come in handy whether you're an Xbox veteran looking forward to the Series X, or looking to pick up your very first video game console.

Prices and links are current as of 8/4/2020. Added new Xbox One video game deals. Removed deals that are no longer active. Updated by Kevin Webb.

Original author: Kevin Webb

Apple announced in June that it will start making its own chips for future Mac computers, enabling its laptops and desktops to run iPhone and iPad apps.But that will pose a challenge for Apple's iOS developers, who are used to creating apps centered on touch-based interactions and smaller screen sizes, developers say.Apple isn't the first to tackle the challenge of creating an app ecosystem that works seamlessly across mobile and desktop — Microsoft has made attempts at this as well.Overall, app developers will have to do a lot more than simply recompile their apps for Apple's Mac software, developers say.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple dropped a bombshell announcement at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June: It would begin making its own chips for future Mac computers, moving away from its longtime chip partner Intel. The move was expected, as reports from Bloomberg had previously detailed, but it was still the most significant news to come out one of Apple's biggest events of the year.

Apple spent the latter portion of its keynote detailing the benefits that such a shift would yield for both the customers using Apple's products and the developers creating apps for them. Andreas Wendker, Apple's vice president of tools and frameworks engineering, showed how iPhone apps like the Calm meditation app and the game "Monument Valley 2" would run seamlessly on the Mac since both platforms would now run on the same architecture.

But there's a big question that will largely be left up to developers to answer: Why would anyone want to use touch-based iPhone apps on a Mac computer to begin with?

Apple has always maintained that apps should be designed and tailored for a specific platform rather than simply replicated across devices. That approach was a key driver behind the success of the iPad and Apple Watch, as apps for those platforms are much more than just retooled iPhone apps.

That's likely to be the biggest challenge for developers looking to bring their iPhone apps to the Mac once new computers powered by Apple's chips launch, developers say.

"I think developers are going to require essentially a whole new kind of a learning experience, figuring out what works on the Macintosh," James Cuda, cofounder and CEO of Savage Interactive, the company behind the popular sketching and drawing app Procreate, said to Business Insider.

'They just don't have that experience'

Apple CEO Tim Cook discussing Apple silicon at WWDC Apple

App makers looking to bring their programs to the Mac will likely have to rethink how their apps will work since they'll have to be compatible with mice and keyboards rather than touch screens.

"These are people who have had their careers as mobile developers for over a decade now," Eric Puidokas, president of the weight loss app Lose It!, told Business Insider. "And they just don't have that experience."

Yaron Inger, the chief technology officer at Lightricks, the firm behind the photo editing app Facetune, cited the app's touch-centric tools for editing portraits as a big driver behind its appeal. For Mac devices that lack a touch screen, Lightricks will have to find other ways to make an app like Facetune stand out.

Another question is whether it's worth it for app developers to invest in redesigning their apps for the desktop. Some companies, particularly game developers and publishers, might prefer to prioritize iOS development because of the iPhone's scale and reach, says Thor Fridriksson, CEO of Teatime Games, which makes the mobile trivia game called Trivia Royale.

"The developer has to kind of decide whether it makes sense to use the resources to make a better experience on the mobile app and try to access the billions of users that are in the mobile market, or if it's worth its while to try and create an experience on the Mac," Fridriksson said to Business Insider. "And I think it's just going to be different from game to game."

Succeeding where Microsoft has struggled

A demo of Windows 8 from 2012 Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider

Apple has already been laying the groundwork for this type of switch by making tools available for developers to port their existing iPad apps to the Mac through its Catalyst program. The company also began requiring developers to shift all their apps to 64-bit architecture rather than 32-bit as far back as 2017. 

Even so, creating programs that are just as useful, enjoyable, and intuitive on the Mac as they are on the iPhone may not be so simple for mobile app makers. Developers have struggled with the tools available as part of Apple's Catalyst program, Bloomberg reported in October, as some app makers told the publication they encountered user interface issues with scrolling, the keyboard, and other features.  

Microsoft, with its ill-fated Windows 8 operating system from 2012, had also tried to create software that could work universally across all types of computers, whether they were touch-based or relied on the mouse and keyboard. What it ended up with, however, was a less user-friendly interface that didn't excel as a mobile or desktop operating system.

Of course, Microsoft's approach was much different than Apple's. Unlike Windows 8, macOS is still a completely separate operating system designed for laptops and desktops, while Apple's iPhones and iPads are powered by its iOS and iPadOS software.

And Apple's history in creating its own chips for other products like the iPhone and offering programs like Catalyst for developers could give it an advantage.

"Partly just historical and structural, Apple is better prepared for this than Microsoft and Windows are," Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, previously said to Business Insider.

The advantages of bringing iPhone apps to the Mac

Apple's iPhone 11 lineup Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

Despite the obstacles that might lie ahead, developers are confident that the shift to Apple silicon will ultimately mean more choice and flexibility for both app creators and Apple device owners.

It'll be beneficial for developers who are interested in expanding to the desktop but may not have the resources to build a full macOS app. Companies that prefer pointing users to their app rather than their website may also find the ability to port iPhone apps over to macOS useful. 

Puidokas considers Lose It! to be one of those companies.

"I could see this starting to supplant web apps," Puidokas said. "For a company like Lose It! — where we have our website and our iPad app — I would prefer people use the iPad app."

Plus, some app makers are looking forward to performance gains that may come from using Apple's own chips over Intel's. Sharad Shankar, cofounder and CEO of Andor Communications, which offers a photo-editing and retouching app called LightX, said the shift to Apple silicon will be helpful for apps that heavily rely on machine learning and artificial intelligence.

For an app like LightX, this would likely mean a boost in performance when processing edits.

"Doing high-resolution image processing becomes quite easy," Shankar said to Business Insider. "Understanding your portraits becomes quite easy, and segmenting your image becomes quite easy."

All told, the introduction of Apple's own silicon for the Mac should make it easier than ever for app makers to bring their mobile programs to MacBooks and iMacs. But developers will still have to make sure they're doing more than simply porting their apps over to the Mac.

"I don't think it's going to be as easy as just compiling their iOS app for Macintosh," Cuda said. "I think that to really make a beautiful product, something that customers really enjoy, I think there's going to have to be a lot of time spent on the interface and on the user experience to really embrace what a Macintosh is."

Original author: Lisa Eadicicco

Sen. Ron Wyden said he will introduce a new privacy bill that would ban government agencies from buying people's personal information from data brokers to skirt standard court orders. The proposed legislation would "be very specific about making sure that you just don't have this backdoor to throw in the Fourth Amendment in the trash can," Wyden told The Verge in an interview.The bill, named "The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale," is expected to roll out in the coming weeks.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said he is rolling out a new piece of legislation in the next few weeks that would ban government agencies, such as law enforcement, from purchasing people's data and obtaining their personal information.

In an interview with The Verge, Wyden outlined his plans for the bill, named "The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale," which would prevent governments from skirting the standard court orders and buying from data brokers.

"I don't think Americans' Constitutional rights ought to vanish when the government uses a credit card instead of a court order," Wyden told the outlet. "I mean, surveillance, folks, is surveillance. And what I want to do is close this loophole."

Wyden also notes that, as a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he's privy to more intel on "shady data brokers" selling American user data and said what the general public is informed of is the "tip of the iceberg." The bill is slated to roll out in the next few weeks, per the report.

The proposed legislation comes after Sen. Wyden introduced the "Mind Your Own Business Act" in October 2019. The act was designed to keep tech executives in check by threatening up to 20 years of jail time if they are caught lying to the Federal Trade Commission about privacy violations.

Wyden is a coauthor of Section 230, the provision made to a 1996 internet law that shields tech companies with an online presence, like Twitter and Facebook, from being regulated as third-party content publishers, meaning they are not liable for the content that users post on their platforms.

In his interview with The Verge, Wyden also said President Trump's handling of the Federal Communications Commission is a "disaster" following his renomination block of Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Reilly, who did not share the president's opposition to Section 230 as well as a strong desire to crack down on the platforms offered by tech companies.

"I shudder to think of a day in which the Fairness Doctrine could be reincarnated for the Internet, especially at the ironic behest of so-called free speech 'defenders,'" O'Reilly said last week according to a Deadline report.

Read Wyden's interview with The Verge here.

Original author: Katie Canales

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley just completed a test flight of SpaceX's new Crew Dragon spaceship.The Crew Dragon survived a fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere, deployed its parachutes, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday — a process that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called his "biggest concern" for the mission.Watch the reentry and landing of the world's first crewed commercial spaceship in the video below.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SpaceX and NASA just accomplished a historic feat: the first-ever crewed commercial spaceflight mission.

After a high-risk, fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere, the Crew Dragon spaceship successfully deployed four parachutes to land in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, of the coast of Pensacola, Florida.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley launched aboard the SpaceX-designed Crew Dragon two months prior, on May 30. The capsule then docked to the International Space Station, where it remained while Behnken and Hurley conducted experiments and spacewalks aboard the orbiting laboratory.

The mission, called Demo-2, was a test to show that SpaceX is capable of taking astronauts to and from Earth's orbit.

The launch went according to plan, but Sunday's landing was the mission's defining moment.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken (left) and Doug Hurley inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the a recovery ship shortly after having splashing in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida, on August 2, 2020. Bill Ingalls/NASA

From space, the Crew Dragon had to plunge through Earth's atmosphere, its heat shield deflecting and absorbing the energy of superheated plasma and enduring temperatures up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The shield successfully protected the hardware and astronauts as they fell at 25 times the speed of sound.

Then came two parachute deployments. The first, at about 18,000 feet, slowed Crew Dragon's plummet from 350 mph to 119 mph. Then at about 6,000 feet, more parachutes deployed to carry the capsule gently into the ocean.

"I'm not very religious, but I prayed for this one," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during a NASA TV broadcast after the landing.

SpaceX filmed the capsule as it descended to Earth. The resulting video, below, condenses the 12-minute reentry and landing process into 1 minute and 11 seconds.

 

Demo-2 was the culmination of roughly $3.1 billion in funding that SpaceX got from NASA through the agency's Commercial Crew Program — an effort to resurrect the human-spaceflight capability that NASA lost after it retired its space shuttles in 2011.

The successful demonstration flight tees up six round-trips on Crew Dragon that NASA has contracted to fly its astronauts to and from the space station.

Ahead of the astronauts' May launch, Musk told Aviation Week's Irene Klotz that the mission's final stages were his biggest concern.

That's because of the Crew Dragon's asymmetric design, which is necessary for the emergency escape system that can jettison the capsule away from a failing rocket. Musk was concerned that the asymmetry could have caused the capsule to rotate too much, leading it to "catch the plasma in the super Draco escape thruster pods," he told Klotz. But the process went smoothly.

An artist's rendering of the Crew Dragon capsule reentering Earth's atmosphere. SpaceX

The parachutes were also cause for concern. During a briefing before the launch, Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president of mission assurance, was asked what kept him up at night in regard to the Demo-2 mission. He pointed to the chutes, since their packing can't be tested until they're deployed.

But after the landing, officials and astronauts remarked on how uneventful the astronaut's return flight was (except for a few surprises on the ground, such as civilian boats pulling up to the space capsule).

A recovery boat approaches the Crew Dragon capsule in the Gulf of Mexico, August 2, 2020. Screenshot; NASA Live TV

"It did not seem like this was the first NASA SpaceX mission with astronauts on board," Michael Hopkins, a NASA astronaut who's slated to fly on SpaceX's next mission, Crew-1, said. "It seemed to go extremely smoothly."

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and CEO, said even SpaceX leadership was a bit taken aback.

"I think we're surprised — minorly surprised, but obviously incredibly pleased — that this went as smoothly as it did," she said.

Original author: Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Israeli Internet of Things (IoT) startup Ecoplant has raised $8 million in grant and VC funding to expand its air compression operations in the US. Ecoplant's software monitors air compressors — used in various agricultural and manufacturing processes — through sensors, and automatically manages the system utilizing IoT-technology."5% of the world's energy is used by air compressors," Aviran Yaacov, cofounder and CEO of Ecoplant told Business Insider. "So much energy is wasted every year from leakages, breaks, and other downtime which our IoT solution is able to help resolve."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Israeli IoT startup Ecoplant, which builds software that monitors and manages air compression systems used in many industries, has raised $8 million in grant and VC funding to expand its US operations. 

Air compressors, common in agricultural and manufacturing industries, use up massive amounts of energy, and Ecoplant claims its software can reduce wastage. The company has raised $8 million in the form of clean energy grants from the US Department of Energy, Israel's Ministry of Energy (MoE), and the Israel Innovation Authority, plus additional funding from accelerator program Techstars and Ecolab. 

A 2015 report by the US Department of Energy estimated that compressed air systems account for 10% of all electricity and roughly 16% of all motor system energy use in US manufacturing industries — a staggering figure. 

"5% of the world's energy is used by air compressors," Aviran Yaacov, cofounder and CEO of Ecoplant, told Business Insider in an interview. "So much energy is wasted every year from leakages, breaks, and other downtime which our IoT solution is able to help resolve."

Yaacov claims that the company's software saves up to 30% more energy, and halves unplanned downtime. To that end, Ecoplant has signed a partnership with Atlas Machine, a Kentucky-based distributor of industrial air compressors, and agreed to bring Ecoplant's tech to US factories. 

"Our partnership with Atlas allows us to significantly scale through the thousands of factories they service," Yaacov added. "During COVID we managed to install an entire project remotely which was amazing."

Ecoplant's software monitors air compressors through a connection to controllers and pipeline sensors, and automatically manages the system with IoT-tech. Other clients include Nestle, Unilever, Danone, and Elbit.

Check out Ecoplant's pitch deck below:

Original author: Callum Burroughs

SpaceX has entered the final stage of its historic first flight of people: NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are on their way home.Behnken and Hurley boarded the company's new Crew Dragon spaceship on Saturday, undocked from the International Space Station, and flew away.The crew is now targeting a landing of their ship, which they named "Endeavour," in the Gulf of Mexico on around 2:48 p.m. ET on Sunday. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has described the landing phase as his "biggest concern" for the mission.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are on their way home.

The two NASA astronauts departed the International Space Station on Saturday evening, beginning a roughly day-long voyage back to their families on Earth.

Behnken and Hurley left in a vehicle called Crew Dragon "Endeavour," a spaceship designed, built, and operated by SpaceX with about $2.7 billion in government funding. It's SpaceX's second experimental flight of the vehicle, a mission called Demo-2, and the aerospace company's first time putting people on board.

The Demo-2 mission's departure makes SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, the first company in NASA's Commercial Crew Program to successfully pull off a visit to the $150 billion, football field-size laboratory.

But Behnken and Hurley's return trip has just begun. Now that they've flown away from the ISS, they must perform a risky descent through Earth's atmosphere — the phase of the flight that Musk has called his "biggest concern."

If the flight successfully lands on Sunday afternoon, it would be the first crewed American spaceship to leave and return to Earth since July 2011, when NASA retired its space shuttle program.

The beginning of the end to an historic 63-day mission

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley prepare to depart the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship on August 1, 2020. NASA

Behnken and Hurley launched to orbit on May 30 and docked to the ISS a day later, beginning their historic 63-day mission chockful of science, space station maintenance, and breathtaking views of Comet Neowise.

But all good things must come to an end, and the crew began loading supplies, experiments, and personal effects — including an historic American flag — into Endeavour early Saturday morning.

Once they were packed up, they said goodbye to the ISS crew members they lived and worked with for two months: NASA astronaut and station commander Chris Cassidy, and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.

Behnken and Hurley then climbed into Endeavour, donned their spacesuits, closed the hatch, and began preparing to depart. At 7:35 p.m. ET, the spaceship gently shoved off the ISS with a series of small burps of propellant, right on schedule.

"Dragon departing," Hurley said as Endeavour glided away.

"Dragon, SpaceX: Separation confirmed," a mission controller responded on the ground.

The crew then fired departure burns to build up a protective "keep-out sphere" around the space station, to begin their journey in earnest.

"Safe travels, and have a successful landing. Endeavour's a great ship. Godspeed," a mission controller told the crew.

Hurley later tweeted his thanks to the space station crew, called Expedition 63, using Endeavour's Wi-Fi.

"It was an honor and privilege to be part of Expedition 63," Hurley said. "Now it's time to finish our DM-2 test flight in order to pave the way for future Dragon crews. Go Endeavour!"

If all goes well — the path of Hurricane Isaias has allayed early concerns about the safety of landing near Florida — the astronauts will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday at 2:48 p.m. ET.

To safely return to Earth, though, the astronauts must perform a series of critical maneuvers with Endeavour over the next 19 hours.

From 17,5000 mph to splash down

An illustration of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship returning to Earth with a blaze of plasma ahead of its heat shield. SpaceX via YouTube

The first steps Behnken and Hurley took included firing the spaceship's thrusters to slip into the correct orbit. NASA will perform more remotely while the astronauts sleep.

After they wake up on Sunday, the crew prepare for landing. Around 1:45 p.m. ET, according to a NASA TV schedule, the astronauts will jettison Endeavour's cylindrical trunk. The heavy piece of hardware powered and helped navigate the ship in orbit, but isn't needed during landing. Dumping the trunk is essential to exposing the heat shield of the aerodynamic crew capsule for the next stage of the flight.

Around 1:51 p.m. ET, they'll need to fire Endeavour's built-in thrusters for about 11 minutes to dramatically slow down the capsule, helping it fall from orbit and back to Earth. At this point, the heat shield must absorb blistering 3,500-degree-Fahrenheit heat that's generated by plowing through the planet's atmosphere at about 25 times the speed of sound.

It's this phase that concerns Musk, SpaceX's CEO and chief designer, more than any other.

"The part that I would worry most about would be reentry," Musk told Irene Klotz of Aviation Week ahead of the launch in May.

The spaceship capsule has an asymmetric design to accommodate its emergency launch-escape system thruster pods. And the imbalance caused by those pods — though very unlikely to cause a problem — is the core of Musk's concern.

"If you rotate too much, then you could potentially catch the plasma in the super Draco escape thruster pods," Musk said, adding that this could overheat parts of the ship or cause it to lose control due to wobbling. "We've looked at this six ways to Sunday, so it's not that I think this will fail. It's just that I worry a bit that it is asymmetric on the backshell."

When it's about 18,000 feet above the water, Endeavour should automatically deploy a set of drogue parachutes and slow to about 120 mph. Around 6,500 feet, four large main parachutes should pop out and further decelerate Behnken and Hurley's capsule before they splash into the ocean at around 15 mph. 

NASA and SpaceX are hoping to land Endeavour at a site off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, and immediately greet them with recovery boats and a helicopter that will whisk them back to land. If weather conditions turn poor near Pensacola, the astronauts will try to land at a backup site about 100 miles east, near Panama City.

SpaceX has five other potential landing sites, though Hurricane Isaias has knocked some out of contention. NASA's landing conditions include wind speeds under 11 mph, no rain or lighting, and clear skies.

An August 1 map shows NASA and SpaceX's landing zones for the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission amid the estimated path and conditions of Hurricane Isaias. Pensacola (left) and Panama City (right) are indicated with a red arrow. The outer-edge green shows a 5-10% chance of sustained tropical storm-force winds. Google Earth; NOAA; NASA; Business Insider

Along with trying to get home, Behnken and Hurley are performing an essential step in proving that SpaceX's Crew Dragon ship is safe to fly people in the future, including private citizens. NASA and SpaceX plan to finish reviewing data from the experimental mission over the following six weeks, likely resulting in its crucial human-rated certification from the space agency.

In a future mission that NASA recently announced, astronaut Megan McArthur (who is married to Behnken) will ride the same Crew Dragon ship to orbit for a roughly six-month stay. 

Ahead of the Demo-2 mission, NASA estimated a roughly 1-in-276 chance of losing the crew at any point during the flight.

Watch NASA TV's ongoing live coverage of Demo-2 mission:

Do you have a story or inside information to share about the spaceflight industry? Send Dave Mosher an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or a Twitter direct message at @davemosher. More secure communication options are listed here.

Original author: Dave Mosher

Microsoft paused negotiations with ByteDance over TikTok's US operations after President Donald Trump said he wouldn't support a deal, The Wall Street Journal reported.The newspaper reported that Microsoft had been in "advanced talks" with ByteDance, but those were stalled when the president told reporters Friday evening that he wanted a flat ban on the Chinese-owned app and not a sale.Trump's comment to reporters came after a month of his administration publicly threatening to ban the app.Officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have expressed concerns about the possible sharing of user data with China, which TikTok has denied.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Microsoft is pausing negotiations over TikTok's US operations amid hostility from President Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Microsoft and the Chinese parent company ByteDance were in "advanced talks" over a potential sale and were "caught off guard" when Trump voiced his opposition to the deal on Friday.

Trump told reporters that evening that he preferred a flat ban on the app and wouldn't support a sale. He had threatened to ban the short-form video app via executive order as early as Saturday.

Reuters reported Saturday that ByteDance agreed to divest its US operations to avoid the app being banned, leaving Microsoft able to take over completely.

One source told The Journal that Trump's opposition to a sale came as a surprise, and another source told the newspaper that the White House had previously appeared to want TikTok to be "American owned."

The deal isn't "dead," according to the Journal's report, but both companies are seeking more information from the White House on the best next steps for the app.

Trump's comment to reporters on Friday came after a month of publicly threatening to ban the app. Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concerns about the app's ties to China and the possible sharing of user data with the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok has denied that it would share user information with the Chinese government.

Tiktok's US General Manager Vanessa Pappas appeared in a one-minute video released Saturday morning in response to Trump's comment about banning the app.

"We've heard your outpouring of support and we want to say thank you, we're not planning on going anywhere," Pappas said to the community of users. "TikTok is a home for creators and artists to express themselves, their ideas, and connect with others across different backgrounds and we are so proud of all the various communities that call TikTok their home."

Original author: Ellen Cranley

When NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley return to Earth on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship, they'll be carrying an American flag with even more symbolism than usual.

The flag first rocketed to orbit on the inaugural space shuttle mission, STS-1. It was left on the ISS by the crew of NASA's final space shuttle flight in 2011, called STS-135, of which Hurley was a member. The idea was that the next astronauts to launch on an American spacecraft from US soil would return the flag to Earth.

But at that time, it wasn't yet clear which company would get there first, or which astronauts would be selected for that mission.

President Barack Obama tours the SpaceX commercial rocket processing facility with Elon Musk, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, April 15, 2010. NASA/Bill Ingalls

"I understand it's going to be sort of like a capture-the-flag moment here for commercial spaceflight. So good luck to whoever grabs that flag," President Barack Obama said on a phone call with Hurley and his colleagues in 2011.

SpaceX launched Behnken and Hurley toward the International Space Station on May 30, marking the aerospace company's first crewed flight and the first time humans have ever flown a commercial spacecraft to orbit.

Behnken and Hurley docked to the ISS on May 31, then climbed through the hatch into the football-field-sized floating laboratory. In that moment, they put Elon Musk's rocket company on the cusp of winning the nine-year-long game of capture the flag.

Soon after, Hurley held the flag up to NASA's live broadcast cameras beside Behnken and astronaut Chris Cassidy.

"Chris had it right on the hatch where we left it nine years ago," Hurley said in June. "He's got a note: 'Do not forget to take with Crew Dragon.'"

On Saturday, as Behnken and Hurley wrapped up their two-month stay with a goodbye ceremony, the flag came up again.

"I do want to make mention of this very special flag," Cassidy said. "It has deep, deep space history — and getting deeper — as this flag will return to Earth with the Crew Dragon guys, and spend a little bit of time on Earth and, very soon, make a trip to the moon."

Behnken and Hurley are scheduled to undock from the space station at 7:34 p.m. ET on Saturday, then begin a fiery, high-speed journey through Earth's atmosphere. Assuming all goes according to plan, they'll splash down on Sunday at 2:42 p.m., off the coast of Florida. At that point, SpaceX will have successfully captured the flag. (Watch NASA's continuous live coverage of their return flight here.)

"The race isn't over until it's over," Behnken told reporters ahead of the May launch.

SpaceX's Demo-2 mission, launched with a Falcon 9 rocket, lifts off with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley inside a Crew Dragon spaceship. Tony Gray and Tim Powers/NASA

The Demo-2 mission is the product of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, a public-private partnership that President Barack Obama started in 2011. The aim was to restore the US's ability to launch its own astronauts into space after the space shuttle program ended. 

Both SpaceX and Boeing made it through the rigorous reviews and testing required by NASA. The space agency has contributed more than $3.1 billion of funding to SpaceX in the nearly decade-long partnership. Boeing has received about $4.8 billion in contracts.

Boeing launched first, but software issues plagued the company's uncrewed test flight to the space station. The close calls triggered a series of required reviews and a forthcoming re-do mission before the company can launch astronauts.

In turn, the lurch opened a window for SpaceX to accomplish its first crewed flight.

If all goes well this weekend, NASA and SpaceX hope to regularly ferry astronauts (and private citizens like Tom Cruise) to and from the station on the Crew Dragon.

"We really are focused on making sure that we ... accomplish the ultimate mission, which isn't winning against Boeing. It's providing this capability to the International Space Station so that we can start rotating crews from American soil," Behnken said before the May launch.

Doug Hurley holds up the flag during a press call with Bob Behnken (left) and astronaut Chris Cassidy (right) aboard the International Space Station, June 1, 2020. NASA TV

For Hurley, the flag symbolizes that long journey and the dawning new era of commercial spaceflight.

"You can bet we will take it with us when we depart back to Earth," Hurley said as he presented the flag. "The important point is, as I said before, just returning launch capability to the United States to and from the International Space Station. That's what this flag really means."

Susie Neilson contributed reporting for this story. 

This story has been updated with new information. It was originally published on June 2, 2020.

Do you have a story or inside information to share about the spaceflight industry? Send Dave Mosher an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or a Twitter direct message at @davemosher. More secure communication options are listed here.

Original author: Morgan McFall-Johnsen and Dave Mosher

The ad business has been hurting for influencers in recent months as brands have cut marketing budgets to save on costs during the coronavirus pandemic.But the creator industry isn't disappearing and many have shifted their focus to alternative revenue streams.There are many ways social-media influencers make money, ranging from sponsorships and direct YouTube ad revenue to selling consumer products.Business Insider is hosting a webinar with YouTube stars Shelby Church (1.5 million subscribers), Ruby Asabor (176,000 subscribers), and Katy Bellotte (477,000 subscribers) on how they have adapted their businesses during the pandemic and the ways creators are earning a living in 2020. Sign up for the event below which will take place for BI subscribers on August 5 at 11 a.m. ET. 

The ad business has been hurting for influencers in recent months as brands have cut marketing budgets to save on costs and avoid appearing tone-deaf during the coronavirus pandemic.

But the influencer economy isn't going away. Many creators have shifted their focus to alternative revenue streams that have allowed them to continue to earn a living, showing how much the influencer business has expanded in recent years.

Interested in how social-media influencers are making money and what ways they have adapted their businesses during the pandemic? 

Join Business Insider on Wednesday, August 5 at 11 a.m. ET, when BI reporter Amanda Perelli will speak with digital creators Shelby Church (1.5 million YouTube subscribers), Ruby Asabor (176,000 subscribers) and Katy Bellotte (477,000 subscribers) on the state of the influencer economy in 2020.

They'll discuss earning money on YouTube, Instagram, and podcasting; how their businesses have been impacted by the pandemic; and how they have built their online audiences.  

Original author: Amanda Perelli

NASA on Saturday gave SpaceX a "go" to undock the company's first crewed space mission, called Demo-2, and land it on Sunday evening.Hurricane Isaias complicated original plans to return two astronauts to Earth aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship in the Atlantic Ocean.Elon Musk's aerospace company may now try to splash down NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in the Gulf of Mexico.Two out of seven total landing sites near Florida must have good weather conditions, and NASA has until about 5 p.m. ET on Saturday to call off the undocking.Should the weather worsen, NASA and SpaceX can try again a day later or some other date over the next two months.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have a "go" to return to Earth this weekend and wrap up an historic space mission for both NASA and SpaceX. 

Behnken and Hurley launched to orbit aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle on May 30, then docked the spaceship (which they named "Endeavour") to the International Space Station. Their experimental mission, called Demo-2, is the first with humans ever launched by SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. It also represents a new era of commercially developed and operated space vehicles started by NASA almost 10 years ago.

But before the mission can succeed, the crew must safely land

After a two-month stay in orbit, the men are preparing to undock from the ISS on Saturday at 7:34 p.m. ET. If that procedure goes well, they're due back to Earth on Sunday around 2:41 p.m. ET. (NASA TV's continuous live-streaming coverage, which you can watch at the end of this story, kicks off Saturday around 5:15 p.m. ET.)

NASA is overseeing SpaceX's experimental mission. On Wednesday, the agency gave the company an initial "go" to proceed with its landing plans. But Hurricane Isaias could force the astronauts to stay in orbit a while longer.

The cyclone has already hit Puerto Rico as a tropical storm with high winds and flash-floods, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. It later developed into a Category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds of at least 75 mph. Isaias' current path threatens to bring dangerous weather to several potential landing sites by Sunday afternoon — the planned time for the astronauts' splashdown.

"We won't leave the space station without some good landing opportunities in front of us," Behnken told reporters from the ISS on Friday morning, adding that NASA and SpaceX are keeping him and Hurley informed. "The lion's share that work happens on their end. We don't control the weather, and we know we can stay up here longer."

However, in a blog post published on Saturday afternoon, NASA announced that the astronauts had a "go" to proceed with landing.

"We cannot wait to get Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley back to Earth," Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, said during a press briefing on Wednesday, noting the agency would continue to watch the weather.

Crew Dragon can't land if there's rain, lightning, big waves, or winds exceeding 10 mph

SpaceX's Crew Dragon is guided by four parachutes as it splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 miles off Florida's east coast on March 8, 2019, after returning from the International Space Station on the Demo-1 mission. Cory Huston/NASA

Isaias became a named tropical storm on Wednesday night, when its wind speeds exceeded 39 mph. It reached hurricane status the next day.

The storm could affect several landing areas just as Endeavour is supposed to reenter Earth's atmosphere, deploy its parachutes, and splash into the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico. Recovery crews will be waiting to recover astronauts with boats, airplanes, and helicopters.

Three of the seven landing zones that SpaceX and NASA prescribed for the test mission, called Demo-2, lie within the "cone of probability" for the storm's path.

Those splashdown sites (shown below) are located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Cape Canaveral, Daytona, and Jacksonville. Given current conditions, mission managers are hoping to land Demo-2 in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola or, as a backup option, Panama City, NASA said on Saturday.

"This mission will be a bit unusual as timelines will be in flux quite a bit up until undocking as we finalize landing locations," a NASA spokesperson told Business Insider in an email on Friday.

Pensacola is the-westernmost location of the seven options, and Panama City is the second-westernmost. As of Saturday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center does not project that tropical-storm-force winds will affect the area.

An August 1 map shows NASA and SpaceX's landing zones for the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission amid the estimated path and conditions of Hurricane Isaias. Pensacola (left) and Panama City (right) are indicated with a red arrow. The outer-edge green shows a 5-10% chance of sustained tropical storm-force winds. Google Earth; NOAA; NASA; Business Insider

Depending on how large the storm grows and how nasty weather conditions become, mission managers may scrub the undocking and landing attempt. Steep waves, rain, lightning, low clouds, poor visibility (for helicopters to fly the astronauts from a SpaceX recovery boat back to land), or even winds stronger than about 10 mph can trigger a "no-go" decision.

"We're going to watch the weather very carefully," Steve Stich, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said on Wednesday.

Given the intense preparatory work required to prepare Crew Dragon for its return, NASA and SpaceX have until about 5 p.m. ET to make the final call for undocking, the space agency said.

Behnken and Hurley can stay in orbit another 2 months, if needed

SpaceX's Crew Dragon "Endeavour" spaceship photographed by astronauts Bob Behnken and Chris Cassidy while performing a spacewalk on July 1, 2020. NASA

Once the astronauts undock, they have to land within about three days because the spaceship only has enough water and lithium hydroxide — which scrubs carbon dioxide from the air — to last Behnken and Hurley for that long, Stich said.

While docked to the ISS, though, Endeavour can share life support and last much longer. The vehicle has been in space for more than 60 days, but this version of Crew Dragon is designed to last about 120 days due to its solar-panel design, Stich said. In theory, that gives SpaceX and NASA opportunities through most of September to safely get Behnken and Hurley back home.

"We know we can stay up here longer," Behnken told reporters during a briefing on Friday morning. "There's more chow and I know the space station program's got more work that we can do."

Stich noted SpaceX and NASA can make a call as late as an hour before undocking to delay the whole sequence and try again another day.

"If the weather's looking bad that day, we're not even going to try to undock," Stich said. "The beauty of this vehicle is we can stay docked to the space station."

As part of the process to approve a landing, NASA and SpaceX used a robotic arm to survey Crew Dragon's heat shield, which must withstand temperatures of of to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit during atmospheric reentry, for damage by space debris.

"There were no areas on the vehicle that were any concern for entry," Stich said.

NASA TV will stream around-the-clock coverage of the astronauts' attempt to return to Earth starting around 5:15 p.m. ET on Saturday, August 1. You can watch the agency's broadcast via the YouTube feed below.

Susie Neilson contributed reporting.

This story was originally published July 29, 2020. It has been updated with new information.

Do you have a story or inside information to share about the spaceflight industry? Send Dave Mosher an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or a Twitter direct message at @davemosher. More secure communication options are listed here.

Original author: Dave Mosher and Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Paying close attention to your YouTube titles and thumbnails is critical if you want people to click on them, according to Ben Sullins, who makes videos about Tesla and electric vehicles.Sullins' strategy is to create an 'information gap' by posing a question the viewer wants answered.Sullins has over 200,000 subscribers, and his videos have received over 38 million views.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Scrolling through YouTube can be overwhelming. Even if you know you're looking for a workout routine or investing tips, the sheer number of options makes it tricky to choose what to watch. Just as tricky: Figuring out how to get viewers to click on your video, among a sea of alternatives. 

Ben Sullins, who makes videos about Tesla and electric vehicles, pays careful attention to the titles and thumbnails on his videos to make sure viewers don't scroll past them.

"It almost should be, you have an idea for a video, and you figure out the title and the thumbnail first before anything, before you shoot the video, before you script the video," Sullins said in an interview with Business Insider.

His strategy is to create an "information gap" by raising a question, either directly or by suggestion, in a way that makes the view want to learn more. Titles for recent videos include "Fixing Model Y Dumbest Flaw for $12" and "Choosing Our Favorite Tesla After Owning All 4." The thumbnail, Sullins said, should amplify the curiosity the title creates. His photos sometimes feature him making an exaggerated expression and text set against a red background.

"The opposite of what you would consider a beautiful photo is what works well on YouTube," he said.

Once a viewer clicks on your video, it's important that you deliver on your premise and keep them hooked; the longer people watch your videos, the more YouTube will share them. To keep the viewer's interest, Sullins uses a technique familiar to playwrights and screenwriters: the three-act structure. His videos begin by setting up his topic, creating a conflict, then resolving that conflict. Doing so makes the viewer more likely to become emotionally invested in the video, even if its topic is far from typical Hollywood fare.

"These storytelling techniques work because they play to our evolutionary heartstrings," he said.

And they have helped Sullins build a subscriber base of over 200,000 people and amass over 38 million views for his videos since he started his channel in 2013.

"Focusing on that information gap — trying to entice people to click in and learn more — and then delivering in a way that's going to keep them engaged," he said, are "the keys to success that not a lot of new creators think of."

Original author: Mark Matousek