At the end of another intense year, after two weeks fighting a difficult cold, surrounded by snow, light, and quiet, this poem by John O’Donohue made its way to the surface, sent to me by my beloved soulmate. Happy new year.

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

Also published on Medium.

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Original author: Brad Feld

Original author: Richard Feloni and Shana Lebowitz

BI IntelligenceThis is a preview of a research report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about BI Intelligence, click here.

The downfall of US brick-and-mortar commerce is overblown — despite sharp gains in e-commerce, which will nearly double between now and 2021, the lion’s share of purchasing continues to take place in-store. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, since the online environment can’t yet compensate for the reasons customers like brick-and-mortar shopping.

That means the point-of-sale (POS) terminal, which merchants use to accept payments of all types and to complete transactions, isn’t going anywhere. But that doesn’t mean it’s not changing. As merchants look to cut costs amidst shifts in consumer shopping habits, POS terminals, which were once predominantly hardware offerings used exclusively for payment acceptance, are evolving into full-service, comprehensive solutions. These new POS terminals are providing an array of business management solutions and connected offerings to complement payment services. 

This is where the smart terminal, a new product that’s part-tablet, part-register, comes in. Merchants are increasingly seeking out these offerings, which afford them the connectivity, mobility, and interoperability to run their entire business. And that’s shaking up the space, since it’s not just legacy firms, but also mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) players and newer upstarts, that offer these products. 

As merchants begin demanding a wide variety of payment solutions, terminal providers are scrambling to meet their needs in order to maintain existing customers and attract new ones. This is leading to rapid innovation and increased competition in both the POS terminal hardware and software spaces.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has put together a detailed report on the shifts in this landscape, how leading players can meet them, and who’s doing it most effectively.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

Evolving merchant needs are impacting POS terminal players’ strategies. Merchants select terminal providers based on four key areas: payment functionality, user experience (UX), over-the-top (OTT) offerings, and distribution/customer service. Terminal firms need to innovate in these areas, or risk falling behind.Larger players need to double down on existing success. Smaller players can often be more nimble, which gives them the opportunity to innovate more quickly and build in-demand solutions. That’s a disadvantage to market leaders; however, they can, and should, leverage their massive distribution networks when upgrading or updating their offerings. Meanwhile, smaller players can win by focusing on niches instead.It’s all about the platform. No single feature is likely to make or break a merchant’s decision to pursue a specific provider. Above all, they want a robust ecosystem that can evolve over time. 

In full, the report:

Explains the current state of in-store retail and why terminal firms need to evolve to meet it.Groups features that matter to merchants and explains why they’re important and what terminal providers stand to gain from focusing on them.Determines the leading players in the space.Assesses how the leading players stack up, and which offerings are the most comprehensive.Issues recommendations about how to develop an attractive platform that best serves merchants' needs as the market continues to shift. 

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND more than 250 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> Learn More NowPurchase and download the report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

Original author: Jaime Toplin

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Here comes 2018... Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Most people don't keep their New Year's resolutions, and some even prefer to revel in their failures. Psychologists say in order to successfully change, you have to really want things to be different, and you also have to stick to your plan. If you're trying to break an old habit, replace it with a new one. Otherwise, it can be too hard to say no to temptation. 

 

Does anyone take New Year’s resolutions seriously anymore?

Former President Obama doesn’t. He acknowledged as much in a recent interview with Prince Harry on the BBC:

"I’m not sure I believe in New Year’s resolutions - typically people break them," the former president said.

Prince Harry’s fiancee Meghan Markle says she isn’t a fan of keeping to strict New Year's resolutions anymore, either. The princess-to-be wrote in 2016 that her only intention for that new year was to "leave room for magic."

But if you’re looking to make a few more (ahem) solid changes to your daily routines this year, there are ways that psychologists say you actually can make New Year’s resolutions a success.

Here are three of their top tips:

Tip #1: Only make New Year’s resolutions if you really want to changeShutterstock

Think about why you’re resolving to try something new: Are you just a little curious how it might feel? Are you trying something out just because the rest of the gang is doing it? Or, are you really sick and tired of the way things are and you’re finally ready to make a change? That could be a sign that this is the year to try out a New Year’s resolution.

Yale psychology Professor John Bargh told Business Insider that people should only resolve to try something new this year if it’s really important to them personally, and it’s something they'd want to change even when no one else is watching.

“I wouldn’t play around with these things,” Bargh said.

R esearchers at Harvard Medical School agree. They write that “long-lasting change is most likely when it's self-motivated and rooted in positive thinking.” 

It’s best to pick a specific goal — not just "I want to get more exercise" but, specifically how much and when, like: "I’m going to bike for 30 minutes, 4 days a week," for example. Making specific, measurable actions a part of your daily routine, triggered by things you do every day (like coming home from work and popping on a pair of running shoes at the back door) make it easier to succeed. 

Another part of the reason that New Year’s resolutions so often fail, Bargh says, is that people enjoy sharing their failures with others. "Bragging" about how we just can’t resist our favorite temptations can foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie among the not-so-resolved. But the old therapist's mantra rings true for resolutions, too: You don't change unless you really want to.

Tip #2: Keep your new promise to yourself (and to your body) for an entire month, without exceptionThe body remembers a broken promise.Jeff Arris via Wiki Commons

Many of the habitual actions we do every day require very little thinking: driving a car, washing our hands, typing on a keyboard, or picking which route to take to school or to work in the morning are all tasks that become largely second-nature over time, requiring less and less of our conscious mind. The brain and body learn from these everyday habits and start anticipating how to act.

That’s why it’s important to stay consistent with a new regime. 

"You don't wanna make promises that you don't keep to your body and your mind," Bargh said.  

Research suggests it can take as little as 18 days or as long as 254 to pick up a new routine, depending on what you’re trying to do, but Bargh says a month is a good measuring stick for trying on a new resolution. If you try something out for the first 31 days of the year and you don’t like the change, you can decide to forgo it in February, but give the idea a fighting chance, first, with a month of solid, uninterrupted effort.  

Tip #3: Replace the bad with the goodReplace old temptations with something new.Heath Cajandig/Flickr

You know that little kid who needs to be distracted with a shiny object to stop crying? Well, your body and mind are a lot like that kid when they’re trying to form new habits and move into new patterns. We typically need to replace an old, stale behavior with a new one.

Bargh successfully mastered this trick once himself when he decided he wanted to quit drinking. Instead of coming home and sipping on an alcoholic beverage, he scoured his home of all alcoholic indulgences and instead started sucking on sugary Tootsie Pops anytime he had a fresh urge for a tipple. It gave his mouth something positive, fun and new to do. He even made a little game out of the new habit: wadding up his lollipop wrappers and tossing them to the cat to bat around like some kind of feline Derek Jeter.

Whether you’re interested in finally giving an old New Year's resolution a real go this year, or you're just ready for something new, Bargh says initiating change is always tough. So, his final piece of advice is a simple one: If you are going to resolve to do something new, "do it for yourself," he says. 

Otherwise, it’s probably not a change worth fighting for in the first place.

Original author: Hilary Brueck

Original author: Jason Guerrasio

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and James Cameron are just a few of the club's very famous members.Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider; Reuters

The Explorers Club is an ultra-elite club in New York that serves as a meeting place for explorers, scientists, and the moneyed-elite who fund expeditions.Its members include astronaut Buzz Aldrin, President Teddy Roosevelt, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and film director James Cameron.The Manhattan clubhouse is filled with priceless artifacts and ancient documents.

 

World history is full of secret clubs with elite members, like the Freemasons and the Illuminati. Shrouded in mystery, these clubs become the stuff of legend.

In a lavish Upper Manhattan townhouse lies the headquarters of a legendary, though far less secretive society — The Explorers Club.

Founded in 1904, The Explorers Club is a professional society that serves as a meeting place for explorers, scientists, and just about anyone with an interest in scientific exploration. The Explorers Club funds, promotes, and assists in expeditions around the world.

The club's current and historical members include astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, film director James Cameron, Space-X  and Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, President Teddy Roosevelt, and aviator Charles Lindbergh.

The Explorers Club invited Business Insider in 2014 to take an exclusive look inside the historic club.

Here's a portrait of Danish explorer Peter Freuchen, who was stranded in a blizzard on Baffin Island in Canada in 1923.

Freuchen was buried by an avalanche and suffered severe frostbite on his foot. Remembering that natives use frozen dog feces to make tools, Freuchen quickly moved his own bowels, froze the feces, and crafted a chisel to dig his way out.

On the way back to camp, he was saved by Inuits who told him to bite off his frostbitten toes. He instead knocked them off with a hammer.

Original author: Harrison Jacobs

Apple on Thursday apologized because some customers were upset that it slowed down iPhones with older batteries.Older iPhones can take longer to launch apps, may display choppy scrolling, and can have dimmer screens and quieter speakers.According to Apple, it's a "power management" feature that helps protect the iPhone from random shutdowns and damage to its components.Apple began offering its $29 in-store battery replacements on Saturday.

If your iPhone is getting on in age, you may have noticed it runs slower after the latest updates.

That's because Apple slows down iPhones with aging batteries, the company recently disclosed. According to Apple, software updates throttle older iPhones because their batteries are "less capable of delivering peak energy loads," according to an apology the company issued Thursday.

If you're wondering what slower performance means for your iPhone, Apple posted a help document outlining exactly what its "power management" does. Meanwhile, the company launched a $29 in-store battery replacement service on Saturday, allowing those looking to speed up their iPhone a cheaper way to swap out an aging battery.

If your phone has a really old battery, Apple says, your phone may take longer to launch apps and may display apps at lower frame rates — meaning you get a choppy user experience.

Here's the full list of reductions in performance your iPhone may see with an old battery:

Longer app launch timesLower frame rates while scrollingBacklight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)Lower speaker volume by up to -3 decibelsGradual frame-rate reductions in some appsDuring the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UIApps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch

Apple also provided a list of features it said would not be affected on older iPhones:

AppleHere's Apple's technical explanation for its power-management software:

"This power management works by looking at a combination of the device temperature, battery state of charge, and the battery's impedance. Only if these variables require it, iOS will dynamically manage the maximum performance of some system components, such as the CPU and GPU in order to prevent unexpected shutdowns.

"As a result, the device workloads will self-balance, allowing a smoother distribution of system tasks, rather than larger, quick spikes of performance all at once. In some cases, a user may not notice any differences in daily device performance. The level of perceived change depends on how much power management is required for a particular device."

This basically means that an iPhone with an older battery can't provide enough power to operate at full capacity without hurting the iPhone's components. When an iPhone realizes the battery may not provide enough voltage and could hurt its parts, it automatically shuts down. That's a feature, according to Apple.

So Apple programmed a new piece of software that would prevent the iPhone from taking full advantage of its components. Instead of letting the iPhone run at full power, Apple instead has its phones "self-balance" and take a little longer to complete tasks.

The good news is that replacing the battery on your iPhone 6, iPhone 6S, or iPhone 7 should help it get back to full strength. If you're unsure whether your battery is old, Apple will release a software update that will let you check on its health. For the next year, Apple is charging only $29 for a battery replacement at one of its stores. That reduced pricing went into effect on Saturday, a bit sooner than planned, Apple's Trudy Muller told Business Insider.

"We expected to need more time to be ready, but we are happy to offer our customers the lower pricing right away. Initial supplies of some replacement batteries may be limited."

Original author: Kif Leswing

Edwin Odongo Anyango, 30, has received basic income for a little over a year. Chris Weller/Business Insider

A 12-year basic income experiment in Kenya is showing that people typically spend free cash on necessities. Contrary to prevailing myths, people don't seem to work less or waste the money on vices like alcohol. More research will eventually reveal whether these initial findings are an anomaly or the typical experience of someone receiving basic income.

KENYA — Maurice Owiti is 47 years old and works as a caregiver in a rural Kenyan village. In a poor community such as his, Owiti is lucky to have a job. But until late 2016, spending even $20 a month on school fees for his son was a struggle.

Then a charity called GiveDirectly showed up in October and announced to Owiti and dozens of other residents that they'd be receiving $22 a month for the next 12 years. It was part of an experiment in basic income, a system that involves giving people a standard salary just for being alive, no strings attached. (At GiveDirectly's request, Business Insider has concealed the Kenyan village's name and location to protect the recipients there.)

As basic income has gained mainstream interest as a way to reduce poverty, people have started speculating how it might play out on a large scale. Would the system make people work more or less? Would they spend all the money immediately? Where would the funds come from?

Anyango's children can now go to school, thanks to the basic income Edwine receives. Chris Weller/Business Insider

A myth gets proven wrong, one transfer at a time

In the 13 months since GiveDirectly began its experiment, Owiti and his fellow villagers have slowly and quietly been disproving the biggest misconception about basic income — that people who receive free money will stop working and waste the cash on vices like gambling, drugs, or alcohol.

Anecdotal evidence and nearly all empirical research has shown that unconditional cash transfers help people help themselves. Recipients often use the income to pay for their kids' school fees, buy medicine, repair their homes, and invest in their small businesses to further grow their wealth. While some use the money for so-called "temptation goods," as economists call them, the majority of recipients defy the stereotype that people in poverty somehow lack moral character or responsibility.

As advocates often claim, what the poor seem to suffer from is actually a lack of cash.

"If this money were to be given to everybody, this would be a very good thing," Edwin Odongo Anyango, a 30-year-old recipient in Kenya, told Business Insider.

Anyango earns money mostly through manual labor jobs. He said the basic income money has enabled him to buy milk on a more consistent basis and pay for his child's preschool fees. His wife, also a recipient, has put the money into her business selling secondhand clothes.

Basic income has allowed many people to make home repairs they otherwise couldn't afford. Chris Weller/Business Insider

"What this money does is it creates hope," Anyango said. "And when people have hope, they are happy."

Caroline Teti, the field director for GiveDirectly, works with villagers on a near-daily basis to make sure the experiment is running smoothly. The study expanded to include dozens more villages and thousands more people in mid-November, but so far Teti has only observed a few people who seem to misuse the money.

Even those, she said, tend to split the money between practical purchases and indulgences.

"People have needs," Teti said. "Especially in poor communities such as this, if they get a basic income, it goes directly into those needs."

Agrippa Agida Onywero Krispo hasn't spent the money entirely productively. A recent altercation has him rethinking his choices, however. Chris Weller/Business Insider

The abuses are few and far between

Agrippa Agida Onywero Krispo, a 40-year-old day laborer, said he's used the money for small home repairs and new shoes. He's also used it for gambling and to record a CD of him singing. Recently, the money he put toward the CD was stolen by his recording partner, who disappeared when it came time to sell the freshly made copies.

"I think for my next project, I am going to be more careful," Krispo said. "I'm not going to make the same mistake, because I think about that money that I put into the production, that I can't now get back. And I feel very angry."

Other research has found that people's spending on alcohol and cigarettes actually went down when they received direct cash transfers. Faced with a brighter future, many people stop using temptation goods as a way to cope with a hopeless situation, researchers have discovered. In the village GiveDirectly is working with, interviews with nearly a dozen recipients showed that most people have actually worked more since the study began.

The research isn't conclusive, however. There is still a possibility that follow-up studies will find GiveDirectly recipients used their cash on vices after covering their basic needs.

But so far, the findings are hopeful. When people in need are given the means to improve their lives, that's exactly where the money goes.

Original author: Chris Weller

Original author: Corey Protin and Antonio Villas-Boas

Original author: Áine Cain

Original author: Nathaniel Lee and Jessica Orwig

Thomson Reuters

Bitcoin recently crossed the massive $10,000 milestone.Nvidia and AMD have enjoyed strong demand for their chips that could be ending soon.The companies will have to focus on other areas of their businesses to continue to do well in the future.Watch the price of Bitcoin move in real time.

As bitcoin crashes through the $10,000 per coin milestone, it looks like the crypto boost chip makers AMD and Nvidia have enjoyed is finally coming to an end.

"While the Blockchain software technology is here to stay ... we expect crypto-mining will be a much less meaningful market for AMD/NVDA in 2018," Vijay Rakesh, an analyst at Mizuho Securities said in a note to clients.

Both Nvidia and AMD have enjoyed increased demand for their graphics processing unit chips thanks to their abilities to speed up some cryptocurrency mining. But, as the power required to mine bitcoin remains out of reach for individual miners, and ethereum looks to move to a different payment verification system in the next six months, it looks like that demand will be much lower than current levels.

When bitcoin first started, individuals known as miners would lend computing power to bitcoin's blockchain network to help verify payments and were rewarded with small payments in bitcoin for their services. These miners soon figured out that GPUs from AMD and Nvidia were well suited to the type of math used to verify payments and bought them in droves.

As bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, exploded in price and popularity, it looked as if AMD and Nvidia's share prices would mirror bitcoin's rise. Both companies have said that cryptocurrency miners have made it hard for retailers to keep their products in stock, and the graphics card business has been booming because of it.

The companies approached the crypto market a bit differently, though. AMD has said previously that it appreciated the crypto boost, but has not focused on addressing it directly because it doesn't see crypto mining as  "long-term growth driver." Nvidia has had the opposite reaction to the boom, saying it will stay very close to the market and react as needed.

Now, Rakesh thinks that both companies should move on.

"We believe it is increasingly important for AMD/NVDA to show traction in core PC/NB, DT, Gaming and Data Center markets in 2018," Rakesh wrote.

Rakesh reiterated his buy rating for both companies. He has a price target of $225 for Nvidia and a $17 price target for AMD.

AMD is down 1.46% this year, while Nvidia is up 106.71%.

Markets Insider

Original author: Seth Archer

Original author: Leanna Garfield

U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L) welcomes members of his American Technology Council, including (L-R) Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in the State Dining Room of the White House June 19, 2017 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Google are high up on the list of S&P 500 companies that investors added the most notional amount of short interest to this year. They're also among the most heavily shorted right now, according to S3 Partners, a data analytics firm. Short sellers defied the tech rally and increased bets for sell-offs even while they were losing money.

 

The so-called FANGS — Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Google — helped drive the S&P 500 to what's set to be its best year since 2013.  

But they've also attracted a swarm of short sellers. These are traders who borrow shares, then sell them in the hope they'll become cheaper so they can buy them back at a lower price and pocket the difference.

All the FANG stocks are high up on the list of S&P 500 companies that investors added the most notional amount of short interest, which represents outstanding shares that have been sold short, from January through December 27. 

Andy Kiersz/Business Insider

The data from analytics firm S3 Partners also shows that all the FANG stocks were among the top 10 companies with the highest short interest as of December 27: 

Andy Kiersz/Business Insider

This year through Thursday, Facebook was up 55%, Apple was up 48%, Netflix was up 55%, and Google was up 36%. This kind of run-up is perhaps part of the reason why some traders are betting on a reversal.  

It wasn't surprising that the best-performing stocks in 2017 also drew the most downside bets. What was surprising, S3 Partners noted earlier this year, was that short sellers showed defiance by increasing their positions while their losses mounted. 

One analyst who's skeptical of the FANGs going in 2018 is Tom Lee, the cofounder of Fundstrat.

"We continue to like technology, despite its substantial outperformance in 2017, but we see the performance driven more by non-FANG stocks," he said in a recent note. 

One red flag, he said, is that the FANG rally has them left those stocks with an expensive price-to-earnings ratio near 46. It's worth mentioning that shareholders have been willing to overlook this kind of valuation for big tech; Amazon, for example, is trading at nearly 300 times earnings.  

But there's also the repeal of net neutrality, which means that internet service providers will be able to charge customers more for the services (like Netflix and YouTube videos) they help deliver. It's "ultimately a shift in cost sharing — as those networks sending downstream traffic (to end users) need to potentially compensate telecom/cable networks for traffic imbalances," Lee said. 

Many analysts do expect that the FANGs would continue to rally in 2018, driven by earnings growth and a potential windfall from repatriated cash thanks to tax reform. That would mean another painful year for short sellers. 

Original author: Business Insider

Original author: Áine Cain

Getty Images

Prominent tech entrepreneurs Omar Amanat and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman were found guilty on numerous accounts of fraudulent charges in their dealings with former video management company KIT digital.  Both Amanat and Tuzman have led successful but controversial entrepreneurial careers — and their guilty verdict marks a striking fall from prominence. 

 

For the past six weeks, a tangled case of complex fraud leveled against two prominent tech entrepreneurs unfolded in federal court. On December 26, the trial's defendants, Omar Amanat and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, were found guilty on numerous accounts of fraudulent charges, as originally reported by Bloomberg. 

For both Amanat and Tuzman, the conviction is a striking fall from power: The two defendants have made millions of dollars and led successful entrepreneurial careers that have all but unraveled over the course of the past year. 

The court case revealed a series of convoluted legal infractions performed by Amanat and Tuzman in their work with the presently insolvent video-technology company, KIT Digital, a former multi-million dollar leader in the cloud-based video management industry. 

According to Bloomberg, Tuzman, who served as the company's CEO, and Amanat, who dealt in a series of company investments, covered up losses, inflated the value of shares, and defrauded investors. 

The pair are expected to serve a minimum of a decade in jail and their sentencing will be delivered in April 2018. 

Here's a breakdown of Amanat and Tuzman's descent:

Lavish wealth and lurid lawsuits

By the time he was 30 years old, Omar Amanat had sold off his brokerage firm, Tradespace, for $100 million. Amanat was already flush in wealth and had turned his interests towards philanthropy and film production, flaunting connections with A-list celebrities like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. He was known for his lavish lifestyle, an tendency for quoting the Persian poet Rumi, and appearing in designer garb alongside his wife, supermodel Helena Houdova, at high-profile events. Omar Amanat and his wife, supermodel Helena Houdova appear at the LA screening of 'Darfur Now.'Getty Images

But despite Amanat's effortless exterior, a series of sensational controversies had begun to dog his career. 

In 2014, a multi-million-dollar real estate deal in Thailand collapsed amid a lurid lawsuit with Amanat and his business partner, the Russian oligarch Vladislav Doronin.

Two years later, Amanat's name was once more featured prominently in the papers. He  had leased his lavish Hampton home to a hedge-fund trader, Brett Barna, who allegedly trashed the $20 million estate in a widely publicized madcap party. 

The New York Times reported that  Amanat had threatened to sue Barna for $1 million and was hounding him for thousands of dollars in damages.  

But Amanat's threats were short-lived. Days after he had threatened to sue, Amanat received a visit in his New Jersey home from the FBI, which charged Amanat with multiple counts of fraud.

Right now, Amanat awaits his sentencing in jail. 

On his personal website, he describes the trial's outcome as an "injustice in America."

"The facts of this case will all be made plain to see shortly," Amanat wrote. "You’ve only seen snippets. You’ve only seen what they want you to see."

A successful dot-com millionaire serves time in a Colombian prison

Kaleil Isaza Tuzman is considered one of the preeminent figures of the dot-com boom. 

 A Harvard graduate, Tuzman worked as an analyst for five years on Wall Street, before launching his own company, govWorks.com, which is featured in the documentary 'Startup.com.'

Kaleil Isaza Tuzman appears on the TV show Making It! YouTube

Tuzman, who is considered an expert in the field of digital media, went on to join KIT Digital as the company's chief executive.

Tuzman was charged with fraud for his involvement with KIT Digital in 2015. He was reportedly apprehended on a business trip in Bogotá, Colombia by Colombian officials, which had been sent to arrest Tuzman at the behest of the US government. Tuzman spent 10 months in "La Picota," a notorious local prison.

Tuzman described his prison time to the New York Times as a harrowing ordeal: The former CEO claims he was abused, raped, and threatened at knifepoint by Colombian authorities. Multiple attempts on Tuzman's behalf by his attorneys to the US Embassy were met to no avail. 

He was later extradited to the US where he faced trial alongside Amanat.

Original author: Zoë Bernard

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There are two AmazonFresh pickup centers in Seattle. Jason Redmond/Reuters

The head of Amazon's Prime Now division is now also leading its AmazonFresh grocery business. AmazonFresh has scaled back while Prime Now expands to new cities. Synergies with Whole Foods and Prime Now may prove a winning combination.

 

Amazon could be about to make some big changes to its grocery business, which currently consists of two services: AmazonFresh and Prime Now.

AmazonFresh is the company's oldest grocery delivery service, a traditional online option with a $15-a-month membership cost and reserved delivery times.

Prime Now, on the other hand, is Amazon's two-hour delivery offering, which comes free with Prime. On top of a more limited selection of food, it also offers a small selection of products like Echo devices and seasonal items.

Now, changes at Amazon offer a glimpse at how these two services may be coming together in meaningful ways.

In November, Amazon stopped its Fresh delivery service in parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and California, and it has yet to comment on why it did so.

An Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement to Businss Insider: "We have made changes to our service area and discontinued delivery to select zip codes. AmazonFresh continues to serve customers across the US (Seattle, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and more) and internationally (London, Tokyo, Berlin and Munich)."

At the same time, Amazon is opening new Prime Now hubs in major cities. The service is now available in more than 30 cities and towns, and its food selection has been greatly expanded as it incorporates Whole Foods' assortment of products.

At the time of this writing, Prime Now offers a selection of more than 1,000 Whole Foods items and more than 5,500 grocery food offerings in Manhattan. In contrast, AmazonFresh offers about 13,500 grocery items for delivery to Manhattan.

The Amazon executive in charge of Prime Now, VP Stephenie Landry, has also been tapped to lead AmazonFresh.

"If you look around this facility, you're going to see a lot of everyday items — food and consumables," Landry told Recode. "AmazonFresh sells the same types of products but a much greater variety. And so both of them have a lot of synergies and it makes sense to think about them jointly."

Landy also recently took the reigns for Amazon Restaurants — a prepared-food-delivery program that's partnered with local restaurants — which is hosted on the same Amazon website as Prime Now.

That's prompted speculation that Prime Now and AmazonFresh may be joining forces. A Morgan Stanley survey of Prime members shows that Prime Now grocery orders are up. The bank wrote in a note to investors that 48% of people using Prime Now are ordering grocery items with it — more than they are ordering more traditional e-commerce offerings. 

The survey was done prior to the Whole Foods acquisition's close and before its products were put on Amazon, so it's possible that adoption has increased even more.

It's tempting to look at Prime Now as Amazon's vehicle for dominating grocery — an area where it's struggled previously. Combining Whole Foods' nationwide grocery footprint and selection with Prime Now's delivery logistics to provide free, two-hour delivery could prove an unbeatable combination.

Landry told Recode that Prime Now and AmazonFresh won't merge —  at least, not yet.

"I actually think that we're going to have lots of different ways to get food to customers. But behind the scenes it makes sense to develop as many efficiencies as possible," she said.

An Amazon spokeswoman told Business Insider that the company does not comment on speculation.

Original author: Dennis Green