Microsoft is putting its foot down in the age-old debate about whether it's correct to put one or two spaces after a period.

Microsoft Word's editor function is getting a new feature that flags two spaces after a period as an error, according to The Verge. Some Twitter users have noticed in recent days that the company recently started testing the change in the desktop version of Word.

The debate over whether to use one space or two has been raging on for years, probably for about as long as we've been typing on modern computers. A study from Skidmore College in 2018 even sought to answer the question. Its results found that two spaces were in fact better.

As you might expect, the change from Microsoft Word created quite the stir on Twitter. Some found the update frustrating, while others viewed it as much-needed validation. 

If you're still advocating for two spaces instead of one, you'll be able to change this setting, Lifehacker said. There's a "Writing Style" in Microsoft Word's grammar settings that enables you to tell the program not to check for spaces after periods at all or set it to "two space."

President Donald Trump on Friday revisited his claim that Amazon is responsible for the US Postal Service's financial challenges during a press conference and suggested USPS should let the company handle its own shipping.

"If they raise the price of a package like they should — four or five times, that's what it should be — or let Amazon build their own post office, which would be an impossible thing to do because the post office is massive and serves every little piece of the country ... it would be a whole new ball game," Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly accused Amazon, as well as other online retailers, of contributing to USPS's financial woes by receiving below-market package-delivery rates — effectively arguing USPS is unfairly subsidizing transportation costs for the $1.2 trillion company.

As of 2018, USPS was approaching nearly $70 billion in cumulative losses, and last month, a group of Democratic lawmakers said the coronavirus outbreak could shutter USPS by June.

During Friday's press conference, Trump confirmed a Thursday report from The Washington Post that his administration is considering using an emergency loan included in the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package as leverage to require the cash-strapped US Postal Service to make massive changes to its structure and management.

"If they don't raise the price, I'm not signing anything," Trump said, referring to the emergency loan, which must first be approved by the Treasury Department.

Trump's criticism of Amazon's relationship with USPS is hardly new, and he has been suggesting for years that USPS raise the rates it charges to deliver packages for the company to recoup its losses.

"Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer?" Trump tweeted in December 2017.

Trump's reasoning may have some merit: Logistics analysts have said that Amazon has been able to build a transportation network, in which the company can save money delivering its own packages, by relying significantly on USPS.

A December report from Morgan Stanley said Amazon's in-house delivery network  was "cherry-picking" the US's densest ZIP codes. USPS is then charged with delivering Amazon packages in rural areas. Servicing rural areas, where homes are more spread out, is more expensive — and USPS isn't able to recoup those losses by servicing urban areas on behalf of Amazon.

However, The Washington Post said raising package-delivery rates could also make it more difficult for USPS to compete with Amazon and other shipping companies like UPS and FedEx, hurting its financial state in the long run. 

Rachel Premack and Grace Panetta contributed reporting to this story.

 

Over the last few weeks, Business Insider has been talking to experts to see which companies they thought would get bought up as the coronavirus crisis drives down valuations — and thus, potential purchase prices. In our conversations, one name kept coming up: Domo, the Utah-based data analytics company.

"Domo is one of those companies that it's kind of surprising that it hasn't been acquired yet," Valoir analyst Rebecca Wettemann told Business Insider. "Because it ticks all the boxes for cloud analytics: easily adoptable, high usability, that whole low-code-no-code potential. It's so good at so many things. Domo has a lot to offer."

Domo gives businesses and organizations access to a cloud-based business intelligence and analytics platform which helps executives see important information about the health of their company through real-time dashboards.  The company is even playing a role in the fight against COVID-19: Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday cited Domo's partnership with Nomi Health in helping Iowa Governor Kim Reynold's initiative to expand coronavirus testing in the state.

Domo's the kind of business that appears to be most attractive to cloud giants, as two of Domo's highest-profile rivals both got snapped up.

In the last year alone, Google acquired data-analytics company Looker for $2.6 billion, and Salesforce bought data visualization company Tableau for $15.7 billion. Domo's market cap at the time of this writing is around $416 million — well below the valuation of over $2 billion it commanded as a private company, before its tumultous 2018 IPO. 

Nucleus Research analyst Daniel Elman told Business Insider that Domo's stock seems undervalued and, after the Looker and Tableau acquisitions, "it stands to reason another large player could swoop Domo up for pennies on the dollar to bolster their own analytics capabilities."

Coronavirus crisis puts pressure on Domo

The coronavirus crisis appears to be putting pressure on Domo's business, even as the pandemic also highlighted its role in helping in the fight against COVID-19. Reacting to Pence's acknowledgement of Domo's role in Iowa, CEO Josh James tweeted: "You've got to be kidding me!!! ... I didn't see this happening." 

But the company  this week laid off 90 employees, or 10 percent of its staff, according to local media reports. A recent Morgan Stanley report list Domo among companies for which the coronavirus crisis has magnified "existing sales execution issues."

Domo did not comment on the Morgan Stanley report or the speculation from analyst that it's likely to be acquired, but James, the company's CEO, said in a statement to Business Insider that the layoffs are part of a $30 billion restructuring plan that also included cuts to executive pay and perks, marketing expenses, and "non-essential expenses unless they pertain to keeping and protecting our employees, retaining and serving our customers, or winning new contracts in the short term."

"While our business is showing resiliency and the crisis is actually highlighting the importance of our product, there is so much uncertainty ahead and we needed to ensure that we keep ourselves in a position to protect our business and continue to serve customers for the long term," James said. "Parting ways with people who have become part of the fabric of the company, particularly in an environment like this one, is incredibly difficult. With the economy as a whole slowing down, we can't be in a position where we come close to running out of money."

Could be a good fit at Microsoft or Oracle

It's unclear whether these developments would affect the likelihood that Domo gets snapped up in an acquisitions, but analysts said, in general the company could be an attractive acquisition for major enterprise players such as Microsoft and Oracle.

Ray Wang of Constellation Research also called Domo an "awesome" business intelligence and data visualization technology. He said Microsoft may decide to go after Domo to beef up the capabilities of Power BI. 

"What they would then do is invite them to partner with them and they would spend the next two to three years to figure out if they could build this, or do they have to buy Domo," he said.

Data analytics visualization is clearly a hot space in cloud software after the Looker and Tableau acquisitions. However, Valoir's Wettemann said that Domo is struggling with the perception that its technology isn't up to par for larger enterprise customers. 

"The downside is it almost got bucketed into the sort of Dropbox category, stuff that's so usable and consumer-focused that people ask, is this really an enterprise app?," she said. "And I would argue it is. The challenge is they got lumped into that bucket with Dropbox and it's been kind of challenging to break out of that."

The company has also been somewhat controversial. The company went public in 2018. An investor watchdog at the time said "investors should stay away from this IPO" due to a series of what he saw as red flags. Leading up to the IPO, Business Insider reporter Julie Bort wrote extensively about issues within the company, according to insiders.

Are you a Domo employee? Contact Ashley Stewart via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message her on Twitter @ashannstew, or send her a secure message through Signal at 425-344-8242. Contact Benjamin Pimentel reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @benpimentel or send him a secure message through Signal at 510-731-8429.

Santa Monica, California-based adtech firm GumGum laid off 25% of employees this week, which CEO Phil Schraeder said were a direct result of dropped revenue from the coronavirus.

GumGum runs two businesses: an advertising business and a sports arm. The former uses artificial intelligence and software to match contextually relevant ads with content. The sports business sells computer-vision software that brands and sports teams use to analyze sports sponsorships.

Schraeder said the layoffs hit both businesses. He made the announcements during an all-hands meeting on Monday and posted a blog about the layoffs.

GumGum, which was founded 12 years ago, raised $22 million in Series D funding in February, and its overall funding totals $58.8 million. GumGum employs about 360 people, according to LinkedIn data.

"We are financially sound and in this for the long haul," Schraeder said. "We just needed to appropriately adjust our org and structure to support that new reality. Our philosophy was to look at the data — it might feel painful, awful, and hard for so many, myself included, but we don't want to look over our shoulders."

He said GumGum's second-quarter revenue took a hit that was similar to numbers that the trade organization Interactive Advertising Bureau released, which said 69% of publishers and adtech companies had reforecast their revenue to reflect drops between March and June. Those companies expect a 21% drop in digital-ad revenue during that time.

Adtech sources have named GumGum as a possible acquisition target this year as privacy laws like California's Consumer Privacy Act and Europe's General Data Protection Regulation restrict how advertisers use third-party cookies. Apple and Google have also clamped down on third-party cookies to target ads to people.

GumGum is the latest in a growing string of advertising-based companies slammed by the effects of the coronavirus.

The adtech firms VideoAmp and Sojern, the holding companies WPP and Omicom, and direct-to-consumer brands like ThirdLove have also cited the coronavirus in a wave of recent layoffs.

"I want to be able to look at the team that's here and say, 'We got this, and we can work through the volatility together,'" Schraeder said. "I hope that we're wrong — I hope the revenue comes in greater than we ever anticipated, and that will allow us to potentially bring people back."

Amazon is extending the temporary pay raise for warehouse workers in the US and Canada that was supposed to end this month, but will terminate the unlimited unpaid time off policy as scheduled.

Early last month, Amazon said it would double overtime pay and increase hourly wages by $2 for its warehouse workers through the month of April, while offering unlimited unpaid time off for those who didn't feel comfortable coming into work as the coronavirus pandemic worsened.

In a note sent to warehouse workers on Friday, Amazon said, "We're extending the $2/hr wage increase and double overtime pay through May 16 ... Also we are returning to our normal attendance policy on May 1."

In a blog post on Friday, Amazon said the extended pay increase brings its total investment in hourly workers during COVID-19 to nearly $700 million.

"We continue to see heavy demand during this difficult time and the team is doing incredible work for our customers and the community," the blog post said.

The change comes at a time when Amazon is dealing with a series of worker safety issues. Over 70 warehouses are reported to have at least one infected employee, and last week, the first known case of death was confirmed. 

Groups of warehouse workers have called out Amazon's loose workplace safety measures over the past month, staging multiple protests across the country. Just this week, more than 300 warehouse workers pledged to call off work, according to the nonprofit United for Respect. 

Amazon has made dozens of policy changes to ensure the safety of its warehouse workers during the pandemic. Earlier this month, it announced it would provide face masks and regular temperature checks to its workforce. It's also started spraying disinfectant and providing enhanced cleaning procedures across its facilities.

Image Credits: Czinger Vehicles

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday the company is introducing 50-person video chatrooms.

This would likely compete with other videochatting apps, notably Zoom, which has seen huge gains since the coronavirus pandemic forced schools and workplaces to close. Facebook says the feature will be out in the US in the coming weeks.

The chatrooms will be based around Facebook Messenger and Facebook Groups, and can be public or private. Guests can also join by link, without a Facebook account. As a competitor to Zoom, Facebook seems to be a budget option, hosting up to 50 people with no mention of a time limit. In comparison, Zoom calls with more than two people time-out after 40 minutes with the free version of the service.

Video conference calls have suddenly become key to corporate and educational life since the pandemic has forced many closures and stay at home orders around the US and the world. So far, Zoom has come out on top, going from 10 million daily users to 300 million in only a few months.

Here's what Facebook's Messenger Rooms will look like, and how they'll work.

If you want to go bare-bones, the Kia Telluride can be had for about $32,000.

That still gets you AWD and the V6, so, therefore, is a monumental bargain.

My test vehicle was the top SX trim level and consequently optioned within an inch of its automotive life. The uptick in price was $15,000, much of which was worth it, though the only extras offered for this trim were stuff like Nappa leather seat trim and a head-up display, as well as second-row seats that were heated and cooled. The damage: $2,000.

This SUV was as close to perfect at its price point as possible, if you ask me. I noticed but one "problem": a bit of buzz from the 291-horsepower engine under hard acceleration in sport mode. But just a bit. And it went away once the Telluride's transmission automatically snicked into the overdrive gears.

I'll just say it: When Hyundai and Kia arrived in the US market, they didn't make a Japanese impression. The Japanese brands gained instant cred decades ago when their well-built and fuel-efficient cars put Detroit on notice. The South Koreans entered the fray after the Japanese impact had been felt, leaving price as the only real avenue to competition.

So first impressions were that the cars were cheap, sticker-wise and quality-wise. Heavy-duty 10-year/100,000-mile warranties took the fear away from buyers.

But now Kia (and Hyundai and the premium Genesis brand) has shown it can offer great value alongside wonderful quality. The Telluride, along with the Stinger sports sedan, is the pinnacle of this. The Kia SUV is every bit as good and in some ways superior to the Honda Pilot.

The real test of such vehicles is the road trip, with family and gear and perhaps a pet or two. I didn't have any of those things handy, but I did undertake a nearly 200-mile round-trip jaunt in the Telluride from suburban New Jersey to a small town in Pennsylvania to visit the C. F. Martin & Co. guitar factory. And while I didn't load up the cargo area with guitars, I did get to spend quality time with the Telluride on a variety of roadways, with a nasty storm coming in from the west.

By the end of it, I was ready to march over to a Kia dealership and buy one of these things.

OK, I don't HAVE to do that. But the Telluride put me in that mindset, just as the Stinger did a while back.

Kia, I gotta hand it to ya: You're killing it, and the Telluride is the latest victory.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Tiffany Bradford would exercise at her local Planet Fitness in Boston, Massachusetts.

The gym recently began hosting a series of at-home workouts that are streamed every day through Facebook Live, as Planet Fitness locations, like many other gyms and businesses, remain closed because of the pandemic.

Shifting to at-home exercise routines is a challenge that many usual gym-goers across the United States are likely grappling with, as about 95% of Americans are under orders to stay at home. But Bradford's adjustment is proving to be more difficult. 

She's not on Facebook.  

"I've been kind of surprised lately [about] how many free resources require a Facebook," Bradford, a 26-year-old technology consultant, said. 

She isn't alone in staying off the social network. Business Insider asked a small group of about 60 former users if they'd returned to the platform since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Two-thirds of them said no. While Bradford cited several reasons for leaving the site — a lack of meaningful connections, disinformation on the platform — many users have seemingly left Facebook following controversial findings that came to light in recent years, and they aren't turning back.

In 2018, the revelation that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from millions of Facebook users during the 2016 election season led some people to abandon the platform, data suggests. The Pew Research Center reported in September 2018 that 26% of American adults that responded to its survey said they deleted the Facebook app from their phone. About 42% of respondents said they stopped checking Facebook for several weeks or more. 

Leaving Facebook is surely no easy task. Siva Vaidhyanathan, the director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at University of Virginia, suggested in his book that Facebook uses casino-like techniques to keep users hooked on its platform, as The Washington Post reported. Sean Parker, the founding Facebook president and Napster cofounder, also said at an Axios event that the social network was designed to "consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible."

And although leaving Facebook has presented a few inconveniences, some former users say it's also taught them an important lesson: They don't need Facebook to stay in touch with the people that are truly important — even as the coronavirus pandemic is preventing people across the United States from socializing in person. 

"I'm not getting anything out of this anymore," Bradford said of her decision to leave Facebook. "I could actually do a better job if I quit relying on this to stay connected to my friends and family."

The coronavirus is bringing Facebook's influence into question

Facebook still holds a colossal presence in the social media landscape despite its controversies. With 1.66 billion average daily active users as of December 2019, Facebook still far exceeds rivals like Snapchat, with 218 million daily active users, and Twitter's 152 million monetizable daily active users.    

Facebook usage has also spiked during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The company said messaging has increased by 50%, and voice and video calling have more than doubled on Messenger and WhatsApp in countries hit the hardest.

That doesn't necessarily mean Facebook is immune to coronavirus-related troubles; the social media giant said it doesn't monetize many of the services that are being more widely used during the pandemic. Plus, the company's crucial ad business has been weakening as advertisers are spending less because of the virus' economic ramifications.  

Still, even at a time when Facebook usage is thriving, some ex-users aren't motivated to return despite the trade-offs that come with being absent from the world's largest social network.  

"At times yes, you're at a disadvantage in certain situations," said Nick Raia, a 39-year-old emergency medical technician for the New York City Fire Department. He said he's missed out on the occasional birthday party invitation since a lot of his friends use Facebook to coordinate events. "They're doing everything through Facebook, and so sometimes I do get excluded because of it."

It's unclear whether people who have deleted or deactivated their accounts tend to return to Facebook. While the company does report daily and monthly active users for its network, there doesn't seem to be readily available data that provides insight about whether people typically return to Facebook after leaving.

But data from researchers at Stanford University and New York University published in November 2019 does suggest that people who leave Facebook tend to use the social network less after returning. Researchers paid participants to leave the social network for four weeks, and once the experiment was over they found that even though most people reactivated their accounts, they spent less time on Facebook.

How people are replacing the world's largest social network

Video chats and other specialized apps have helped former Facebook users in maintaining contact with friends and family members they can't see in person, as well as other extended social circles. 

Marc Kermisch, a 46-year-old technology professional in Minneapolis, Minnesota, previously used Facebook to coordinate group runs and bike rides. Now, he typically uses the workout app Strava to organize such gatherings, although he usually has to supplement Strava usage with text messaging because the app "doesn't really have the messaging capabilities that Facebook does." 

For others, text messaging has become an easy and reliable way to keep in touch. 

Andreas Kielczynski has adopted a more creative approach to texting. A 46-year-old digital marketing professional living in Hoboken, New Jersey, Kielczynski said he typically uses Apple's Messages app on his laptop and sometimes keeps between 30 and 40 messages open at a time. Instead of typing, he'll also sometimes recite short messages and send them as audio clips. And even though he's not on Facebook, he'll still occasionally use Facebook's Messenger app to contact certain people he can't reach otherwise.

"I use texting in kind of a strange way," said Kielczynski. "I'm not as much of a phone person as other people are. I'll always default to my laptop whenever possible."

Long before the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to see loved ones in person, ex-Facebook users had taken to alternative modes of communication to keep in touch. For some, like Kermisch in Minnesota, not being on Facebook has been a motivator to call contacts they haven't spoken to in a while.

"I said, 'Hey, you know what? I'm going to give them a call just to see how they're doing,'" Kermisch said. "I think we all try to take care of each other a little bit more right now."

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Companies have spent more on data center deals so far this year than in all of 2019, according to new data from Synergy Research Group, as the coronavirus crisis forces aggressive expansions to keep up with a surge of users working from home.

The market researcher identified 28 data center deals worth a total of $14.8 billion have closed so far this year, and 17 more deals are pending. The total value of data center deals last year was $14.7 billion.

Expanding data center capacity is particularly right now important for top public cloud providers Amazon Web Services and Microsoft as the need for cloud services increases. With much of the world staying at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, that means more people are turning to services like Netflix, Zoom, and Xbox Live to stay connected — in turn, placing more strain on the cloud platforms that underpin them.

John Dinsdale, the group's chief analyst, told Business Insider he's aware of 50 new Amazon and Microsoft data centers in various stages of development across 15 countries. "It may be a year or two before some of those come online, but many will be operational in the near future," Dinsdale said.

AWS did not comment on that figure, but said it has 73 "availability zones" and has announced plans for 12 more. The company on Wednesday announced it opened new data centers in Cape Town, South Africa.

Microsoft declined to comment on its data center plans and referred to a recent note to customers explaining how the company is managing capacity during the coronavirus crisis.

It's unclear exactly how the coronavirus crisis has shaped the companies' expansions since widespread measures to keep people at home began in March, but Dinsdale said a clearer picture should emerge next week when both companies report first-quarter earnings.

Dinsdale expects to see continued aggressive investment in new public cloud data center capacity, and a slowdown in cloud server replacement as cloud providers try to squeeze out more working life from existing hardware.

Where Microsoft is concerned, the coronavirus crisis has presented a big opportunity for its cloud business, but also a big challenge.

Microsoft not only has its Azure public cloud business, but business software used by most business around the world which share data center with its cloud business. That means the opportunity created from the coronavirus crisis for Microsoft is twofold, but it makes it more difficult for the company to ensure it has enough capacity for all of its cloud and software customers. Microsoft Teams, for example, experienced an outage in March.

A recent note to Microsoft customers suggests Microsoft is worried about capacity issues.

Microsoft said it would placed temporary restrictions for Azure cloud computing customers, including limits on free offers and "certain resources" for new subscriptions. The company has also said it would prioritize "first responders, health and emergency management services, critical government infrastructure organizational use, and ensuring remote workers stay up and running with the core functionality of Teams."

Microsoft hasn't released its plan for adding capacity, but has recommended that customers switch to other data centers with less demand and that it will work to expand data-center capacity in regions where demand is surging.

AWS, meanwhile, said it hasn't had any capacity issues as a result of the coronavirus crisis. AWS is also more focused on public cloud infrastructure and doesn't provide business software — like the Teams chat app, or the broader Office suite — at the same scale as Microsoft. Slack and Zoom, both significant AWS customers, have seen big surges in usage of their own, however.

Amazon and Microsoft are consistently active in expanding their data center footprints, Dinsdale said.

Are you an Amazon Web Services or Microsoft employee? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message her on Twitter @ashannstew, or send her a secure message through Signal at 425-344-8242.

When you have a lot of windows open, or you're undertaking a specifically complex operation, it can be helpful to have an extra display for your Mac. 

Luckily, you can use your iPad as a second display for your Mac using the Sidecar tool. 

While you need to ensure that your Mac is operating on macOS Catalina or newer, and that your iPad is running iPadOS 13 or later, there are hardware requirements as well.

A general rule of thumb seems to be that this only works for Macs from 2016 or later, and for iPads from around that time, though for a full list of compatible devices click here. 

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Mac (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

iPad (From $279 at Walmart)

How to use your iPad as a second display for a Mac

To connect your Mac and iPad, we'll be using a feature called Sidecar.

1. Make sure both your iPad and Mac are signed into the same iCloud account. You should also plug your iPad into its charger, as well as your MacBook if you're using one, as Sidecar can take a lot of battery power.

2. Click on the AirPlay icon in the top menu bar of your Mac.

3. Scroll down and click on your iPad.