In the first three years of the company, people would laugh at JFrog, a startup that helps developers update their software faster and more often.

At the time, JFrog CEO and co-founder Shlomi Ben Haim recalls, investors and other people were "afraid" it wouldn't scale. But now, it's a $1.2 billion startup that helped define DevOps, or a term that combines software development and operations.

JFrog already has customers like Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook, and Ben Haim believes it can become the company that powers all the software updates in the world.

"When Apple releases an iPhone, you have something to hold in your hand," Ben Haim told Business Insider. "When you do something so fundamental that powers all of [the major applications], it's very hard to explain why this company is so important. What I hope people will understand is JFrog enables everything they use...We are the guys behind the scenes."

Now, JFrog wants to provide software updates not only to web and mobile applications, but also to other connected devices, such as automobiles. On Wednesday, JFrog unveiled over-the-air updates for cars, an important innovation that the company hopes will give it an edge in an increasingly important market.

Although cars like Teslas require software updates, they can't update while the cars are being driven. Updates can also take hours, trapping people on the road. And in extreme cases, like the Boeing 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, when software doesn't update, it can be fatal. With JFrog's over-the-air updates, cars can stay in motion while the software is being updated.

"Most of the challenges is what happens when you have your MacBook, air conditioner and car supported by software," Ben Haim said. "There is a real pain of software updates to all these vendors. Everything is powered by software today. Over-the-air is a big thing for all of us."

Before software powered everything, Ben Haim says, the biggest worry for a passenger on an airplane was whether or not the pilot was adequately trained.

"Now we're sitting in the aircraft thinking, is this big monster that goes in the air, is the software updated?" Ben Haim said.

Ben Haim co-founded JFrog to address the frustration he faced as a Java developer struggling to manage software files. Other software developers felt the pain, too, and when Haim created JFrog, word spread throughout the software community.

"We were addressing the pain," Haim says, comparing the software's creation to the development of new medicine to cure a disease.

Read more: Investors are betting hundreds of millions of dollars that startups like PagerDuty, GitLab, and CloudBees can change the way software gets made

Although investors have murmured about the possibility of JFrog getting acquired, Ben Haim says he has other goals for the company: for it to stay independent and become something larger.

So instead of looking into acquisitions, he raised a series D round of funding totaling $165 million, which JFrog announced last October. In total, the company has raised $228 million. He says an IPO might happen, but it's not the goal right now.

"If there was a chance that JFrog would be acquired and we would have a nice exit," Ben Haim said. "We are after a much bigger dream. If we are going to be the one that powers all the software updates in the world, this is the biggest dream I can think of. I am very excited about the opportunity, but more excited to change the way software is being consumed today."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

The iPhone is such a sophisticated tool that it has its own built-in auto-brightness system. This system automatically darkens the iPhone's screen when you're looking at it under a bright light, and lightens it when trying to use your phone in a dark room.

Auto-brightness is just one of many features that enable you to get the most out of your iPhone at all times. While this option can be very convenient, it's also an extra drain on the battery and some people don't need the brightness controls to properly see their screen.

You can easily toggle it off and on to see if you can save that extra battery and still see your iPhone screen properly.

Check out the product used in this article:

iPhone XS (From $999 at Apple)

How to turn off your iPhone's auto-brightness

1. Click on the Settings app.

2. Scroll down to and tap "General."

3. Scroll down to and tap "Accessibility."

4. Scroll down to and tap on "Display Accommodations."

5. Tap on "Auto-Brightness" to toggle it on or off. If the button shows green, it's on.

You can switch off auto-brightness altogether. Ryan Ariano/Business Insider

You can also adjust the brightness of the screen manually. If your eyes are too sensitive for the brightness level or your screen seems washed out, try lowering the brightness. If you have trouble seeing details on the screen, it might also be time to raise it. There are two ways to do this.

How to adjust your iPhone's brightness through Settings

1. Tap "Settings".

2. Scroll down to "Display & Brightness".

3. Move the Brightness slider at the top left or right depending on your preference.

Manually, you may still want to keep brightness low in dark places, and high in bright places. Ryan Ariano/Business Insider

How to adjust your iPhone's brightness through the Control Center

1. Tap the bottom of the screen and slide it up to bring up the Control Center (or swipe up from the upper-right corner of your screen on an iPhone X or later).

2. Look for the Brightness icon (it's the sun-shaped icon to the left of volume).

3. Slide your finger up on the icon to brighten your phone or down to lower it.

You can change the brightness at any time from the Control Center. Ryan Ariano/Business Insider

There were 10 banks listed on Slack's S-1, the registration paperwork for its direct listing — but don't go calling them underwriters.

Slack started trading Thursday at $38.50, up from the New York Stock Exchange's own reference price, which it set at $26 a share on Wednesday evening. The stock finished the day close to where it started, at $38.62.

The role the banks played in the process was different to what they'd do in a traditional IPO, with many of the bankers hired by Slack doing virtually no work outside of committing to research coverage of the company, multiple people told Business Insider.

Some of the less active banks agreed to take less than half their normal fees as part of the deal, one person said. Even the banks with the highest-paying roles took home slightly less than in a normal IPO, another person told Business Insider.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Allen & Company, however, hold the special title of financial adviser on the direct listing, which means they get a bigger check and have had considerably more control over the process.

Those three banks — which also ran the Spotify direct listing — worked with Slack to prepare its S-1 and risk factors, sources said. But unlike a traditional IPO, the banks won't provide any financing for the company in the process.

For their efforts, the three banks will split around 90% of the $22 million in banker fees, according to Bloomberg.

In a normal IPO, the underwriters manage the relationship between the company and potential investors. They coordinate the road show, in which investors meet with the executive team and customers at fancy hotels around the country for brunch and a dense slideshow full of financial stats. On this road show, companies answer questions, tell their story, and get the investors familiar with the particularities of how the business is run.

In the case of Slack's direct listing, all of the official relationship management was left up to the company, some of the people said. Slack's VP of investor relations, Jesse Hulsing, came from Goldman Sachs, where he was a vice president and equity research analyst, so the company had an insider on its team.

Read more: JPMorgan-backed $1 billion payments company Bill.com is picking bankers for an IPO

The lack of marketing around a direct listing is one of the reasons bankers say it doesn't work for most companies looking to enter the public markets. Ahead of Thursday, insiders and outsiders alike voiced concerns that as an office conversation platform, Slack's product might be too niche for a direct listing to be a success.

But Slack had already raised 10 rounds of funding on the private markets, the last of which involved institutional investors like Dragoneer Investment Group, T. Rowe Price, Wellington Management, and SoftBank. And the company has held intimate meetings with some institutional investors over the past six months, according to the people. Slack live streamed its investor day presentation on May 13.

Slack's banks handled much of the company's messaging.

As the lead bank, the Goldman Sachs team led by Nick Giovanni effectively played the role of project manager for the direct listing, according to people familiar with the deal. It handled things like the investor day presentations and video, according to one person familiar with the work.

And the banks involved spent a lot of time on risk mitigation around issues they would usually have more control over in a normal IPO, such as the number of shares available to trade and the pricing, the person said. Goldman sat in on over 100 prep calls ahead of the event, the person said.

Though direct listings don't "price" like traditional IPOs, the advisers also play a role in determining where the stock started to trade.

The Morgan Stanley team, led by Colin Stewart, was the named adviser to the direct market marker, Citadel Securities, according to Slack's filing. With Spotify, Morgan Stanley had the exclusive role, but with Slack the role was shared with the other two financial advisers. Citadel Securities also served as the DMM on Spotify's direct listing.

Ahead of the first trade, Morgan Stanley trader John Paci and Goldman Sachs trader Benny Adler had direct lines to the DMM, allowing them to give input on the timing, pricing, and volume of the opening trade, people told Business Insider.

While bankers don't build a book of demand for a direct listing the way they might for an IPO, there was a "ghost book" for Slack based off of unofficial conversations between the banks and investors, one person said.

Though most of the trading world is digital these days, Citadel Securities' human traders set the opening price for Slack just after midday on Thursday.

When "Pokémon Go" first launched in 2016, things did not exactly go smoothly. The servers melted down under the crushing weight of so many would-be Pokémon trainers all signing up for the game at once, and developer Niantic had to scramble to keep up.

This time out, with the new "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite," co-developed by Niantic and WB Games, things seem to be going a little bit more smoothly — perhaps reflecting the relative maturity of Niantic in the years since, as it's now valued at $3.9 billion as of a recent funding round.

At the time of writing, the game has been out for a few hours — and apart from a few stray hiccups here and there, everything appears to be proceeding as planned.

Speaking at a preview event for the game earlier this week, Niantic CEO John Hanke said that this is no accident, and that this is a sign of things to come: His team learned a lot from its experiences with "Pokémon Go," and Niantic intends to put all of those lessons to work in "Wizards Unite."

"Everything that works in 'Pokémon Go,' we're looking to take that and improve upon it in 'Harry Potter' and add some new stuff as well," Hanke said.

Improving on a good thing

That spans from the game itself to the way that Niantic and WB Games got it ready for primetime.

"Everything from the way that we are preparing to launch it, the way that we are testing the infrastructure, the things that we'd added to 'Pokémon Go' over the last two and a half years to improve that product and address things that we felt like it needed," have been reconsidered for the new game, Hanke said.

Read more: I got to try 'Harry Potter: Wizards Unite,' the new game from the creators of 'Pokémon Go,' before it came out, and I can already tell it's going to be huge

For instance: "Pokémon Go" only added social multiplayer features last year, after it began adding Pokémon trading and battling. "Wizards Unite," however, lets you add friends right out of the box — though, in these early days of the game, it's not clear what benefits doing so confers.

There's also the fact that "Wizards Unite" actually has a plot: Players are cast as investigators of the Great Calamity, where magical artifacts, creatures, and personages have been scattered across space and time. This is in very deliberate contrast to "Pokémon Go," which mostly gives players little direction beyond "catch 'em all," Hanke said.

"We found that that worked for a lot of people, but there were certainly people who wanted a little more structure to understand what to do next and to really measure their progress, so there's a lot more of that in 'Harry Potter,'" said Hanke.

"Harry Potter: Wizards Unite" is superficially similar to "Pokémon Go," but with lots of updates and tweaks that bring new gameplay. Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Technologically speaking, too, "Wizards Unite" is benefiting from the work done on "Pokémon Go." The addition of head-to-head Pokémon battling required Niantic to totally redesign its multiplayer code to allow for faster response times.

Those improvements went straight into "Wizards Unite," Hanke said, where it enables a faster-paced experience in Wizarding Challenges, where players team up to fight Dark Wizards and magical beasts.

"You can cast spells and use potions which help the other people in your group, you can split up and tackle different opponents at the same time," Hanke said. "There's a lot more nuance to the multiplayer that's facilitated by that tech change."

The bigger picture

Similarly, "Wizards Unite" owes a lot to "Pokémon Go" in terms of its augmented reality features, which uses your phone's camera to overlay the game's graphics over the real world.

Hanke said that as part of its Real World Platform, a set of tools for Niantic's customers to build their own games, it's unified its AR tech into one development kit, using "Pokémon Go" as the base. As it improves that AR development kit, he said, the augmented reality in both games will get better.

On the subject of the Real World Platform, Hanke said that actually building "Wizards Unite" was much different than the process for making "Pokémon Go."

Whereas Niantic built (and continues to build) everything in "Pokémon Go" from the ground up, "Wizards Unite" benefited from the collaboration with WB Games, Hanke said. This time out, "the animations, the art, the [user interface], a lot of that is coming from their team, and we're building more of the server and platform type stuff."

"Harry Potter: Wizards Unite" is a big bet on augmented reality, which overlays digital imagery over the real world. Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

It's reflective of where he sees Niantic's future heading, said Hanke. The ultimate goal is for Niantic to provide the tooling and platforms to help the rest of the industry build their own location-based, multiplayer, augmented reality games. The Real World Platform hasn't been released broadly to customers, yet, but the collaboration with WB Games is indicative of how Niantic's business could work.

"For us, it's a step on that journey to becoming a platform company where third-party developers can take our platform and independently build full games with us just providing the platform itself," Hanke said.

And more broadly, a big part of Niantic's mission statement is to get people off their couches and out exploring the real world, ideally making friends along the way. "Wizards Unite" is the latest manifestation of that goal, Hanke said, but it's much bigger than either of its mega-franchise crossover games.

"My take on it is that real-world games are a genre. It's not a game, it's not 'Pokémon Go' and 'Harry Potter,'" said Hanke. "It's a whole family, a whole world of games that can exist and our goal is to build the tools and technology that will let people go out and play that all the way out, explore all of the different permutations of what that can be."

YouTube can either be a place you go for entertainment, or it can become as useful as a Google search to learn something new.

I've been using YouTube alongside the old-fashioned Google Search for a couple years now, but it wouldn't be nearly as useful if I didn't know about some of the handy shortcuts I've learned about from my own experience, and even asking Google itself for some tips.

From useful keyboard shortcuts, to adding captions so I can watch a video without disturbing people around me if I forget my headphones during my commute, there are a bunch of good ways to make YouTube easier and better to use.

A new alliance spanning advertisers, agencies, and tech giants including WPP's GroupM, Unilever, Facebook, and Google formed this week to improve digital safety. It has some in the ad world worried.

To recap: The Global Alliance for Responsible Media was announced this week at the Cannes Lions Festival as talk of breaking up tech companies grows louder and governments in the UK, Germany, and elsewhere seek to regulate content on their platforms. The alliance, founded by Brussels-based World Federation of Advertisers members, is significant in that it's the biggest of its kind. Its first order of business was to create a working group to prioritize steps to create actions, processes, and protocols that would prevent nefarious content from spreading online, Axios reported.

Some industry insiders say this is a good first step to make the internet safe for advertisers and users — even Jason Kint, head of publisher trade group Digital Content Next and a regular critic of Google and Facebook, gave it mild praise.

To be sure, it's significant to have companies of this size work together. They have a lot at stake in fixing digital advertising. And some see it as important for the industry's biggest and most visible marketers like Procter & Gamble and Unilever to be pushing for online safety.

"Members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media recognize the role that advertisers can play in collectively pushing to improve the safety of online environments," read the alliance's announcement. "Together, they are collaborating with publishers and platforms to do more to address harmful and misleading media environments; and to develop and deliver against a concrete set of actions, processes and protocols for protecting brands."

Read more: Facebook's marketing chief Antonio Lucio talks about how he plans to fix the dented brand, why he's using agencies for the first time, and what it's like to work at a founder-led company

"It's pretty clear advertisers are taking more control and voting with their wallets and voices," said Robin Steinberg, former Publicis investment lead. "The key would be to consistently do this in order to get all onboard. If they are going to continue to spend and be a key partner to the platforms, there must be updated responsible business practices put in place. There are major implications to their brands and overall business putting them at risk."

'Fox guarding the henhouse'

But some see the idea of tech companies being involved in fixing the problem of toxic content they helped spread as problematic. After all, it was just this week that Facebook was the subject of a scathing report in The Verge that the moderators it contracted with to weed out unsavory content on its platform were working under deplorable conditions.

"It feels a little of the fox and henhouse," said Greg Paull, principal at R3 Worldwide, a consulting company to marketers. "Facebook is going to need to work overtime to really prove they are finally working in the interests of their revenue sources."

One of the goals of the alliance is to come up with a standard for all the platforms, which currently all have different rules. But coming up with one standard for all online content that would be considered "safe" to all brands seems like a tall if not impossible task.

Facebook seems to recognize it can't act alone, as it's calling for an industry standard to regulate online speech. "We want regulation in the areas of brand safety and content moderation," its head of sales Carolyn Everson said at an event announcing the alliance.

One stakeholder that knows something about content standards are publishers. But despite being mentioned in the announcement, traditional publishers were all but left out of the alliance, which was another source of confusion. The original announcement listed 17 advertisers. Under media companies, the only company with a traditional media arm listed was Verizon, parent of AOL and HuffPost; the others were, confusingly, considered by most to be tech companies. NBCUniversal was listed as being part of the alliance, but in its role as an advertiser, not a media company.

Publishers were left out of the alliance

Missing from the WFA alliance are publisher-only trade groups like the News Media Alliance and Digital Content Next.

David Chavern, head of the News Media Alliance, which counts The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal parent News Corp as members, said his organization wasn't asked to join.

"It doesn't make sense that advertisers would be involved with content standards when it's the tech companies policies and algorithm that need to be fixed," Chavern said. "It seems to be entirely a conversation between the advertisers and tech companies, though they're not the only ones impacted. There seems to be a role for the media companies, because we create brand-safe content."

The reaction reflects the vast power the tech giants have amassed, the advertisers and their agencies that support them, and the interconnectedness between the two sides. The concern is that the ad side is too invested in the platforms to push for any meaningful change. (Advertisers in the alliance for their part insist they're looking out for consumers, not themselves.)

Platform-advertiser codependence

Facebook was the third-biggest destination for top holding company WPP's clients' spending in 2017. Unilever and Mars, two of the companies in the alliance that have also been making the interview rounds to talk it up, are two of WPP's biggest clients.

The tech giants in turn are big supporters of ad trade organizations like the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which is part of the alliance. WPP's former head Sir Martin Sorrell himself said last year that the backlash against Facebook hasn't hurt it with advertisers; the current WPP chief Mark Read recently argued against breaking up the tech companies.

It was GroupM that effectively set the industry standard for how much an ad has to be in view for it to be counted as a view. Then it loosened its standards for social media as Facebook and other social platforms started flooding their feeds with video.

Facebook declined to comment. Business Insider asked GroupM and the WFA for comment.

While it's true that the idea of insiders fixing the problem is fraught, it's good to see top marketers taking the lead in cleaning up the digital ecosystem, said Ian Schafer, cofounder and CEO of Kindred, a company that connects influencers and non-profits, and former CEO of the ad agency Deep Focus.

But he also said pressure needs to be applied by activists like Sleeping Giants, which call out objectionable content on tech platforms, he said. And alienating publishers would be "a big mistake."

"You need friction to move forward," he said.

A Google verification code is a short numeric code that's sometimes sent to your phone or email address, which you use to complete a task like password recovery.

It's an added security step that ensures only you (or someone else who is authorized to access your Google account) gains entry.

How you could receive a Google verification code

There are several ways you might receive a verification code from Google:

Google Authenticator is a secure and convenient way to keep your account safe, since it generates verification codes whenever you need them. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

If you have a recovery phone number on file with your Google account, you can get verification codes by text message. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

When you could receive a Google verification code

In normal, day-to-day use of your Google account, you likely won't need to contend with a verification code.

Here are the most common situations in which you may be asked for a code:

I tested out some the BMW X7's more exotic technologies for an episode of Cars Insider's "Real Reviews." They were a mixed bag, and you can watch the whole thing here.

I also tested BMW's suite of driver-assist features, and those technologies worked as advertised, although the X7 is certainly not capable of driving itself.

Otherwise, the X7 provides what the Ultimate Driving Machine needed: a three-row hauler to slot in atop the X5. It's sort of a bimmer bus, but what ya gonna do? We're a long way from the turbo 2002 of the early 1970s.

The X7 serves up what you'd expect from a $100,000-plus SUV, from the elegant yet purposeful interior to the forceful output of the V8 motor and surefootedness of the all-wheel-drive system, yielding a 0-60mph time of about five seconds.

To this bimmerness, the X7 adds a cargo area that can be configured to work like a small pickup truck, while also seating two extra humans if the third row is deployed. It's all good, but these days I have to admit that I look at these large premium SUVs as a segment, rather than as individual vehicles. The X7 does the same job as the Audi Q7 or the Volvo XC90 or the Mercedes GLS. And so it goes and so it goes, and where it's going everybody knows: fatter profits for the luxury automakers.

My X7 tester came with nearly $10,000 of optional packages, and with the V8, it represents the highest expression of what BMW can do at this scale. It's impressive. It wasn't exactly fun to drive, but that — Gasp! — isn't really the point. And it was fun in a straight line and when passing semis on the freeway, when the X7 felt like a freight train.

If you consider the price as objectively as possible, you'd have to admit that you're getting a whole lotta SUV with the X7. I honestly guessed the sticker at $125,000. So if you can can live with the grille (and I could), the X7 might be the titanic Bimmer of your dreams.

Your Apple ID probably has a credit card on file to make it easy to make purchases in iTunes and the App Store.

And if you use Apple Pay, you probably have at least one credit card connected there as well, so you can make retail purchases with your iPhone.

If you ever need to remove a credit card from one of these services, it's easy to do with just a few taps.

Check out the product used in this article:

Iphone XS (From $999 at Apple)

How to remove a credit card from your iPhone's Apple ID

1. Start the Settings app.

2. Tap "iTunes & App Store."

You may have one or more credit cards connected to your Apple ID. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

3. Tap your Apple ID at the top of the page and then tap "View Apple ID."

4. Tap "Manage Payments."

5. At the top of the Manage Payments page, tap "Edit."

6. Tap the red delete button to the left of the credit card you want to delete, and then tap "Remove" to confirm your choice.

When you remove a credit card from your Apple ID, that card can no longer make purchases in iTunes or the App Store. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

How to remove a credit card from your iPhone's Apple Pay

1. Start the Settings app.

2. Tap "Wallet & Apple Pay."

3. On the Wallet & Apple Pay page, you should see a list of all the credit cards you have connected to your Apple Pay account. Tap the credit card you want to remove.

You can remove credit cards from your Apple Pay account via the Settings app. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. Scroll to the bottom of the details page for the credit card and tap "Remove This Card." Confirm that you really want to remove it by tapping "Remove."

Within the next six months or so, Microsoft is going to pull the plug on supporting SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 — two outdated, but still reasonably common, server products.

For Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's chief rival in the cloud wars, this could mean a big opportunity. Indeed, the cloud giant says, it's already helped customers like Influence Health, Fugro, and eMarketer (a subsidiary of Business Insider parent company Axel Springer) move some of their critical Windows software from Microsoft's Azure cloud to AWS.

In fact, Sandy Carter, vice president of Windows and enterprise workloads at Amazon Web Services, goes so far as to say that its cloud is the best place to run Windows and Windows software. AWS has supported running Windows software since 2008, which was actually two years before the formal launch of Microsoft Azure.

"We do have a lot of customers right now that are switching," Carter said. "The number one reason is reliability."

Carter says that customers choose AWS for their Windows-in-the-cloud needs because it's more reliable and has less downtime than its competitors, including Microsoft Azure.

"That reliability really makes a difference for our customers because many of our Windows workloads are critical to our customers," Carter told Business Insider.

To Carter's point, too, there's evidence to suggest that more Windows software is being run on AWS than on Azure. According to analyst group IDC, circa 2017, 58% of software and services that run on Windows in the cloud were deployed on AWS infrastructure, while 31% were deployed on Azure infrastructure.

IDC's data does come with at least one big caveat: It only accounts for Windows, which itself only accounts for a relatively small percentage of overall cloud use. Instead, the free and open source Linux operating system and its variants are the dominant platform in the cloud.

As those older server products near their end-of-life, Carter says that Amazon has been helping companies make the switch.

"We've been helping customers both do the upgrade and migration and modernization and facing end of support decisions that are coming up for them," Carter said.

As customers move from Windows to AWS, Carter says it looks and feels the same.

"It look like how it does on Azure," Carter said. "That's a great thing. Customers can't retrain all their skills. That same feel and experience is very important. Our performance is much better."

Carter says that AWS has the "best customer experience," too, because it has the easiest way to migrate workloads to the cloud. In addition, she says that according to data from DB Best, AWS is as much as three times cheaper when running Microsoft SQL Server, its popular database, for the same performance as Azure.

"Because we're faster and have higher price/performance, we enable customers to enable better speed and performance," Carter said.

When Business Insider reached out to Microsoft for comment, John Chirapurath, general manager of Azure Data, Blockchain & Artificial Intelligence, said that the virtual machine speed and storage capacity configurations used in the DB Best study aren't a reasonable way to compare the two platforms.

He added that customers like AllScripts find Azure to be the best cloud for Windows software because of its pricing, and because of its integration with other Microsoft platforms and services.

"Before drawing conclusions about SQL Server on either cloud, the variables should be apples-to-apples," Chirapurath said in a statement. "The original post included the disclaimer that the tool used is not an official benchmarking tool that can be used to publicly compare benchmark results between database products or platforms."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Instagram's boss Adam Mosseri has revealed that he was "disappointed" to learn actress Selena Gomez deleted the Instagram app from her phone — but said her experience can't be equated with the average user.

Gomez has 152 million Instagram fans, meaning she is the third most-followed person on the platform behind footballer Christiano Ronaldo and singer Ariana Grande. Last week, the actress said on a morning talk show that she got rid of the app on her phone for her own wellbeing.

"It's just become really unhealthy, I think personally, for young people including myself, to spend all of their time fixating on all these comments and letting this stuff in, and it was affecting me," said Gomez, who has been a vocal critic of social media's effect on mental wellbeing in the past.

Read more: Selena Gomez says "social media has really been terrible" for her generation: "They are not aware of the news"

"It would make me depressed. It would make me feel not good about myself, and look at my body differently, and all kinds of stuff," she said. Gomez said she periodically logs on to her account from other people's phones.

Speaking to BBC Radio 1 "Newsbeat," Mosseri said he was "disappointed" to hear Gomez had deleted the app, but caveated it by saying Gomez is not your typical Instagram user. "She has over 100 million followers, it's a whole other world," said Mosseri.

"We need to make sure that creators like her are getting value out of the platform, that they don't get depressed by the platform," he said, but added that the tools Instagram needs to build to protect teenagers from things like bullying are "very different."

Nonetheless, he said he would "love to hear" from Gomez about what she thinks can be done to improve the platform. "We like the criticism, we like to have the conversation," said Mosseri.

Mosseri admitted that Instagram has not kept up with the deluge of harmful content that has proliferated on the platform. "We were under-focused on the downsides of connecting people. Technology is not good or bad — it just is," he said.

Facebook is teaming up with an array of heavyweight multinational companies to launch a new digital currency called "Libra" in an ambitious push to provide financial services to billions of "unbanked" people around the world.

On Tuesday, the Silicon Valley social networking giant officially announced what its buzzy and secretive blockchain team has been working on for the last year or so: A new cryptocurrency that aims to provide fast, cheap, and secure online payments via smartphones across the globe, sidestepping the traditional financial system.

The project represents a striking push from Facebook into a radically new and reputationally risky industry, even as the company continues to suffer under the weight of two years of scandals, ranging from multiple privacy crises to its implication in the spread of hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar.

More than two dozen companies have been enlisted to invest $10 million apiece towards the currency's upkeep in return for a vote in its governance, via a not-for-profit foundation called the Libra Association. These range from payment firms like Mastercard and PayPal to tech firms including Ebay, Uber, and Spotify, as well as venture capital firms, blockchain companies, and non-profit groups.

There have been numerous leaks in the media about Libra over the past few months, and while it is being formally unveiled on Tuesday, it won't be available for ordinary users until 2020. Instead, the group is releasing its official "white paper" to outline its aims, introduce developers to the technology early, and try to entice new companies to join the association, which wants to be 100 members strong by the time of the actual launch.

Libra will be "a stable currency built on a secure and stable open-source blockchain, backed by a reserve of real assets, and governed by an independent association," its white paper reads. "Our hope is to create more access to better, cheaper, and open financial services — no matter who you are, where you live, what you do, or how much you have."

Facebook's role risks spooking privacy-conscious users

In addition to kicking off the development of Libra, Facebook is building its own app to sit on top of it: Calibra.

A look at Facebook's Calibra app. Facebook

Calibra will be a mobile app that lets users send and receive the digital currency, and will exist as standalone iOS and Android apps as well as parts of WhatsApp and Messenger, the company's messaging apps. (It's also the name of a new corporate subsidiary that sits under the Facebook umbrella.)

While it will be responsible for Calibra's upkeep, Facebook says it won't have any more influence over Libra itself than any of the other members of the association, and it won't use transaction data from the digital currency to profile users and target them with advertising. Facebook engineers have been responsible for developing the software thus far, though it is open source, meaning anyone can (in theory) contribute.

Facebook's battered reputation around issues of privacy and data security might make some users hesitant to adopt Libra. In an interview with Business Insider, Kevin Weil, Facebook's VP of blockchain product, said that convincing some users will "take time, no question about it, and it'll be much more actions than words," pointing to the data separation policy as an example of this.

Facebook's lack of overall control over the project may also assuage potential users' concerns — as well as those of regulators and lawmakers, who have viewed the social network (and other tech firms) with increasing scrutiny over the last year.

Providing financial infrastructure for billions of people

"Libra's mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people," Dante Disparte, head of policy and communications at the Libra Association, said in an interview.

In practice, that means a digital currency that will be available to use via a smartphone app to make easy payments and send cash across borders without the kind of fees that the financial industry is notorious for.

Initially, the focus seems to be squarely on people who are "unbanked," without access to financial services — of which there are 1.7 billion people across the globe, according to the World Bank. Facebook says it isn't trying to make a profit off the project for now, but that introducing new people to digital finance could encourage them to create Facebook pages or buy ads on the social network, indirectly boosting the company's finances.

Down the line, Weil said, Facebook is considering building more sophisticated financial products like credit that it could make a profit off of.

As well as peer-to-peer payments, Libra will also be used to make online purchases, and Weil suggested partners like Uber might pass on savings from the digital currency's lower transaction fees onto users — making it cheaper to use Libra to pay for things than traditional payment methods.

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Former Snap chief strategy officer Imran Khan has launched his new e-commerce company Verishop, a little over six months since he raised $17.5 million for the startup in November. The company is rolling out its website and iOS app Tuesday, with about 150 brands, including AllSaints, Diane von Furstenberg's DVF, and Levi's.

Khan is pitching Verishop as an alternative to Amazon, specifically in the categories of fashion, beauty, and wellness, by offering a fast, convenient way to get hand-picked products that's better for shoppers and brands alike.

"Retail is a $5.5 trillion industry, and we're only in the first or second innings of e-commerce," Khan told Business Insider. "Uber is not the only player in ride-sharing, just like Google is not the only player in advertising. There is a big opportunity for players other than Amazon as we transition from brick-and-mortar to online sales."

Read More: Everything we know so far about Verishop, former Snap chief strategy officer Imran Khan's new e-commerce startup that aims to take on Amazon

Verishop is trying to compete with Amazon through user experience

The Verishop iOS app Verishop Khan said other marketplaces are rife with counterfeit goods and unverified third-party sellers, hurting brands and consumers. Verishop is taking control of the process by buying products wholesale from vetted brands, warehousing them, and reselling them.

Verishop will use a mix of tech and human power to help people discover products. It'll be aided by an editorial team and seven influencers including Tiffany Ma and Megan Pormer who will pick products for what it calls "Tastemaker shops."

Verishop is also promising free, 2-day shipping regardless of the size or quantity of the order. In contrast, Target announced that it would start offering one-day shipping for $9.99, and Walmart offers two-day free shipping on qualified items, according to those retailers' sites. But Amazon just announced it would cut its two-day free shipping to one day for Amazon Prime members.

Khan acknowledged that Amazon has a leg-up on logistics, but said he believes Verishop will still have an edge over other retailers, as a lot of brands find it too expensive to deliver this kind of convenience.

Its pitch to brands revolves around integrity and quality

Khan's pitch is to help established brands reach millennial shoppers and direct-to-consumer startups expand their reach, and he said this focus on millennials and integrity has helped it attract well-known brands such as Diane von Furstenberg's DVF.

Notably, Verishop will not monetize itself through advertising, and brands don't have to pay for better placements, as they do on Amazon. Khan said Verishop will share analytics and macro-trends with brands but won't sell consumer data.

"With advertising, you end up violating consumer trust, because whoever pays the most money is the one that ends up at the top," he said. "Never say never, but we don't plan to run ads."

Apparel brand BLDWN, which sells its product in its own stores and more than 75 retailers, saw Verishop as a way to broaden its audience, said Diego Dominguez, men's global sales director at the company.

"My biggest draw was that they're helping tell our story, and it's not getting lost with hundreds of other brands, as it tends to happen on other mass retailers," he said. "It's like a digital department store focused on cool, niche brands from specialty boutique stores, and the visuals and styling are exactly how they would be on our own website."

Another seller, Paige Adams-Geller, founder of denim brand Paige, said she was drawn to the platform because of Khan and his leadership. Khan was Snap's chief strategy officer, and helped steer it through its IPO in 2017. Its executive team includes former Amazon exec Cate Khan as chief strategy officer and Dollar Shave Club's Jason Bosco as vp of technology.

'Verishop is finding white space where Amazon isn't as strong'

There's no getting around the fact that Amazon is an online retail behemoth. Nearly half (46.7%) of all product searches start on Amazon, according to eMarketer, and its breadth of assortments and efficiency is unparalleled.

Verishop's emphasis on trust and the shopping experience can help it stand out, though, said experts. Amazon's breadth can be overwhelming for consumers, brands find it hard to get discovered, and counterfeit goods and unverified third-party sellers persist.

"Amazon has a number of problems, especially for brands," said Forrester analyst Sucharita Kodalily. "It is a rogue marketplace in spite of its best efforts, and that is not compatible with protected brands."

Verishop was playing it smart by "finding white space where Amazon is not as strong," said Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis.

Still, Amazon is a global giant playing in many different lanes, said Will Margaritis, svp of Sellwin Consulting at Dentsu.

"If you're looking to take on Amazon, you need to consider it a many-headed hydra — try to beat it at retail, and you still need to contend with AWS, and the rapidly-growing advertising revenue," he said. "The money is flowing into Amazon so quickly, from so many disparate parts, that I can't see anyone getting ahead of them overall."

Advertising could also be a huge missed opportunity for Verishop, he said.

"An e-retailer thinking from the ground-up about what makes e-retail unique, between the data and the consumer journey, could build something very attractive to brands," he said. "But Verishop does not seem to be laying down the groundwork for a secondary revenue stream."

Niantic, the creator of "Pokémon Go," has acquired UK game studio Sensible Object for an undisclosed amount.

Sensible Object will remain based in London and form Niantic's London arm, while CEO Alex Fleetwood changes role to become Niantic's head of London studio. The company will continue with its own products for the time being, but will eventually focus on building new games on Niantic's open augmented reality platform.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Alex Fleetwood told Business Insider that his firm had been looking to raise another round of venture capital, or for an acquirer, prior to the deal.

Sensible Object sells connected board games, such as "Beasts of Balance," in an effort to make analogue, tabletop games more appealing to a smartphone-obsessed audience.

Read more: An early Spotify and Airbnb investor is raising Europe's biggest startup fund of $800 million, but 6 sources say his VC firm has run into problems

But the reason for the Niantic acquisition lies as much in the company's prior history as in its current experience making games. Fleetwood was previously a founding director at Hide&Seek, a pioneering creative game studio that mixed real-world play with digital games.

Hide&Seek shut down in 2014 but Niantic's CEO, John Hanke, was already taking an interest in the crossover between the real world and screen-based games and got to know Fleetwood and his work. The same thinking would inform Niantic's monster hit, "Pokémon Go," when it arrived in 2016.

Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke. AP Photo/Kathy Willens

"I'm pretty confident he's the only CEO of a unicorn startup who has awareness of that kind of work," Fleetwood said of John Hanke. "We'd met a couple of times. When we were looking at what Sensible Object's route was in terms of another fundraise, or M&A, we reached out to him to get some advice, and that kicked off an acquisition discussion."

According to Fleetwood, Niantic wants to build out the number of game studios developing on its AR platform after buying LA-based Seismic Games. The firm is also encouraging developers to build games on its platform.

"Bringing in studios around the world like us means we're going to be using that platform, getting to grips with it, and accelerating the process of making that platform ready for more generalized use cases outside Niantic's core team," Fleetwood said.

His experience running play-focused events is also likely to come in handy. "A big strand of how Niantic make 'Pokémon Go' successful was large-scale events in Dortmund and Chicago," he said. "Nothing on that scale has run in the UK, but it aligns closely with the work we did at Hide&Seek. It's something we're really interested in developing as part of the range of activities."

In a deafeningly noisy world, selling your own unique brand has never been more important, whether you're a budding Instagram star or an unhappy cat.

Few appreciate this better than Joy Howard, the chief marketing officer of Lyft, who is about to take up the same role at software security firm Dashlane, which raised $110 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital in May.

Her previous jobs include stints as Sonos' CMO, Coca Cola's global marketing director, VP of global marketing for the Converse All Star (owned by Nike), and VP of marketing at outdoor clothing firm Patagonia.

Howard says there is a particular way that all companies — tech startups included — should think about their brand. It is this way of thinking that holds the key to successfully marketing your company, she says.

Brands symbolise the culture you want to build around your product

"People often have a misconception about what a brand is," she explains. "They tend to easily conceive of it as a value proposition, and a brand is something much, much broader than that. It's really the set of perceptions that shape your experience of the product. In other words, you have to think of it as the culture around the product.

"In that respect, the most important thing marketers can do is think about how they want to use their company to shape people's perceptions of their product. What do you want the experience of your product to say about your brand and who you are as a company?

Howard has most recently served as CMO of Lyft, after spells at Coca-Cola and Nike. Getty Images

"So that would be my highest-level advice: To think about the brand as the culture of the product. Especially earlier-stage companies who think the brand is the name, the logo — but that is really not a brand.

Read more: Dashlane closes $110 million in Series D funding led by Sequoia Capital; Joy Howard will join as chief marketing officer

"[You have a brand] when people really start to experience your product, your product starts to be something that people share. Until a set of associations come with your product, you don't really have a brand."

This is important for tech startups, who have to build a vision around what they're trying to achieve and communicate it clearly and impactfully to customers and potential financiers.

For Lyft, Howard explains, the branding message is bold. It is not just another taxi firm, it's "reinventing transportation, building cities around cars." She adds: "Brands are so much bigger than any kind of day-to-day changes. That's the promise of what a business can be but also what a brand can be."

Nike is successful because people live the brand — starting with the workers

Howard's time marketing some of the world's most successful brands only reinforced her beliefs. At Nike, people live and breathe the company's identity, she says.

"Nike is a company where you see the importance of living the culture of the product, and living the culture of the brand inside the company in order to build the brand," she says.

"Everyone within Nike really lives what that brand is about. It was the same within Converse. I think Converse really learned a lot of that living the brand from Nike.

"That's been a part of every brand I've touched since working at Nike, and it always will be, because if you think about your company as a brand, as the culture of the product, then that really starts with the culture you build within your company."

Nike founder Phil Knight helped turn a humble shoe distributor into one of the most successful brands of all time. Gregory Shamus/Getty

This is not to say Howard thinks marketing doesn't depend on more foundational skills, of course. It's just that these foundational skills will not suffice to create a truly great brand, in her view.

Data is an important starting point for brand building

"The foundation is customer insight," she says. "There's also creative development, understanding marketing channels, metrics and analytics, the technology behind marketing. Those are foundational capabilities that one needs to learn. Then if you become really great at those, you can build an organisation and culture around the brand.

"So in terms of what makes you a great marketer, you want to understand and tap into culture and create something with just a very high level of craft. You want to marshal imagination and discipline and craft to really build something great that inspires people. That's what separates the really great marketers from the mediocre ones."

Apple's cheaper iPhone XR is already a fan favorite — it's been well-received among reviewers and is the best-selling new iPhone model in the US according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. But it sounds like the entry-level iPhone coming in 2020 will address one of the biggest differences between the XR and Apple's pricier phones: its screen.

Apple will outfit all of its new iPhones with an OLED screen in 2020 according to TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. He shared details regarding Apple's 2020 iPhone lineup in a new note, as 9to5Mac reported on Monday.

The current version of the iPhone XR has an LCD screen, while the more expensive iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have OLED screens. OLED screens generally offer better contrast and can produce noticeably deeper black levels than LCD displays — a characteristic that could be increasingly important now that a system-wide Dark Mode is coming to iOS this year.

Read more: Apple's iOS 13 software is further proof that it's fixing one of the iPhone's biggest criticisms

That's not to say the iPhone XR doesn't have a high quality screen; most reviewers agree that the trade-off is certainly worth the iPhone XR's cheaper price. But OLED screens are generally capable of displaying bolder and more vibrant colors compared to LCD panels. It would also help Apple keep up with the competition, considering affordable smartphones from rivals such Google and Samsung already boast OLED screens.

It's one of the few key differences between the current iPhone XR, which has a 6.1-inch screen and starts at $750, and the iPhone XS, which has a 5.8-inch OLED display and begins at $1,000.

Of course, there are several other noteworthy discrepancies to take into account as well. For example, the iPhone XR comes in a wider range of bright colors and has a different finish than the glossy iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. It also only has one rear 12-megapixel camera, while its more premium siblings have both a wide-angle and telephoto lens. And it doesn't come in a 512GB storage option like the iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max.

Still, the notion that Apple might add an OLED screen to its less expensive flagship phone could be a sign that the gap between the entry-level iPhone and its pricier counterparts is getting smaller. The drawback with this new model, however, would be its lack of 5G support compared to Apple's other new iPhone models in 2020, according to Kuo's report.

As for this year's iPhones, the latest rumors and reports indicate Apple's iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max successors will have a new triple-camera system, while the next-generation iPhone XR will get a double camera. There's also a possibility that this year's iPhone XR sequel will have an OLED screen, but reports have conflicted on this. While a report from Reuters citing South Korea's Electronic Times suggested that all three new 2019 iPhones would have an OLED screen, Kuo has predicted that at least one model released this year will retain that LCD screen.

Apple typically unveils its new iPhones in September. An Apple representative did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Over the years, developer software company Atlassian has spent $1 billion to buy more than 20 companies, five of which it snapped up in the past year alone. And yet the $31 billion company is taking a stand against the power that large acquirers like itself have over the startups they buy.

On Monday, Atlassian made an unprecedented move to publish its new M&A term sheet, giving potential acquisitions — and everybody else — a deep look into exactly what they're getting themselves into when they enter in to the deal-making process.

For Chris Hecht, the head of corporate development at Atlassian, there's too much "antagonism built into the process" of acquisitions, which makes it difficult for companies and their leadership teams to actually integrate with the bigger company once a deal closes.

While many founders are excited to sell their startups, the selling process can leave them feeling like they shoulder too much financial risk if something goes wrong in the process, Hecht said. Tense negotiations take an emotional toll the people involved, and that toll can continue to burden the founders after the companies have merged, he said.

"They're coming into this process super excited that they're going to sell the company, but it becomes very arduous for them mentally and emotionally," Hecht said.

Read more: Investors used to balk at startups for software developers — but after Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion, they're all inHecht, who spent time as an investment banker before leading mergers and acquisitions at Salesforce, worked closely with Atlassian Chief Legal Officer Tom Kennedy to revamp the default term sheet the company uses in M&A. The two execs agreed on one big idea: Even if an acquirer, like Atlassian, takes on more risk on its term sheet, it will benefit in the long run from a less stresful and more peaceful M&A process.

"M&A as a practice traditionally has not been aligned with Atlassian's values," Hecht told Business Insider. "We think that increasing transparency will drive a much healthier experience. We think we can drive a lot more value more quickly."

More financial risk, but less stress

The new term sheet hasn't been used yet. But the next company that gets an offer from Atlassian will notice a few founder-friendly elements that aren't offered by an other tech companies, as far as Hecht is aware.

For one, Hecht and Kennedy wanted to close the risk gap, which their analysis found protects acquirers beyond what is necessary.

"Buyers are getting a lot more insurance than they need. We spent many months going through hundreds of deals to figure out how much risk sharing was expected," said Hecht.

The term sheet eliminates some key provisions common at other companies, such as indemnity clauses — special provisions designed to protect the acquirer. Those provisions might include the ability to hold a startup's founders legally liable for certain problems that arise as part of the deal, or even change the terms of escrow.

Escrow terms mean that part of the proceeds of the sale are held by a third party until both parties agree that the sale is satisfactory, almost like a security deposit.

Most companies ask for 10% to 20% of the purchase price to be held back in escrow, Hecht said. That can be annoying for founders, who then have to wait for the deal to close to everybody's satisfaction to see their full payout.

Atlassian's new terms ask for just 5% in escrow, going as low as 1% in escrow if the company opts to purchase insurance to protect the deal.

This fixes a sticking point for a lot of founders looking to sell, Hecht said, because they often have to negotiate between the buyers who insist on keeping a large amount of the sale total in limbo, and from their investors and other shareholders who want to put as little of the purchase price at risk as possible.

Robert L. Dixon, Jr. says he grew up in corporate America, working at the household products company Procter & Gamble and the beverage company PepsiCo. Now, he's joining the board of $14.57 billion identity management company Okta, where he hopes to bring the "voice of the customer."

"The more I researched about Okta, the more excited I got about it, and the more conversations I had with [ Okta CEO Todd McKinnon] and the management team, the more excited I got as well," Dixon told Business Insider.

At Procter & Gamble, Dixon held various executive positions, while at PepsiCo, he was Global Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President. Although these are consumer companies, he says they had a "very significant technology emphasis." Nowadays, Dixon is the owner of The RD Factor, Inc., a consulting business.

"We needed someone who has been a CIO who can bring the perspective of a buyer," McKinnon told Business Insider. "More importantly, the challenge they have is taking a large company that formerly was not a technology company to move them to do technology."

McKinnon says Okta is transitioning its board from having mostly venture capitalists to having more business leaders, and Dixon is another step in that direction. To that end, McKinnon says Okta was looking for someone who can give guidance on its strategy on working with consumer companies, and Dixon was "by far the best candidate."

"If you look at the board, we have a lot of experts in a lot of things, we didn't have someone who has been a customer, someone who would buy Okta at a big company, especially someone who looked at technology from the lens of 'I'm a big traditional company,'" McKinnon said. "That's an important role."

Dixon first heard about Okta through a colleague. In the process, he also reached out to Shellye Archambeau, the former MetricStream CEO who joined Okta's board last December. She suggested that he take a look at the opportunity to join Okta's board.

Read more: She helped one company define a new market. Now, former MetricStream CEO Shellye Archambeau is joining $7.4 billion Okta to do it again

Since he previously worked at consumer companies that sold household or beverage products, Okta has a different business as its product is the technology, Dixon says that he brings insight on going to market and engaging with IT leaders.

"Technology for the most part was a critical enabler to how do you do R&D around the product and take it through the business model value chain all the way to the consumer," Dixon said. "The technology was an enabler. In a tech company like Okta, the product is technology."

Dixon says he looks forward to helping Okta navigate its growth.

"The way they grow right now is astronomical," Dixon said. "I'm looking forward to being able to grow their business and work with management to channel the growth."

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The real test of the Range Rover, to be honest and evocative of my favorite Roxy Music album, is to explore country life. The carmaker's Terrain Response system enables the four-wheel-drive setup to be configured for a variety of conditions, a legacy of the brand's reputation for formidable offroad capability.

You buy a Range if you seriously intend to bust around the back 40, surmounting hill and dale in wind and rain, perhaps passing weekends with a bit of shooting. You might contend with mud, snow, or ice, and fording a stream could be on the agenda.

But you also buy a Range if you want to tool around the 'burbs in Sloane Ranger style. You could choose a Jeep, but the Range is more elite. It sends the right signals at the school-dropoff line and looks right in certain parking lots.

In that context, does it matter if you're getting 30 mpg or just 20? It doesn't, but for Jaguar Land Rover, a portfolio made up of V6 and V8 SUVs, with some robust diesels thrown in, might not, you know, survive the brave new world of higher emission and fuel-economy standards. Hybridization is a good way for the brand to come into compliance.

That might sound sort of mean-spirited of me, so let me now discuss my favorite aspect of the Range Rover HSE P400e I tested — the drivetrain!

It's a dang four-banger! In a really big truck! And it makes almost 500 pound-feet of torque! I felt like I had a V6 under the hood, at the very least. This feat of engineering has won my undying respect. I'm not sure I'd buy it, but as technological triumphs go, JLR should pat itself on the back and give the folks responsible for this powerplant a bonus.

Otherwise, I tend to be quite taken by Range Rovers, and the HSE P400e was no exception. I've never much liked the infotainment system, but it's more an issue of function than design. But the rest of the machine is superb. Range Rovers are also keeping up with the times; my tester came with a host of driver-assist features, including lane-keep assist, blind-spot assist, and adaptive cruise control.

Yeah, this Range ain't cheap. But it is worth it. And for some owners, the added MPGs and in-town optimization could certainly be very appealing.