The Transport Guy: How to use the iPhone X now that the home button is dead

Corey Protin and Steve Kovach October 31, 2017 at 11:35AM

Apple’s highly anticipated and long-awaited iPhone X is finally out. The phone doesn't have a Home button, so there are all new controls to learn if you want to do things like take screenshots, switch apps, and activate Siri. Here's what you need to know. Following is the transcript of the video.

STEVE KOVACH: I've been using the new iPhone 10. This is the 10th anniversary edition of the iPhone and it's a radical departure from what we've seen in years past.

The first thing you'll notice is, the home button is gone. Instead, the screen stretches across most of the front of the phone. Now there are some problems. Because of this new screen dimension, some third-party developers haven't had a chance to really make their apps look good on the full screen. So for example, if I open Slack now there are these big chunky black bars at the top. While most of Apple's apps will look great and some third-party apps will look great, it's gonna be a few months before all apps really fit the screen well.

The screen is a really big part of this phone too. For the first time Apple is using what's called an OLED display, which has a better picture quality and better color representation than the old LCD displays they've been using since the very first iPhone. And for years this is why Samsung phone screens have just looked a lot better. One other benefit of an OLED screen is that it's always kind of thinking and on. So if you just tap the screen now, it'll activate; whereas before, you either had to turn on the power button or do raise to wake.

The other big feature here is the new TrueDepth Camera on the front of the phone. This is used for Face ID to unlock the phone without using a passcode or the fingerprint sensor. And it's also used for augmented reality apps and other cool features like Apple's Animojis.

So, let's take a look at the Animoji. This is really fun. So I'm going to record an Animoji. You got a lot of cool different options here. "Helllloooooo!" So, as you can see, it uses the TrueDepth Camera to track my facial gestures and movements. I can do my eyebrows. The mouth moves in time with me. I can squint and wink. And it sends as a normal movie file. So even if the person you're sending it to doesn’t have iMessage or an iPhone, it'll work on Android phones or anything like that.

The next thing is Face ID. This is the biggest new change to the iPhone next to the screen. Since they got rid of the Home button that means no more fingerprint sensor. And instead the TrueDepth Camera can analyze your face and store the data as a mathematical representation of what you look like.

But the problem is, of course, things like front-facing cameras still need to be on the front. So they have this new "notch." You can see here that this screen curves around the new TrueDepth Camera and all those sensors in there. You know when you watch video it doesn't bleed into the "notch," unless you want it to. Same with photos.

And because of all that screen that means there’s no Home button So instead of using a button to get back to the home screen, you just swipe up from the bottom. If you want to multitask, you swipe up from the bottom and then hold for a second. And you get your whole list of apps that you can cycle through. So in addition to opening up that multitasking window by swiping up and holding, you can just swipe left to right on the bottom of the screen to cycle between your apps really quickly. The control center is now when you swipe down from the top right of the "notch."And then the notification center is when you swipe down from the left side. To activate Siri now, you just do a long press on the power button on the side. "What's the weather today?"

SIRI: It should be nice today. Up to 57 degrees.

STEVE KOVACH: Screenshots are different too. Again, Home button is gone. So how do you screenshot? You press the power button and the volume up button at the same time. 

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The Transport Guy: I've been using the iPhone X for 18 hours, and I'm already sold (AAPL)

Steve Kovach October 31, 2017 at 03:00AM

• I've been testing the iPhone for a little less than a day.
• Overall, I enjoy the design and the new, larger screen. And I don't miss the home button at all.
• Despite some of the concerns over Face ID, it works flawlessly.

  ---

I only got to use the iPhone X briefly during Apple's launch event last month, but it was enough to convince me Apple was cooking up a hit.

This week, I got to spend more time with it, and I'm equally, if not more impressed with what Apple pulled off.

I've been using the iPhone X for a little less than a day, so I won't have a full review for you until early next week. But I do have a much better sense of how things work in the real world and outside the careful gaze of a bunch of Apple employees.

Here are some first impressions after my roughly 18 hours with the iPhone X.

Finally, a new design

The latest trend in smartphones is to cram as much screen onto the front of the phone as possible, with minimized bezels. Until now, the iPhone felt behind the times with its gargantuan size and relatively small screen.

The iPhone X is a refreshing redesign. After over three years of essentially the same look, it's nice to see Apple make something radically different again. 

The best part is the screen. At 5.8 inches, it's slightly larger than the iPhone 8 Plus screen, but on a body that's only a little larger than the iPhone 8. For everyone avoiding the plus-sized iPhones because of their surfboard-like construction, the X will strike the perfect balance.

It's also the first iPhone screen to use OLED technology, which is more power efficient, has a higher resolution, and displays colors better. (Samsung phones have been using OLED screens for years, and they consistently put the iPhone to shame in that regard.) The X's screen is stunning, almost as if it's painted onto the phone.

The back of the phone is made of glass, just like the iPhone 8, but it's tied together with a steel band around the edges instead of aluminum. I'm using the white/silver model, and the steel band has a nice chrome shine to it. I think it's more attractive than the space gray model.

Of course, all that screen means Apple made another huge design change. There's no more home button. Instead, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go back home. There's a bar that floats at the bottom to help you see where you're supposed to swipe from. (I've been calling it the home bar.) It takes a little getting used to after 10 years of mashing a home button, but it eventually starts feeling natural.

But some things on the front of the phone can't be replaced by software, like the camera, which leads us to the controversial new notch at the top of the screen.

I don't mind the notch

Boy oh boy did the iPhone X's notch trigger a bunch of angry nerds.

Apple engineered the screen so that it wraps around the front-facing camera and all of its advanced sensors. (More on that in a bit.) It's a drastically different look than the iPhone screens you're used to, and it's easily the most polarizing design decision Apple has ever made. John Gruber, who runs the site Daring Fireball and is typically pro-Apple in his commentary, said the notch "offends" him.

That's a pretty strong feeling to have about a phone screen.

I don't mind the notch. In fact, I kind of like it, and I think it blends in nicely to the rest of the phone's software interface. The sides of the notch display the time, battery status, and WiFi and cell signals. By default, photos and video don't bleed into the notch unless you double-tap them for a zoomed-in view. You barely notice the notch in most cases, and it looks especially nice when scrolling through apps like Twitter and Facebook.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling tech pundits are going to be debating the merits and drawbacks of the notch for the next several weeks. It's going to be insufferable. You've been warned.

Third-party apps need work

So far, the biggest drawback to the extra screen space and lack of home button has been third-party app design. Many of my apps haven't been redesigned for the new screen size, so they show up with thick black bars on the top and bottom to mimic the same aspect ratio you'd get on a regular iPhone screen. It looks like a lot of wasted space.

Other apps have been refitted for the iPhone X screen, but have made a bunch of funky design choices. For example, some have large chunks of unused space at the bottom near the home bar. And I saw at least one app that showed the home bar bleeding into the menu icons at the bottom of the screen.

Apple's not totally innocent either. There were a few cases where I saw large chunks of unused space at the bottom of the screen in some of Apple's own in-house apps, such as the iPhone's built-in Mail app, especially when the keyboard popped up.

I have a feeling it's going to take a few months for developers to get used to the new screen size and shape, just like we saw when the iPhone screen got bigger on the iPhones 5 and 6.

All that panic over Face ID seems to be for nothing

No home button also means there's no more Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Instead, the iPhone X uses a new facial recognition system called Face ID. Face ID taps into the new front-facing camera and other sensors to accurately scan your face and securely store it as a mathematical representation.

The iPhone X isn't even out yet, and Face ID is already the feature most people seem to be the most worried about. Does it work in the dark? Is it creepy? Is it secure? Bloomberg even ran a scary story last week saying Apple told suppliers it could reduce the accuracy of of Face ID in order to meet production goals, something Apple denied.

I have a feeling all that hair-pulling is because after years of using Touch ID, Face ID will have to prove itself to be just as good or better to justify removing the fingerprint sensor.

In my short time with the iPhone X, Face ID has worked well. It unlocks the phone quickly in low light, bright light, the dim light of Business Insider's video studio, and even in a pitch-black closet.

Better yet, it seems impossible to trick. I had a set of identical twins come into the office on Monday to put the facial recognition system to the test. One of the twins programmed his face into Face ID, allowing him to unlock the phone with a glance. His twin brother however was locked out — he couldn't even trick the phone while wearing a hat and sunglasses. The two siblings told me that even some of their family members can't tell them apart, yet Face ID was able to map a face accurately enough to tell the difference.

Face ID can also adapt as your face changes, like if you grow a beard or wear a hat, glasses, or sunglasses. In fact, one of my bearded colleagues programmed his face and then shaved himself clean a few minutes later. Face ID caught on. He had to put in his passcode twice to confirm it was him, but after that, Face ID learned who he was without having to be reprogrammed.

Of course, I'll need to spend more time with Face ID to fully evaluate how well it works. But so far, so good.

More to come...

There's still a lot more to unpack here. The battery life. The accuracy of Face ID over time. Some of those funky app designs. The camera performance.

And of course, there's the phone's $999 starting price tag — the highest Apple has ever put on an iPhone. So far, the phone feels worth the premium price, but a full verdict will require more testing.

I'll have that and more in the coming days. For now, the iPhone X gives a great first impression.

SEE ALSO: Google built a Trojan Horse to get into every aspect of your life

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NOW WATCH: Google Pixel 2 vs iPhone X: The biggest differences between the two

I've been using the iPhone X for 18 hours, and I'm already sold (AAPL) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Unboxing the iPhone X: Here's everything inside and what you'll need to get

Emma Fierberg and Steve Kovach October 31, 2017 at 03:00AM

We got our hands on the iPhone X and had the chance to unbox Apple's newest device. Here's what you get inside the box, and what you might want to purchase in order to take full advantage of all of the phone's features. Following is a transcript of the video. 

Steve Kovach: The iPhone X is finally here and we’re going to show you what’s inside. But even if you spent $1,000 on this thing, you’re still going to need some extra accessories. Alright, so this is the space gray model, 256GB. There's also a 64GB option.

Got the documentation, two free Apple stickers, and since there's no Home button, there's a little tutorial it looks like about how to use the home-button-free iPhone X — some of the new swiping gestures, Face ID, more documentation.

But, here it is. The iPhone X.

Wall charger, wired EarPods, and of course, the dongle. Just like the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8, there's no headphone jack so if you want to use your traditional headphones, you need the dongle. Otherwise you can use the lightning headphones. And then the lightning cable for syncing to your computer or charging.

The iPhone X is made of all metal and glass, so if you drop this thing, it is gonna break. So the best thing to do is buy a case. Apple makes some really nice cases. This is a silicone case, but there's also a leather case from Apple and of course tons of third parties will have cases.

But if you want to take advantage of other iPhone X features like wireless charging, you're going to have to buy a wireless charging accessory. And those range from $15 to $60 depending on the model you choose. This one we have here from RAVPower goes for about $50.

On top of that, if you want to take advantage of wired fast charging, you'll need a USB-C to lightning cable. Apple sells that for $25 but you can find cheaper versions on Amazon and elsewhere. You need a special power brick that's 29 Watts that you can plug USB-C into. That goes for $49 from Apple.

If you want to use wireless charging while you have a case on your iPhone X, you should either use a case made by Apple or a thin one made out of plastic or rubber. Thick cases like those big Otter Boxes or metal cases or any of those other weird ones you might find online might not work with wireless charging. But most cases should be fine.

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The Transport Guy: If you think Washington's going to regulate Big Tech, I've got a bridge I'll sell you

Steve Kovach October 28, 2017 at 05:00AM

• There's a lot of talk in Washington about new laws or rules to govern Big Tech. 
• Despite the talk, regulation is unlikely.
• The tech industry is already working to scuttle new rules, and public sentiment is in its favor.

---

 

There's growing talk about regulating Big Tech. But you shouldn't expect that talk to turn into actual action. 

With more and more details emerging about how people linked to Russia tried to influence last year's election via some of the nation's biggest online services, policymakers have started earnestly entertaining the idea that the government needs to step in and craft new rules to govern those and other tech companies.

Next week, congressional representatives will grill the leaders of Facebook, Google, and Twitter about what happened on their networks last year and what should be done about it. Meanwhile, in perhaps the most serious effort yet to put in place new rules on Big Tech, Democratic senators Mark Warner and Amy Klobuchar recently introduced a bill that would regulate political advertising on Google, Facebook, and other widely used online sites in largely the same way as such ads are regulated when they are run on television or in print.

New rules? Don't count on it

But even though there's bipartisan support for Warner and Klobuchar's bill, don't count on Congress passing it. Indeed, even though there is widespread outcry over Russia's alleged meddling and growing concern over the power of the Big Tech companies, you shouldn't expect Washington to do much of anything in the way of placing new rules on how the Facebooks, Apples, and Googles of this world go about their business. 

Congress hasn't been doing much of anything on any number of issues lately, so expecting it to do something about Big Tech may have been a stretch no matter what. And with President Trump unwilling to commit to pushing for new rules, it's even less likely Congress will pass something.

Big tech's big lobbying effort 

Even so, Big Tech isn't taking any chances and is doing whatever it can to scuttle any efforts to saddle it with more government oversight. 

Already, the Big Tech companies have been actively moving to weaken or quash any proposed laws or regulations. Industry lobbyists worked to water down Warner and Klobucher's bill. Meanwhile, with her company at the center of the storm over fake ads, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, went on a charm offense in Washington recently, meeting with lawmakers and the press.

The tech giants are also ramping up their lobbying efforts. Combined, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Twitter spent $14.2 million on lobbying last quarter, a sharp rise from the $11.9 million they spent in the same period a year earlier, The New York Times reported.

Stepping up self-regulation

But Big Tech isn't just relying on its lobbyists to persuade lawmakers new rules won't be necessary. It's also trying to show them it can get its own house in order. 

In recent weeks, several of the tech companies have been stepping up their own efforts to weed out fake news and fake ads and to make their businesses more transparent to users. Facebook announced it will allow users to easily see who paid for the ads that pop up in their News Feeds. Twitter announced a similar plant and also said it would bar ads from a pair of Russia-funded news organizations.

I'm dubious that these companies can actually police themselves, given that they've largely failed so far in other areas, such as combatting rampant personal abuse on their sites. Even if they can do a better job of combatting and exposing fake ads and fake news, that would only address a small part of the larger concerns about their power and role and society. Still, their efforts are likely to be persuasive to lawmakers, particularly the Republicans in charge of Congress, who tend to be strongly opposed to new regulations that might constrain corporations. 

The public loves its tech gadgets and services

And Big Tech has one other big thing going for it in its effort to battle new rules — public sentiment. The public at large overwhelmingly loves these companies. 

It's not hard to see why. Big Tech has become an intricate part of our lives. We use their products and services every day. And they've done a great job of making those products and services super-compelling. 

Apple's iPhone X is super cool. Google's Gmail service is free to use and an easy way to send email. Amazon makes it insanely easy to shop. Facebook is great for keeping up with friends and family. 

The public may be aware of some of the dangers these companies pose, but they seem largely focused on the day-to-day benefits they get from using Big Tech's products. And without some sort of significant and broad public anger toward Big Tech, there's little chance our elected representatives will push hard to regulate them. 

So don't get too distracted by next week's hearings, the hubbub about Warner and Klobucher's bill, or any other talk about putting new rules on Big Tech. The most likely thing that's going to happen is nothing at all. 

SEE ALSO: Google built a Trojan Horse to get inside every aspect of your life

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NOW WATCH: Google Pixel 2 vs iPhone X: The biggest differences between the two

If you think Washington's going to regulate Big Tech, I've got a bridge I'll sell you from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Best Buy is charging $100 more for the iPhone X, and its explanation is infuriating customers (BBY)

Steve Kovach October 27, 2017 at 02:13PM

• Best Buy is selling the iPhone X for $100 more than other retailers.
• The company's reason for the price increase struck many people as nonsensical.

  ---

You already know the iPhone X isn't cheap. With a $999 starting price, it's the most expensive model Apple has ever made.

But if you decide to buy one from Best Buy, it's even more expensive.

Best Buy is charging $100 more than any other retailer for the iPhone X, customers discovered as preorders became available on Friday. The 64 GB model cost $1,099 at Best Buy, instead of the standard $999 price, and the 256 GB model is going for $1,249 (normally $1,149).

When asked why Best Buy was charging more, a company spokesperson gave a mind-numbing answer to Bloomberg:

“Our prices reflect the fact that no matter a customer’s desired plan or carrier, or whether a customer is on a business or personal plan, they are able to get a phone the way they want at Best Buy. Our customers have told us they want this flexibility and sometimes that has a cost.”

If you want to buy an iPhone X, we suggest having flexibility too. Choose from any of the numerous retailers that won't charge you $100 more for the phone.

Meanwhile,  Best Buy is getting roasted by angry consumers on social media channels like Twitter:

Never buying from you again. Charging $100 premium due to demand is treating your customer like dirt.

— John Strikwerda (@JohnStrikwerda) October 27, 2017

 

No thanks @BestBuy I’m not paying $100 above the list price to buy an iPhone X from you!! This is blatant price gouging!! Shame on you!! 😡😡 https://t.co/4Ynq999cnS

— David Lindsley (@RetProf77) October 27, 2017

 Some of the comments on BestBuy's Facebook page were pretty brutal too:

 

SEE ALSO: Android creator's new smartphone was doomed from the beginning

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NOW WATCH: The 5 most annoying changes in the new iPhone update — and how to fix them

Best Buy is charging $100 more for the iPhone X, and its explanation is infuriating customers (BBY) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: LIVE: Google's parent company Alphabet reports Q3 earnings (GOOG, GOOGL)

Steve Kovach October 26, 2017 at 12:50PM

Google's parent company Alphabet will report third-quarter earnings at 4 p.m. Eastern Thursday.

First, here's what analysts are expecting, according to Bloomberg:

Revenue: $21.95 billion

EPS (GAAP): $8.34

We'll have the results for you as soon as they come in, so refresh this post for the latest.

The big story surrounding Google is the fake ads from Russian bots that ran across various Google platforms during the 2016 US election. Google has discovered less than $100,000 worth of ads so far. Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, will testify before Congress with representatives from Facebook and Twitter regarding Russian abuse on their platforms on November 1.

Despite the fake news problems and Russian ad abuse, Alphabet's stock has been performing well. It hit an all-time high of $1,016 last week.

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NOW WATCH: Watch Google repeatedly mock Apple at its October Pixel event

LIVE: Google's parent company Alphabet reports Q3 earnings (GOOG, GOOGL) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Android creator's new smartphone was doomed from the beginning

Steve Kovach October 23, 2017 at 11:57AM

• The Essential phone got a $200 price drop, just two months after its launch.
• It's a sign that sales are very weak as competition for the high-end smartphone market tightens. Samsung and Apple released their new phones around the same time.
• The Essential phone had challenges from the beginning, and always seemed doom to sell poorly.

  ---

Android creator Andy Rubin's latest project seems to be a flop.

On Saturday, the company announced that it was slashing the price of its first product, a $699 smartphone called the Essential Phone, by $200. 

Such a dramatic price cut just a couple months after the product's launch is never a good sign, and it's validation to those early reports that sales are pretty dismal. One ugly estimate from research firm BayStreet said Essential only sold 5,000 phones by the end of September.

Essential's announcement Saturday skirted around the low-sales figures, framing the price cut as a way to " make it even easier" to get the phone instead of spending on a "a massive TV campaign to capture your attention." That's one way to put it. The other is that no one bought the phone and now it's time to cut prices in an attempt to generate sales.

The Essential phone's price cut and poor performance may have been a surprise to Rubin, but not to anyone else who knew what he was getting himself into. Let's recap.

A product delay that caused it to lose the spotlight

The Essential phone launched at a horrible time. Rubin originally promised it'd go on sale by the end of June, but he missed his own deadline. It eventually went on sale in mid-August. By then, Samsung was gearing up for the Galaxy Note 8, and we were less than a month away from the iPhone 8 and iPhone X announcements. Before the Essential phone ever stepped on stage, Apple and Samsung had already stolen the spotlight.

Timing and the delay was only part of it. The Essential phone had negligible retail distribution. In the US, you could buy it online from Essential's site. The only other option was a Sprint store. Without a significant retail partnership from all four major carriers, no phone has a hope, with the exception of perhaps the iPhone. Carrier stores still get a lot of foot traffic, and it's the way many people buy their devices. How many people do you know who buy their phones by visiting the website of a startup they've never heard of?

One upstart company that managed to win a loyal following is OnePlus, which makes a phone loaded with high-end specs that appeals to techies. But OnePlus gave its product a super low price tag to help it stand out from the pack, a tactic that Essential was not willing to make.

Nice materials don't cut it

The high-end smartphone market has been dominated by Apple and Samsung for years, and despite numerous attempts, virtually no one has managed to break out. Even Google's well-reviewed Pixel phone from last year only sold about 1 million units, according to one estimate. Apple sells 1 million iPhones every few days. A company would have to offer something radically different to stand out and manufacture it at scale. A pricey phone made out of ceramic and titanium doesn't cut it.

So the odds were against Essential from the beginning. A few thousand phones isn't just a drop in the bucket. It's not even enough to form a drop. 

Essential has raised an estimated $330 million, so it has plenty of runway to get over this initial hump. It also has grander plans beyond the smartphone with a smart home operating system called AmbientOS and an Amazon Echo-like hub to control everything.

But the smartphone is still the center of gravity in the tech hardware world, and if you're going to build a new tech brand, you need to nail it with something that appeals beyond a geeky niche. Essential tried to defy the smartphone industry's rules of the game and do things its own way — in the end, it didn't deliver enough of a change to convince consumers to follow it.

 

SEE ALSO: The truth behind Google's hardware plans

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NOW WATCH: This 'crazy, irrational decision' Apple made 20 years ago turned out to be the key to its outrageous success over Samsung

Android creator's new smartphone was doomed from the beginning from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Google built a new Trojan Horse to get inside every aspect of your life (GOOGL)

Steve Kovach October 21, 2017 at 05:30AM

• Google is taking hardware seriously after years of experimentation.
• But it doesn't have a chance at becoming another Apple or Samsung.
• Instead, Google's hardware division will be used to sneak the company's AI technology into everything else.

Suddenly, Google is starting to look like a hardware company.

As the holiday gadget-buying season approaches, Google's offerings are starting to look more like what you'd see from Samsung or Apple, not a search giant.

It started this week with the launch of the new Pixel 2 phones, which despite their ugly designs and iffy screens got largely positive reviews. Next come a slew of new gadgets — wireless earbuds, an attractive new Chromebook, jumbo and mini versions of its Google Home smart speaker, a GoPro-like camera, and a refined version of its virtual reality headset.

Google has dabbled with hardware in the past without much success, but the company now appears to be serious about turning it into a real business. Last year, the company put Rick Osterloh, the former president of mobile phone maker Motorola, in charge of its hardware efforts. More recently, it spent more than $1 billion to bulk up its capabilities by acquiring portions of HTC's phone business.

At first glance, hardware seems like a sideshow for Google

But if Google now seems more serious about hardware, it hasn't exactly explained why it is. Almost all of its of its revenues still come from advertising. The high-end phone market, where its new Pixel smartphones will compete, is already saturated, giving Google little hope it can break through.

Even if it is able to spur broad consumer interest in the devices, Google's track record for meeting demand hasn't been good. Last year, for example, it had a dreadful time making enough of its original Pixel phones. By some estimates, the company sold little more than 1 million of them. To put that in perspective, Apple sells about 1 million iPhones every few days, on average.

In terms of its potential impact on Google's overall sales, the company's hardware effort doesn't look like it will ever be anything more than a small sideshow to its core search business.

But that doesn't mean it's unimportant. 

Google sees AI as its next Android

Google hinted at why it's putting so much effort into hardware at its press event earlier this month when it introduced the new Pixels and showed off its other upcoming products. The underlying theme of that event was Google Assistant, the company's voice assistant technology that competes with Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri.

Google clearly sees Assistant — and artificial intelligence more generally — as its next big foundational technology, one that could soon rank up there with its search technology and Android. And reading between the lines of the press event, it seems clear that Google sees its hardware effort as a kind of Trojan Horse for its AI efforts, a way to sneak its assistant and its AI into consumers' homes and lives.

For all the talk in the tech industry about the new computing devices that could replace the smartphone, such as augmented reality goggles and smartwatches, the software underlying those devices will likely be more important than the gadgets themselves. Because it's the intelligence underlying those devices that will make truly make them sing. And among the major tech players, Google is in the best position possible to power these next generation devices, because its artificial intelligence and related "smarts" are the best in the world.

Google Assistant is only about a year old, but it's already proving itself more capable than older rivals such as Siri, Alexa, and Microsoft's Cortana. Google's advantage is that Assistant can draw on the wealth of information the company has gleaned about you from your search history, Gmail account, and more, and that Assistant can stitches all that information together better than any of its competitors.

Google is stuffing its hardware with AI

Google's key challenge is to get Assistant and its related AI technologies inside more devices and into the hands of more consumers. Its new hardware products indicate how it plans to do just that.

All of Google's new products incorporate its AI technologies in one way or another. For example, Google Clips, its new camera, uses AI to monitor what's happening around it to determine the best time to take short video clips. It then transfers those clips to Google Photos, the company's photo storage service, which offers image recognition that's constantly improving thanks to machine learning. 

Google's also stuffed its AI into its new Pixel Buds, its wireless earbuds that can translate languages in real time, like something you'd see on "Star Trek." And it's built Assistant into many of its other new products, including the Pixel 2 phones, its new Home speakers, and its Pixelbook laptop.

The search giant is using its hardware to spur other device makers to use its AI 

Now that the company has added AI into its own hardware products, its challenge is to convince its hardware partners to adopt its AI technology too, just like they did Android last decade. But that's where Google's own hardware comes into play.

Google's devices serve as benchmarks for manufacturers who build devices that rely on Android and the search giant's other platforms. Assuming that's the case here, there likely soon will be lots of other products that include Google's AI technologies. 

You can already see this starting to play out. Regardless of the manufacturer, all new Android phones ship with Assistant. Manufacturers including Sony, Panasonic, and soon Sonos are building Assistant into their smart speakers.

Google's AI is even making its way into more mundane devices. For example, LG announced earlier this year that you'll soon be able to control its washing machines and robot vacuums via Assistant. ("OK Google, vacuum my living room.") Down the road, the integration of artificial intelligence into such everyday gadgets and appliances could offer the biggest opportunity for the technology. 

By using its hardware to sneak its AI into your life, Google is positioning itself to lead that revolution.

SEE ALSO: Sheryl Sandberg got everything wrong about Facebook's role as a media company

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Google built a new Trojan Horse to get inside every aspect of your life (GOOGL) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Here's a video of Jeff Bezos smashing a champagne bottle on a windmill

Steve Kovach October 19, 2017 at 06:15AM

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos posted the following video to his Twitter account Thursday:

Fun day christening Amazon’s latest wind farm. #RenewableEnergy http://pic.twitter.com/cTxeXdsFop

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) October 19, 2017

We assume he made it down safely.

SEE ALSO: Big Tech is now Big Media and it's time we started treating it that way

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Here's a video of Jeff Bezos smashing a champagne bottle on a windmill from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Facebook and Google's political advertising problem goes beyond fake Russian accounts (GOOG, FB)

Steve Kovach October 18, 2017 at 11:04AM

• Facebook and Google employees helped promote anti-Islam ads to voters in swing states.
• The ads violate the norms of political advertising you'd see in traditional media.
• Big tech platforms that spread political advertising need to fix the problems now and be more transparent.

As the story of ad abuse on Facebook, Google, and Twitter during the US 2016 election has unfolded, there's been one common theme: Russian bots, fake accounts, and other shadowy actors took advantage of automated online advertising platforms to influence American voters.

But with the latest revelation, Facebook and Google can no longer hide behind the convenient excuse that everything that happened was the algorithm's fault.

According to a Bloomberg report Wednesday, Facebook and Google employees worked with the conservative nonprofit group Secure America Now to showcase ads that contained anti-Islam rhetoric.

One of the ads that ran, according to Bloomberg, was the one you can watch below. It shows an alternative reality where France is run by Shariah law. The ad was targeted to people in swing states during the 2016 US election, the report says.

It's unclear if all the ads from the group were similarly over-the-top. But this ad weakens the argument that big tech platforms are just dumb vessel's for other groups' messages. Google and Facebook consciously decided this was appropriate content to accept payment for and to help promote. Beyond the question of whether or not political ads need to be regulated on tech platforms, we're now faced with questions about what Google and Facebook's standards are when working with a group that wants to use their powerful tools to target voters.

Is hate speech OK? Is fear mongering OK? We have no idea what Facebook and Google's standards are beyond the fact that Secure America Now and the media company it hired, Harris Media, were willing to pay up.

Until now, one of Facebook and Google's biggest defenses was that the ad abuse on their platforms were happening under their noses, and the kinds of ads specifically designed to promote polarizing topics came from fake accounts and other malicious forces trying to game the system.

Innocent bystanders or accomplices?

Wednesday's Bloomberg report blows a hole in that argument, and shows that the very heart of Facebook and Google's ad businesses can cater to anyone with enough money to spend, no matter what the message may be. I can't think of a bigger sign that Big Tech doesn't care about what runs on their platforms beyond literally helping spread such distasteful messages when paid to do so. Facebook even helped Secure America Now experiment with new video ad formats it was testing, according to the report.

Google told Bloomberg it removed some of Secure America Now's ads, and Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth told me on Twitter that employees didn't work on creative for the ads. But they still helped target and promote the ads on their respective platforms, which hardly makes them innocent in spreading such vile messages.

To be clear, this is different than Facebook "embedding" members of its ad team with the Trump campaign last year to help it target ads better. As my colleague Mike Shields pointed out last week, that's a normal service that Facebook has offered political campaigns from across the political spectrum.

Instead, this is an example of Facebook and Google catering to an advertiser to promote and target ads that easily fall outside political advertising norms in traditional media.

The threat of regulation for political advertising still looms large for Facebook, Google, and other tech companies. Senator Mark Warner is expected to present a bill on that very matter soon. Facebook has already promised to be more transparent about political advertising on its platform, and Google and Twitter have indicated they're willing to make changes too. 

Now we know they have to take it a step further and be transparent about their level of involvement spreading the same type of polarizing messages previously attributed to Russian hackers and bots.

SEE ALSO: Facebook and the rest of Big Tech are now Big Media, and it's time we start treating them that way

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Facebook and Google's political advertising problem goes beyond fake Russian accounts (GOOG, FB) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Companies replacing workers with robots are missing out on a huge opportunity — and it might doom them

Zach Williams, Shana Lebowitz and Steve Kovach October 18, 2017 at 08:05AM

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and the author of "The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google" says that employing a huge fleet of robots does not always benefit a business' bottom line. Human employees offer an advantage for retail businesses even during a time when tech companies are increasingly pushing robots as replacements. Following is a transcript of the video.

Scott Galloway: To give you a sense of just how powerful Amazon is, when Amazon opened one store, Amazon Go — whose key feature was that it used artificial intelligence to get rid of cashiers.

Effectively, you heard this giant scream across the US labor force where of the 11 million cashiers in the US — that's more than primary teachers in terms of actual numbers — about 3 of those 11 million probably lost their job. They just don't know it yet.

And in every retail boardroom, we're talking about store optimization which is Latin for "fire people." I believe however the opportunity in retail is to invest in not artificial intelligence but organic intelligence. 

People no longer go to stores for products. So the winners in retail, The Home Deports, the Best Buys, the Sephoras are investing in their "Blue Shirts," their "Golden Aprons," and their "Cast."

Because if you are going into a store, you want someone there. You want the most impressive supercomputer in the history of the world. And that is an individual who is well-trained.

So while tech is zigging, there's an opportunity for retail to zag. Starbucks is the original gangster here, spending more money on benefits than they do on coffee.

When you go into a Starbucks you feel better about the experience because the person behind the counter, the barista, actually seems to be enjoying their job, or feel as if they are getting paid well and learning something. 

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Companies replacing workers with robots are missing out on a huge opportunity — and it might doom them from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: There's a psychological reason why being open to failure often leads to insane success

Joe Avella, Shana Lebowitz and Steve Kovach October 16, 2017 at 08:21AM

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern and the author of "The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google" shows how some of the biggest successes in tech have also had major public failures. He explains why failure is an important aspect of success. Following is a transcript of the video.

Scott Galloway: So there's a famous chart that shows, it says, what people think success is and it has a straight upward line and then what success really is and it's a jagged, multi-art adventure. And that is accurate.

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing NYU Stern and the author of “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.”

If you are not in your own professional life and your professional career kind of wiping out and getting beaned in the face every once in awhile you aren't trying hard enough. And these companies are great at failure.

They're fantastic at taking big risk. Putting metrics on them and just as importantly pulling the plug and performing infanticide on projects that aren't working and then moving on to the next thing. Whether it was auctions or the phone with Amazon or Facebook and some of their targeting, all of these companies have had huge missteps, but it just doesn't matter because they on average win. They have a great batting average. And as Jeff Bezos said they’ll take a risk, a one-in-ten risk if they think it can pay off 100x.

That isn’t the way traditional companies think. Old economy companies typically won't green light anything unless it has more than a 50% chance of winning, and then even worse than that, after it’s launched, and it’s become the pet project of people at the top, everyone else enters into consensual hallucination with the CEO that this thing is working and sometimes let this kind of gross, ugly child live longer than it should.

So, one, these companies are more disciplined about taking more risk, but they’re also more disciplined about pulling the plug on these things.

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There's a psychological reason why being open to failure often leads to insane success from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Facebook and the rest of Big Tech are now Big Media, and it's time we start treating them that way

Steve Kovach October 14, 2017 at 06:00AM

Sheryl Sandberg and her peers in Silicon Valley may not want to admit this, but Big Tech has become Big Media. 

And with that change comes major responsibilities — ones that the tech giants are currently shirking. 

Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, made news this week when she steadfastly refused to acknowledge in an interview with Axios editor Mike Allen that her company is in the media business.

She may be the most prominent denier of Big Tech's new role, but she's not the only one. Sandberg's colleague, Andrew Bosworth, Facebook's head of consumer hardware, echoed her position on Twitter this week.

Their argument goes like this: because tech companies generally don't employ journalists who report and write the news, they can't be media companies.

But that position ignores the facts of how the media business has changed and how people today consume news, information and entertainment.

Facebook's news feed has become what the front page of the newspaper was for older generations of people; at least 66% of the social network's 2 billion users rely on it as a news source, according to a 2016 Pew study. Meanwhile, consumers turn to Twitter for breaking news, and they search Google for news updates. 

But consumers didn't just change their media habits on their own. The tech companies argument also conveniently disregards how the big tech companies themselves have purposefully and intentionally tried to become go-to news destinations.   

Facebook purposely designed its algorithms to customize users' news feeds to show them the stories and other information they're mostly likely to engage with, whether by clicking on a headline or typing in a comment. Google not only operates Google News and touts live news events on YouTube, but it's even altered its core search feature to show links to relevant articles above search results when users search for newsworthy items. And Twitter has launched numerous features, including a "What's Happening Now" page and a "Moments," to highlight news stories and information. 

Perhaps most damning to Big Tech's line of argument is the impact those companies, particularly Facebook and Google, have had on the rest of the media business. Advertising is the lifeblood of media companies. And with ads increasingly shifting away from traditional media such as newspapers and television to digital ones such as the web and mobile devices, old media companies have been trying to move in that direction too.

But they're failing, thanks to Big Tech. Last year, Facebook and Google accounted for 99% of all the growth in digital advertising, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, leaving peanuts for the rest of online media platforms. That dynamic will almost certainly repeat itself this year. 

And that's not to mention Big Tech's broader effort to become Big Media. Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as Apple and Amazon, are all all aiming at Hollywood by investing in originally produced entertainment videos, television shows and movies. 

In a very real way, Facebook and the other companies are deciding what news millions of people see. There's just no disputing the fact that Big Tech has massive influence over the way people consume media.

But it's also become increasingly clear that the big tech companies aren't shouldering the responsibility that comes hand in hand with that influence. 

The denials from Sandberg and others about even being in the media business are just a piece of that. A bigger, more important example is how the companies have reacted to the growing pile of evidence that propagandists linked to Russia manipulated their sites and systems in an effort to influence last year's election. 

In the days after the election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave his infamous "pretty crazy" comment about the notion that his company influenced the result by distributing propagandistic fake news. (He recently took those comments back.) While Google CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged that such fake news could possibly have swayed voters and said the company needed to crack down it, his company and the other members of Big Tech, have done little to solve it 11 months later.

And it's not clear if the tech companies will ever fix the fake news and propaganda problem on their own, despite the public outcry. In recent months, executives at Google and other companies have argued — privately — that the problem was just too big to solve. Much of the value these companies believe they have comes from allowing users to post pretty much whatever they want to their sites. If the companies were to more thoroughly police what users post, they worry they would lose that openness and undermine their sites' appeal. 

But Big Tech will likely only be able to duck from its duties for so long. If it won't accept the responsibility that comes from it's transformation into Big Media on its own, it may be forced to. 

Already there are rumblings among different governments that they may step in. A pair of senators concerned that Russian-backed groups surreptitiously tried to influence last year's election are working on a bill that would force companies like Facebook to track and, in some cases, publicly disclose the purchasers of political ads. Meanwhile, the UK is considering formally reclassifying Facebook and Google as media companies, which would subject them to new legal responsibilities.  

So whatever Sandberg might say, it's clear that tech has taken over media. And Big Tech is running out of excuses for why it should see the benefits that go along with that change — but not bear the burdens.

SEE ALSO: Sheryl Sandberg got everything wrong about Facebook's role as a media company

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Facebook and the rest of Big Tech are now Big Media, and it's time we start treating them that way from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Alphabet has quietly incorporated its internet balloon project, a sign it could spin out as a new company soon (GOOG, GOOGL)

Steve Kovach October 12, 2017 at 02:56PM

Alphabet has quietly upgraded its internet balloon initiative from a research lab "project" to an official corporation, setting the stage for what could be the latest standalone business to spin out from Google's parent company.

Project Loon, which develops solar-powered balloons that beam internet access down to earth, has been incorporated as Loon Inc, according to regulatory filings. 

Business Insider first noticed Loon was listed as "Loon Inc." in a recent filing to the FCC seeking permission to float Loon balloons above Puerto Rico and provide internet access to areas affected by hurricane Maria. Previously, Loon was officially referred to as a project under Alphabet, or under X, the Alphabet subsidiary dedicated to creating ambitious "moonshot" technologies.

Loon's incorporation is a sign that Alphabet may be preparing to spin Loon out of the X division and let it operate as its own company. Alphabet went through a similar process last year with Waymo, the company formed out of X's self-driving car project. X also spun out Dandelion, a geothermal energy company, earlier this year, but Dandelion is not under the Alphabet umbrella.

A Loon spokesperson declined to comment.

Next candidate

One person close to X told Business Insider a few months ago that Loon was the next likely candidate for a spin out of X. In February, Alphabet X's business tapped Alastair Westgarth, a telecom industry veteran, to be the new CEO of Project Loon. 

Getting spun out from the mothership often indicates that Alphabet believes an experimental technology or product has matured enough to be ready for commercialization. That gives the spinout company the freedom to pursue its own business objectives, while at the same time subjecting it to the financial pressures of an independent business.

Google has previously said that it believes Loon's "floating cell towers in the sky" could one day become a business that generates billions of dollars in revenue. So far however, Loon has only seen limited deployments in areas like Sri Lanka, Peru, and more recently Puerto Rico.

As a standalone company, Loon would join a growing roster of Alphabet subsidiaries, known as "Other Bets," such as high-speed internet service Access, smart appliance maker Nest and Waymo, the self-driving car company. In the second quarter of the year, Alphabet's Other Bets posted an operating loss of $772 million, on revenue of $248 million.

Spencer Hosie, a lawyer representing Loon competitor SpaceData in a lawsuit, told Business Insider that he noticed the change in Loon's status in the recent FCC filing. Hosie said he plans to add Loon Inc. as a defendant in SpaceData's case against Alphabet. It's unclear when exactly Alphabet incorporated Loon, but Hosie said he suspected that it could have been as recently as last week.

Julie Bort contributed to this report. 

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about the iPhone X

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Alphabet has quietly incorporated its internet balloon project, a sign it could spin out as a new company soon (GOOG, GOOGL) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Sheryl Sandberg got everything wrong about Facebook's role as a media company (FB)

Steve Kovach October 12, 2017 at 09:52AM

How would you classify a company that:

• distributes news and information to billions of people every month?
• is a major source of news and information for a large chunk of those billions of people?
• runs ads against that content, generating billions in revenue every quarter?
• is paying content creators ranging from the NFL to Insider to make original video programming that streams to mobile devices, computers, and connected set-top boxes?
• is funding and producing its own original television shows?

Most would call that a media company. And most would expect that media company to adhere to the standards, safeguards, and rules that all media companies do.

Facebook, which does all of the above, will not concede it's a media company.

On Thursday, Facebook's COO told Axios editor Mike Allen that Facebook is not a media company, a classification the company has avoided for years. The renewed questions about the company's role in the intersection of tech and media come as the debate around fake news and fake Russian ads on the platform heat up. The UK is already considering regulations that would treat Facebook more like a media company, for example.

But Sandberg deflected, pointing to the fact that Facebook is run by technical workers and engineers. In her view, the company doesn't produce news content, therefore it can't be a media company.

"At our heart we’re a tech company," Sandberg said when Allen asked if Facebook was a media company. "We hire engineers. We don’t hire reporters. No one is a journalist. We don’t cover the news. But when we say that, we’re not saying we don’t have a responsibility. In fact we’re a new kind of platform... as our size grows, we think we have more responsibility."

That's an incredibly narrow view of what a media company is. Sandberg's definition of a media company seems to be a news organization that hires journalists and producers to make news content. But media companies are broader than that. They curate content. They distribute it. The generate ad revenue from it.

A company like Facebook, which distributes media and makes money off it by selling ads is, by definition, a media company. Sandberg is right to point out that Facebook's size means it has a massive responsibility to distribute accurate information. But she's wrong to deny it serves many many of the functions of a media company.

It doesn't matter that computers or algorithms or engineering geeks are making editorial decisions. They're still serving the editorial functions of a media company. In fact, Sandberg said earlier in the interview that Facebook was serving an editorial role by showing users related articles to news stories they see their News Feed and hiring fact-checking organizations to vet some content.

She's also wrong to say Facebook doesn't hire journalists. The company hired former NBC anchor Campbell Brown in January to head up the company's news division and work with other journalists to maximize their use of Facebook's platform.

There are numerous reasons why Facebook would be reticent to admit it's a media company. It could harm its sky-high valuation, which is currently at about $500 billion. That's a tech company valuation, not a media company valuation. It would also open Facebook up to regulatory rules in the US and other countries that it would rather avoid.

But the abuse on Facebook's platform, from fake Russian ads to fake news spreading as recently as last week's Las Vegas shooting, show a greater need for Facebook to start acting like the media organization that it is. The sooner Facebook admits that, the better.

SEE ALSO: Tech companies are embarrassing themselves with how they handle fake news

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Sheryl Sandberg got everything wrong about Facebook's role as a media company (FB) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Scott Galloway correctly predicted Amazon would buy Whole Foods — here's who he thinks Amazon should acquire next

Corey Protin, Shana Lebowitz and Steve Kovach October 12, 2017 at 07:30AM

Amazon purchased Whole Foods a little less than four months ago. Whole Foods products are already appearing on Amazon, and Alexa devices have made it to the shelves of Whole Foods. 

With this just the latest in a long list of companies Amazon has acquired, we were wondering who would be next. To answer that question we brought in Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and the author of the new book, "The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google." The following is a transcript of the video.

Scott Galloway: Next acquisition for Amazon would be Nordstrom. I think the most logical, or strategically rational, acquisition for Amazon would be Nordstrom.

Amazon now has a license to get into the wealthiest refrigerators in the nation. And they are targeting the wealthy with their acquisition of Whole Foods, but they still don't have license or permission to get into our closets because the aspirational beauty and fashion brands don't want to distribute through Amazon; however, buying Nordstrom would get them those relationships overnight.

Nordstrom is an exceptionally well-run company. They're in Seattle. This thing just fits kind of hand-and-glove; however, there's an X factor here. And the X factor is that Nordstrom is family controlled, meaning the decisions are made around the Thanksgiving dinner table as opposed to its shareholder meeting. So we'll see.

But likely the acquisitions that'll take place will be little unknown companies that help fill out, or fill in, some holes in their fulfillment network. But you can also see the company going after some niche cable networks, maybe an AMC or a Scripps, as they realize original content creates intensity across those 60% of US households that are now Prime members by going in and picking up some cable broadcast companies.

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Scott Galloway correctly predicted Amazon would buy Whole Foods — here's who he thinks Amazon should acquire next from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: SCOTT GALLOWAY: Amazon is using an unfair advantage to dominate its competitors

Nathaniel Lee, Shana Lebowitz and Steve Kovach October 11, 2017 at 10:00AM

Scott Galloway, professor of Marketing at NYU Stern and the author of "The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google", explains how Amazon's "Type 2" investments are the key to its incredible success. Following is a transcript of the video.

Scott Galloway: So people ask what Amazon's core competence or advantage is, relative to the other members of the four and it comes down to storytelling. And that is Jeff Bezos' essential rap has not changed in 15 years and it's a pretty intoxicating visionary rap, where they're gonna invest massively across some consumer truisms that aren't perishable: value, convenience, selection, speed. 

And the marketplace keeps bidding up the stocks. As a result, they have access to cheaper capital than any company in modern history. Amazon can now borrow money for less than the cost of what China can borrow money. As a result, they are able to throw up more stuff against the wall than any other firms. If the phone doesn't work, if it fails, if auctions don't fail, it's a speed bump for them, whereas, other companies will probably be either put out of business or see their stock cut in half.

Some Plan B investments that had worked, they launched a company based on their own infrastructure and storage needs called "AWS" that now everyday, adds the entire capacity that they needed when they launched it for themselves internally, and is the number one share leader and what is the most profitable, fastest-growing business in tech to cloud with triple the share of the number two, Microsoft. This year, Amazon will spend $4.5 billion on original television content, second only to Netflix, who increased their budget to $2 billion when they heard Amazon's footsteps behind them. 

Amazon can go into non-core categories and show up and be dominant in record time because they have access to cheaper capital. Effectively, this company is playing unfair and winning.

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SCOTT GALLOWAY: Amazon is using an unfair advantage to dominate its competitors from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: This 'crazy, irrational decision' Apple made 20 years ago turned out to be the key to its outrageous success over Samsung

Joe Avella, Shana Lebowitz and Steve Kovach October 10, 2017 at 07:12AM

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern and the author of “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google” explains the one decision Apple made which, called crazy and outrageous at the time, turned out to be the key reason for their explosive growth over Samsung. Following is a transcript of the video.

Scott Galloway: Apple made this crazy irrational decision 20 years ago to forward integrate into the medium that was supposedly going away.

So if you were to ask people what one decision created more shareholder value than any one decision in the history of business, most people would say Apple's decision to launch a phone. And I believe that they would get the brand right but the decision wrong. The iPhone is an incredible device creating more profits than any item in history.

But the thing carrying the Apple to the largest margins, margins that are somewhere in between Hermès and Ferrari in terms of operating margin, is its brand equity or its halo. Now, what did they do differently to establish this unbelievable resonance as a brand? Samsung, their closest competitor spends double on advertising. They also spend double on online advertising. So where has Apple reinvested that capital?

Apple made this crazy irrational decision 20 years ago to forward integrate into the medium that was supposedly going away. Stores. And they have somewhere between five and six billion dollars in store leases now on their balance sheet and have reallocated capital out of traditional broadcast media, which is declining every day in effectiveness, into the store where people still make physical contact if you will. They still consummate the relationship with the brand at the point of purchase.

So you have this temple to the brand which is this unbelievable experience called an Apple Store, and then you have this very mediocre experience called an AT&T or Verizon connect your phone experience for Samsung and the other Android players. The biggest value-creating decision in the history of modern decision: Apple’s crazy decision to forward integrate into stores.

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This 'crazy, irrational decision' Apple made 20 years ago turned out to be the key to its outrageous success over Samsung from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: One type of marriage that's most likely to end in divorce — according to a relationship scientist

Nathaniel Lee, Shana Lebowitz and Steve Kovach October 08, 2017 at 06:00AM

Eli J. Finkel, professor at Northwestern University and the author of "The All-or-Nothing Marriage," explains one type of marriage that is most likely to end in divorce. Following is a transcript of the video.

Eli Finkel: I'm a psychologist which means that most of the research I do involves things like bringing couples to our psychology laboratory and then videotaping them and coding their behaviors and then following them over time to see how happy they are or whether they break up.

And one of the things that was deeply alarming to me when I did that was discovering just how different marriage rates and divorce rates are among people who are better educated versus worse educated.

It turns out, and I was surprised to find this out, that among people who are college educated, the divorce rates have actually plummeted since about 1980, they have come down significantly since ... their high around 1980.

But people who don't have a high school degree, people who are relatively uneducated have a higher divorce rate than ever, and a lower marriage rate, and when they are married, the marriages tend not to be as satisfying.

And the issue isn't just that they are opting out of divorce because if they had a better option, if they thought, "Well, I would rather not get divorced," then that might be totally fine.

But they respect the institution as much as people who have more education, they have the same instincts about what makes for a successful marriage as people who have more education.

What I think is going on is it's really difficult to have a productive, happy marriage when your life circumstances are so stressful and when your day-to-day life involves, say three or four bus routes in order to get to your job. 

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One type of marriage that's most likely to end in divorce — according to a relationship scientist from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Tech companies are embarrassing themselves with how they handle fake news (FB, GOOG, TWTR)

Steve Kovach October 07, 2017 at 05:00AM

If you searched for "Las Vegas Shooter" or "Stephen Paddock" on YouTube after Sunday's mass shooting, here's a sampling of some of the videos you would have seen:

One video was titled "Proof Las Vegas Shooting Was a FALSE FLAG Attack - Shooter on 4th Floor"

Another: "Las Vegas Shooting Narrative Debunked in 3 Videos"

Yet another: "Las Vegas (Antifa?) Shooting"

And: "Las Vegas Gunman Stephen Paddock Was Anti Trump Far Left Activist"

You get the idea.

BuzzFeed's Charlie Warzel had the best roundup of the YouTube search results in a story he published Wednesday. While I shouldn't have to point this out, none of those videos, nor the slew of other clips that YouTube recommended to its users as related content, were based on fact. Police believe Paddock was the only perpetrator of the shooting that left 58 people dead, and there is no evidence of any motive or association with militant groups. 

Not all the videos YouTube promoted about the incident were fabrications. There were also plenty of videos from reputable news sources. But it's clear that YouTube failed miserably in serving as a useful hub for news and updates about an important event. 

Visitors to YouTube, the world's largest video site, were fed the ramblings of tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists. The fact that YouTube also had legitimate news videos about the incident on its site may actually have made things even worse: The ludicrous and the legitimate, the absurd and the authoritative, were all mixed together, free of any context or differentiation, on equal terms in the eyes of viewers.

A cycle of failure

It wasn't until Thursday, more than three days after the shooting, that YouTube decided to do something and rushed out a planned change to the search algorithm designed to promote news videos from authoritative sources. A source close to YouTube told me the earlier-than-planned rollout of the change was in response to criticism of how it handled the Las Vegas shooting videos.

It's been 11 months since the 2016 US election, when the plague of fake news and abuse on internet platforms became a mainstream problem. Since then, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have all made attempts to change their algorithms and services to combat the problem. But despite their efforts and all that time, it still requires a journalist or noisy critic to point out a problem before something gets fixed.

Then come the half-hearted apologies and promises to do better. And the cycle repeats itself.

In April, for example, Google said it made changes to its search algorithm to favor authoritative sources for news, just like YouTube did this week. Facebook has made several changes to combat fake news like automated tips for spotting fake news and a new pop-up window that gives you information on the news source you're reading.

And yet, all these platforms continue to screw up. Every new update, every new press release, every new headline designed to show there's an investment into the problem ends up being trumped by a new controversy. When Facebook announced this week it was throwing 1,000 new employees at the ad abuse problem on its site, NYU professor and author of the tech business book "The Four", Scott Galloway called it "pissing in the ocean."

The problem is too big for incremental updates and promises to do better after each screwup.  And these sites have become so massive and influential, that they have a responsibility to get it right. 

Unfortunate timing

In an interview with The Verge last week Google CEO Sundar Pichai discussed the responsibility Google has as the distributor of massive amounts of information.

"Today, we overwhelmingly get it right. But I think every single time we stumble. I feel the pain, and I think we should be held accountable," Pichai said.

In a telling case of unfortunate timing, at the very moment Pichai's comments were published, the online platforms he oversees were promoting a bunch of garbage about Las Vegas. 

Google, YouTube's parent company, promoted a conspiracy theory thread on 4Chan in its search results and took hours to get rid of it. And competitors like Facebook performed equally poorly, with the social network's "crisis response" page for the Las Vegas shooting promoting unconfirmed reports and conspiracy theories from sites like Gateway Pundit

One way to be held accountable is to be proactive and transparent, something none of the companies claiming they feel a sense of responsibility have adequately done. For example, Facebook's pledge to hire those 1,000 new employees to monitor ad abuse and tweak its algorithm came with a shocking lack of detail and transparency. We have no clarification on how the employees will be trained, whether they're contractors or full-time workers, or what standards they'll be operating under. It's the latest promise to do something from a company that has proven over and over that it's ill-prepared, or un-motivated, to handle the darker edges of its platform. The same goes for its peers.

These companies employ some most brilliant minds in the world. They should be more than capable of tackling this problem and fixing it. Instead, they routinely wait for someone on the outside to point out a mistake before it gets fixed. 

That's embarrassing. But even worse, it's dangerous. 

SEE ALSO: Facebook's response to fake Russian ads isn't going to cut it

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Tech companies are embarrassing themselves with how they handle fake news (FB, GOOG, TWTR) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Facebook thought about disclosing election manipulation by Russia in April, but waited until September (FB)

Steve Kovach October 06, 2017 at 06:57AM

Facebook omitted references to Russia in a public report published in April about manipulation on the site during the 2016 election, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

The company eventually disclosed in September that it had found about 3,000 ads from Russia-linked fake accounts. Those ads were viewed by about 10 million people, the company said. There may still be more Russia-linked abuse on Facebook that hasn't been discovered yet.

A Facebook spokesperson told the WSJ that the company didn't disclose the Russia-linked activity in April because the company was still looking into the matter. The 3,000 ads weren't discovered until after the April report.

Facebook said last month that it would soon require more transparency from political ads. The company also said it would hire 1,000 more people to monitor ads for abuse.

SEE ALSO: Facebook's response to fake Russian ads is not going to cut it

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Facebook thought about disclosing election manipulation by Russia in April, but waited until September (FB) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Outside criticism forced YouTube to change its search results after Las Vegas shooting conspiracy theories spread (GOOG)

Steve Kovach October 05, 2017 at 10:59AM

YouTube is revamping the way its search algorithm picks videos to display on the site, after a spate of clips promoting false conspiracy theories about Sunday's Las Vegas shooting were prominently featured on its site.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, is changing the algorithm that determines the most relevant videos, a source familiar with the matter told Business Insider. Although the change to the search algorithm was already in the works, YouTube decided to roll it out sooner in response to criticism of the way it handled results when users searched for "Las Vegas Shooting."

YouTube also plans to change the "up next" video recommendation feature, the person said. That change is still under development however, and will not be introduced immediately. 

A series of news reports and criticism on social media in recent days have highlighted how YouTube promoted false and misleading videos about the deadly Las Vegas shooting.

Police have identified Stephen Craig Paddock as the man who opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500. Yet conspiracy theory videos that appeared near the top of YouTube's search results in recent days claimed there were multiple shooters, that the shooting was a "false flag" attack, and that the shooter was a member of the left-leaning group Antifa.

The source did not specify what changes YouTube is making to its algorithm to differentiate authoritative news videos from conspiracy theory videos. News of the change was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

YouTube is also planning to revamp the related videos its shows users after the first video finishes playing. According to a BuzzFeed report the recommendations were also replete with misleading or false videos that the report said could lead users "down an algorithm-powered conspiracy video rabbit hole." 

 

SEE ALSO: Facebook's response to the fake Russian ads isn't going to cut it

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Outside criticism forced YouTube to change its search results after Las Vegas shooting conspiracy theories spread (GOOG) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach

The Transport Guy: Facebook needs to stop hiding behind excuses and release the fake Russian ads (FB)

Steve Kovach October 04, 2017 at 03:31PM

Facebook is running out of time and excuses.

On Wednesday, the two lawmakers leading an inquiry into Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 US elections urged Facebook to show the American public the subversive ads that appeared on its social network.

There's nothing private about the ads, of course — Facebook already showed the very same ads to 10 million of its users at the time they were purchased over the past two years.

But now Facebook says the ads must remain concealed behind lock and key, too hot for the average citizen to gaze at, apparently. 

Facebook's explanation for its lack of transparency keeps changing. 

In September, Facebook said it couldn't make the ads public due to the ongoing investigations and federal law.

But on Wednesday Senators Mark Warner and Richard Burr, the two leaders of the Senate's Russia inquiry, said that Facebook was welcome to make the ads public if the company wanted to.

In fact, Warner said Facebook should release the ads.

"It's important for the public to see," Warner said.

The Senators' green light is not enough though. Facebook now says its hands are tied because of a different investigation. 

As Business Insider's Alex Heath reported on Wednesday, the blame has shifted to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. 

“Due to ongoing investigations, including the special counsel, the company is limited in what it can release," a source familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

An inconvenient truth

Aside from the investigation, the exact rationale for withholding the ads — which again, were already widely posted on Facebook — remains a mystery. 

That means the public has no choice but to speculate about Facebook's rationale, and that's not good for Facebook. 

Consider the facts: Russian actors used Facebook's automated ad platform and spent about $100,000 to run about 3,000 ads designed to influence the election. Some of the ads were targeted at Facebook users in Wisconsin and Michigan, two states Hillary Clinton unexpectedly lost last year, according to CNN. Ten million people saw the ads.

Facebook missed it all.

And these are just the ads we know about. Facebook has said it's possible it will uncover more.

Keeping the ads hidden and not commenting on why it's doing so only makes Facebook look like it's trying to avoid an embarrassing reminder that the company is ill-equipped to take on the monumental task of policing abuse on its platform or creating a chilling effect from other advertisers.

Passing the buck

To be sure, there's a lot of passing-the-buck going on among all sides here. 

Senators Warner and Burr are telling Facebook to release the approximately 3,000 ads linked to Russian bot accounts, while insisting that they are not able to do so themselves. It's possible that the evidence collected in the course of the investigation contains sensitive information. But if the Congressional investigators have concluded that the ads are OK for Facebook to make public, it's difficult to see why the senators can't unseal the information themselves. 

Still, if Facebook really wants to regain the public's trust, it should stop hiding behind investigations. 

This transcends Facebook's ability to sell ads and to make money. This transcends other abuses on its platform like spam and trolling. This is about a foreign government attempting to hack our electoral system.

Throwing 1,000 people at the problem won't fix it. Tweaking algorithms won't fix it. Refusing to clarify how you intend to make political ads more transparent or work with the FEC to do so won't fix it.

Only actual transparency into the process will put things on the right path to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Make the ads public.

SEE ALSO: Digital political ads should be regulated just like they are on TV

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Facebook needs to stop hiding behind excuses and release the fake Russian ads (FB) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach