Twitter has started locking any unverified accounts that change their name to Elon Musk in an effort to combat a rash of cryptocurrency scammers.

According to the Verge, any unverified account without an associated phone number will be immediately locked out if it changes its display name to Elon Musk. To regain access, the user will have to do a CAPTCHA (typing) test and provide a phone number.

This new measure is to combat a rash of spambots, which have been hijacking replies to Elon Musk's tweets. The bots bear Elon Musk's display name and profile picture, but their handles are different. One such example is the Elom Tusk account, which purported to be giving away free cryptocurrency.

Musk himself was aware of the bots abounding in his replies.

As bots are the primary focus of the crackdown, anyone who can prove the authenticity of their account is allowed to keep the name Elon Musk.

A Twitter spokesman told Business Insider: "As part of our continuing efforts to combat spam and malicious activity on our service, we're testing new measures to challenge accounts that use terms commonly associated with spam campaigns. We are continually refining these detections based on changes in spammy activity."

Business Insider has contacted Tesla for comment.

Sergio Marchionne, the outspoken former CEO of both Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Ferrari, has died at age 66.

FCA Chairman John Elkann said in a statement, as cited by Reuters: "Unfortunately, what we feared has come to pass. Sergio Marchionne, man and friend, is gone."

Marchionne was recovering from shoulder surgery when his condition took a turn for the worse. It was unclear from various news reports whether Marchionne's illness has been more serious. He fell into a coma at a hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, and was placed on a respirator in intensive care.

This past weekend, the boards of both FCA and Ferrari met during emergency sessions to choose replacements for Marchionne when it became apparent that his condition was grave.

Marchionne was the unlikeliest legend in the modern auto industry. An accountant by training, he was born in Abruzzo region of Italy in 1952 but moved to Canada as a teenager. He was educated at Canadian universities and started his career at Canadian firms before returning to Europe. Prior to joining Fiat's board of directors in 2003, he had no experience in the auto industry. He was named Fiat's CEO in 2004.

"Four years ago, Fiat was a laughingstock," Marchionne wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2008.

"Whenever you opened a newspaper in Italy, there was another embarrassing story: Fiat had lost more money; its new car had flopped; a strike was on somewhere. Even more worrying to me was the fact that the company had gone through four CEOs in three years. Imagine showing up in June 2004 and being the fifth guy to try to resuscitate what appeared to most people to be a cadaver."

Marchionne went on the remake Fiat and its culture, trademarking his tireless, dynamic, demanding style along the way.

Bringing Chrysler back from the brink

Marchionne took over at Chrysler in 2009. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The stage was set for an unexpected takeover of Chrysler, which had to be bailed out during the financial crisis in 2009. Bankruptcy followed, and the Obama administration's Auto Task Force was ready to let the smallest of the Detroit Big Three go. Dealing with the multi-billion-dollar bailout and bankruptcy of General Motors at the same time was the higher-priority problem.

Chrysler had languished for years, first after being acquired by Daimler and later under management by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. Fiat and Marchionne were the last hope for the carmaker, founded in 1925 by Walter Chrysler (the company had already been saved once before from extinction by the government, in the late 1970s).

With billions in restructuring financing arranged by the Obama administration and the Auto Task Force eliminating much of Chrysler's debt, Marchionne was able to steer the carmaker back to prosperity as the US recovered from the Great Recession and the US auto market set new annual sales records.

Fiat bought the government's and the United Auto Workers' stakes in the new Chrysler, and Marchionne staged a successful IPO in 2014, just as the company's RAM and Jeep brands were benefiting from a resurgence of pickup trucks and SUVs.

Taking Ferrari to the next level

Marchionne, far right, at Ferrari's 2015 IPO at the NYSE. AP

Marchionne followed that up with a spinoff of Ferrari from the newly formed FCA in a 2015 IPO. Marchionne had struggled with longtime Ferrari head Luca di Montezemelo over expanding production of the storied Italian supercar brand, which Montezemelo wanted to keep at 7,000 vehicles a year. Marchionne had 10,000 in his sights.

He took on the dual role of CEO and chairman, and he also oversaw Ferrari's Formula One racing campaigns. (Marchionne was a Ferrari enthusiast and avid, if not always accident-free, driver: he crashed a 599 GTB in 2007, and he also owned a black Ferrari Enzo, named for the founder of the prancing-horse marque.)

On Wall Street, it was speculated that he might consider similar spinoff IPOs of Maserati, Alfa Romeo, or both. But he had also announced his intention to retire as FCA CEO in 2019, leaving the technicalities of such decisions to his successor, who hadn't yet been named at the time of his illness (he planned to stay on as CEO of Ferrari until 2021).

Marchionne was unflinching in his negative views of how the global auto industry was managed — often incompetently, he thought — and how it obliterated cash. In 2015, he produced a scathing analysis of the business' inefficiencies, titled with typical flair "Confessions of a Capital Junkie" and subtitled "An insider perspective on the cure for the industry's value-destroying addiction to capital."

The presentation was widely circulated and discussed, as it bolstered Marchionne's case that the auto industry was rife with redundant technology development, addicted to easy money, and determined to maintain far too much manufacturing capacity.

Pushing FCA into an uncertain future

Marchionne tried and failed to convince GM to merge with FCA. Thomson Reuters

But as effective as Marchionne was in merging Fiat and Chrysler, his efforts to court the largest US car maker failed in 2015. After a noisy campaign to conjoin FCA and GM, Mary Barra exercised her power as GM CEO to rebuff Marchionne's advances and leave him to the task of preparing FCA for his departure.

This he did in consistently entertaining fashion, working the global auto circuit with his appealing combination of straight talk and edgy jokes. He rarely shied away from a bold position, arguing for example that electric cars were a costly waste of time no matter what Tesla and CEO Elon Musk thought (he changed his mind on that score in 2017 and 2018 and was taking electrification more seriously).

He also sought out a partnership with Alphabet's Waymo unit on self-driving cars to help FCA catch up on a technology that it lacked the resources to invest in as it paid down debt on its balance sheet. And he was readying Ferrari to launch its first-ever SUV, as well as a possible electric supercar.

And he recognized earlier than the rest of Detroit that a decisive consumer shift away from passenger cars to SUVs, crossovers, and pickups was underway; he committed FCA to a nearly all-truck portfolio in the US years ahead of the competition.

Work, work, more work — and sweaters

Marchionne, in his uniform. Thomson Reuters

Marchionne was a noted workaholic. "Being a leader at Fiat is a lifestyle decision," he wrote in the Harvard Business Review. "It's not the Buena Vista Social Club." With Fiat and Ferrari in Italy, FCA headquartered in London, and Chrysler's operations based in Auburn Hill, Michigan, he traveled often and everywhere, usually in his uniform of a black sweater and pants, an antidote to the industry's armor of tailored suits (he claimed he bought his signature threads in bulk, online, in the middle of the night — and always on sale). He didn't seem to sleep much, and until recently, he was fueled by cigarettes and espresso.

He enjoyed jousting with analysts on earnings calls and would mix it up with reporters at car shows like a sort of cheerfully disheveled, bespectacled, prosperous philosophy king with jaded macro-economic view of the world, but he rarely granted one-on-one interviews. To the end, he referred to FCA and Ferrari, in the charmingly antiquated language of aristocratic commerce, as "houses." He had an MBA, but he never talked like a bureaucrat.

He's now left both houses in monumentally better shape than they were before he arrived on the scene. When Marchionne's condition declined, John Elkann — scion of the Fiat-founding Agnelli family and FCA's chairman — wrote in a statement to FCA employees that it was "a situation that was unthinkable until a few hours ago, and one that leaves us all with a real sense of injustice."

For the rest of the industry, Marchionne's death leaves us without a true original and a leader who always sought to balance opportunistic optimism and flinty realism, hard work and humor, the world of business and the realms of life.

Facebook lawyer Colin Stretch says he's leaving the company.

Stretch announced his plan to step down in a Facebook post published Tuesday night. He will make his final exit at the end of the year.

"When my wife Alyse and I made the decision a few years ago to move back to DC from California, we knew it would be difficult for me to remain in this role indefinitely," Stretch wrote.

"As Facebook embraces the broader responsibility Mark [Zuckerberg] has discussed in recent months, I've concluded that the company and the Legal team need sustained leadership in Menlo Park."

Stretch joined Facebook in 2010. He has been instrumental in the social network's own investigation of Russia's 2016 election interference, as federal inquiries on the matter were undertaken in Washington. He testified before Congress on the issue last fall.

Stretch's announcement comes a little more than a month after another top Facebook exec, policy boss Elliot Schrage said he would leave after 10 years with the company.

The announcements from Schrage and Stretch are happening as Facebook remains steeped in challenges on multiple fronts — including questions about its efforts to stop further interference from Russia, and its decisions about how to moderate controversial user content posted on the site.

Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Facebook won't say if it has seen evidence of Russian meddling on its social network ahead of the 2018 US midterm elections.

On a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, company representatives were asked multiple times if they had seen evidence, but dodged the question.

A Facebook employee said the company needs to be careful not to undermine any ongoing internal or government investigations.

During the 2016 US presidential election, Russian operatives used Facebook in an unprecedented information campaign — spreading misinformation and propaganda in support of Donald Trump's candidacy.

As the 2018 midterm elections approach, are malicious actors attempting something similar again? Facebook won't say.

The company held a conference call with reporters on Tuesday to discuss its "election integrity" work, from fighting fake news to building civic engagement tools.

Facebook representatives were asked multiple times whether the company has detected evidence of organized information campaigns like those seen in 2016. But executives refused to give a straight answer, citing the need to protect government and internal investigations.

Facebook dodged the yes-or-no question

The question was first posed by Kevin Roose of The New York Times, who asked: "Leading up to the 2018 midterms, have you detected any activity that looks like a coordinated information operation, coming either from the IRA [Internet Research Agency, a Russian-affiliated agency] or other actors, whether foreign or domestic? And what are some of the suspicious signs that you're looking for specifically with regard to these elections?"

Nathaniel Gleicher, director of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, responded that Facebook expects Russia will attempt to interfere, but didn't answer whether the company had direct evidence of this.

"Sure, we know that Russian and other bad actors are going to continue to try to use our platform, before the midterms, probably during the midterms, after the midterms, and probably around other events and elections," Gleicher said. "We are continually looking for that type of activity, and as and when we find things, which we think is inevitable, we will notify law enforcement and, where we can, the public."

A post from an anti-Hillary Clinton Facebook pages run by Russian operatives during the 2016 election. US House Intel Committee

Axios' David McCabe followed up on this later on the call, asking: "I appreciate the context on how you're addressing some of the midterm stuff, but I'm not entirely sure we got the answer to Kevin's question, which was: Do you have evidence so far? You said you expected stuff for the midterms, but have you seen evidence so far of any disinformation campaigns aimed at disrupting the midterms? So I was hoping you could give us just a 'yes' or 'no' on whether or not the company's seen that."

A "yes" or "no" was not forthcoming. After a pause, Gleicher reiterated his earlier statement: "As I said before right, when we find things and as we find things and we expect that we will, we're going to notify law enforcement and we're going to notify the public where we can."

Another Times reporter tried once more: "Let me just follow up on that. So in other words, you can't tell us what you found so far? That's kinda my takeaway."

The Facebook employee responded: "I said before that we're looking for this sort of activity and these are ongoing investigations, and one of the things we have to be really careful with here is that as we think about how we answer these questions, we need to be careful that we aren't compromising investigations we might be running or investigations the government might be running."

Facebook is stuck between a rock and a hard place

Facebook's reluctance to answer illustrates the bind the company finds itself in.

Reeling from numerous scandals, the company has pledged to be more transparent and responsive. But at the same time, it needs to be careful not to undermine ongoing investigations into future malicious activity, which could risk further damaging its reputation with the public.

The company has made a number of changes since the 2016 elections to try and cut down on coordinated information campaigns like the one waged by Russia. It is cracking down on fake accounts, reducing the circulation of fake news in its News Feed, and requiring users who want to buy political ads to go through an identity verification process.

In March 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was "sure" that Russia would try to use Facebook to meddle in the midterm elections — though similarly he didn't specify whether Facebook had found evidence of this.

"I'm sure someone's trying. Right? And I'm sure that there's V2, version two of whatever the Russian effort was in 2016," the technology executive said. "I'm sure they're working on that, and there are going to be some new tactics that we need to make sure that we observe and get in front of."

Audi finally unveiled its long-awaited second-generation Q3 subcompact crossover on Tuesday. The Q3 will be the entry-level crossover for the Ingolstadt, Germany-based luxury automaker's US lineup and will slot in below the award-winning Q5, Q7, and recently unveiled Q8.

It is also slated to take on BMW's new X2 and the Mercedes-Benz GLA.

In terms of size, the new Q3 will be 3.8 inches longer and 0.7 inches wider than the first generation model it replaces.

At launch, Audi Q3 will be available with a quartet of turbocharged, four-cylinder engines. Entry-level Q3s get a 1.5 liter, 150 horsepower unit. Buyers can step up to a 2.0-liter powerplant that produces 190 hp. There is also an up-rated version of the 2.0-liter engine that produces 230 hp. Some markets will also get a 2.0 liter, 150 horsepower diesel option.

After the Q3's market launch, a fifth engine option in the form of a 190 horsepower version of the 2.0 TDI diesel engine will join the lineup.

Audi The base gasoline Q3s will be equipped with a seven-speed S-tronic twin-clutch transmission sending power to the front wheels. While a six-speed manual option will be available later this fall.

The 2.0-liter gas-powered cars will get the S-tronic transmission with full-time quattro all-wheel-drive. Diesel Q3s will initially be available with quattro all-wheel-drive and a six-speed manual while the S-tronic and front-wheel-drive version will follow after launch.

Audi has not announced which engine options will be available in the US, although I wouldn't hold your breath for the diesel.

Audi The Q3 will also be available with the latest from Audi's arsenal of tech goodies including 360-degree cameras, adaptive cruise control, a Bang & Olufsen sound system, a 10.25-inch virtual cockpit instrument cluster, and a 12.3-inch infotainment screen.

The original Audi Q3 debuted back in 2011 and is based on the first generation Volkswagen Tiguan, which itself is a descendant of the Mark V VW Golf. In other words, it's old. VW pulled the gen one Tiguan from frontline duties last year and replaced it with a new version built on VW Group's MQB platform.

Audi The Győr, Hungary-built Q3 is expected to commence delivery in Germany and other European markets in November. This means the Q3's US launch will likely be closer to 2019.

Audi has not yet revealed official pricing for the new Q3. For context, the current Q3 starts at $32,900.

To go faster, Tour de France teams are opting for wider tires and lower pressure.Daniel McMahon/Business Insider

DREUX, France — There's no shortage of tech talk when the Tour de France rolls around, and it invariably has something to do with hyper-aero frames, ultralight wheels, nonround chainrings, slippery apparel, and even powdered chains. Teams will try just about anything to go faster. So it's refreshing to see a more analog innovation taking hold in the world's preeminent bicycle race: wider tires and lower tire pressure.

As we wrote in a recent review of one Tour-worthy bike, there's been a trend toward riding wider tires with lower pressure, and for good reason: It's essentially faster and more comfortable in non-lab, real-world conditions. That's been backed by an increasing number of research studies, including a report by VeloNews. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom that said to go fast you need narrower tires with higher pressure. Think rock-hard, 22mm tubulars.

The tire width of choice for Greg Van Avermaet, the reigning Olympic champion and leader of the Tour de France for several stages, has been 26mm versus the traditional 23mm.Daniel McMahon/Business Insider

Last week at the Tour, Business Insider spoke with Geoff Brown, the head mechanic of the EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale team. This is Brown's 21st Tour, so he's seen his share of trends. (He used to wrench for one Lance Armstrong.)

We asked Brown about the trend to embrace wider tires and lower tire pressure, something that once seemed counterintuitive in pro cycling but has become a standard of sorts among the very top teams.

"It depends on the road surface, but 10 years ago the standard was 23mm tires at 8 or 8.5 bar, or 115, 120 psi," Brown said. "And now it's 25mm for regular road racing and 7 to 7.5 bar for front and rear, so a little less than 100 to 110 max on the bikes." So what's the deal?

Geoff Brown, head mechanic of EF Education First–Drapac p/b Cannondale.Daniel McMahon/Business Insider

"There seems to be a lot more real science behind cycling now," Brown explained. "A lower tire pressure with more surface contact translates to lower rolling resistance, which is one of the main factors. And the bikes are much stiffer these days, with the carbon-fiber frames, especially the aero frames, and the aero rims — like when you're running like a 50mm-section rim, which is quite deep — all that stuff is stiff, so the lower pressure helps provide more comfort for the rider."

Taylor Phinney's tires for the Roubaix stage of the 2018 Tour ran a whopping 30mm wide — especially plump for the cobbled farm roads of northern France.Daniel McMahon/Business Insider

For what it's worth, we didn't see any 23mm tires at the Tour this year — we did look at a lot of tires — though of course we may have just missed them. By far the most common widths were 25mm and 26mm. And while it's difficult to compare Tour speeds based on tire width and pressure, the growing research and the massive push across teams to wider tires and lower pressure speak volumes.

Could we see road tires at the Tour as wide as 27mm or 28mm anytime soon?

"Things are moving along quite quickly here in our sport," Brown said. "The disc-brake thing has gained real momentum, so on those frames you can certainly run wider tires because there's the clearance for it. I could see it evolving to 26mm or 27 mm as the standard road-racing tire, sure. Why not."

Even bigger riders — like the 6-foot-5, 187-pound Taylor Phinney— run tire pressure as low as the lighter, more compact climbers, such as Rigoberto Urán.

"As far as pressure goes, they all stay the same because it's still a team sport, and if Phinney is riding alongside Rigo and he gets a flat, he'll need a new wheel quickly," Brown said. "Everything is sort of centered around what the leader uses, so if the leader has 7 in his wheels, everyone has to have 7 in their wheels."

Alex Stamos, Facebook's head of security, called for radical overhaul in how Facebook operates in a leaked memo from March 2018, as the company reeled from a chain of ugly scandals.

In the nearly-1,700-word memo, which was published by BuzzFeed News on Tuesday, the chief security officer called for Facebook to collect less user data, stop focusing on growth, and to listen to concerns when people think a feature is "creepy."

"We need to change the metrics we measure and the goals we shoot for. We need to adjust PSC to reward not shipping when that is the wiser decision. We need to think adversarially in every process, product and engineering decision we make. We need to build a user experience that conveys honesty and respect, not one optimized to get people to click yes to giving us more access. We need to intentionally not collect data where possible, and to keep it only as long as we are using it to serve people," Stamos reportedly wrote.

"We need to find and stop adversaries who will be copying the playbook they saw in 2016. We need to listen to people (including internally) when they tell us a feature is creepy or point out a negative impact we are having in the world. We need to deprioritze short-term growth and revenue and to explain to Wall Street why that is ok. We need to be willing to pick sides when there are clear moral or humanitarian issues. And we need to be open, honest and transparent about challenges and what we are doing to fix them."

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment.

Facebook's current struggles are not because of any one person, Stamos wrote. Rather, they are "due to tens of thousands of small decisions made over the last decade" as the company did not realise what it would become and the nature of the threats it would face.

Stamos' urging is in stark contrast to a previous leaked memo, also published by BuzzFeed News, from 2016. In it, senior executive Andrew "Boz" Bosworth defended company growth at any cost as a "de facto good," even if it meant people died. (He subsequent tly said he didn't agree with it despite writing it.) The company now emphasises that it takes a "broader view" of its responsibilities.

But by the time of the Stamos memo — March 23, 2018 — Facebook was already readjusting its priorities. In November 2017, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said Facebook planned to invest so heavily into security that it could hurt the company's profits.

Stamos, who previously worked at Yahoo also alluded to the toll the work has had on his personal life. "I have three children under twelve and I've come to the realization that I've spent 75% of my youngest child's life as the CISO of companies in battle with the Russian intelligence services. This isn't conducive to being a great parent," he wrote.

The memo is well worth reading in its entirety over at BuzzFeed News.

Authorities are discouraging social media users from filming themselves exiting moving vehicles for the #InMyFeelings challenge.

"It's only a matter of time before someone gets sucked into the wheels of the car or dragged or the driver who is recording it with their phone, hits somebody crossing the street," Joseph Solomon, a police chief in Massachusetts, told CBS Boston.

"There's a time and place for everything, but our nation's highways and roadways are no place for the #inmyfeelings challenge," Nicholas Worrell, the National Transportation Safety Board's chief of safety advocacy, told The Blast.

The #InMyFeelings challenge was inspired by internet personality Shiggy, who posted a video of himself on Instagram dancing to the Drake song "In My Feelings" on a residential street. The video went viral and helped the song reach the number-one spot on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart.

Since Shiggy posted his video in June, others have filmed themselves getting out of moving cars and dancing alongside them or falling while attempting to dance.

"i almost died," one Twitter user wrote in a post that includes video of her falling on a street after exiting a moving car she was driving.

On July 12, Will Smith posted a video in which he danced to the song on top of a bridge in Budapest.

"Be smart, don't attempt doing this under any circumstances," he wrote in the video's caption.

Egypt's Interior Ministry said those who block traffic while attempting the #InMyFeelings challenge could face up to $167 in fines and one year in prison, Bloomberg reports. The publication also reported that prosecutors in Abu Dhabi called for three "social media influencers" to be arrested after they were filmed attempting the challenge.

Bad habits are tough to break.

The Juul, an e-cigarette that delivers a nicotine hit equal to the amount in two packs of cigarettes, may be one of the toughest.

Adult customers say they find the high nicotine content as satisfying as conventional cigarettes, but the Juul also has a growing number of teen fans, whose developing brains are uniquely vulnerable to addiction. Those teens could become a new generation of smokers, researchers warn.

"This is really the genie you can't put back in the bottle," Matthew Myers, the president of the nonprofit Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, told Business Insider.

In recent months — as a backlash against Juul has grown — the company has been emphatic that its products are not intended for teens, and Juul has taken measures to counter that reputation. But researchers and advocates say that teens who've been attracted to the devices' sleek design and sweet flavors may now be addicted to nicotine. Young people who vape may be up to seven times more likely to smoke regular cigarettes than teens who never try an e-cig, according to several peer-reviewed studies.

Since April, consumers have filed at least three lawsuits against Juul for what they allege are deceptive marketing practices that didn't clearly outline how addictive nicotine is, Wired recently reported. On Tuesday, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey launched an investigation into the company to determine if Juul violated state consumer-protection laws by failing to keep minors from buying their products. Those challenges come on the heels of several other legal hurdles for the company, including a San Francisco ban on flavored tobacco and a Food and Drug Administration crackdown.

Pax Labs There's no question about the Juul's popularity.

Juul now represents 70.5% of the e-cig market, and dollar sales climbed 738% in the four-week period that ended on July 14, according to Nielsen data.

Teens seem to love it. Instagram and YouTube are full of videos of teens vaping, or "Juuling," in class and even on the sly in front of teachers.

Those photos and videos can double as unintentional advertisements for the product.

"Once something is the rage like this, the kids are doing it for you," Myers said of Juul's growing teen following.

A Juul Labs spokesperson told Business Insider that the company has been working with Instagram and Facebook in recent months to remove any content showing minors using the Juul, and has successfully taken down more than 4,000 posts from the platforms. In June, the company announced that it would no longer feature models on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and would instead exclusively show former smokers who switched from combustible cigarettes to the Juul.

But Myers said those efforts have come too late.

A string of high schools along the East Coast has already cited "Juuling" in bathroom stalls as a widespread problem, and dozens of teachers have reported confiscating Juul devices disguised as Sharpies and other classroom items.

"I don't go anywhere where there isn't a parent in the audience who isn't concerned about the Juul," Myers said. "I've never seen a phenomenon like this before."

Ana Rule, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and an author of a recent study on e-cigs and teens, agrees that young people's use of e-cigs — no matter the brand — is a huge concern.

"Vaping among teens is my and most public health professionals' biggest worry," Rule told Business Insider in March.

E-cig manufacturers including Juul Labs say their devices are designed for adult smokers who are looking to switch from cigarettes to less harmful products. But it's not clear that using vape pens helps people give up cigarettes. In fact, the bulk of research suggests that people who take up vaping continue to smoke regular cigarettes and may be less successful at quitting than those who don't use e-cigs. Nicotine is a highly addictive substance — one analysis ranked it above alcohol and barbiturates (anti-anxiety drugs). Some 85% of people who try to quit smoking on their own relapse.

Ironically, young people who vape have a higher likelihood of smoking conventional cigarettes than those who don't. That's why so many public health researchers are worried about the Juul.

In the recent lawsuits, most of which were filed on behalf of teens, the defendants allege that the devices are so high in nicotine that they could not stop using them and quickly began showing symptoms of addiction. One complaint alleged that a 15-year-old defendant became "anxious, highly irritable, and prone to angry outbursts" after using the Juul.

"He is unable to avoid Juuling even though it subjects him to disciplinary measures at home and at school," the claim says.

If you're a Juul or Pax employee with a story to share, email this reporter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A Chinese billionaire who studied at Duke University allegedly stole a professor's ideas behind special invisibility technology — and then developed his own prototype back in China.

Liu Ruopeng, known as China's Elon Musk, is just 35 years old and is believed to be worth $2.7 billion, according to the "Today" show.

But before he created his money-making "Future Studio" in China, Liu studied at Duke University from 2006 to 2009 under David Smith, one of the world's experts on metamaterials, or "some weird material that doesn't exist in nature," as the professor describes it.

Some observers, including a former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI, believe that Liu was sent to Smith's lab by the Chinese government to steal intellectual property.

Smith had been working on a prototype for an invisibility cloak, and the US military had poured millions into his research.

The invisibility cloak doesn't necessarily make a person disappear, but it makes objects invisible to microwave signals.

At one point while at Duke, Liu convinced Smith to allow him to bring his old colleagues into the lab to work on projects for the professor.

When Smith was out of the lab, the Chinese researchers took photos of the lab and its contents, and also took measurements of Smith's equipment.

Much to Smith's surprise, an exact replica of his invisibility cloak prototype was built in Liu's former lab when the Chinese researchers returned home.

"It sounds like theft," Smith said. "If we were a company you might think so."

Liu claims that his time in the lab was "fundamental research" he brought back to China when he was finished at Duke.

Now, nine years after graduating from Duke with a Ph.D, Liu is a multi-billionaire, the inventor of a jet-powered surfboard, the founder of a $6 billion tech company, and features a prototype of an invisibility cloak in his own lab.

He has denied all wrongdoing, calling the claim that the Chinese government sent him to Duke to learn from Smith "ridiculous" and "far away from the truth."

"I don't want to use the word copy," Liu said. "People can share the experience … and build something … different."

Shortly after Liu graduated in 2009, Smith discovered an email which shows the student admitting he had withheld information from the professor, adding that he had been working toward commercializing the research in China.

Smith told NBC News that if the email had emerged while Liu was still a student, he wouldn't have a degree from Duke.

The FBI opened a case into Liu in 2010 to investigate whether it was theft of US intellectual property.

"We know that certain government officials and operatives met with him while he was in the United States," former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi said.

He added: "Was he handled, approached, compromised, recruited, and subsidized when he took it back to China? My theory says yes. This was more than just a grad student taking something that didn't belong to him."

The case, however, was closed years later due to shortage of evidence.

Google appears to have learned a lesson at this year's I/O conference regarding artificial intelligence and how not to be too cavalier when introducing the technology to the public.

The Google Cloud Next 18 conference got underway on Tuesday and Dr. Fei Fei Li, Google's chief AI scientist demonstrated a new AI system called Google Contact Center AI. This is designed to be the next generation of automated customer-service voices.

Li took the audience through a demonstration, showing off a system that deftly understood natural language and quickly responded to questions with pertinent answers. The software and human on the phone had what sounded like a normal conversation between a customer and a customer-service rep. It appears the days of keying into our handsets 1 for yes, and 2 for no may soon be a thing of the past.

The presentation echoed a similar demo at I/O this year. That's when Google CEO Sundar Pichai showed off Duplex, the restaurant-booking digital assistant that sounded so human that people speaking to it on the phone were unaware they were talking to an automated system.

That freaked out some journalists and technology ethicists. The company was criticized for using a technology that could fool humans or snatch away jobs. This time, Li seemed intent on making sure that everyone understood that Google's AI is not intended to put humans out of work.

"Contact Center AI is an example for our passion for bringing AI to every industry all the while elevating the role of human talent," Li told the audience. "We're creating technology that's not just powerful but that's also trustworthy."

Google's management has said that AI is core to the company's future and mission and leaders are trying to exploit it in retail, autonomous cars, search and advertising. Wall Street analysts have begun to predict big future earnings as a result of AI.

But AI is also dragging behind it some public-relations baggage. Nobody knows better than Li that AI is a sensitive subject. Li is a well known AI expert and ethicist who took a sabbatical to join Google 18 months ago. In April, she found herself embroiled in a controversy inside Google over the company's work with the military.

Google agreed to contribute AI tools to help analyze drone video footage and thousands of employees signed a petition demanding that Google halt the work and pledge not to ever build AI for weapons. Google agreed but an email exchange between Li and other managers indicated that Li worked hard to cultivate and sought to protect her reputation as an AI do-gooder.

That the emails appeared to suggest that Li was ok with Google contributing to a Pentagon program drew criticism within the company as some thought her position wasn't consistent with her past comments about ethical AI, sources told Business Insider. Obviously Google's management doesn't appear to believe that Li has lost any credibility.

As for Contact Center AI, one question left unanswered is what happens when the technology evolves and perhaps becomes as good at customer service as humans? What happens to workers then?

Uber is putting its self driving cars back on public roads for the first time since one of its cars fatally struck a pedestrian in March.

Uber said on Tuesday that it has resumed testing its self-driving car prototypes in Pittsburgh, but that, for now at least, the cars will operate only in "manual" mode, with a human driver in control at all times.

"While we are eager to resume testing of our self-driving system, we see manual driving as an important first step in piloting these safeguards," said Eric Meyhofer, the head of Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, in a blog post announcing the news. He said the company hoped to begin testing the cars in autonomous mode once again in the "coming months."

The move is an important sign that Uber, the world's largest ride-hailing service, does not intend to back off from efforts to develop self-driving car technology despite the costs and the risks.

Uber halted testing of its autonomous vehicles after the fatal crash in Tempe Arizona earlier this year, and had not resumed them since.

The car that killed the pedestrian in Arizona had detected that there was something in the road, but didn't automatically brake or attempt to avoid a collision. While there was a test driver in the car, the driver was watching the TV show The Voice on the car's dashboard before the crash and didn't brake until it was too late.

Uber said on Tuesday that the cars in Pittsburgh will be operated by two, alternating human drivers. The company said it has added new safety features to the cars including a real time driver monitoring system designed to ensure the human drivers are attentive to the road, modifications to the dashboard screen to limit distractions, and a collision avoidance system that will be enabled during manual driving.

There's a new scam going around that would terrify most people if it ever landed in their inbox.

The emails are slightly different depending on who's being attacked, but they all have a few similar features:

Here's one example of these scam emails, sent in the last month:

Business Insider

Ian Kar, a New York-based product manager who was sent the scammy email, said that after he received this threat, he spent an entire day changing all of his passwords and buying 1Password, a password manager.

He said he was pretty sure his password was included in one of the big leaks from the past few years — databases have been stolen from LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Ebay, for example. You can check if your password is in one of these leaked databases over at the website Have I Been Pwned.

Basically, the attackers don't actually have video of you, or access to your contacts, and they haven't been able to install malicious code on your computer. In reality, they're taking a password from a database that's available online, sending it to you, and hoping you're scared enough to believe their story and send them bitcoin.

Some of the scammers have even made over $50,000 from the blackmail scheme, based on an analysis of bitcoin wallets, Bleeping Computer reported.

As leading security journalist Brian Krebs writes, this scam is probably automated, which means you haven't been specifically targeted:

"It is likely that this improved sextortion attempt is at least semi-automated: My guess is that the perpetrator has created some kind of script that draws directly from the usernames and passwords from a given data breach at a popular Web site that happened more than a decade ago, and that every victim who had their password compromised as part of that breach is getting this same email at the address used to sign up at that hacked Web site."

For now, the scammers seem to be using really old passwords — maybe passwords you haven't used in years. But as the scam develops, there's a good chance that it will evolve and may use credentials from a fresh breach, according to Krebs.

Other good ideas to keep yourself safe: Use long and strong passwords, use a password manager to make sure each account has a unique password, and turn on two-factor authentication on your important accounts. The FBI also recommends you turn off or cover any web cameras when you're not using them to prevent sex-based extortion schemes, even if this kind of scam ends up being a hollow threat.

And no matter what you do, don't send bitcoin to the scammers.

A total lunar eclipse happens when Earth slips in front of the sun to cast a ruddy-orange to deep-red shadow on the moon.

This is why the astronomical event is often called a blood moon. People in Earth's Eastern Hemisphere can see the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century starting at 19:30 Universal Time (UT) on Friday, July 27.

However, imagine you're an astronaut who happens to be on the surface of the moon during a total lunar eclipse, and you look back home. What would you see?

NASA's Science Visualization Studio has illustrated the answer to this question with an animated video.

To someone on the moon during a lunar eclipse, the Earth would appear to be surrounded by a bright-red ring of fire.

A simulated view of Earth from the moon during a total lunar eclipse.NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

The image above is taken from NASA's animation, which actually illustrates the precise appearance of Earth and the moon during the total lunar eclipse that occurred September 27, 2015.

But apart from the position of Earth's continents, this week's lunar eclipse will appear more or less the same from the moon's perspective.

Here's why.

What gives total lunar eclipses an orange-red color

Viewers watch a total solar eclipse. Reuters

Total lunar eclipses and total solar eclipses are essentially the reverse of one another.

However, their appearances are very different (whether you're observing them from Earth or its natural satellite).

During a total solar eclipse, the moon passes between Earth and the sun, casting a small, dark shadow on our planet. For those watching on Earth, the ring of the sun's light surrounding the moon looks colorless because the moon has no atmosphere. (Atmospheres, similar to glass lenses, can refract sunlight.)

Earth is surrounded by a blanket of air, though, and this lens-like refraction is ultimately why lunar eclipses make the moon look orange-red.

By volume, about 80% of Earth's atmosphere is made of nitrogen gas, or N 2, and most of the rest is oxygen gas, or O 2. Together, these gases take white sunlight — a mix of all colors of the spectrum — and scatter around blue and purple colors. Human eyes are much more sensitive to blues than purples, which is why the sky looks blue and the sun yellow to us during daylight hours.

During a sunset or sunrise, sunlight reaching our eyes has passed through a lot more atmospheric gas, and this effectively filters out the blues and makes the light appear orange or even red.

A similar thing happens during a lunar eclipse. Earth's atmosphere bends and focuses the sun's light into a glowing, cone-shaped shadow called the umbra.

A diagram of the Earth, moon, and sun during a total lunar eclipse or "blood moon." Shayanne Gal/Business Insider

The red color is never quite the same from one lunar eclipse to the next due to natural and human activities that affect Earth's atmosphere.

"Pollution and dust in the lower atmosphere tends to subdue the color of the rising or setting sun, whereas fine smoke particles or tiny aerosols lofted to high altitudes during a major volcanic eruption can deepen the color to an intense shade of red," David Diner, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote in a blog post in 2010.

What Earth looks from the moon during a total lunar eclipse

A simulated view of Earth from the moon just before a total lunar eclipse.NASA's Scientific Visualization StudioRoughly 240,000 miles away at the moon, the Earth would look quite stunning during a lunar eclipse.

"If you were standing on the moon's surface during a lunar eclipse, you would see the sun setting and rising behind the Earth," Diner wrote. "You'd observe the refracted and scattered solar rays as they pass through the atmosphere surrounding our planet."

On the moon, you'd see the sunrise and sunset of Earth connected together in a roughly 25,000-mile loop. And on the ground around you, normally drab-gray lunar dust, or regolith, would look a bit orange-red.

Earth's color-tinted umbra is always out there — if you had enough cash and a spaceship, you could fly into it anytime you wanted.

However, the moon's slightly tilted orbit means that it only passes through our planet's shadow only about twice every 11 months.

Where and when to see Friday's total lunar eclipse

The coming eclipse will happen during what's called a "micro" moon - the opposite of a super moon. This happens because the moon's orbit isn't perfectly circular, so it appears larger at times and smaller at others during its roughly 29-day-long orbit around Earth. In this case, it will look a bit smaller.

North America will be out of luck during the lunar eclipse, since the moon will be below the horizon. You can still watch the phenomenon on a live webcast, though.

If the weather cooperates, most of eastern Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia should see the full and total lunar eclipse. Scientists in Antarctica should also have a great view.

Europe, eastern Asia, Australia, Indonesia, and other regions will enjoy a partial lunar eclipse, where the moon passes partly through Earth's shadow.

A map of locations where the total lunar eclipse of July 27 and 28, 2018, will be visible.Fred Espenak/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The partial eclipse begins when the moon first touches the penumbra, or outer shadow, of Earth. According to NASA, that should happen at 17:14 Universal Time on July 27.

The total eclipse — when the moon is fully inside the red-hued umbra of Earth — starts at 19:30 UT and ends at 21:13 UT. That's a full 1 hour 43 minutes, which is just four minutes shy of the longest total lunar eclipse possible, according to EarthSky.

The partial eclipse will resume immediately afterward, as the moon starts to leave Earth's shadow. The whole event will be over at 23:28 UT (which might technically be early on July 28, depending on where you live).

See NASA's animation below of a total lunar eclipse from the moon.