Starting with Apple, Alex Jones was kicked off social media sites one by one for his videos, podcasts, and posts. The social networking sites said Jones' posts were filled with hate speech and threats of physical violence targeting Muslims, transgender people, and mainstream media.

Other social media sites followed soon after with their own bans, and Twitter removed Jones after facing increasing pressure from outside groups.

Jones has long floated extreme conspiracy theories: he has claimed that the government staged the September 11 terrorist attacks, and he's currently facing a defamation lawsuit for calling the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre a staged event.

Platforms that have banned Jones this year include Facebook, Spotify, YouTube, Vimeo, PayPal, Apple App Store and Apple Podcasts, Twitter, Periscope, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Average demand expressions: 23,295,462

Description: "In an all-new series, five unlikely heroes and their flying robot lions unite to form the megapowerfulVoltron and defend the universe from evil."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 8): N/A

What critics said: "Season 8 manages to do the seemingly impossible by ramping up the stakes to the utmost, delivering the most powerful emotional resonance between our heroes and villains yet, and wrapping everything up in a tearful, bittersweet, and fully satisfying way." — Dave Trumbore, Collider

Season 8 premiered on Netflix December 14.

Tesla drivers are reporting a spate of "ICE-ing" (an acronym from Internal Combustion Engine) by large trucks at Superchargers across the country.

In one instance, Reddit user Leicina said a group of trucks blocked all of the charging spots while chanting "F Tesla" before being asked to leave by an employee of the store.

Like most superchargers, the location where the incident occurred — behind a Sheetz convenience store in Hickory, North Carolina, about 40 miles northwest of Charlotte — isn't on land owned by Tesla. Rather, it's leased from third-parties, giving the company no control over how the Supercharger spots are used from day to day.

"I was really uncomfortable," the Tesla owner said, adding that the Sheetz employees were "really understanding and sent someone out immediately."

A Sheetz spokesperson said the company was aware of the incident, and apologized for any inconvenience.

"Sheetz is proud to offer a wide variety of fueling options, including one of the largest networks of Tesla Superchargers," Nick Ruffner, the chain's PR manager, said in an email. "Parking spots with Tesla Superchargers are reserved exclusively for those charging their vehicles. These spots are regularly monitored by our store managers and employees - who routinely ask other motorists to move their vehicles."

Another Tesla owner in Bristol, Tennessee spotted a Dodge Ram truck blocking a charging spot, with the charging cable mockingly attached to the bed.

Reddit

Laws about parking in reserved spots vary by state. In Arizona, for instance, its illegal to park in "any parking space specially designated for parking and fueling motor vehicles fueled exclusively by electricity unless the motor vehicle is powered by electricity and has been issued an alternative fuel vehicle special plate."

The incidents aren't new — and Tesla owners have complained about them for years online. (To be sure, some may be accidental, but many — like the incident in Hickory, were clearly meant to provoke.) Some even love to shame their gas-guzzling peers when they park in EV charging spots.

A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Many people have compared the practice to "rolling coal," when diesel owners modify their engines to dump excess amount of fuel into the cylinders. It results in more horsepower and torque, but also black plumes of smoke when not all of the fuel can be burned.

In videos posted online, drivers brag about blowing clouds on protestors or an unlucky Prius on the highway.

The practice has been illegal at the federal level for years, and a similar law was adopted by New Jersey in 2015.

Luckily for Tesla owners, the supercharger network is quickly expanding. CEO Elon Musk this week said the company is "dramatically increasing Tesla Superchargers within cities & working with landlords to add home charging to apartment buildings."

"Overwatch" is one of the most popular video games in the world, and the best players can pursue a career playing the game through the Overwatch League, an international esports league dedicated to the first-person shooter.

Overwatch League's first season launched in December 2017 with 12 teams, nine of which are based in the United States. Those teams signed up players from across the globe, offering a minimum salary of $50,000 and a shot at another $3.8 million in prize money. The season one finals brought in 10.8 million viewers across Twitch, ABC, ESPN, Disney XD and Twitch, according to "Overwatch" publisher and league owner Activision Blizzard.

The 2019 Overwatch League season will start on February 14 with a rematch between last year's grand finalists, the Philadelphia Fusion, and defending champion London Spitfire.

As it enters its second season, the Overwatch League has added eight new teams, expanding the roster to 20 international franchises. According to Jacob Wolf of ESPN, Activision Blizzard asked each new expansion team to pay between $30 and $60 million for the rights to join the league. The 12 founding teams reportedly paid $20 million each to participate in the inaugural season, meaning that the cost of buying in is going up.

The new teams will expand the international scope of the league with three expansions in China (Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Guangzhou), two in Canada (Toronto and Vancouver), and a team based in Paris. The U.S. welcomes new teams in Washington D.C., and Atlanta. At the bottom of this post you can find a list can see every Overwatch League team, their parent organizations (in parenthesis), and their team colors.

Here's what you need to know about the Overwatch League, the teams, and the key games to watch this season.

If 2018 was the wildest and craziest year in Tesla's 15-year history, then 2019 is shaping up to be its most critical year.

CEO Elon Musk's all-electric automaker will enter 2019 having produced and sold more vehicles than ever and the company could be well on its way to a half-million in cars delivered by the end of the year. That might sound awesome — but Tesla has traditionally struggled mightily with the building-cars aspect of the car business.

Musk will also be facing potential twin headwinds in 2019: an economic slowdown in the US; and the first stages of the 2020 national election. If the US auto market slips into a downturn, then Tesla won't be spared some pain.

There's good news on the horizon, however, as Tesla prepares to unveil its Model Y crossover SUV, along with some other new vehicles, including a rumored pickup truck.

Here's a month-by-month look forward to Tesla's big events and news for 2019:

When Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was growing up, he wasn't allowed to watch TV.

The 28-year-old chief exec told the Financial Times in a recent interview that his parents enforced a no-TV policy until he was "almost a teenager."

Spiegel — whose messaging app Snapchat now claims 186 million daily active users — said not watching TV made life at school a "little tricky," but "actually thought that was valuable because [he] spent a lot of time just building stuff and reading or whatever."

Today, Spiegel and his wife Miranda Kerr impose an hour and a half of screen time per week on their seven-year-old child, who comes from Kerr's first marriage.

"I think the more interesting conversation to have is really around the quality of that screen time," Spiegel told the Financial Times. He brought it back to Snapchat: He says more "positive" videos should be promoted on the app, even if they will unavoidably be among mind-numbing content he describes as "junk food" stories.

Spiegel also thinks parents need to lead by example.

He said that parents should cut down on their own screen time or explain what they're doing on their devices so kids aren't "looking at the black back of the phone . . . [with] no idea what's going on".

Of course, Spiegel may need to start practicing what he preaches, as the Snap CEO reportedly spends much of his time during board meetings glued to his phone and disengaged from conversation.

Read more: Evan Spiegel spends most of his time during board meetings on Snapchat

Read the full Financial Times interview here.

Elon Musk would really like everyone to just forget about that whole 'pedo' thing.

Lawyers for the Tesla CEO have filed a motion to dismiss the defamation claim brought by Vern Unsworth, the British cave diver baselessly described by Musk as a "pedo guy."

We first heard of the legal update on Thursday via BuzzFeed reporter Ryan Mac.

The billionaire CEO's attempt to dismiss the claim hinges on the arguments that Unsworth attacked Musk first, that Musk made his attacks on a social media platform known for "hyperbole", and that Musk's remarks were opinion and not statements of fact.

Musk's lawyers wrote in a filing to a California court: "[The] reasonable reader would not have believed that Musk — without ever having met Unsworth, in the midst of a schoolyard spat on social media, and from 8,000 miles afar — was conveying that he was in possession of private knowledge that Unsworth was sexually attracted to children or engaged with sex acts with children."

British caver Vernon Unsworth, who is suing Elon Musk for libel. Screenshot/ 7 News

They described Twitter, where Musk first made his insults, as a "rough-and-tumble" platform known for "invective and hyperbole." Most readers, they claimed, don't necessarily expect everything they read on social media to be factually correct.

And they claimed Musk's statements were "imaginative attacks" which were protected by US free speech laws. Expressions of opinion are protected under Californian law.

The lawyers wrote: "The more colourful the invective, the more likely the reader is to understand that it is opinion."

Business Insider has contacted Unsworth's legal representatives in the US and the UK for comment.

Vern Unsworth is one of the cave divers who helped in the effort this summer to rescue 12 Thai boys and their football coach from a network of caves in Thailand, where they had been stranded thanks to floodwater.

The 12 soccer players and their coach react as they explain their experience in the cave during their news conference in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

About a week after the boys went missing, Musk stated on Twitter that he was keen to help in the rescue attempt. He subsequently flew to Thailand with engineers from his company SpaceX to offer up a mini-submarine as a rescue vehicle. Ultimately, the head of the rescue mission described the mini-submarine as "not practical", and the boys were successfully rescued by diverse guiding them through the cave network.

After the rescue, Unsworth appeared on CNN and dismissed Elon Musk's mini-submarine, stating that the Tesla CEO could "stick his submarine where it hurts." He criticised the plan as a PR stunt.

This prompted Musk to describe Unsworth a "pedo guy" baselessly on Twitter. He later apologised and deleted the original tweet, but then revived the feud in August by asking why Unsworth hadn't sued him yet. He then doubled down on his original pedophile comments in an email to BuzzFeed, suggesting Unsworth was a "child rapist", again without offering proof.

Unsworth then sued for libel.

You can read Musk's motion to dismiss here:

From AT&T's blockbuster deal to acquire Time Warner and AppNexus to Adobe's $4.75 billion bet on Marketo, 2018 was a big year for advertising and marketing-tech deals.

For years, venture capital firms and acquirers have chased "mad-tech" companies with the goal of loosening Facebook and Google's chokehold on digital advertising. Meanwhile, Amazon has emerged as a new threat to both the duopoly and smaller ad-tech companies.

This year produced some big deals. For example:

Facebook, Google and Amazon loomed over such deals. According to eMarketer, Facebook and Google controlled 56.8% of US digital ad dollars this year while Amazon will take 2.7%. Google has its tentacles deep into ad tech, powering and managing the data from ads served on millions of websites.

Read more: 'The industry is looking for alternatives to the duopoly': Here are the winners and losers of AT&T's acquisition of AppNexus

Ad-tech firms need to prove that they can make money

Increasing pressure from the tech giants means that there could be less M&A activity in 2019, Jay MacDonald, CEO of the investment bank Digital Capital Advisors, told Business Insider.

Meanwhile, investors are concerned with ad-tech companies' profitability.

"Companies out of necessity and survival are going to need to get profitable. They've known that, but now they're really starting to work on it," he said. "The ad markets tend to be fickle — they like the shiny, new object. If you're not profitable, you're no longer the new, shiny object."

There's a glut of companies who do the same thing

MacDonald said a growing number of ad-tech and mar-tech firms are vying to solve the same problem, making it hard for ad-tech firms to build bigger businesses. Take mobile marketing. A group of location-based companies like Verve, GroundTruth and PlaceIQ have long pitched their data to marketers as a way to better target ads, but these companies struggle to build big-enough audiences to attract advertisers.

Competition is stiff in programmatic advertising, too, where a growing number of vendors are vying for the same commoditized display ad impression. Companies like MediaMath and The Trade Desk have started to pitch technology like artificial intelligence and roots in connected TV advertising to set themselves apart.

Both OpenX and MediaMath went through leadership restructuring and layoffs this year.

"There's too many lookalike companies that are not the dominant player in their vertical," MacDonald said.

The growth in lookalike companies has led ad-tech firms to be more transparent in how they package ad deals, said Nate Woodman, U.S. chief data officer at Havas Media. As more marketers scrutinize so-called ad-tech taxes, companies like MediaMath are starting to break down the costs involved in media for buyers, then bundle the ad deals with data costs.

"The last couple of years have shed a lot of light on the ad-tech tax, and I'm putting out next year as something dramatically being done about it," he said. "The conversations with the data and media owners are turning more into bundling across technology, hardware, data and media and finding a combined price for all of that."

Marketers are looking for less "off the shelf" tech

One advantage that independent ad-tech and mar-tech firms have over giants like Google and Adobe is the ability to customize tech stacks for brands.

Instead of pitching marketers on the same generic set of tools, ad-tech companies can build tech pipes that are specific to them, which can be a big selling point with brands.

That's why Mac Delaney, SVP of media investment and innovation at Merkle, believes that marketers will lean harder on smaller ad-tech firms in 2019.

"Marketers will centralize on one platform for a much longer period of time, maybe forever, and that may not be [Google's] DoubleClick Bid Manager all the time," he said.

Since Sir Martin Sorrell's sudden departure as chief of WPP earlier this year, he set up S4 Capital to create a global advertising, marketing and ad tech company by acquisition. That was followed by two big deals — MightyHive and MediaMonks.

Business Insider caught up with Sorrell offstage at its IGNITION Conference in New York in December, where he weighed in on the agency holding company model, WPP, and advertising measurement. Our interview has been edited and condensed.

Tanya Dua: With MediaMonks and MightyHive, S4 seems to have the programmatic and digital production side of the equation figured out. What's next?

Sir Martin Sorrell: We almost have the complete train set, probably about, three-quarters to seven-eighths of the set. I'd like to see a little bit more in content and a little bit more in first-party data. But it's difficult to find good assets, and they're expensive. On the data side, there's stuff that I really like, but pricing is hard. When IPG bought Acxiom, they seemed to leave behind the best asset [LiveRamp], and I wonder why that was.

Dua: The agency holding companies are making huge changes as well. Will that model as we know it survive?

Sorrell: They'll survive, but there will be more consolidation. I can't remember a time when it's been more revolutionary.

Dua: What is your opinion on the VMLY&R and Wunderman-J. Walter Thompson mergers at WPP?

Sorrell: VMLY&R was something that I initiated. [VMLY&R CEO] Jon Cook and I fully agreed that it was going to happen. We were going to put Geometry into it as well. But I think it was a mistake for Jon not to have been more magnanimous. He would have done himself and his people at VML a lot of good by calling it Y&RVML.

I can understand the idea of making it digital-first by implication, so you put Wunderman before Thompson and VML before Y&R, but it means the death of the Y&R and Thompson brand. I was in Argentina when it was announced, and Y&R and JWT in Argentina mean something.

These decisions are difficult to make, but when you make them, you have to blend them in. You have to go out and talk to the troops and explain why you're doing it, because if you don't, you will lose their hearts and minds.

Read more: Sir Martin Sorrell says the advertising industry reminds him of Burning Man, and should embrace 'radical change'

Dua: Do these moves signal the death of creative agencies? You don't seem to be shopping for creative assets for S4.

Sorrell: You're living in the 19th century if you define creativity like Don Draper. The definition of creativity is shifting. Believe it or not, data analysts can be creative. People who do digital can be creative. Data doesn't destroy creativity, but enhances it, informs it and makes it more effective.

Dua: So who is S4 competing with? The consulting firms?

Sorrell: I don't worry too much about the industry. What I worry about is what does S4 deliver in terms of data, driving content and driving media planning, buying or programmatic. Several clients have said to me that is their model. They have their first-party data at the core, and that drives what they do from a content point of view and what they do on the media planning and buying side.

The acid test of S4 will be whether the combination works effectively and has correctly analyzed what clients want. The mantra — it's a terrible mantra in many respects — is doing it faster, better, cheaper, and more efficiently.

Dua: You've said before that measurement needs to be improved. Some advertising executives have gone over to the measurement side recently. What are your thoughts on that?

Sorrell: Comscore is a tragedy. We invested in Comscore when I was at WPP, and they had a massive opportunity. I was really disappointed with the way that was handled. I'm just as hopeful now as I was before. With Nielsen, I think [new CEO] David Kenny will make a difference. It's too early to tell. But there's a big opportunity there.

Dua: Has Amazon started to challenge Google and Facebook's dominance?

Sorrell: In terms of market cap, it has already. In terms of advertising, Amazon has a long way to [go], but it will challenge on advertising and search. 55% of product searches in the US, according to Kantar, are delivered or initiated through Amazon. Those are the three, the troika, if you ignore the Eastern challenge, which includes Tencent and Alibaba.

The UK's Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, said he has 'grave, very deep concerns' about using equipment from Chinese firm Huawei in Britain's 5G infrastructure.

According to The Times, Williamson said the UK would need to examine the possible security threats as it upgrades its mobile networks over the next two years.

"I have grave, very deep concerns about Huawei providing the 5G network in Britain. It's something we'd have to look at very closely," he said. "We've got to look at what partners such as Australia and the US are doing in order to ensure that they have the maximum security of that 5G network and we've got to recognise the fact, as has been recently exposed, that the Chinese state does sometimes act in a malign way."

Huawei is one of the most popular consumer smartphone brands in the world and sells more phones than Apple globally. But Western governments are sounding the alarm over Huawei's core telecommunications business, due to concerns its equipment contains flaws that enable spying by the Chinese government.

The company has always denied that its equipment contains "backdoors" in this way. In a statement to The Times, Huawei said it had "never been asked by any government to build any backdoors or interrupt any networks, and we would never tolerate such behaviour by any of our staff."

The UK is due to shift over to superfast 5G networks from 2019, with telcos such as BT and O2 beginning to run small-scale trials. There are also broader concerns about having a Chinese company dominate so much of the UK's critical infrastructure.

REUTERS/Stringer

Alex Younger, the head of M16, warned earlier in December that the UK needed to examine its relationships with Chinese tech companies closely.

He said at the time: "We need to decide the extent to which we are going to be comfortable with Chinese ownership of these technologies and these platforms in an environment where some of our allies have taken a very definite position."

Read more: An arrest, a debutante ball, and 3 marriages: Inside the lives of the super rich Huawei dynasty

The US has taken a much stronger stance against Huawei, reportedly pressuring local telcos like AT&T not to sell the firm's smartphones. And in August 2018, president Donald Trump signed a bill banning Huawei and another Chinese firm, ZTE, from use by the government and contractors. According to the Wall Street Journal, the US has asked its allies to follow suit. Both Huawei and ZTE are banned in Australia from having any part in its 5G networks.

The UK's biggest telecoms firm, BT, has already said it will remove Huawei's equipment from its existing EE mobile networks, and won't use its kit in its 5G network. The company said the decision was made to bring EE's networks in line with its existing legacy infrastructure.

Huawei is still permitted to sell phones in the UK and, given its difficulties in the US, Europe remains one of its biggest consumer markets. The Chinese firm also has a facility in Banbury, Oxford, which runs security tests on its own equipment. That facility is regularly scrutinised by British intelligence agency GCHQ.

This year had been a tough one for Apple. But things could get a whole lot better for the company in 2019.

Apple's stock is well positioned to outshine its peers among the big tech companies, said Gene Munster, a managing partner at Loup Ventures and a longtime tech stock analyst.

Changes in the way Apple reports its financial results, in the regulatory landscape, and in wireless technology will all benefit the company in the coming year, allowing it to distance itself from the other companies in the group of FAANGs — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google parent Alphabet — he said.

"Apple will be the best performing FAANG stock in 2019," Munster said as part of a blog post laying out Loup's predictions for the tech industry for the coming year.

That would be a welcome relief for the company's investors. Despite a rebound on Wednesday, Apple's stock is down 5.7% in the year to date and has underperformed the broader market as well as all of its big-tech peers except for Facebook.

Apple's reporting changes could be a good thing for its stock

Part of what has worried investors of late has been the company's iPhone sales. The company sold fewer smartphones than Wall Street expected in its most recent quarter, and the number it sold in its most recent fiscal year was barely more than in sold in its previous year.

Loup Ventures' Gene Munster is bullish on Apple going into next year. Brian Ach/Getty Images for LocationWorld Adding to those concerns, the company announced last month that starting next year it would stop disclosing the number of iPhones it sells each quarter. Many investors and analysts interpreted that announcement as a sign that the company believed its smartphone sales would start to decline.

But Munster thinks the changes Apple is making to its financial reporting will benefit the company and its stock by focusing investors attention on its overall revenue and earnings growth, rather than on how many iPhones it sells each quarter.

The changes should also highlight the growing importance of Apple's services business, he said. That business promises to be more profitable than its device sales. As investors start to focus on that business, they should start to accord Apple a higher price-to-earnings multiple that takes into account the services segment's growth and profit potential, he said.

"We believe the theme of Apple as a Service will slowly take root in 2019," Munster said.

Read this:Investors focused on Apple's disappointing iPhone sales are missing the company's hidden goldmine

Apple's going to benefit from not being Facebook or Google

Apple will also benefit from simply not being Facebook, Google, and Amazon, he said. All three of those companies are facing increasing regulatory scrutiny over their data-collection practices and market dominance. Munster's Loup colleague, Doug Clinton, forecasts that the US will pass a data privacy law next year that will constrain Facebook and Google in particular. Such a prospect could hinder their stocks, but likely would have little affect on Apple, whose business model is not built around similar data collection.

"Facebook, Google, and Amazon will be facing regulatory headwinds," Munster said.

The iPhone maker could also benefit from the wireless industry's latest technological evolution. Carriers are starting to roll out their 5G — or fifth generation — networks, which promise much faster speeds and much greater capacity.

Investors are going to get excited about 5G

Apple isn't expected to roll out its first 5G phones until 2020 at the earliest. But investors will likely start getting excited next year about what the new technology will mean for the company's future smartphone sales. That's because the ability to connect to the fast new networks will be big deal for the company's customers, Munster said.

"5G will be the biggest new iPhone 'feature' since the larger-screen iPhone 6 in 2014," he said.

The release of that phone spurred record unit sales for Apple that the company has yet to surpass.

A big year next year isn't a sure thing for Apple, of course. An economic downturn would hit the company just like many others, Munster acknowledged. Even so, he still think the company will stand out from the pack.

"If there's a prolonged slowdown, it will be negative for shares of AAPL, but we would still expect Apple to 'outperform' the rest of FAANG," he said.

With the stock markets facing turbulent times, many investors are likely wondering where to invest.

Colin Sebastian has some suggestions.

Although talk of recession is increasingly in the air, Sebastian, a financial analyst who covers internet and technology stocks for Baird Equity Research, is betting that the stock selloff in recent months is simply a market correction, not the advent of an economic downturn. If that's the case, the internet and video game software sectors should be poised for a big rebound, he said.

"We think it is reasonable to consider a more optimistic outcome" than a recession, Sebastian said in a research report issued Wednesday.

Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian studied how tech stocks performed after market corrections. CNBC/YouTube That would have been a remarkable statement after the huge selloff investors saw in recent weeks and have seen in recent months. But he may be on to something, given the market's rebound on Wednesday.

To figure out what investors could expect in the case of a rebound, and where they should place their bets, Sebastian took a look at how the companies he follows performed after the four most recent market corrections.

On average, the internet companies he covers saw their stocks rise 11% in the six months after those corrections. The video game companies did slightly better, rising 12%.

But those averages mask a lot of variation among the different companies.

Among the 15 companies he studied, just three traded higher six months after each of the four corrections on which he focused: Google parent Alphabet, Facebook, and Activision Blizzard. All three were also the best performers when it came to volatility — they each posted the lowest variance from their average price during those rebound periods.

But that doesn't mean he think each one of those companies is a good bet this time around. Instead, here are his top picks:

Venrock partner Cami Samuels has a bold prediction going into 2019: "Moderna will exit at a $3 billion valuation next year."

Moderna debuted on the public market on December 7 after raising more than $600 million in the biggest initial public offering in biotech history. While the IPO valued Moderna at $7.5 billion, it's currently trading well below its IPO price with a market value of $5 billion.

By the end of 2019, Samuels expects that to drop even further to a market value of $3 billion, less than half of its valuation at the IPO.

"It's hard for me, looking at their pipeline, to figure out why they're valued five times, six times [as much as] other companies with the same pipeline," said Samuels, whose firm makes investments in technology and healthcare companies.

Which isn't to say she's not interested in the science.

Moderna is developing medical treatments based on messenger RNA, and the company is still in the early days of human trials for its treatments, which include cancer treatments as well as a vaccine for cytomegalovirus, or CMV. The idea is that by putting messenger RNA into the body, it can turn the body into a drug factory, pumping out the proteins needed to fight a particular disease.

"Having said that, I do think that they're at the beginning of RNA and gene-editing RNA being emphasized almost as much as DNA gene-editing, based on all the startups I've been seeing," Samuels said.

Read more: 6 top VCs give their best 2019 predictions for healthcare, from a biotech correction to a 'shadow cash economy' stepping into the light

Samuels joined Venrock in 2014 and is currently invested in Unity Biotechnology, a company developing treatments related to aging. She has a few other predictions as well for the coming year.

For one, she's ready to get back to the basics in biotech.

"I'm enthused by the correction," Samuels told Business Insider. Over the past five years, the Nasdaq biotech index is up 25%, though recently stocks have taken a tumble, putting them well into correction territory, a term that refers to a 10% or greater decline from a stock's most recent peak.

In 2019, she said, she's anticipating a return to the basic biotech business model. That is, instead of a broad platform with six or more drugs in the works, a more straightforward focus on one or two lead programs that a company knows super well.

The correction in turn will drive that because there will be less available capital pouring into early-stage companies, forcing them to have a more zoomed-in approach.

"I remain an optimist on the fundamentals of biotech, but the industry has gotten so enthusiastic as to be undisciplined," Samuels said.

On the policy side, Samuels said she expects to see the biopharma industry make a concession on drug pricing to appease the administration of President Donald Trump. That said, she doesn't expect it to have broad implications.

Lastly, she sees exhaustion with financing cancer-drug makers sinking in, with interest picking up for other diseases that have been left at the wayside.

Two of the scientific areas she's most interested in at the moment: mitochondrial RNA-based medicines (a similar area to the work Moderna's in) and antiaging biology, particularly an area she refers to as "inflamm-aging."

It was a shocking bet even when it was made during bitcoin's sharp rise last year: $1 million that by the end of 2018, bitcoin would be worth more than $50,000.

The bet, made by the crypto hedge fund BlockTower Capital, would have given the manager the chance to buy 275 bitcoins at $50,000 apiece — any time before Friday, when the call options expire, a purchase that would have cost $13.8 million. The manager spent just under $1 million on those call options.

Bitcoin is currently trading at less than $4,000 per coin — a drop of more than 80% from its peak of $19,783, when BlockTower made its bet.

BlockTower — a Stamford, Connecticut-based manager that runs more than $130 million in client assets and has a minimum investment of $1 million — defended the purchase of the options at the time as a way to "risk a little to win a lot," according to the manager's cofounder Ari Paul. In a CNBC interview a week after the firm bought the options, Paul said "it was not a bet that something will happen, but a bet that something could happen," and that he liked the odds and payout of the move.

In an email to Business Insider earlier this month, Paul wrote that "we were not betting on or expecting" a bitcoin rally.

"In contrast, the options were a way for us to maintain exposure to an extreme rally while reducing overall crypto exposure," he wrote.

Paul declined to say if he had any other options out of bitcoin's future price.

Markets Insider

The PlayStation Classic is considered one of the most underwhelming video-game releases of 2018, disappointing fans with a lackluster list of built-in games and subpar technology. Now, perhaps in an effort to goose sales, the PlayStation Classic seems to have already gotten a price drop at most major retailers — from $99 to $60.

You can snag it at Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart. Other retailers have similar deals, too. We've reached out to Sony to see if the price drop is permanent and will update if we hear back.

When Sony announced the PlayStation Classic in September 2018, it seemed to be an effort to catch onto the retro-console wave started by Nintendo's NES Classic in 2016. Nintendo repackaged the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super NES for nostalgic fans, and both miniature consoles were major retail hits. Like Nintendo's classic consoles, the PlayStation Classic was preloaded with 20 memorable, old-school games and two controllers, but it was slightly more expensive, at $99.

The PlayStation Classic is small enough to fit in your palm. Sony

However, there were some stark differences in how the final product functioned when compared with Nintendo's releases. First, fans were upset with the 20 games picked for the system, feeling that a number of can't-miss PlayStation games were left off the final list. Later on, fans realized that different regions were getting different games; in Japan, the PlayStation Classic had seven games that were not on the American console, and vice versa. Then it was determined that several games on the American console were actually running the European version of the game — which, for technical reasons, means that they literally run slower than they should.

Read more: The 7 best and worst things about using Sony's $100 mini PlayStation 1, the PlayStation Classic

Even more curiously, players eventually discovered that the PlayStation Classic was running a version of PCSC, a free emulator used to play PlayStation games on computers. Furthermore, the emulator menu could be pulled up using specific USB keyboards, allowing players to enter cheats and alter other hidden game settings. This was particularly confusing considering that, otherwise, the PlayStation Classic lacked many basic features as compared with the Super NES Classic.

The PlayStation Classic's menus are pretty bare bones. Sony

Finding value in a botched launch

So now, after that lukewarm response to the launch, major retailers are offering the PlayStation Classic for 40% off. But even at the reduced price, the PlayStation Classic's shortcomings haven't changed. So why should you consider buying it at $60?

The biggest benefit of buying the PlayStation Classic at a reduced price is the hardware. The PlayStation Classic's replica controllers are regular old USB devices and can easily be used for PC gaming, too. Wired controllers of similar quality cost at least $20 each and wouldn't be this perfect of a match for the original PlayStation pad. While the lack of analog sticks makes them less than ideal for everyday use, retro-gaming fans can probably get value from them.

Additionally, since the PlayStation Classic has USB ports in the front, modders have already found ways to change the games that are installed on the console. If one has the patience to find and implement the right hacks, they can customize the PlayStation Classic game list to suit their own taste, as with the Super NES Classic before it.

So, if you have your heart set on playing games from the original PlayStation, now will likely be the best time to buy the PlayStation Classic with a discount and get the full system for the price of a single game. Just remember, while nostalgia helps ease the memories, not every game from the late '90s was a classic.

Millions of people have invested in the future of "Star Citizen," the wildly ambitious, crowdfunded video game project being developed by Cloud Imperium Games.

Six years after launching its initial Kickstarter campaign, "Star Citizen" is now the most-supported crowdfunding project ever.

In late November, Cloud Imperium announced that crowdfunding had exceeded $200 million for the immersive space exploration game. With another recent private investment bringing $46 million to the table last week, Cloud Imperium believes the game's single-player campaign "Squadron 42" will finally be ready to launch in 2020 for its community of more than 2 million backers.

That money, combined with the crowdfunding proceeds, means that fans and investors combined have put some $256 million into the promise of "Star Citizen."

Star Citizen has been in development since 2011.Imgur/Nehkara

In October 2012, the then-new Cloud Imperium Games launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $500,000 for "Star Citizen," a new space simulator and the follow-up to founder Chris Roberts' previous games, "Wing Commander" and "Freelancer." Like most crowdfunding campaigns, "Star Citizen" had a number of stretch goals in place, should the project exceed the $500,000 mark. However, the overwhelming number of backers led the development team to reconsider the scope of the project entirely.

Cloud Imperium Games reports that the project now has more than 2,200,000 backers, and they've helped push the budget to $212,623,319, as of December 26, 2018. With a budget exceeding $200 million, "Star Citizen" is already on track to be one of the most expensive video games ever made, rivaling all-time best-sellers like "Grand Theft Auto V" and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2."

Read more:See Why People Have Pledged More Than $200 Million For This Epic Space Game

"Star Citizen" strives to be a complete sandbox set in space, allowing players to define the game for themselves. Gameplay will include flight simulation, first-person shooting, exploration, and roleplaying elements like quests and player progression.

The game promises an interactive world with a scale that is unmatched by any video game released thus far, taking players between planets and space station hubs. As more funding has come in, the development team has been consistently adding new layers of depth to the game. Backers can participate in the game's alpha test, which regularly incorporates newly developed content and offers a preview of the full game.

Cloud Imperium recently announced that South African billionaire Clive Calder and his son, "Blindspotting" director Keith Calder, had invested $46 million in exchange for a 10 percent share of the company. With the investment, Cloud Imperium itself is valued at $496 million, just under half a billion dollars.

"We were impressed by the vision and passion that Chris and the formidable global team he has assembled have put into building Star Citizen, and we think that the direct and transparent relationship they have built with their players is a strong foundation for a next-generation gaming company," the Calders said in a statement at the time.

With "Star Citizen" in the works since 2011, Cloud Imperium has displayed an impressive amount of transparency regarding the funding and the game's development process. While the lengthy development time has become a running joke among some gamers, daily communication from the team behind the game has helped maintain trust with the game's community.

Mark Hamill, famous for playing Luke Skywalker, will play a key role in "Squadron 42," the single-player campaign set in the "Star Citizen" universe. "Squadron 42"

With this most recent investment, Cloud Imperium Games has announced that the single-player "Star Citizen" campaign, named "Squadron 42," is set to launch in 2020. "Squadron 42" has a star-studded cast that includes Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, and Andy Serkis, among others. In a post on Cloud Inperium's site, Roberts said the plan was to finish the campaign content in 2019, then use the first six months of 2020 as an alpha test to finish polishing the final project. After the alpha phase, "Squadron 42" would enter beta prior to official release.

Cloud Imperium's road map for "Star Citizen" includes specific improvements scheduled through the second quarter of 2019. The full "Star Citizen" game is currently in alpha testing but has still has no scheduled release date.

Linkedin co-founder and Greylock Partner's investor Reid Hoffman apologized Wednesday for funding a group linked to a misinformation campaign during Alabama's 2017 special election for the US Senate.

It was the first time that Hoffman, a prominent Silicon Valley billionaire, acknowledged his donation to the group, called American Engagement Technologies, or AET.

AET allegedly funded another project, called New Knowledge, which used social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to boost support for Democrat Doug Jones in his ultimately successful campaign against Republican Roy Moore.

Hoffman donated $750,000 to AET, according to the Washington Post, who first reported Hoffman's statement Wednesday.

Hoffman, a vocal democratic donor, said in the statement that he was not aware of the group's work with New Knowledge before it was reported last week.

"I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing. For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track AET — the organization I did support — more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject," Hoffman said in the statement.

Hoffman's apology comes one week after the New York Times reported details of the project, known as Project Birmingham.

Project Birmingham involved creating Facebook pages aimed at conservative Alabamians, according to the Times. The page was used to try to divide Republicans and encouraged them to endorse a write-in candidate. It also involved a scheme to link Moore to Russian bots, according to the Times.

While many of us know full well that we should be saving our money, it can be easy to reach zero — or darn close to it — by the month's end. After all, there are bills to pay, food to put on the table, and other financial obligations that get in the way of saving up for emergencies, vacations, or holiday spending.

But what about squirreling away your hard-earned cash without having to think about it?

That's where Digit comes in. As a money-app junkie, I've checked out my fair share of apps to help me with my finances. And the one that tops my list to help save money is Digit.

The company charges users $2.99 a month, a relatively small fee that features many potential benefits. Since I signed up for the app in March 2016, I've easily saved over $20,000 with it.

Here's how the Digit app has helped me save:

How Digit works

Digit is a super-easy, no-brainer way to stash away cash. When you sign up, all you need to do is link your Digit account to your checking account. From there, Digit handles the rest. It uses algorithms to learn about your spending patterns, and about how much you can reasonably save. These algorithms are primarily influenced by your checking-account balance, upcoming income, upcoming bills, and recent spending. It saves money for you when you can afford to, and hits the "pause" button when you can't. Because Digit keeps your money socked away in a separate account, I conveniently forget I have that money stashed away. This "set-it-and-forget-it" approach prevents me from being tempted to tap into my Digit account. Plus, because it generally takes a few days to transfer funds back into your account, I use it for only big-ticket items and emergencies.

The handful of times I have pulled money from my savings were to help me pay a credit-card balance, to take a trip, and to buy a new laptop when mine broke down while traveling.

How much you can expect to save

Your savings will depend on a number of variables, including how much money you keep in your checking account and what your spending and saving patterns are. According to Digit's website, the average user sees an average of two to three transfers per week. The company has said its average savings transfer is $18, but can be anywhere from $5 to $30. If you're saving $10 a week, that's $520 a year.

How did I manage to save over $20,000 in three years' time? While you can set up a savings schedule or manually transfer funds into different goals, I saved entirely through Digit's auto-saving feature.

How much I saved depended on how much of a cushion I had in my linked account. As a freelancer, my income fluctuates. And I saved anywhere from $40 to $3,500 in a single point. But on average, I was able to save roughly $600 a month through the app.

It helped me stay on top of my spending

Digit

Another one of Digit's features that I love is the daily texts I receive from it. These let me know how much money is in my bank account. Plus, the app sends me friendly "heads up" texts when money is being transferred among my bank accounts and notifications of recent transactions. I can also keep tabs on my savings, see when a check has cleared, and create new personal goals through the app.

Read more: 11 financial experts reveal their favorite money apps

Saving for specific goals

Like any solid money-management app, Digit allows you to set up different money goals. Predesigned goals include saving for an emergency cushion, crushing credit-card debt, paying off student loans, setting up a travel fund, or splurging on gifts guilt-free. You can also come up with your own savings goals. To up the fun factor, you can assign an emoji to each goal.I've set up a few goals, such as traveling to a wedding in Florida (used the "bunny" emoji) and traveling to a work conference (assigned the "ghost" emoji). But I've generally socked everything away in a "Rainy Day Fund," which is Digit's default account. I wanted to use Digit as a general savings fund. I've made withdrawals for trips, to help with my down payment for a new car, to get through the holidays, and to add a cushion to my checking account.

Noteworthy features

Digit

Besides setting your savings on autopilot and providing a separate account to safely stow your money away for important money goals, here are some of my favorite features of the app:

If your checking falls below that amount, Digit will automatically transfer some cash from your Rainy Day Fund to top it off. For instance, let's say you set that number at $200, and your balance falls to $150. Digit will then send $50 to your checking account.

A few downsides