Cable companies could be in danger of losing millions of their broadband customers as AT&T builds out its broadband fiber network.

In a new research note, Cowen analysts predicted AT&T could steal about 1 million customers from Comcast, 1 million from Charter, and 200,000 from Altice by 2023.

Those losses would result in a 3% annualized EBITDA loss ($1.1 billion) for Comcast, a 4% ($885 million) loss for Charter, and a 3% ($162 million loss) for Altice, according to the analysts.

AT&T's initiative stems from its promise to the FCC as part of its 2015 acquisition of DirecTV to deploy fiber to millions of households. AT&T has deployed fiber to more than 3 million homes for the past two years. AT&T has indicated it might not stop at 14 million homes, its publicly stated goal. AT&T management has indicated it plans to ramp up its strategy to capture 50% of the market in three years, which suggests more aggressive share stealing to come, Cowen analysts wrote in the note.

Perhaps more importantly, AT&T could use its fiber build out to stem losses of DirecTV customers, the analysts said. If the company builds out in markets with a higher DirecTV penetration, it could offer a broadband bundle with the video service to retain or even win back customers it has lost.

But the Cowen analysts also said they believe cable companies will be able to manage the threat. Cable companies have been outperforming telcos in the broadband space for several quarters because they have a speed advantage.

Nearly all cable companies can provide 1 gigabit speeds, while telecom companies can only do so in about 25% of their footprint. AT&T's upgrade to fiber will allow for 1 gig speeds.

But cable companies look to go further and have announced "10G" plans, which offer a path to speeds of 10 gigabit per second.

"Last year's broadband subscriber growth (on top of a decade-plus of similar results) kind of shoots a big hole in their findings when it comes to us and customers," a Comcast spokesman told Business Insider.

Charter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before they met, Lyft cofounders Logan Green and John Zimmer, both self-proclaimed transportation geeks, each started small car-sharing programs on their respective college campuses.

Now, Lyft is going public with a valuation of about $29 billion, Business Insider's Rebecca Ungarino reported, with shares trading at $87.24 apiece.

Read more: Lyft soars 21% in his historic trading debut — and is now valued at $29 billion

Green and Zimmer met on Facebook through a mutual friend while Zimmer was working at Lehman Brothers in New York City and Green was still a college student. Together, they started Lyft's precursor, called Zimride, in 2008.

Lyft's IPO won't make the pair overnight billionaires, but it will almost certainly contribute to an influx of new millionaires in San Francisco over the course of 2019 as several high-profile tech startups plan to go public.

Here's how Green and Zimmer went from organizing carpools on college campuses to running a $29 billion company.

Despite reports that Warner Bros.' next "Suicide Squad" movie, written and directed by "Guardians of the Galaxy" helmer James Gunn, will be mostly focusing on new DC Comics characters, it turns out Captain Boomerang will be coming back.

Jai Courtney, who played the character in the 2016 movie, told Business Insider on Friday that he will be starring in Gunn's "The Suicide Squad."

"We're getting ready to shoot in a few months' time," Courtney said, while promoting his upcoming movie "Storm Boy" (in theaters April 5). "There's not much else I can reveal about it but, yeah, you'll be seeing Boomerang back for sure."

It's still unclear which actors from the David Ayer movie will be returning for the sequel.

Read more: That creepy "I Got 5 On It" remix in "Us" was never supposed to be in the movie — here's what led Jordan Peele to add it at the last minute

Will Smith, who played Deadshot, exited the Gunn project due to scheduling conflicts (Idris Elba is reportedly eyeing the Deadshot role). Margot Robbie, who played Harley Quinn and is already shooting a spin-off titled "Birds of Prey," is expected to return. However, according to a Hollywood Reporter story, Gunn is planning to use DC characters who weren't in the first movie.

But for fans of the first movie (which grossed over $746 million worldwide), the return of Courtney's outlandish, pink unicorn-obsessed supervillain is a welcome sight. And the actor is excited to get back into the character.

"I'm happy, it's going to be fun," Courtney said. "It will be different, for sure, but it's going to be great."

"The Suicide Squad" is set to open in theaters August 6, 2021.

After hosting HQ Trivia for more than two years, comedian Scott Rogowsky has taken on a new role at DAZN, a sports streaming subscription service. Rogowsky began hosting a daily baseball show called "ChangeUp" on March 28th, the opening day of the Major League Baseball season.

"ChangeUp" is scheduled to air Monday through Friday, from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m EST; that schedule could conflict with Rogowsky's current role as the primary host HQ's live game shows, which broadcast live at 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. EST every day. It's possible, however, that Rogowsky could continue to host HQ on occasion, or regularly if the app changed its current broadcast times. It's also possible that Rogosky is ready to move on from HQ — but nothing has been confirmed other than Rogowsky joining DAZN.

A source familiar with the matter says that Rogowsky is a huge baseball fan, so hosting "ChangeUp" at DAZN is a dream job for him. Rogowsky will be co-hosting alongside Adnan Virk, who joined DAZN after being abruptly dismissed after nine years at ESPN for his role in a leaking scandal. The show jumps between different MLB games during the evening to capture the most exciting moments, with Rogowsky and Virk adding commentary and analysis.

HQ Trivia is an online game show broadcasting live each day. Rogowsky has been the primary host of HQ Trivia since the show launched with an app in August 2017. HQ was co-founded by Colin Kroll, who also helped co-found the video looping app Vine. Kroll was CEO of HQ Trivia until his death in December 2018; at the time of his death, Rogowsky thanked Kroll for his leadership and said HQ changed his life.

HQ Trivia did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

In 2014, blood-testing startup Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, were on top of the world.

Back then, Theranos was a revolutionary idea thought up by a woman hailed as a genius who styled herself as a female Steve Jobs. Holmes was the world's youngest female self-made billionaire, and Theranos was one of Silicon Valley's unicorn startups, valued at an estimated $9 billion.

But then it all came crashing down.

The shortcomings and inaccuracies of Theranos's technology were exposed, along with the role Holmes played in covering it all up. Holmes was ousted as CEO and charged with massive fraud, and the company was forced to close its labs and testing centers, and eventually shutter operations altogether.

Holmes and Theranos are the focus of a new HBO documentary that debuted in March, called "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley." The documentary joins the book "Bad Blood" and a podcast from ABC News that have combed through the story of Theranos and how its founder was able to defraud investors and potential customers.

This is how Holmes went from precocious child, to ambitious Stanford dropout, to an embattled startup founder charged with fraud.

Blue light is a tricky thing to understand. As of recent, we've been led to believe that blue light is evil. I think it's more ... misunderstood. The sun admits natural blue light — it's always been this way, so why all of a sudden are people experiencing eye strain, headaches, and fatigue from it?

This is how blue light works: The sun admits light known as white light. White light compromises various wavelengths that make up the visible spectrum (think: Roy G. Biv). An object exposed to white light absorbs all of the wavelengths (or colors of the rainbow) but the one you see. So, the sky is blue because red, orange, yellow, green, violet, and indigo are absorbed by the molecules in the atmosphere, while the color blue (or blue light) is reflected back to our eyes.

Blue light is actually important to our natural sleep cycle. It gives us energy and boosts our mood during the day, and helps our bodies know when it's time to go to sleep at night. So, what's the problem? It's not natural blue light, it's artificial blue light.

Artificial blue light is light that's admitted from electronic devices like computers, tablets, and phones. A large portion of people these days spend all day and night either staring at a computer screen or glued to their phones. The short-wave, blue light emanating from electronic screens flickers quickly and has the ability illuminate for long periods of time. Our eyes aren't naturally built for prolonged direct exposure to blue light. This is thought to be a factor contributing to eye strain, headaches, and fatigue.

Not to mention the other beast. When we use blue light electronics at night, it throws off our natural melatonin-production leaving us restless and wide awake.

What's a girl to do when she works for an online media company and constantly works with blue-light devices? Thankfully there are products like specialized light bulbs and screen protectors designed to reflect and reduce blue light exposure to help alleviate eye strain.

Here are seven ways to help protect your eyes from daily blue light exposure:

Tesla's new chair Robyn Denholm has said that she believes CEO Elon Musk uses Twitter "wisely."

In an interview following a speech in Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday, Denholm said Twitter is a fact of life for executives, according to Bloomberg.

"Twitter is part of everyday business for many executives today... From my perspective, he uses it wisely," she said after her appearance at the American Chamber of Commerce.

She added that Musk is not a challenge to corporate governance of Tesla. "I don't think he poses any challenges... The company is running very well and the board itself is very engaged. We meet with him all the time," she said.

Denholm was previously a director at Tesla before replacing Musk as chair in November, following his clash with the SEC over his infamous "funding secured" tweet. As well as slapping Musk and Tesla with fines worth $20 million, the SEC barred him from being chair of the company for at least three years.

Read more: 10 things you need to know about the woman replacing Elon Musk as the chair of Tesla

Denholm has been on the Tesla board since 2014, and was named alongside the rest of the board in a lawsuit filed by a shareholder who claimed that they had neglected their "fiduciary duties" by failing to rein in Musk's erratic behaviour.

Musk has recently locked horns with the SEC over his Twitter habits once more, as the agency asked a judge to hold him in contempt of court over a February tweet, in which the Tesla CEO falsely claimed Tesla would make 500,000 cars in 2019.

The SEC said the tweet is in violation of its ruling following the "funding secured" debacle, which required that all of his communications with material information about the company be preapproved. Musk maintains that the tweet was not in breach of his settlement with the SEC, and has cited his First Amendment rights.

During her interview, Denholm defended Musk. "We believe we've done everything that we need to do under the settlement, but obviously it's going to the court and it will go from there," she said.

A judge will hear arguments from Elon Musk's lawyers on April 4.

It's official: Apple is going to Hollywood. But if it's going to survive, it needs to realise that Tinseltown is nothing like Silicon Valley.

On Tuesday, the Cupertino technology giant held a glitzy event to formally announce its long-awaited video-streaming service, Apple TV Plus. When it launches, it will offer subscribers original content, including TV shows, movies and documentaries — and it has some of the biggest names in showbiz on board, from Steven Spielberg to Oprah Winfrey and JJ Abrams.

But it's also going up against long-established players like HBO and Netflix, and will need to adopt a totally new approach to doing business if it wants to make Apple TV Plus a long-term success.

Apple's business, at present, is heavily dependent on the ongoing success of the iPhone. It's the world's most popular smartphone, and is a money-printing machine of staggering proportions. Apple enjoys quarterly profits of $20 billion, largely off the back of the ongoing success of iPhone. Every device sold means hundreds of dollars in profit for Apple, which stands in stark contrast to the razor-thin margins in much of the rest of the smartphone business.

The media business is not going to be the same immediate cash-generating success for Apple. It is facing the necessity of enormous outlays to procure top tier talent and produce new video content from scratch, with no guarantee of success. Apple TV Plus may be in the red for years before it hits a critical mass of users to make it sustainable on its own merits.

Such profligate spending is necessary because without the content there in the first place, users simply won't pay to sign up. You wouldn't sign up for a paid streaming service with only three shows and a dozen movies — there needs to be a key level of content before the entire enterprise even becomes viable. That means burning cash lots of cash.

Apple has some key strengths going into this: Hundreds of millions of users, and bucketloads of moolah.

As Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a research note to clients on Tuesday: "Apple enters the content publishing business with two distinct strengths — a global user base and a massive checkbook. In our view, these two factors alone mean investors and competitors should take it seriously."

As such, the determining factor in Apple's success may not be whether it can afford to persevere, but rather whether it has the stomach to do so — if that means subsidizing unprecedented losses in an uncertain new business vertical until it builds the "content tonnage needed" to achieve scale," wrote the analysts.

Morgan Stanley points to the volume of cash Netflix had to go through to reach its position of strength: "From 2012 to 2021, when we estimated Netflix turns [free cash flow] positive, we estimate it will have burned nearly $13bn of [free cash flow to achieve this feat ... Netflix has benefited from a long bull market and fairly easy access to capital. Does Apple have the appetite to spend its way to success?"

Google CEO Sundar Pichai will meet with a top US military official in Washington, DC, on Wednesday to discuss the tech giant's business and technology efforts in China, according to a Bloomberg report.

News of the meeting between Google and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford was made public last week, but it was unknown that Pichai himself would be making the trip. Google did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

The meeting comes after Gen. Dunford's remarks during a Senate hearing earlier in March, where he said Google's artificial intelligence work in China "indirectly benefits the Chinese military."

Following Gen. Dunford's comments, President Trump weighed in on Twitter, criticizing Google for "helping China and their military, but not the US."

A Google spokesperson responded to the tweet in a statement on Saturday, saying, "We are not working with the Chinese military."

Google — which opened an AI lab in Beijing in late 2017 — says on its website that its AI activities in China focus on "education, research on natural language understanding and market algorithms, and development of globally available tools."

At a talk last week at the Atlantic Council, Gen. Dunford said, "This is not about me and Google. This is about us looking at the second- and third-order of effects of our business ventures in China, Chinese form of government, and the impact it's going to have on the United States' ability to maintain a competitive military advantage."

Google is not the only tech company doing business with China. "Last year, Amazon and Microsoft announced their own AI labs in China," Bloomberg reported. "Unlike Google, those two companies already sell cloud services in China."

Read more: A new report says Google is still secretly working on its censored China search engine but the company outright denies it

Google has come under pressure by US lawmakers following the company's decision not to renew its contract to build AI tools for the Pentagon, known as Project Maven. The decision came amid intense internal backlash at Google from employees who condemned the military work.

Last October, Google also bowed out of a potential cloud contract with the Pentagon worth billions. Although US companies like Amazon and Microsoft bid for the deal (known as JEDI), Google said that it "couldn't be assured that [the use of its technology] would align with our AI Principles." At the same time, Google was working a search engine for the Chinese market — a project the company has since said it has "no plans to launch."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal or WhatsApp at +1 (209) 730-3387 using a non-work phone, email atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram at nickbastone, or Twitter DM at@nickbastone.

Apple finally unveiled its new subscription TV service on Monday, Apple TV Plus, signalling the iPhone maker's biggest push into entertainment yet.

The company provided a first glimpse at the content we can expect to see on Apple TV Plus during the event, which features some of the biggest creative professionals in television and film. Celebrities such as Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, Steven Spielberg, and Kumail Nanjiani among others took the stage to share details about the series they're planning for Apple's new subscription platform, which range from anthology series to documentaries and dramas.

The event answered many questions about Apple's long-rumored approach to the TV streaming market, but there are many details we have yet to hear about.

For many workers, a nine-to-five office job is a thing of the past — if they ever experienced it at all.

A large and growing number of people work remotely or out in the field, at least some of the time.

Managing such a decentralized workforce can be a logistical nightmare, particularly as the number of remote workers a company employs grows larger. But a San Francisco startup has created a service that's designed to ease managers' pain.

Skedulo offers an online scheduling service that allows companies to manage remote workers, keeping track of their hours, directing them to particular clients or customers, and providing them a means to send information such as electronic signatures back to the home office. The company offers a version of the service that corporate administrators can use back at headquarters and a mobile app for the remote workers themselves.

"For most people, we've become the operating system for their day," said Matt Fairhurst, Skedulo's CEO, told Business Insider in a recent interview.

Skedulo's service is replacing paper and white boards

Although the remote workforce has been exploding in recent years across many industries, there haven't been many good technological solutions for companies to manage their off-site workers, Fairhurst said. Many companies that have adopted Skedulo's service were previously using Excel spreadsheets, calendar apps, custom software they'd created themselves, even white boards and paper, he said.

Read this: 9 traditional fields that are hiring more remote workers than ever

"This is a brand new category from a technology perspective," said Fairhurst, who also cofounded the company. "It's actually rarely the case," he continued, "that we're going in and ripping out alternative applications that were used to manage this process."

Skedulo helps managers match up remote workers who have particular skills with customers in need of that expertise. Its service can do that automatically for certain companies or industries where that's a good match, Fairhurst said. Or it can just make it easier for managers to manually make those pairings in cases where automation isn't the best solution, he said.

"We're not assuming every company can deploy full optimization or automation all the time," he said. "But it is a really important part of what we do."

Skedulo's service, for which it charges customers a monthly per-user fee, hooks into other kinds of enterprise and management software and services, including Workday, ServiceNow and Salesforce. It also can be customized and configured for particular industries.

It's being used to schedule insurance auditors and clowns

The company, which was founded in 2013 in Australia, has about 60,000 people using its service in countries and areas ranging from Australia to the United States to Europe, Fairhurst said. Although Skedulo's service is used across several different industries, it's found particularly strong uptake in the home health-care business, he said. Such companies represent more than 30% of Skedulo's customer base, he said.

But the company has also seen strong adoption in the business services sector and in training and education, he said.

"We've done everything from help companies schedule clowns to go into a hospital to juggle for sick kids all way to insurance auditors doing claims management in the field," Fairhurst said.

With the remote workforce continuing to grow, the company sees a big opportunity ahead of it. And investors do too. Earlier this month, Skedulo closed a $28 million Series B funding round that was led by M12, the name of Microsoft's in-house venture fund. The money, which brought the company's total funding to $40.5 million, gave it a valuation of more than $100 million, according to PitchBook.

Skedulo, which has about 120 employees, plans to use the funds to bulk up its sales and marketing teams, which are mainly based in San Francisco, and its product and engineering teams, which are located in Brisbane, Australia, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Fairhurst said.

"We want to make sure we're building a team to support the demand we're seeing in the market," he said. Skedulo has an "audacious mission," he continued, "of touching every desk-less and mobile worker."

Got a tip about a startup or other tech company? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Sony showed off a full slate of upcoming PlayStation 4 games during a special video presentation on Monday called "State of Play." The 20-minute video mimics the style of the Nintendo Direct presentations that Nintendo has been using to announce games since 2011.

Sony Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden said the company would be committed to more frequent updates and communication during 2019. Sony cancelled its PlayStation Experience fan conference last year due to a lack of meaningful announcements and pulled out of the year's biggest video game expo for the first time since the PlayStation launched in 1999. State of Play will be an ongoing part of the Sony's strategy to keep in touch with fans.

Read more:Sony's PlayStation will not attend E3 2019

While only a few of the PlayStation 4 games featured in State of Play were debut announcements, the presentation showed off gameplay footage from 10 upcoming games. Half of those titles are designed for use with Sony's PlayStation VR headset, demonstrating Sony's commitment to developing virtual reality.

Here's everything Sony talked about during Monday's State of Play presentation:

A viral prank on Twitter that promises users a "colorful" feed has caused some victims to get locked out of their accounts.

Some Twitter users are spreading the lie that changing their birthdays in their profiles will unlock a more colorful version of the Twitter feed. But there's one small problem — the supposed Easter egg doesn't work, and those who do fall for it are getting locked out of their Twitter accounts.

It seems the viral prank stems from a tweet posted Monday night, which has since gained almost 12,000 retweets and almost 20,000 likes.

Unfortunately, there's no colorful Twitter feed. Instead, following these instructions will lock you out of your account. That's because by changing your birth year to 2007, you signal to Twitter that you're under 13 — the required age for making a Twitter account, under the platform's terms of service.

If a user doesn't meet Twitter's age requirements, Twitter locks the account. The account then can't be accessed until the user "comes of age," so to speak.

There's no telling how many people have fallen for the prank, but it's apparently enough for Twitter to warn users about the hoax.

"We've noticed a prank trying to get people to change their Twitter birthday in their profile to 2007 to unlock new color schemes," Twitter Support posted Tuesday afternoon. "Please don't do this. You'll get locked out for being under 13 years old."

If you search "2007 birthday" on Twitter, it's apparent just how many people seem to have gotten locked out of their accounts. And people are really upset.

"If people lost access to their account, they can appeal by logging in and following the prompts for inputting an incorrect birthday. Our team will assist," a Twitter spokesperson tells Business Insider.

Just like an iPhone, Apple Watches undergo periodic software updates that include everything from bug fixes, to new features and watch faces, to general improvements.

Your Apple Watch will let you know when there's a new update available via a notification, but you can also manually check and update your Watch to the latest software (currently watchOS 5) on your own time.

Here's how it's done:

First, prep your iPhone and Apple Watch for the update

1. Make sure your iPhone is updated and has the latest version of iOS.

2. Place your Apple Watch on its charger and make sure it is at least 50% charged.

3. Connect your iPhone to a Wi-Fi network.

4. Keep your iPhone and Apple Watch close to each other to ensure they're in range.

5. This Apple Support page notes that updates can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to complete, so you may want to consider updating overnight or at a later time when you won't be using your watch.

Next, update your Apple Watch

1. If you receive an update notification on your Apple Watch, tap Update Tonight, then confirm this action on your iPhone.

2. To ensure the update is completed, leave both your Apple Watch and iPhone charging overnight.

Alternatively, manually check for software updates

1. Put your Apple Watch on its charger and keep it there until any updates are complete.

2. Open the Watch app on your iPhone, and go to the My Watch tab.

Navigate to the My Watch tab on your iPhone's Watch app. Abigail Abesamis

3. Tap General, then Software Update. If there's an available update, you'll see a red number next to Software Update.

4. If no updates are available, you'll see the text "Your software is up to date," and no further action is required.

Tap Software Update and your phone will check to see if an update is available. Abigail Abesamis

5. Download the update if there's one available. You may be asked for your iPhone or Apple Watch passcode here — enter it.

6. A progress wheel will appear on the Watch face. Keep the Apple Watch on its charger for the duration of the update. Do not restart your iPhone or Apple Watch, or quit the Watch app during the update.

Your Apple Watch will automatically restart once the update is complete.

First generation Apple Watches are not compatible with the latest watchOS software

1. Apple notes that watchOS 5 can only be installed on an iPhone 5s or later with iOS 12 or later installed, and an Apple Watch Series 1 or later.

2. WatchOS 5 is not compatible with the original (first generation) Apple Watch.

3. Find out which Apple Watch model you have (first generation, Series 1, 2, 3, or 4) here.

Troubleshooting tips

1. Make sure your Apple Watch is connected to its charger and actively charging.

2. Restart your Apple Watch.

3. Restart the iPhone that's paired with your Apple Watch by pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button until the "slide to power off" bar appears. Drag the power button across the slider. Turn your iPhone on by holding the Sleep/Wake button.

4. Try updating your Apple Watch after following these steps.

A slew of Silicon Valley startups are slated to go public this year, but don't expect Airtable to be among them.

The enterprise software startup recently gained unicorn status, raising funds at a valuation of more than $1 billion, and joining the likes of soon-to-be public companies including Lyft, Uber, and Pinterest. It also is on track to soon have enough revenue to have a successful public offering and to convince Wall Street analysts to cover it, company CEO Howie Liu told Business Insider in a recent interview.

"We are clearly on a path to where we could easily go public in the near future if we wanted to," Liu said. But, he continued, "We actually have no immediate intention or any urgency around going public."

Part of the reason for that is the current funding and startup environment in Silicon Valley, he said. Capital for growing companies is easy to come by. After the government relaxed the rule on the number of shareholders a company can have before it has to start publicly reporting its financials, there's less pressure on startups of a certain size to go public, he added. And going public has become less of a milestone marker for startups than it used to be, he said.

That environment has given companies including Airtable, which offers a cloud-based spreadsheet service that can be used to create databases and custom apps, more of a chance to think about "what are the pros and cons of going public, and how can we best serve our customers, our employees, and all stakeholders involved, including investors, either as a private or public entity," Liu said.

But Airtable in particular has room to go public on its own terms, because of its financial situation. The company Airtable has raised $170 million to date, including a $100 million Series C funding round last fall. Although the company's not yet generating positive cash flow, that's by choice, Liu said. Airtable is taking all the money it generates and investing it back in its business, he said.

Read this:Here's how Airtable raised $160 million last year — and got a valuation of about $1 billion — without a pitch deck

"We are ... very fortunate to be at a point where we could never raise venture funding again, have zero capital in the bank, and still continue to grow at a sustainable pace," he said.

Got a tip about a startup or other tech company? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Nintendo continues to change the gaming landscape. Consoles have either been small handheld devices for basic gaming or large, computer-sized consoles that connect to your TV for more powerful and intense gaming. But with the release of the Nintendo Switch in 2017, Nintendo proved that you can get high-quality gaming experiences in a device that works as both a handheld and a TV-based console.

Two years after the release, the Switch still seems to sell well and new games are released for the console every month. Is it worth buying now though, or should you wait for the next generation of gaming consoles? Well, I've been using the Switch for a while now and here are our thoughts.

Design

When the Switch originally launched, the design was considered unique. Unlike traditional handheld devices that were made to be held vertical like cell phones, the Switch was to be held horizontally. The overall look was like a thick-ish, plastic tablet with colorful Joy-Con controllers that you snap onto either end of the Switch. I have the blue and red version of the controllers and there's an all-gray version too. When they're attached to the body of the Switch, the whole device sits at 4 inches tall and around 9.4 inches wide with a 0.55 inch thickness. You'd be able to fit it into your everyday bag or purse, but not your pant pockets — unless you've got cargo pants.

The screen is a 6.2-inch LCD display with a 1,280-by-720 pixel resolution. I expect that the next generation of the Nintendo Switch will have a 1,080 pixel display, but I never really felt like the device was too limited in the resolution department. There's a power button, volume rocker, headphone jack, and a slot for game cards on the top, and a USB-C port for charging on the bottom of the body of the Switch. I didn't love the fact that the USB-C port is on the bottom because you couldn't easily charge the device and use it with the kickstand, which is also a huge problem for me.

The kickstand on the back of the device helps hold it upright on a table, but it's actually the worst aspect of the Nintendo Switch's design. It's flimsy, weak, and doesn't satisfyingly snap into place like I'd expected. Technically, it did get the job done so I guess it's fine, but still.

There's also a charging dock that connects the Switch to your TV so it's not lying somewhere random as you're playing games and two controllers though you can buy more if you plan on having game nights with a large group of friends. The dock connects to your TV's HDMI port via a small USB-C connector and it's relatively easy to slot in the Switch. Some people have noted that their devices get scratched when docking, but I never had an issue with that; if you're careful enough, the Switch should be perfectly fine.

Like the rest of the console, the Joy-Con controllers are made from plastic but seem solidly built. Both controllers have a joystick, four buttons on the face, and two buttons on the back. They're pretty easy to hold when you're using the full device in handheld mode and when using just the controllers for games like Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu. Unlike traditional controllers though, these are more like the size of lipstick chargers so it might take some time to adjust to the buttons and joystick being a lot closer together. You can get grips for one or both controllers to extend the sizes as well.

In general, the Nintendo Switch looks fun and seems well-built. I think it should be able to withstand most use though you'll still want to be careful with it because it's not the cheapest console around.

One of the best things about the Switch is the number of games that are compatible with the device. Amazon

Specs

Set-up process

Setting up the Nintendo Switch is pretty easy. Plug the dock into your TV's HDMI port and a power outlet, then turn on the Switch, and set up the software by logging into or creating a Nintendo account and going through the prompts. The one thing you will need to get used to is the small latch at the back of the controllers that attaches and detaches them from the body of the Switch, but it's pretty intuitive.

What makes it stand out

The Nintendo Switch has a lot going for it in day-to-day use and it can truly be used anywhere. It's just as easy to play in bed at the end of a long day as it is to play on the TV. The overall user interface of the Switch is also pretty simple. Your games are laid out in a grid so it's easy to access as soon as you turn on the Switch and the setup menus are intuitive too.

The collection of compatible games are really extensive so you can try out new games like Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, which revisit the first generation of Pokémon and are a blast to play. There's also Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which is perfect for having competitive game nights with your friends as well as fitness games like Fitness Boxing. The list of games is only growing.

Read more:The best Nintendo Switch accessories you can buy

Cons

The Nintendo Switch is perhaps the coolest gaming console from the past few years, but like everything else, it's not perfect. As mentioned, the kickstand on the back of the Switch is leaves a lot to be desired and I hope that Nintendo changes it for future generation devices. I love that you can use the controllers two different ways, but even using the grips still feel a little strange and cramped. If you want a more traditional controller experience, it's worth buying the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, which I've been using for a while and love.

Read more:10 accessories under $50 to help you get the most out of your Nintendo Switch

Bottom line

The Nintendo Switch isn't completely flawless, but it's an excellent console for those that want something they can use wherever they go. It's an absolute home run for Nintendo and represents the best console from the brand since the original Wii; I'd even go as far to say it's the best Nintendo console ever. The best thing about the Switch is how versatile it is, plus there are a number of compatible games, like the beloved Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. If you want a console you can use anywhere, then it's absolutely worth buying the Nintendo Switch.

But should you buy it now or wait for the next generation? Well, it's hard to predict the future, but I definitely recommend buying a Switch now. Even if a new generation is released within the next year, it's highly likely that new games will be compatible the current Switch. In fact, with the large number of compatible games on the market now, I would argue that there's never been a better time to buy a Switch.

Pros: Extremely versatile, easy to use, very well-designed, colorful and fun, great games

Cons: Kickstand is flimsy, games can be expensive

Buy the Nintendo Switch on Amazon for $299

Tim Cook with Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. Reuters

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Apple revealed a new video service, news subscription package, an exclusive games platform, and a credit card on Monday, spawning a lot of questions and hot takes. ICYMI, here's everything Apple announced. Apple didn't say how much the video or gaming services would cost, but gave a lot more detail about the news service, Apple News Plus. It's unclear how much the service will benefit the 300-plus publications in the service. The Wall Street Journal will be an interesting test case of whether a high-priced subscription publication can protect its valuable direct subscription base while broadening its appeal to a general news audience.

We're seeking nominations for the most innovative chief marketing officers and we want to hear from you. Submit your nominations here.

Here are other good stories we've been reporting. (To read most of the articles here, subscribe to BI Prime and use promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a free month.)

'We're just getting started': A top Accenture Interactive exec reveals the firm's strategy to crush advertising agencies Accenture Interactive has been sharpening its assault on ad agencies and plans to keep creating full-service capabilities and build brands beyond advertising, said the company's managing director, Anatoly Roytman. He also dismissed agency critics who say consulting firms lack talent, saying "everybody wants to work with us."

Samsung has fired a bunch of marketing staff following an internal audit over gifting Samsung Electronics America, one of the world's biggest marketers, has fired a bunch of its US marketing staffers following an audit over gifting practices, according to two people familiar with the situation. The company's chief marketing officer and its head of media and planning have also recently left, surprising people who have worked with them.

Digital media companies Group Nine Media and Refinery29 are said to be in talks to merge The rationale for such a merger could be that Group Nine and Refinery29 are in similar businesses of similar sizes. Group Nine CEO Ben Lerer is on the team of Lerer Hippeau, which is an investor in Refinery. Both companies are looking to diversify away from advertising, which has been harder to come by as most of the digital ad dollars are going to Google and Facebook. But Refinery isn't profitable yet. Group Nine is presumed by industry watchers to be unprofitable, though the company won't say.

Ad-tech companies are moving full speed ahead to chase OTT ad dollars. Here are the 13 companies poised to win the most. Business Insider polled a handful of ad buyers and compiled a list of 13 ad-tech companies that are at the forefront of shaping the future of OTT advertising, including Data Plus Math, Freewheel, and Hulu.

Big brands including Mastercard, Visa, and Pandora are trying to conquer sonic branding, the latest frontier in digital advertising Brands are increasingly using sound to reinforce their brand identities and positioning, just as they would use certain colors, designs, or words. The rise of smartphones, voice technology, and other digital devices and voice assistants have made marketers realize they need to be not only seen, but heard. One challenge is to make sure they do so without being interruptive.

Feel free to send tips or thoughts to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Here are other good stories from tech, media, and entertainment:

MoviePass walks back its claim to be 'profitable' and declines to say which investors 'did well' during its 99.99% stock drop

Amazon is finally letting brands track traffic from Facebook in its latest effort to cozy up to big marketers

'It's a complex ecosystem': Ad-tech firms promise OTT advertisers granular measurement, but marketers say there are holes in their pitches

This killer fact shows Apple has a ton of work to do if it's going to seriously challenge Netflix

These are the 5 big trends that will shape the future of digital advertising, according to Adobe

Oracle is laying off staff this month and, although the company rarely gives details on them, layoffs at Oracle happen with regularity. Oracle has reported restructuring costs in its financials for years (including 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.)

But this most recent layoff is different in who Oracle is targeting: people working on its cloud.

Although Oracle has confirmed that layoffs are taking place, it hasn't publicly said how many jobs will be cut or how long the cuts will continue. Some sources expect the cuts to continue until the end of Oracle's fiscal fourth quarter in May.

One person Business Insider talked to heard from his manager that 1,500 people worldwide were cut last week. The Register was told by others that the cuts could be bigger once they are completed, and total many thousands globally. Oracle employs 140,000.

Read: Oracle customers fear its reaction if they use Amazon's or Microsoft's cloud, survey shows

Business Insider/Julie Bort Oracle has so far only publicly disclosed that it cut 352 people at its Silicon Valley offices last week, according to forms filed with the state of California. However, sources tell us that more people worldwide are impacted.

Beyond the number of people affected, these layoffs are significant because developers who worked on Oracle's cloud products are not being spared or automatically reassigned to other groups.

Cloud is the all-consuming direction of the company. And it's unusual for a company to cut the people building the bet-the-business products.

One person who was let go as part of the layoff told Business Insider that there's actually been two groups of developers working on two versions of cloud over the past couple of years. One is led by the teams in Seattle and works on what's known inside the company as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). The other is led by the teams in Silicon Valley and works on what's known as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic (OCIC).

And in the power struggle between the two factions, the Seattle group has won, this person said. "Oracle took over a company in Seattle and they started a parallel development group. And it's obvious that group got the political clout and, presumably, the technical clout. They started to dominate the direction cloud development is going. And a bunch of projects in the original cloud development were canned or put on support only," this person described.

Like 'IBM in the 1990's'

The Seattle team's projects became Oracle's Gen 2 cloud , which was announced in the fall and is now at the center of the company's business strategy.

This person was working on an OCIC project that got cancelled. He lost his job but he believes that ultimately, these cuts, layoffs and the Seattle group's growing power are actually good for the company.

That's because Seattle has become a worldwide hub for cloud engineering talent, as it is home of two of the world's biggest cloud players: Amazon with its cloud Amazon Web Services and Microsoft with its cloud, Azure.

Scott Olson / Getty ImagesHe also says that Oracle has fat to cut because it has grown its engineering team largely through acquisitions over the years. That has bogged engineers down with middle management and bureaucracy.

"They have a ton of mid-level managers, to me they are mainly clueless. Maybe that's my cynicism but that's why I'm not that negative about what Oracle is doing. Maybe that group in Seattle are the ones that have their game together," this person said.

Having different teams working on separate software projects may have worked in the old, legacy software world, where software was a package of different products and features and new versions happened only every couple of years. But the cloud business is all about speed. Cloud companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google release dozens to hundreds of new features for their clouds every quarter.

"Oracle got into the cloud game really late and it's always been a game of catch up and because they are so inefficient, it's never really achieved what they thought it was going to achieve," this developer said.

Oracle has "taken over a number of companies but that doesn't necessarily mean they have a ton of good software in the cloud space. The problem with Oracle is that it's so darn large, with so many developers, it feels like IBM in the 1990's. It's a super tanker moving in an unfortunate direction."

A good thing for Oracle?

Others tell Business Insider that the refrain within the company is now about growth with efficiency. That will involve pouring more resources into the cloud services that are already selling well and controlling costs.

Oracle had been ramping up its presence in Seattle since 2015. As of 2017, it had 300,000 square feet of office space leased, GeekWire reported, enough room for 1,500 to 2,000 people.

It is unclear if Oracle has cut anyone from its Seattle location with these layoffs. Oracle has not disclosed any cuts to the state of Washington, where state law requires a layoff disclosure only if 100 people or more lose their jobs.

Justin Sullivan/ Getty Images While Oracle is known to offer fair severance, some people have also complained about the method Oracle used to inform people about losing their jobs this time around. Some people learned their positions had been cut via text message, according to one person we talked to.

Oracle declined to comment on questions involving its engineering teams or they layoffs other than confirming that layoffs are happening.

"As our cloud business grows, we will continually balance our resources and restructure our development group to help ensure we have the right people delivering the best cloud products to our customers around the world," the Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger told Business Insider.

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max airliner made an emergency landing in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday.

Southwest Airlines Flight 8701, a Boeing 737 Max 8, was en route from Orlando to Victorville, California, when its pilots declared an emergency minutes after takeoff, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement to Business Insider.

Southwest Airlines told Business Insider that its pilots "reported a performance issue with one of the engines."

The engine issue reported by the pilots appears to be unrelated to the control-software issues that have plagued the 737 Max and that may have contributed to the crashes of both Lion Air Flight JT610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302.

Neither of the two ongoing crash investigations have indicated any performance issues with the plane's CFM International Leap-1B engines.

The FAA said it is investigating the flight that lasted just 11 minutes.

Southwest Airlines, which is based in Dallas, is the single largest operator of the Boeing 737 Max.

Read more: Here are the airlines that fly the Boeing 737 Max

The plane involved in the incident is one of 34 Boeing 737 Max aircraft in the Southwest fleet that were grounded by an FAA emergency order earlier this month after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302.

Flight 8701 was headed for the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, where the plane will be kept in short-term desert storage. As a result, there were no passengers on board the flight.

"The Boeing 737 MAX 8 will be moved to our Orlando maintenance facility for a review," Southwest said in a statement.

Read more: The Boeing 737 Max is likely to be the last version of the best-selling airliner of all time

At the heart of the controversy surrounding the 737 Max is MCAS, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. To fit the Max's larger, more fuel-efficient engines, Boeing had to position the engine farther forward and up. This change disrupted the plane's center of gravity and caused the Max to have a tendency to tip its nose upward during flight, increasing the likelihood of a stall. MCAS is designed to automatically counteract that tendency and point the nose of the plane downward.

Initial reports from the Lion Air investigation, however, indicate that a faulty sensor reading may have triggered MCAS shortly after the flight took off. Observers fear Ethiopian Airlines flight may have experienced a similar issue.

Read more: 53% American adults say they don't want to fly on a Boeing 737 Max

Boeing is working on a software update for MCAS along with hardware improvements to get its plane flying again.

Here is the FAA's statement in its entirety:

"The crew of Southwest Airlines Flight 8701, a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, declared an emergency after the aircraft experienced a reported engine problem while departing from Orlando International Airport in Florida about 2:50 p.m. today. The aircraft returned and landed safely in Orlando. No passengers were aboard the aircraft, which was being ferried to Victorville, Calif., for storage. The FAA is investigating."