If you spent any time bouncing around the Aria in Las Vegas last month — the unofficial gathering spot for hordes of media and advertising executives invading the Consumer Electronics Show — it was hard to miss the presence of the biggest players in the industry. Google bought everyone in one conference hall donuts; WarnerMedia took over a full restaurant while hosting a mini VR experience. 

And folks holding illuminated signs for Samsung Ads were everywhere.

Here's a question: Did you know Samsung was in the ad business? You know, the South Korean guys known for cool cell phones and fridges and speakers and laptops — and yes, giant TVs.

The electronics giant has been very quiet on the ad front. But since 2015, Samsung has been selling advanced TV ad campaigns, including on Samsung TV home screens as well as within a free video offering available on these devices.

Samsung isn't the only TV maker edging into Madison Avenue's turf. Late last year, Vizio announced plans to build out its own ad sales unit.

I can't decide if this represents a brilliant, potentially disruptive new set of contenders for the $70 billion ad market ... or a total fool's errand.

What do the TV makers know about advertising, though?

For starters, these companies make hardware. Advertising is not their core business, and likely won't ever be.

Many have compared Samsung and Vizio's emerging role in advanced TV delivery to that of traditional cable distributors.

And as much as Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, and all the rest have attempted to build a vibrant direct sales business, armed with inventory and loads of set top box data, advertising has never been more than a side gig. First and foremost, they care about selling cable packages and keeping customers happy.

Those with long memories will recall the cable ad data consortium that rolled out in the early 2000s with enormous promise and proved an enormous letdown.

Scott Ferber, who founded the early web video ad tech firm Videology, sees parallels between cable providers' lackluster embrace of advertising and the TV manufacturers of today.

"To succeed in advertising right now, you need audience, inventory, and you need data," he said. "These guys don't have all three. They don't own anything except data."

To be sure, proprietary audience data is highly valuable in today's ad world. Just ask Facebook and Google how their gardens are growing.

Samsung knows what you're watching in real time

According to Cathy Oh, global head of marketing and analytics at Samsung Ads, the venture has ACR data on 45 million smart TVs. ACR stands for automatic content recognition — it's essentially tech that can pick up what's on a person's screen in real time. 

So Samsung knows exactly what shows and ads its TV owners are watching, and for how long they watch. And they don't share data with anybody, Oh said.

Plus, Samsung has built its own ad tech stack — including an in-house DSP. In that way, it's not unlike Roku, which started as a hardware company before becoming a formidable TV ad player.

What Roku has, of course, is a user interface that people love and often turn to first. Do most people have or want that kind of relationship with their actual TVs?

More importantly, Roku controls 30% of the ad inventory from its partners. So it's got all three legs of Ferber's ad stool.

However, is it crazy to wonder whether Samsung, and Vizio, follow the Roku playbook? Could these TV makers build out knock-off app stores, essentially replace the need for a secondary device, and become the primary way people navigate their streaming?

"It's very smart of them because they own first-party data and have access to the apps," said a top ad buyer. "So they could basically push Roku out of their space. If you have a smart TV, why do you need Roku?"

As the OTT ad market evolves, real estate is everything. If smart TVs' built-in user interfaces become the new way people pick which apps and shows to watch, TV makers could be thrust into a new pole position.

There are a lot of "ifs" here, of course — along with plenty of potential pitfalls (like, say, privacy). "I believe all of these 'new entrants' to advertising want to copy Google and Facebook with their unique data access and targeted advertising capabilities, but underestimate the difficulty of obtaining and the value of scaled, diverse demand," Ferber said.

Right now, the demand for OTT advertising is still mostly headed toward the big media incumbents, along with Hulu and YouTube. However, it's clear that brands are continually looking for alternatives as linear TV ratings decline. Which doesn't favor traditional TV companies.

At the same time, there's loads of fervor for buying ads on TV using the same kind of tech and targeting you see in digital advertising.

That's what Samsung is betting on.

"Over the past several years, we have watched the definition of TV change and the way advertisers leverage TV change with it," Oh said. "What's interesting is that today, TV is not just a mass-reach platform: It can also provide precision."

All true. Of course, Samsung will have to contend with a slew of other well-armed competitors making a similar play. From NBCUniversal's Peacock to CBSViacom's Pluto to everything Amazon touches — it's getting crowded fast.

Over time, Samsung could find the ad business about as compelling as fellow hardware-titan Apple did (which is to say, not very).

Or it could be TV's sleeping giant.

While a bad Yelp review is the last thing a business owner wants to see, it's something that even the finest establishments are sure to experience at times. 

It's how you reply to that bad review that matters, though. With politeness, honesty, and ideas for how you can make the patron's next visit better, you might just win a customer back.

Before you can respond to any reviews, however, you first have to know how to.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

MacBook Pro (From $1,299.99 at Best Buy)

Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

Samsung Galaxy S10 (From $899.99 at Best Buy)

How to respond to a Yelp review

1. First, you have to claim your business's Yelp page by following the steps at biz.yelp.com in a browser on your Mac, PC, iPhone, or Android device, or simply log into your account. 

New Yorkers who have applied to or were looking to reenroll in Global Entry — the federal program that allows US travelers pre-screened by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to pass through customs more quickly upon reentering the States — will no longer be granted membership as of last week.

On February 5, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Chad Wolf announced the ban in a letter published online by Fox News. In addition to Global Entry, which is CBP's flagship trusted traveler program and had 5 million members in 2018, New Yorkers will no longer be eligible to join NEXUS, SENTRI, and FAST. TSA Precheck, which allows travelers to move more quickly through security at US airports, is not affected at this time, Azi Paybarah reported for The New York Times.

The perks of Global Entry membership include skipping customs paperwork and long lines at 53 major airports across the US. Instead of filling out paperwork, members head straight to a Global Entry kiosk for approval. To apply for the program, travelers submit an application online, pay a $100 application fee, and schedule an interview at an enrollment center.

The DHS ban was instituted in response to New York's "Green Light Law," a "sanctuary" policy that allows residents without legal immigration status to obtain driver's licenses and prevents federal agencies looking to enforce immigration policies from accessing Department of Motor Vehicles databases, Business Insider's David Slotnick reported.

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Friday that she will sue the Department of Homeland Security for barring New Yorkers from enrolling in Global Entry and other trusted traveler programs. 

An estimated 175,000 New Yorkers will lose their Global Entry membership by the end of 2020 

When you switch from one app to another on newer Apple TV models, the first app doesn't close. It'll instead run in the background, so it can quickly open if you switch back to it.

This can be an issue if you switch between apps often. If one app freezes, it can slow down your entire Apple TV system. In this case, you'll need to close it.

Note, however, that this is only applicable to the Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD models. On earlier Apple TV models, when you exit an app, it closes automatically. 

Here's how to close apps on an Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Apple TV 4K (From $179.99 at Best Buy)

How to close apps on your Apple TV

To properly close apps, you'll need to be using the Siri Remote (also called the Apple TV Remote in some locations). It's black, and has a smooth touchpad at the top.

1. Return to your Apple TV's homescreen.

2. Double-click the Home button on your Apple TV remote. It's the button with a picture of a television screen on it. This will pull up all the apps that are currently open, arranged as separate windows.

3. Scroll with the touchpad until you find and select the app you want to close.

For people in advertising, Wieden and Kennedy, the agency behind award-winning ads for brands like Nike, Old Spice, and McDonald's is one of the most sought-after places to work.

"You look at the ballsy sh-- they put out … then you look away from the Adweek article and onto your sad Google Doc filled with subject line options for a Black Friday promo," one young advertising employee said of Wieden's appeal.

Not only is it notoriously hard to get a job there, it's an unconventional place to work. Current and former executives described what people should expect.

Wieden and Kennedy makes a point of hiring outsiders and encouraging them to explore

One of the first things people will notice about Wieden is the people. Unlike other agencies, it's known for hiring people from outside advertising, and is full of people with unique perspectives and personalities.

Former creative director Matt O'Rourke said co-founder Dan Wieden once summed up his philosophy by asking, "Why would I hire ad people?"

John Jay, now global president of creative at Japanese retailer Uniqlo's parent company Fast Retailing, had no agency experience when he came to Wieden from Bloomingdale's marketing department.

In another oft-cited example, Dan Wieden famously got secretary Janet Champ to work in the creative department; she later became lead copywriter for Nike and founded her own agency.

The agency embraces controlled chaos, few titles

Wieden is known for its unstructured brainstorming sessions. Executive creative director Karl Lieberman, who leads the team handling Bud Light, McDonald's, and Delta Airlines in New York, said leadership sees chaos as good for creativity.

Bud Light's popular "Dilly Dilly" campaign, for example, came from a conversation about how annoying it can be to have people bring six packs of expensive craft beer to a party.

"I was very organized and all about the process of advertising, from insight to manifesto to 30-second script," Lieberman said. "They weren't interested in any of that stuff."

Wieden and Kennedy also has a less traditional structure than other agencies.

For example, the Portland staff is organized in small teams called "pods" built around expertise like brand management and media strategy rather than by client. Lieberman said each pod functions as its own agency, with some handling multiple accounts.

The agency also has few executive-level titles. Lieberman said the idea is to let people focus on the work itself by minimizing approval processes and potential for tension between people.

Wieden and Kennedy puts a big focus on diversity

Wieden and Kennedy puts great emphasis on employee diversity, and has affinity groups for  female, black, Asian, Latin, and LGTBQ employees along with podcasts like Affinity Talks and On She Goes, a travel-themed show launched by six women of color in the company's publishing department.

Halfway around the world, executive creative director Ian Toombs, who runs the agency's operations in Shanghai, said he tries to achieve a bilingual office by hiring local people and ex-pats who are willing to relocate to China.

The hours are long and pay isn't the top in the industry

Like every ad agency, long hours are the norm, but Wieden is unapologetic about telling people they will have to make sacrifices in the interest of the work.

One source who spoke on condition of anonymity said recruiters told him 60-70 hour weeks are "the norm," and Lieberman said employees may work over the weekend on campaigns that never get made.

Wieden is also known for taking creative risks for clients, even in a seemingly straightforward area like media buying.

Media director Lawrence Teherani-Ami said he expected people on his team to weigh in on other teams' work. He's also fired people who he said were quick to cite numbers in criticizing ideas.

Global head of talent Melanie Myers and Toombs also acknowledged that a job at Wieden and Kennedy doesn't bring the industry's biggest titles or paychecks, though Myers said the agency pays competitively.

In some ways, Wieden is like everywhere else. Lieberman said Wieden unquestionably makes some mediocre work. Myers said: "It can certainly have its own form of sh--show like any place can."

Your Apple TV has no physical buttons on the box, and can only use a specific set of remotes. 

While this makes it look more minimalistic, it can be problematic if you lose your remote and want to use your Apple TV. 

Luckily, you don't need a remote to turn on an Apple TV. And even if you've lost the remote, you can use your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch as a makeshift controller.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Apple TV 4K (From $179.99 at Best Buy)

How to turn on your Apple TV without a remote

1. Make sure your television is set to the same HDMI input that the Apple TV is plugged into.

2. Unplug your Apple TV. If you're not sure which plug controls the power, it should be the black cable coming out of the back of your Apple TV. Pull this cable out of the Apple TV, or unplug it from its outlet.

In the past few years, a crop of companies has been gaining steam with new approaches to primary care. 

Rather than getting paid for each visit or procedure that a patient needs, startups are looking to change the way primary care is practiced, in many cases working to get paid a large fixed sum each month to take care of all of a patient's health needs.

In many cases, that means seeing fewer patients a year — hundreds, rather than thousands — offering additional services, or making the process of getting an appointment more convenient.  

Read more: A new kind of doctor's office charges a monthly fee and doesn't take insurance — and it could be the future of medicine

And others are taking note. For instance, health systems including Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare and Pennsylvania-based Geisinger are taking similar approaches with some of their primary-care doctors. The federal government is planning to pay for care for some Medicare patients in a similar way too.

Investors have taken an interest in the model, pouring hundreds of millions in funding into some of the companies. And the space stands to bring in even more cash, from the public markets as well as private. One Medical in January kicked off trading on the public markets, surging to a $2.7 billion market cap in its first day of trading. Iora Health in February raised an additional $126 million. 

The rise of some of these models — in particular venture-backed Iora, family-owned ChenMed, and private-equity-backed Oak Street Health — comes at a time when the market for Medicare Advantage plans has grown increasingly competitive.

As of last year, more than 20 million Americans were enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans. People can typically choose to enroll in Traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage plans when they turn 65. Either way, their health needs are largely funded by the US government.

Read on to see how the startups are shaking up the traditional way we do primary care. 

This article was published on August 20 and has been updated.

REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Picture

When Elon Musk acquired SolarCity in the fall of 2016, he paid for it using Tesla stock worth $2.6 billion at the time. Those shares are worth $8.4 billion today.

Tesla's CEO gave 0.110 Tesla shares to SolarCity stockholders for every share they owned in the solar-energy company. Based on the electric-car maker's $230 stock price in late July 2016, the deal valued each SolarCity share at $25.36 at the time.

However, Tesla's stock has surged roughly 320% to about $745 since then, and briefly passed $960 this week. Based on its current price, Musk paid over $80 per SolarCity share — more than triple what he planned to spend.

Musk is already fending off claims that he overpaid for SolarCity and bailed out a nearly bankrupt business. The facts that his cousins started SolarCity, and he was the company's chairman and biggest shareholder when Tesla acquired it, have also led some investors to question his motives in buying it.

As a SolarCity investor, Musk received Tesla shares from the takeover, meaning he didn't lose out from the transaction as much as other Tesla investors.

Musk used one of Warren Buffett's analogies to downplay the significance of Tesla's stock price last year. However, he seems to have missed the famed investor's warning about his "most gruesome mistake."

Buffett bought Dexter Shoe in 1993 and paid for it with 25,203 Class-A shares in his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, worth $433 million at the time. The Maine shoemaker collapsed years later. The Berkshire shares used to purchase it are worth over $8.6 billion today.

"I gave away 1.6% of a wonderful business ... to buy a worthless business," Buffett wrote in his 2007 letter to shareholders.

Now that Musk has personally seen the downside of stock deals, he may be wary of paying with Tesla shares going forward.

Back in 2012, Anthony Robb couldn't afford a smartphone.

Raised by a single father on a conveyor belt of grimy west London council estates, Robb knew money was in short supply, and that owning a phone with a camera attached was "not a priority."

But when friends introduced him to Instagram, which had just been acquired by Facebook for a hefty $1 billion, Robb very quickly realised he wanted a piece of the action.

"I saw all these accounts and how many followers, likes, and comments they were getting," he told Business Insider. "I was fascinated ... Very quickly, I was like: 'I could do that.'"

He recalls one friend quickly batting away the idea, laughing: "How're you gonna do that mate? You ain't even got a phone."

Almost a decade later, the global influencer market is valued at around $8 billion, a figure set to rise over the next few years – and Anthony "Antz" Robb, now 22, is the voice behind one of the best known Instagram accounts in the UK: Imjustbait.

A hodgepodge of music, memes, and offbeat viral videos, Imjustbait keeps a finger on the pulse of urban British culture, mixing the silly with the serious: sobering reports of racial abuse and rising knife crime are seamlessly mixed with music videos and viral clips from "Love Island" and "Eastenders."

At 3.7 million followers, the page outranks other British influencers like Joe Wicks, the fitness guru better known as the "Body Coach," and TV personality Alexa Chung.

After setting the page up in 2014, Robb says he "worked day and night" to boost his follower count, quickly garnering a reputation among his peers as "that bait [meaning blatant or obvious] kid off Instagram." He said: "It's literally just me. From day one, nobody else has ever even had the password."

The page's success soon got him noticed. First, Uber approached him about a promotional deal, gaining him a commission on every follower using his unique code. And as his reach continued to grow, he started word of his influence on the world of music – news that spurred him to set up his own record label.

"I would feature clips from underground artists on the page, then next thing I'm hearing is they've been signed," Robb said. "I won't name names but I've heard stories of A&R guys going into meetings, literally saying: 'Imjustbait just posted these guys, we have to sign them.'"

On the advice of his manager, Robb sought investment from Sony Music, who backed his new label, "We Are BLK,"18 months ago. He has now signed seven urban artists and plans to showcase their talent, alongside established acts like Krept & Konan and Dappy, at his Summer Crush festival in Barcelona this summer.

Robb laughs: "I just wanted to stop being the middleman and actually do something myself ... Why should I be doing all the hard work for them?"

Beyond the world of music, he expresses an interest in journalism and reality TV. Imjustbait's sister Instagram feed, Imjustnews, has gained 667,000 followers since launching in 2018, resharing the latest headlines to keep them abreast of current affairs.

"That one's going well," Robb says. "I'd like to have someone come in and write original stories for it one day."

Meanwhile on YouTube, Robb says his Imjustbait channel will soon host a slew of original shows, including "Love Locked Down," a Love Island-style reality contest set inside a prison.

"We've got some big plans man, I'm excited to see what people think."

After six years of work, Robb admits it feels strange to have positioned himself as a focal point of the culture he loved while growing up. 

"A lot of people I know from back in the day can't really believe what's happening," he says.

"What can I say? It's a madness." 

The contentious debate over moderating misleading content on social media was reignited this week after President Trump posted a video of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that appeared to show her repeatedly ripping up a copy of the president's State of the Union speech.

That drama took another turn Friday when Pelosi's deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, took to Twitter to criticize  social media platforms for not taking down the video, which Hammill told Business Insider it had asked both Facebook and Twitter to remove.

"The latest fake video of Speaker Pelosi is deliberately designed to mislead and lie to the American people, and every day that these platforms refuse to take it down is another reminder that they care more about their shareholders' interests than the public's interests," Hamill wrote on Twitter.

That prompted a Facebook spokesman, Andy Stone, to respond.

"Sorry, are you suggesting the President didn't make those remarks and the Speaker didn't rip the speech?" Stone tweeted.

"What planet are you living on? this is deceptively altered. take it down," Hammill shot back.

Pelosi did, in fact, tear up a copy of the president's speech after he appeared to snub her attempt to shake his hand following a tense State of the Union address. The video Trump posted, however, was edited to make it seem like Pelosi ripped up the speech multiple times during his remarks.

"The American people know that the President has no qualms about lying to them – but it is a shame to see Twitter and Facebook, sources of news for millions, do the same," Hammill told Business Insider in a statement.

The edits raised questions about whether the video violated either Facebook or Twitter's policies against manipulated content. Facebook's policy bans most content manipulated using artificial intelligence, but not more typical video editing techniques — though the latter can still be reviewed by third-party fact checkers.

Twitter recently announced that users "may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm," and that it "may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand the media's authenticity and to provide additional context."

Regarding the president's video, a Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider that, since enforcement of these new policies won't begin until March 5, the company couldn't comment on hypotheticals.

As Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others have faced pressure to take more active roles policing misinformation on their platforms, they've unveiled a variety of new content policies. Reactions have been mixed, with many still uncertain about how exactly the policies will be enforced and whether or not they'll be effective.

This isn't the first time Pelosi has been the subject of deceptive social media content. In 2019, she criticized Facebook for refusing to take down a viral video that had been heavily edited to make it appear as if she was slurring and tripping over her words. 

Facebook's Twitter account was briefly hijacked by the hacking collective OurMine on Friday afternoon, but the company still appeared to retain some control over the account. 

"Hi, we are O u r M i n e. Well, even Facebook is hackable but at least their security better than Twitter. to improve your accounts security Contact us: contact@o u r m i n e .org For security services visit: o u r m i n e. org," a Friday afternoon tweet announcing the takeover said. 

The Twitter account belonging to Facebook Messenger was similarly compromised at the same time. 

But Facebook still appeared to have some control over the account, and deleted the tweet — posted at least five times — within seconds. Within 30 minutes, the hack appeared to stop.  

Twitter confirmed the hack to Business Insider, and said the accounts were hacked through a third-party platform.

"As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and are working closely with our partners at Facebook to restore them," a Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider. Facebook did not respond immediately to a request for comment. 

Security researcher Jane Manchung Wong was able to take a video of the tweets getting made and deleted in real-time: 

 

The tweet styles the hacker collective claiming responsibility for the hack as a "security group" and directs users to the company website, which offers personal security checks of social media accounts, emails, iPhones and iCloud for $30 — the pricetag for enterprise security checks is available upon request, it seems.

OurMine has long been targeting the social media accounts belonging to high-profile figures and companies. 

The group hacked the Twitter accounts of 15 NFL teams at the end of January. In 2016, the group managed to hack the Twitter accounts of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and even Twitter's own CEO Jack Dorsey. OurMine even hacked Business Insider's website during the same year.

NASA is investigating a previously undisclosed software issue that arose during Boeing's test flight of a spacecraft designed to shuttle astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The Boeing spaceship, called the CST-100 Starliner, is part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which asked private companies to develop new astronaut-ready spacecraft. Boeing and SpaceX came out on top in the competition, and the two companies are now racing to launch their first astronauts into space.

But during a crucial orbital flight test in December, a clock software error (it was set 11 hours ahead) led Boeing's Starliner to initiate a phase of the mission it had not yet reached. That caused the spaceship to burn through 25% of its fuel, so Boeing had to skip docking with the space station — the primary goal of the mission — to save the Starliner from total failure.

Now, NASA has revealed a second software issue with the Starliner, which ground controllers had to fix in the middle of that test flight. In a call with reporters on Friday, Boeing and NASA officials said the error could have caused a collision between two units of the spacecraft: the crew module and the service module. 

If Boeing hadn't corrected the software error mid-flight, a collision could have sent the crew module tumbling or significantly damaged its protective heat shield. That might have led to "catastrophic spacecraft failure," Paul Hill, a member of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, said at a meeting on Thursday, according to SpaceNews.

Before that meeting, neither NASA nor Boeing had publicly disclosed the error.

No astronauts were onboard for the test flight, but the error has prompted NASA to launch a larger investigation into Boeing's coding and culture.

Symptoms of a deeper problem 

Boeing said it found the second issue after the first error with the clock, since that prompted engineers to review the spaceship's code while it was flying. 

If they hadn't caught the second error, it could have caused the wrong thrusters to fire just before the spacecraft re-entered Earth's atmosphere. That's the point when the crew module separates from the service module.

Boeing and NASA officials said that incorrect thruster-firing could have bounced the service module back toward the crew model, potentially causing a crash.

"Nothing good can come from those two spacecraft bumping," Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing's space program, said in the call.

Following the failure of Boeing's test flight, NASA convened a team to examine the issues that occurred.

"They are likely only symptoms. They are not the real problem," Doug Loverro, a NASA associate administrator, said in the Friday call.

The heart of the problem, the NASA investigators found, is several coding defects that Boeing's testing team didn't catch before flight.

"We want to understand what the culture is at Boeing that may have led to that," Loverro said.

The team is still investigating some other intermittent issues that disrupted communications between the spacecraft and ground control as well.

"Software defects, particularly in complex spacecraft code, are not unexpected. However, there were numerous instances where the Boeing software quality processes either should have or could have uncovered the defects," NASA press officer Marie Lewis wrote in a blog post on Friday.

2 journalists say Boeing downplayed or denied the glitch

Ars Technica reported that a source had tipped the publication off to the second Starliner software error in mid-January. But when reporter Eric Berger reached out to Boeing about it, he said, a company spokesperson "downplayed the gravity of the situation."

"According to the source, Boeing patched a software code error just two hours before the vehicle reentered Earth's atmosphere. Had the error not been caught, the source said, proper thrusters would not open during the reentry process, and the vehicle would have been lost," Berger wrote.

But the Boeing spokesperson, he said, told him that the software patch "had nothing to do with Crew Module reentry." 

Chris Gebhardt, of NASASpaceflight.com, said on Twitter that he'd faced a similar situation: Boeing and NASA had denied a second software issue altogether when he inquired.

NASA administrators on Friday defended themselves and Boeing for not discussing the second error while the investigation was ongoing.

"Had we had the discussion back then, we probably would've gotten it wrong. I think it's not that we were not revealing something," Loverro said. "We didn't want to speculate on that at the time."

This failed orbital flight test was not the first time that Boeing has come under fire for a software glitch with catastrophic consequences. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the company uncovered yet another software error in its 737 Max airplanes, which have been grounded since March 2019. Software errors caused the plane to crash twice in five months, killing 346 people.

An 'even broader' assessment of Boeing's software practices

The NASA safety panel called for a broad assessment of how Boeing integrates, verifies, and tests its software.

"The panel has a larger concern with the rigor of Boeing's verification processes," Hill said. "Further, with confidence at risk for a spacecraft that is intended to carry humans in space, the panel recommends an even broader Boeing assessment of, and corrective actions in, Boeing's [systems engineering and integration] processes and verification testing."

NASA appears to be following this recommendation.

Lewis said NASA has asked its independent investigation team to do "a more in-depth analysis as to why the anomalies occurred, including an analysis of whether the issues were indicative of weak internal software processes or failure in applying those processes."

Citing "potential for systemic issues," panel chair Patricia Sanders said Thursday that the investigation will be similar to an internal safety review the agency did after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk smoked marijuana during a podcast recording.

Part of that investigation will involve reviewing all of the Starliner's software, which is comprised of roughly 1 million lines of code, officials said.

"Our NASA oversight was insufficient. That's obvious," Loverro said. "And I think that's good learning for us."

Boeing and NASA declined to say whether Starliner will re-do the orbital flight test. In an earnings report released January 29, Boeing included $410 million expense to cover a potential second uncrewed flight.

SpaceX's orbital flight test, meanwhile, went smoothly. The company is expected to launch its first astronauts — probably the first people ever to fly commercial spacecraft, given likely delays for Boeing — in the coming months.

"The Commercial Crew program is broader than a single provider, and that's intentional," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. "We have two providers, SpaceX and Boeing, that are going to take American astronauts to the International Space Station."

Dave Mosher contributed reporting.

Chris Lattner, the legendary former Apple engineer known for creating its popular iOS programming language Swift, has left Google for the artificial intelligence chip startup SiFive.

Lattner worked for nearly 12 years at Apple, where he was responsible for Swift as well as tools used to program in the language, like Xcode and Swift Playgrounds. Since Swift first launched in 2014, it has quickly picked up in popularity among Apple fans and iOS developers, and is now used in over 500,000 apps on the App Store, including Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and Square.

"I'm thrilled to be joining the SiFive team and for the opportunity to work with a company that is enabling the future of silicon, all the way from idea to silicon," Lattner said in a press release dated January 27th.

Lattner joined SiFive in January as its senior vice president of platform engineering, where he will build the software infrastructure that supports the startup's AI chips. SiFive, an upstart challenger to titans like Intel and AMD in the market for chips optimized for AI, has raised $129.56 million from investors like Sutter Hill Ventures, Spark Capital, and Samsung Venture Investment.

"SiFive is on a mission to democratize access to custom silicon, and innovative leaders in the industry are taking notice," Dr. Naveed Sherwani, president and CEO of SiFive, said in the release. "Chris has made significant contributions to the software used by millions of developers today. This is a significant period of strategic growth for us, and we are thrilled to welcome Chris to our product engineering practice."

Most recently, Lattner had been working at Google for the past two and a half years, where he was a senior director working on TensorFlow, the popular open source AI framework created by Google. He continued using Swift at this job, where he started and led the Swift for TensorFlow project.

Before that, after leaving Apple in 2017, Lattner served a brief, six-month stint at Tesla, where he headed its autopilot software. Business Insider previously reported that a source said that while Lattner enjoyed his job at Tesla, he did not get along with CEO Elon Musk. Google nabbed him shortly after.

Besides Swift, Lattner also created the high-profile LLVM infrastructure project.

Business Insider has reached out to Google for comment.

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Ericsson and LG have both announced they will not attend the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona this month — the most important trade show for the telecom industry — as fears grow surrounding the spread of the coronavirus.

The virus has already killed more than 630 people, infected 31,000, and spread to at least 25 countries, prompting many countries to warn against travel to China. But after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency, companies are becoming cautious of any unnecessary travel.

Businesses with a significant presence in China have already banned or limited employees from traveling to the country as precaution, with some leaving exceptions for "business critical" travel.

Here's a list of major tech companies who have restricted employee travel so far.

The US Army is trying to figure out a way to give its soldiers the ability to see threats through walls, according to a recently published request for information.

The Army is modernizing in a way it hasn't in decades. The service has already seen the development of incredible new technologies, such as pocket-sized drones and next-generation night-vision goggles wired to a weapon sight to let soldiers shoot around corners.

The Army now wants to eliminate a frightening unknown: The threat that waits on the other side of the wall. It wants to know how its soldiers can see through obstacles.

The service is looking to develop "man-portable systems that give the soldier the ability to detect, identify, and monitor persons, animals, and materials behind multi-leveled obstruction(s) from a long standoff range," according to a request for information released in late January.

The Army explained that the system should be able to see through various types of obstacles, including dense vegetation, and use biometric data to track, positively identify, and differentiate between targets. For example, the resulting system should be able to tell friend from foe.

The Army wants a system that can "track, locate, isolate, range, and count personnel and animals in a building or structure," the request said, adding that it should also be able to determine whether detected individuals are "sitting, standing, walking, or lying down."

The so-called See Through the Wall (SSTTW) system would also "be able to detect hidden passages and rooms inside of a structure," as well as "map the structure and detect hidden rooms, passages, alcoves, caches, etc. including those underground." The Army expects the system to create 3D maps of structures.

The Army request said that it also expects the system to be capable of identifying potential threats to soldiers assigned to clearing operations, such as tripwires, improvised explosive devices, and other traps.

While the desired STTW system would primarily be carried on a soldier's person, the Army explained that it would be ideal if it was also able to be mounted on an unmanned aerial system or unground combat vehicle.

The Army said that submitted white papers "should address what the path forward is for the US Army to meet this goal."

The latest RFI, which will conclude in March, is not the first time the Army has looked into this kind of technology. In October, the service awarded Lumineye, Inc. a $250,000 prize for their wall-penetrating radar, technology designed to help soldiers and first responders that won the service's Expeditionary Technology Search (xTechSearch) competition.

Motorola's new $1,500 Razr suffered through CNET's folding test, which is akin to brutal medieval torture, and the Razr's hinge survived only 27,000 folds.

The $2,000 Samsung Galaxy Fold survived 120,000 folds and unfolds in CNET's test three months earlier.

Does the folding test show that each phone's hinge will last through only that many folds? Unlikely. The machine, designed by SquareTrade, that CNET uses to fold and unfold these phones is utterly brutal — far more brutal than how most people are likely to fold and unfold their devices. Just take a look:

 

Both the Galaxy Fold and the new Razr are more likely to survive a little longer in your comfy padded hands than in the machine's cold hard metal and plastic. And if you unfold your phone with the same force as the machine, then maybe foldable smartphones aren't for you.

Still, it's true that foldable smartphones have more points of failure with the hinge and folding screen than traditional slab-style smartphones. Plus, foldable smartphones are still brand new, and it'll unsurprisingly take time to develop hinge and foldable-screen technology that's durable enough for smartphones — devices we use multiple times a day. 

To Cnet's test, Motorola sent a statement to Business Insider saying that the test is not indicative of the Razr's durability. Here's the full statement:

"razr is a unique smartphone, featuring a dynamic clamshell folding system unlike any device on the market. SquareTrade's FoldBot is simply not designed to test our device. Therefore, any tests run utilizing this machine will put undue stress on the hinge and not allow the phone to open and close as intended, making the test inaccurate. The important thing to remember is that razr underwent extensive cycle endurance testing during product development, and CNET's test is not indicative of what consumers will experience when using razr in the real-world. We have every confidence in the durability of razr."

Motorola also has a video showing how the company tests the durability of the Razr, which is significantly more gentle and realistic than Cnet's smartphone version of the Iron Maiden torture device:

 

Twitter wasn't working properly on Friday afternoon for thousands of users from New York to Los Angeles to London.

Twitter confirmed that "Tweeting is broken" and that the company was working to fix the issue. 

Then, after the problem was solved, the company sent out two tweets: "test" and "ok it worked" making humor out of the situation. 

 

Twitter said in an earlier tweet that users "might be experiencing trouble sending new Tweets." 

 

Thousands of users reported problems with the app and website on Friday afternoon, according to the website Down Detector.  The site said that over 8,000 users were reporting issues on the platform at around 4:00 p.m. EST.

While some users reported their Twitter timelines were functioning properly, tweets were not sending.

Most of the issues reported were on the East and West coasts of the United States, as well as in London. 

The Trump administration has been using commercial data that tracks millions of smartphone users' locations to help enforce its policies on immigration and deportation, according to a report Friday from the Wall Street Journal.

The database, owned by a company called Venntel Inc., collects information from run-of-the-mill games, weather and shopping smartphone apps where users have agreed to share their location, according to the report.

Sources told the Journal that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), two divisions under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), have used the location data to help them identify and locate those who may have entered the country unlawfully, whom they later arrested.

"All CBP operations in which commercially available telemetry data may be used are undertaken in furtherance of CBP's responsibility to enforce U.S. law at the border and in accordance with relevant legal, policy, and privacy requirements," a spokesperson for the agency told Business Insider.

DHS has been using Venntel data since at least 2017, while ICE paid Venntel $190,000 for licenses in 2017 and CBP spent $1.1 million on software licenses that included Venntel services last September, the Journal reports.

Both agencies told the Journal that the data is "pseudonymized," meaning the unique identifier for each cellphone isn't linked directly to the customers' name, but a New York Times investigation showed that pseudonymized data can still be used together with other data to link a cellphone to its owner.

While experts told the Journal that this was one of the largest known uses of bulk data by US law enforcement, they also said it appears to be legal because the government purchased the data from a private company, as opposed to collecting it directly from users' phones, a practice for which the US Supreme Court has said police generally need a warrant.

Keeping your browser up-to-date is vital if you want to keep your web browsing as safe as possible.

If you have Google Chrome, you can easily check for both the version you have and whether or not it's fully updated.

Here's how to do it.

Check out the products mentioned in this article: 

MacBook Pro (From $1,299.99 at Best Buy)

Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

How to find which version of Google Chrome you have, and update it

1. Open Google Chrome on your Mac or PC. 

2. Click the three dots in the upper-right corner of the window. 

3. Hover your cursor over "Help."