A new, diamond-encrusted Apple watch is here to make your luxury watch dreams come true — if you can afford it.

From luxury accessories-maker Brikk comes the Lux Watch 4, with prices for the Lux Watch 4 Classic collection starting at $28,995.

The watches have the full functionality of the Apple watch and differ only in aesthetic; they are available in yellow, rose, and white gold. They are, according to their website, the product of five years of research and development.

Alex Bradley, a concierge for Brikk, told Business Insider that the diamonds that go into the watches are selected by company founder Cyrus Blacksmith, who hand-selects "a specific grade of conflict-free laser-cut" diamonds.

However, prospective clients interested in buying their first Brikk watch will have to wait. According to Bradley, the company has now finished taking pre-orders for the Classic, Deluxe, and Omni collections. All seven collections will be launching on November 2.

Here's a closer look at the range of luxury watches:

The White House on Thursday flatly denied that President Donald Trump's cellphone was compromised after a New York Times report suggested Chinese spies were listening to his phone calls.

"The article written by the New York Times presented inaccurate information about the President's cell phone and its usage," White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement.

Current and former US officials warned that Trump's personal Apple iPhone was monitored by Chinese spies, according to The Times' report published Wednesday. Trump reportedly used two iPhones that were programmed by the National Security Agency for official use, but also kept a third, personal phone that was unaltered — much like the normal iPhones on the consumer market.

Trump was said to use the unaltered personal iPhone because of its ability to store contacts, the officials said in the report. One of the two official phones was designated for making calls, and the other one was for Twitter.

Gidley rejected The Times' reporting on the number of Trump's iPhones and also downplayed the threat they may have posed.

"The President does not have three cellular phones," Gidley said in the statement. "He has one official government iPhone. This phone security follows industry best practices and is closely managed under government supervision in conjunction with recommendations from industry partners."

"The phone is rotated on a regular basis and is constantly monitored for any security vulnerabilities and attacks, in accordance with recommendations from the intelligence community," Gidley added.

Trump also played down the reported threat by brushing it off on Twitter.

"The so-called experts on Trump over at the New York Times wrote a long and boring article on my cellphone usage that is so incorrect I do not have time here to correct it," Trump said in a tweet on Thursday morning. "I only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell phone. Story is soooo wrong!"

According to the sources cited by The Times, the information Chinese spies have collected included who Trump regularly speaks to and was part of a wider lobbying effort to influence his friends and business associates. US intelligence agencies discovered the espionage campaign from sources in foreign governments and intercepted communications from foreign officials.

The rich are getting richer and more numerous.

The world added 332 billionaires last year, with their cumulative wealth increasing 19% to a record $8.9 trillion, according to an annual survey from UBS and PwC.

What's behind this phenomenon? Explosive wealth creation in China.

"China is where we're seeing unbelievable and unprecedented growth," said John Mathews, head of ultra high net worth Americas for UBS Global Wealth Management. For the first time ever, billionaire growth in Asia Pacific outpaced that of the US last year.

In 2006, there were just 16 Chinese billionaires. But in 2017, the tally hit 373 - a fifth of the global total. The US still leads regionally, with 585 billionaires, but wealth creation in the region is slowing. The US created 53 billionaires in 2017, compared with 87 in 2012.

In China, 106 people became billionaires in 2017 (although a number dropped off the list from 2016). That comes out to roughly one new billionaire every three days.

If current trends hold, Asian billionaires' wealth will surpass that of their American counterparts in three years.

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

That growth has been driven by self-made entrepreneurs in China, particularly in the technology industry.

More than 300 Chinese companies went public last year, unlocking what UBS deems "stealth wealth," the difficult-to-measure wealth of individuals in private markets with little transparency.

About 97 percent of Chinese billionaires are self-made, and, at 56 years old on average, they're about a decade younger than their North American counterparts.

US entrepreneurs could play catch-up next year, though. Mathews said major anticipated initial public offerings in 2019, including Uber, could reveal more stealth wealth, potentially adding more billionaires to the US's count. Of the 53 new billionaires in the US last year, 30 were self-made.

On Friday, General Motors proposed a nationwide program for zero-emissions credits that would greatly extend the current nine-state framework and encourage automakers to introduce more electrified vehicles.

In a statement, GM said the National Zero Emissions Vehicle (NZEV) program "has the potential to place more than seven million long-range [electric vehicles] on the road by 2030, yielding a cumulative incremental reduction of 375 million tons of CO2 emissions between 2021 and 2030 over the existing ZEV program."

At the moment, the ZEV program is limited to California and nine additional states.

What is ZEV? Read more about the program from this helpful primer published by The Union of Concerned Scientists.

GM offered the proposal as part of its comments on the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule for Model Years 2021-2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks, a process undertaken by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to review federal fuel-economy standards established under the Obama administration.

The Trump administration reopened the review process, a decision supported by the auto industry. Some environmental groups have opposed the move.

Trump vs. California vs. the auto industry

GM CEO Mary Barra and President Donald Trump. Getty Images

But carmakers have also found themselves in the awkward position of contending with a political showdown between Trump and California, which exercises a waiver from the EPA to set its own emissions standards.

That prerogative goes all the way back to the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1963. And because California is such a large vehicle market, its standard is followed by numerous other states, making it something of a de facto national standard.

The prospects of revoking the waiver has created a nightmare scenario for carmakers — one in which they would have to design and engineer vehicles to multiple standards, if California retains its own standards while elsewhere in the country, they're rolled back.

In this context, GM's proposal achieves two objectives.

GM furnished details of the proposal, including an increasing scale of ZEV credits for all 50 states, "starting at 7% in 2021, increasing 2% each year to 15% by 2025, then 25% by 2030." The program would "terminate when 25% target is met, or based on a determination that the battery cost or infrastructure targets are not practicable within the timeframe," the automaker said.

The NZEV credits would be "modeled on the current ZEV program: credits per vehicle, based on EV range, as well as averaging, banking, and trading."

The plan also calls for the establishment of a Zero Emissions Task Force.

Addressing climate change with an industrial strategy, led by the US

GM vice-president Mark Reuss. GM

"We believe in a policy approach that better promotes US innovation and starts a much-needed national discussion on electric vehicle development and deployment in this country," Executive Vice-President Mark Reuss said. "It's past time for national policy to address climate change, with an industrial strategy that advances US leadership in the technology that delivers the most benefit: Electrification."

Reuss added that GM isn't "standing still on this." He noted that the carmaker is already reducing the weight of its car and trucks by 400-500 lbs. and developing new engine technologies, along with committed to a fresh battery-electric design for vehicles that will follow the launch of the Chevy Bolt EV.

In a conference with reporters on Thursday to preview the NZEV proposal, he also said that the if adopted the idea would facilitate more automakers focusing on EVs, and that it would make their efforts more efficient. For GM, the NZEV credits could create a new revenue stream, helping the automaker offset some of the costs of vehicle development and the creation of EV-charging infrastructure.

"It could take the guesswork out," he said. "We're making bets now, but there's a lot of uncertainty, and that can destroy capital."

(Reuters) - Google Inc Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said on Thursday the company had fired 48 employees for sexual harassment over the past two years.

Pichai sent an email to Google employees in response to a New York Times story that was published earlier in the day.

The report said the search engine giant protected three senior executives from allegations of sexual misconduct by offering them payouts.

The email, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, said of the 48 that were fired, 13 were senior managers or held more senior posts.

However, Pichai said none of those employees received an exit package.

The email, which was also signed by Google's vice president of people operations Eileen Naughton, said that company employees could use internal tools to report cases of inappropriate behavior anonymously.

It also said that Google has updated its policy to require all vice presidents and senior vice presidents to disclose any relationship with a co-worker regardless of reporting line or presence of conflict.

"We are committed to ensuring that Google is a workplace where you can feel safe to do your best work, and where there are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately," the email said.

Something interesting happened during Google's quarterly earnings report on Thursday and it had nothing to do with the cost-per-click, the traffic-acquisition-cost or any of the other arcane metrics that Wall Street folks love to geek out over.

In fact, what happened on the investor call wasn't intended for investors at all. The intended audience was the man in the White House, and Google didn't try to be very subtle about it.

As Google CEO Sundar Pichai neared the conclusion of his prepared remarks, he noted that Google parent company Alphabet is investing "closer to home." In the third quarter, he pointed out, "more than 80% of Alphabet's total cap-ex was in the US."

"Not only do these investments in datacenters, machines and offices allow us to bring great services to our users, they have a strong positive impact on the communities around them, supporting thousands of jobs and countless local businesses. This year to date we added more than 9,000 new employees in the US and we continue to grow faster outside the [San Francisco] Bay Area than within it."

It's not the kind of detail that Google — one of the least transparent companies when it comes to its business — typically goes into during its earnings reports. But these are not ordinary times, and Google, like many of its Big Tech peers, is doing whatever it can to wrap itself in the American flag and show what a good citizen it is.

Maybe it's because US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said he wants to investigate internet companies for supposedly stifling conservative speech. Or maybe it's because Trump's 2020 campaign manager has called Google a "threat to the republic."Or perhaps because Trump himself has accused Google of rigging its search results against him (it didn't).

AP

Google is also on the defensive because of its decision not to pursue weapons-related contracts with the US Department of Defense, a policy which other Trump punching bags like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos have pounced upon, as if to improve their own image with the president.

Let's be clear, the fact that Google is investing 80% of its capital expenditures in the US is obviously a good thing. Google spent $5.3 billion in cap-ex during the third quarter, so that's real money, and a lot of it.

But chances are that money was always intended to be spent in the US. One of the key line items of Google's capital expenditures are datacenters, giant infrastructure projects that take years of planning.

The only thing that's changed is the sudden need for Google to loudly proclaim its patriotic bona fides. For a company as powerful as Google, the unusual flag-waving is a stunning show of deference to, and likely fear of, the White House.

Yes, right now Google is singing to the commander-in-chief about some very laudable achievements. But there are lots of dangerous "Make America Great Again" policies of which Google has been a vocal opponent, from the travel ban that targeted people from Muslim-majority countries, to transgender rights.

A lot of vulnerable people depend on powerful entities, even profit-driven corporations, to champion their causes.

Now that Google has gotten used to bending its knees and kowtowing, what will it say, or do, the next time it needs to curry favor with Trump?

Companies of all kinds renewed their appetite for tech firms in the third quarter.

The value of tech-related mergers and acquisitions announced in the period hit $66.4 billion, according to a new report from consulting firm PwC. That was not only the highest total in nearly two years, it was more than double the value of the deals announced in the second quarter.

"After a lackluster performance in Q2 2018, the technology deals market regained its shine," PwC said in the report.

The firm predicted the deal market would remain robust going forward, despite some potential ups and downs. Funding was up in the quarter for startups, which often represent prime takeover targets as they get bigger, PwC said. And companies of all stripes are placing a premium on innovation and technology, it said.

"We remain bullish on the prospects for Technology deals regardless of the macro market trends," the firm said.

Broadcom's takeover of CA Technologies boosted the market

The deal market's third quarter rebound was driven in part by one big transaction — Broadcom's $18.9 billion deal to takeover of CA Technologies. Broadcom announced that deal just months after the Trump administration barred its attempted acquisition of Qualcomm on national security grounds.

But the deal market saw strength across the board. Some 485 deals were announced in the period, which was up 15% from the second quarter. More than half of those were for less than $100 million, while another 23% were valued at between $100 million to $500 million.

The quarter saw one other deal of more than $5 billion — Renesas' $6.7 billion planned acquisition of IDT. And it saw 12 deals valued at between $1 billion to $5 billion, up from just nine such deals in the second quarter.

PwC

Software companies were hot commodities

By far the most popular sector for acquisitions in the quarter was software. Around 250 deals involving such companies were announced in the quarter. The combined value of those transactions was $41.9 billion. That was up from a mere $9.9 billion in the second quarter.

Information technology services was a relatively hot sector as well. The number of such deals topped 100 and their combined value hit $8.8 billion. That was up from just $5.4 billion in the second quarter and represented the highest total value for the sector since 2016.

PwC

Money flooded in from outside

A return of foreign buyers also helped boost the deal market. Some 75 deals in the most recent period involved foreign companies attempting to buy US tech firms. That was up from just 53 such deals in the second quarter. The total value of deals involving foreign buyers was $16.4 billion. That was up from $4.9 billion in the second quarter and was the highest total since the fourth quarter of 2016.

The Trump administration has been taking a harder line on foreign companies acquiring US technologies and tech firms, subjecting them to more thorough national security reviews. That's led to greater uncertainty over whether deals will go through.

In addition to a surge of foreign buyers, the deal market saw an influx of acquirers from outside the tech industry. The total number of deals involving non-tech companies reached 137 in the period, up from 80 in the second quarter. That was the highest level in more than two years.

Meanwhile, the value of deals involving non-tech companies hit $13.3 billion, up from just $5.5 billion in the previous quarter. That was the third highest total in the last 11 quarters.

PwC

Now read:

After 14 people were killed in the San Bernardino mass shootings in 2015, Apple refused to help the FBI hack into the shooter's iPhone, calling it a dangerous precedent for the government to make such demands on companies. Tim Cook even went so far as to say the FBI wanted Apple to create "the software equivalent of cancer" in order to gain access to the phone.

In an interview with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo, Oracle founder, CTO, and executive chairman Larry Ellison, called this "bizarre." Ellison was responding to Bartiromo's comment that Silicon Valley tech giants have become increasingly influential and are now in the "crosshairs of the U.S. government."

Ellison said that many of the giant Silicon Valley companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple tend to respond to political issues in a way their younger employees would prefer them to respond.

"Apple will decide if the phone's going to be locked or unlocked," Ellison said. "Apple, not the courts - not our courts, but Apple would make that decision, is just bizarre."

At the time, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a public letter on the company's decision, saying, "The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone's microphone or camera without your knowledge. Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government."

FBI agents had previously called Cook "a hypocrite" for the decision. The FBI later dropped the court order for Apple and hired a third party to hack the iPhone. Ellison told Bartiromo that this example shows some of the "political distortions" that can exist in tech companies.

Ellison is not the only tech company founder to have criticized Apple's decision to fight the FBI's request. Microsoft founder Bill Gates previously said he didn't share the belief "that even a clear mass-murdering criminal's communication should never be available to the government."

Ellison also spoke on his views on the political decisions of other tech companies, such as Google's new AI policies regarding military contracts.

Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment at the time of publication.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told his Twitter followers on Thursday to "Send me ur dankest memes!!" Some Twitter users took the message as an opportunity to poke fun at Musk for controversial tweets he sent in August about potentially taking Tesla private.

One replied to Musk with an image of Musk's face against a dark background made to look like a Nike advertisement.

"Funding secured. Even if you didn't secure funding. Just do it," the image read.

Another replied with an image of Musk holding a marijuana cigarette during his September interview with Joe Rogan, in which he drew criticism for smoking marijuana on camera. (Recreational use of Marijuana is legal in California, where the interview was filmed.)

"Funding secured," the image read.

Musk is unusually active and candid on Twitter, compared to other prominent CEOs, and is known for using the platform to interact with customers, make jokes, and attack critics. Musk's candor has endeared him to the fans and customers who find him more relatable than other famous executives, while also frustrating some analysts and investors who argue that he is temperamental and reckless.

On August 7, Musk said on Twitter that he had "funding secured" to convert Tesla into a private company at $420 per share and only needed a shareholder vote to confirm a go-private deal. Musk's statements attracted controversy and raised questions about the certainty of the funding he referenced and where exactly that funding would come from. On August 24, Musk said Tesla would remain a public company.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Musk in September, alleging that Musk had made "false and misleading statements" about the possibility of taking the automaker private. The government agency alleged that Musk had not acquired the necessary funding for a go-private deal or even discussed the terms he mentioned with any potential backers. Those terms included the proposed $420 share price and an option for all existing Tesla shareholders to remain with the company after it went private.

The SEC later reached a settlement with Musk that requires him to step down as the chairman of Tesla's board of directors for three years and pay a $20 million fine.

Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The evidence is piling up that digital TV packages (vMVPDs) will not be the savior some TV networks were hoping.

The trend of subscribers ditching satellite or cable TV bundles has been worrying for TV networks, which get paid carriage fees by distributors (per subscriber) to have their channels in the bundle. Luckily for networks, digital TV packages that pay similar carriage fees — from companies like Hulu, YouTube, and AT&T's DirecTV — have sprung up to replace some of that revenue.

But the growth of these new digital packages could already be slowing, which is bad news for networks and distributors alike. A noteworthy data point is AT&T, which has both a traditional pay-TV arm (DirecTV's satellite business) and a digital one (DirecTV Now).

On Wednesday, AT&T reported its earnings, and its DirecTV numbers raised some eyebrows around the industry. AT&T lost 359,000 satellite TV subscribers, significantly more than the 245,000 Wall Street was expecting. But worse, growth of its digital TV service, DirecTV Now, slowed. DirecTV Now added only 49,000 subscribers, well below both Wall Street expectations of 287,000, and its second-quarter additions of 342,000. (Management blamed a price increase.)

Those numbers do not paint a rosy picture of the ability of digital bundles to combat pay-TV subscriber losses.

In a note distributed Thursday, analysts at UBS revised estimates for the sector to reflect "worsening" pay-TV subscriber trends suggested by Verizon and AT&T's quarterly results.

"Including streaming TV, we look for 670K pay TV subscriber losses in 3Q18, up from -115K in 3Q17," UBS wrote. UBS expects traditional pay-TV subscriber losses of 1.25 million for the quarter.

NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke dumped more cold water on optimists during an earnings call Thursday.

Burke addressed a perceived weakness in digital TV packages. While painting an upbeat picture of the pay-TV marketplace in general, Burke said "the growth of the virtual MVPDs is starting to plateau, at least in the last month."

Starting to plateau already?

Using DirecTV Now as an example again, the streaming TV service only has 1.86 million subscribers. DirecTV's satellite business has 10 times that amount. This is not a good time to plateau. And fewer subscribers means fewer dollars to TV networks.

But potentially flagging growth isn't the only problem for these digital TV bundles. They also have terrible margins. Morgan Stanley recently did the math on Hulu's live TV product and estimated it had negative gross profit.

So it should come as no surprise that in the last few days, executives at first Hulu and then AT&T talked about slimming down the bundle and offering packages with positive margins. This could be beneficial both as a way to cut costs and boost subscriber growth.

But it's probably going to hurt the revenues of some TV networks, which risk getting cut out of packages and losing even more subscribers.

Which networks are we talking about?

In Thursday's note, UBS addressed AT&T's comments about "evaluating program lineups."

"We view network groups with broadcast (CBS, Disney, NBCU, Fox) as best-positioned to hold their negotiating leverage against AT&T while standalone cable network groups (AMCX, A&E, Discovery/Scripps, Viacom) are most at risk," UBS wrote. "Still these network groups represent a smaller percentage of program cost and generally have a better price/viewership relationship than networks with sports rights."

As Netflix has grown into a media giant, helping to revolutionize how we consume television, it has developed a tough corporate culture with high standards.

A Wall Street Journal report on Thursday shed light on the streaming service's radical ways based on anecdotes from over 70 former and current employees. According to the Journal, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is "unencumbered by emotion," and routinely uses a "keeper test" to evaluate employees.

He even used it to fire Netflix's chief product officer and his close friend, Neil Hunt, last year. Hunt had been with Netflix for 18 years.

What is a keeper test? Here's how Netflix has described it: "If one of the members of the team was thinking of leaving for another firm, would the manager try hard to keep them from leaving." If an employee doesn't pass the keeper test, they're "promptly and respectfully given a generous severance package so we can find someone for that position that makes us an even better dream team," Netflix said.

Some managers told the Journal they felt pressured into firing people or "risk looking soft."

In regards to Hunt, Hastings felt the company had grown past its need for him, and told Hunt that former international development officer Greg Peters would be taking his place as product chief.

"I would not have chosen to move on at that particular moment, but you have to separate the emotion from the logic," Hunt told the Journal.

Hastings' commitment to the keeper test has left some executives uneasy. According to the Journal, at a meeting of Netflix public-relations executives in the spring, many expressed that they feared they would lose their jobs every day they came to work.

Here's how Netflix responded to the Journal piece:

"We believe strongly in maintaining a high performance culture and giving people the freedom to do their best work. Fewer controls and greater accountability enable our employees to thrive, making smarter, more creative decisions, which means even better entertainment for our members. While we believe parts of this piece do not reflect how most employees experience Netflix, we're constantly working to learn and improve."

In the wake of a bombshell New York Times story detailing Android creator Andy Rubin's departure from Google following a sexual misconduct investigation, CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to Alphabet employees.

In the memo, provided to Business Insider from a Google spokesperson, Pichai says that the company has fired 48 people for sexual harassment in the past two years, and claims that none of them received an exit package. He goes on to say that 13 of these people were senior managers or above.

Rubin, who's widely known as the "father of Android," was reportedly paid a $90 million exit package when he left Google in 2014 following allegations of sexual misconduct, including pressuring a Google employee to perform oral sex on him, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The Information reported last year that Google had found that Rubin was involved in an "inappropriate relationship" with a subordinate.

The Times reports that while Google and Rubin appeared publicly to part ways amicably, he still received an exit package even after Google investigators concluded the allegations against him were "credible."

You can read the full memo below sent from Pichai and Eileen Naughton, VP People Operations:

Hi everyone,

Today's story in the New York Times was difficult to read.

We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace. We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.

In recent years, we've made a number of changes, including taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority: in the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above. None of these individuals received an exit package.

In 2015, we launched Respect@ and our annual Internal Investigations Report to provide transparency about these types of investigations at Google. Because we know that reporting harassment can be traumatic, we provide confidential channels to share any inappropriate behavior you experience or see. We support and respect those who have spoken out. You can find many ways to do this at go/saysomething. You can make a report anonymously if you wish.

We've also updated our policy to require all VPs and SVPs to disclose any relationship with a co-worker regardless of reporting line or presence of conflict.

We are committed to ensuring that Google is a workplace where you can feel safe to do your best work, and where there are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately.

Sundar and Eileen

On Thursday, new details about Android founder Andy Rubin's 2014 exit from Google came to light in a bombshell report by The New York Times. The report alleges the internet company paid him $90 million despite concluding that there was credibility to a sexual misconduct claim against him.

According to The Times, Rubin was ultimately asked to leave Google after pressuring a woman (with whom he had an extramarital relationship) into performing oral sex in a hotel room in 2013. The two's relationship was cooling around the time of the incident, but the woman had been worried to cut things off in fear that doing so would affect her career, according to two company executives briefed on the relationship.

Rubin was involved in other sexual incidents during his time at Google as well, according to the report.

The report claims:

Rubin's spokesperson told The Times that the Android founder did not partake in misconduct and that "any relationship that Mr. Rubin had while at Google was consensual and did not involve any person who reported directly to him."

Upon Rubin's departure from Google in 2014, he was celebrated by Google's chief executive at the time, Larry Page.

"I want to wish Andy all the best with what's next," Page said in a statement. "With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion-plus happy users."

In an email to employees on Thursday, CEO Sundar Pichai said the following:

"In recent years, we've made a number of changes, including taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority: in the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above. None of these individuals received an exit package."

Many, many gamers are eagerly awaiting the release of Rockstar Games' "Red Dead Redemption 2" on October 26 — almost certainly the most anticipated game of the year, with the possible exception of Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate."

But there's a little bad news: the game will be without online multiplayer for at least a few weeks, after launch. Rockstar Games has announced that "Red Dead Online," the action-western game's online multiplayer mode, won't be available until the launch of a a public beta-testing program in November.

"Red Dead Online" will be available for free to anyone who buys the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions of "Red Dead Redemption 2." Rockstar developers have said they consider "Red Dead Online" and "Red Dead Redemption 2" to be two different games. Players will be able to explore the open-world environment of "Red Dead Online" alone or with friends, and the online mode will have its own narrative storyline.

According to Rockstar, "Red Dead Online" will feature both competitive and cooperative gameplay, but the company is warning fans to expect some growing pains.

"As with most online experiences of this size and scale, there will inevitably be some turbulence at launch," a statement from Rockstar reads. "We look forward to working with our amazing and dedicated community to share ideas, help us fix teething problems and work with us to develop 'Red Dead Online' into something really fun and innovative."

Rockstar certainly has practice at building mega-popular online games; its ongoing support for "Grand Theft Auto Online" has helped sell more than 100 million copies of "Grand Theft Auto V" since September 2013.

Games sales analyst Mat Piscatella told Business Insider that Since "GTA 5" went on sale in September 2013, it has appeared in the top 20 best-selling games list 57 out of 58 times, through early August 2018. The only time it failed to break the top 20 was in October 2014, when the game landed at #21.

The original "Red Dead Redemption," released in 2010, was a popular online game in its own right — and Rockstar now has many more years of experience crafting exciting online play. Luckily the game's single-player campaign is quite impressive on its own, so players of "Red Dead Redemption 2" will have plenty to hold them over until "Red Dead Online" is ready to launch. Still, this news will likely come as a bummer to many.

Google's revenue increased 22% in the third quarter driven by healthy performance in its mobile search business, but the results were slightly below Wall Street expectations and the stock took a dive in after hours trading on Thursday.

Shares of Google-parent company Alphabet were down roughly 5% in extending trading, after finishing the regular trading session up more than 4% in anticipation of the results.

Google's Q3 report came on a big day of tech company results, with Amazon, Intel, Twitter and Snap all giving Wall Street udpates on their businesses. Shares of Amazon were down 9% in extended trading Thursday, following its report.

Read Thursday's big group of tech company Q3 earnings reports:

Amazon's stock falls 9%, as disappointing revenue, guidance seem to outweigh standout Q3 earnings

Snap's stock crashes 10% after announcing it lost 2 million users last quarter — even though it beat on the top and bottom line

Intel beats Wall Street's expectations with 19% revenue growth in third quarter

While the growth rate in Alphabet's topline showed a slight deceleration from its performance a year ago, company executives expressed optimisim about global economic condititions during a conference call with analysts on Thursday.

Unmentioned during the call however was the bombshell report in the New York Times, published hours earlier, that detailed allegations of sexual misconduct among several former Google executives in recent years. Google executives also said very little about the regulatory scrutiny facing the company in Europe and the US over everything from user privacy to the spread of misinformation on its services.

The growing criticism of the company, along with the broader market uncertainty, had sent Google's shares down 8% in the past few weeks leading up to the Q3 report. And the slight dissapointment in revenue was all investors needed to punish the stock.

Here's what Alphabet reported:

Q3 net revenue: $27.2 billion, up 22% year-on-year, but shy of the $27.33 billion expected by analysts.

Q3 EPS (GAAP) : $13.06, compared to analyst expectations of $10.45

Operating margin: 25%, down from 28% in the year ago quarter

Traffic acquisition costs: 23% of advertising revenue, the same as in the year ago period.

Othe Revenues (includes Cloud and Play businesses): $4.6 billion, up 29% year-over-year

Employees: 94,372, an increase of more than 5,000 employees from its last report at the end of July

During a conference call, Google CFO Ruth Porat said the company's ad revenue growth in Q3 was "led by mobile search with a strong contribution from YouTube, followed by desktop search." She warned that traffic acquisition costs would continue to increase going forward as consumers increasingly shift from using its search engine on desktop computers to mobile devices.

Google's operating profit margin was squeezed by rising costs in the three months ended September 30, but a lower tax rate and a $1.4 billion boost in "other income" from equity investments helped Alphabet post a larger than expected net profit.

Alphabet's "Other Bets," the various subsidiary companies focused on ambitious projects like self-driving cars and healthcare technology posted a widening operating loss of $727 million, compared to $650 million in the year ago period.

With about one-fifth of the world's total population, China is the largest video game market on the planet. Despite heavy regulations on media and online content in the country, Chinese gamers spent nearly $38 billion on video games in the past year, according to New Zoo.

But while China's audience for video games has seen consistent growth, officials in the country have expressed concern about potential gaming addiction and the impact video games have on the country's youth. As a result, Chinese regulators have slowed the approval process for new games in the country. The Wall Street Journal reports that less than 5,000 games have been approved so far this year, compared to more than 14,000 games released during 2017.

Approvals have primarily been reserved for major companies, and China is home to the biggest gaming company in the world, Tencent. However, Asia's largest company posted a decline in profits for the first time in more than a dozen years during August 2018, noting that Chinese regulators blocked the sale of major releases. Tencent's overall market value has tumbled more than $200 billion since peaking in January.

China's government is unapologetic about its efforts to monitor the release of new media in the country. There are strict limitations on the number of movies that are imported from the U.S. each year, and movies and games alike are deeply scrutinized for their portrayals of violence and offensive content. China overhauled its approval process in March 2018, establishing the State Administration of Press and Publication, but the new agency has been less than aggressive in addressing video games. Some Chinese officials believe the increased popularity of video games has had a negative impact on children, keeping them away from school and promoting addictive behavior.

Last year, in an effort to preempt new regulations, Tencent implemented oversight features for its most popular game, "Honor of Kings." The game automatically limits children under the age of 12 to one hour a day, adolescents between 12 to 18 are allowed two hours a day. Parents can also monitor the amount of time children spend playing and block their access to the game on specific devices. Tencent is now considering using facial recognition software to identify players by comparing their photo and information with a police database.

Mobile games dominate the Chinese video game market and the most popular games, like "Honor of Kings," earn more than a hundred millions dollars every month through microtransactions. Still, with the government reluctant to approve new games or allow monetization for popular titles, Tencent and other video game publishers are losing billions in potential revenue. The Wall Street Journal reports that gaming companies are currently losing as much as $200 million a month due to the lack of approvals.

Right now there are few signs that China is willing to expedite the approval process for video games and the issue raises a greater cultural question for Chinese officials. The country will eventually need to decide whether it wants to embrace video games as a growing part of the national culture, or continue to scrutinize the medium for possible negative influences. In the meantime, game developers will have to keep struggling to reach the world's largest market.