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☆ VCs say hybrid work, generative AI, and niche collaboration tools will be some of the top future-of-work trends that dominate 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Insider talked to VCs about the rising trends they say will revolutionize the way we work and live. Insider spoke with 15 venture capitalists about the trends and verticals they think are most likely to revolutionize the way we work and live today. Therefore, startups that will thrive going forward are those that embrace a mix of in-person and remote work, known as hybrid work, Thacker and other VCs said. An increase in workers caregiving for aging or sick family members is also supported by flexible work, the CRV general partner Kristin Baker Spohn said. "A lot of employees, whether it's the Great Resignation or the pandemic, found themselves changing the way that they work."

☆ A data tool Blackstone built for its real-estate empire is now being used across its PE portfolio. Here's why it could play a key role in the investing giant uncovering new deals.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Carter Johnson | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The firm built Data Direct for its real-estate business, but is now using it across private equity. Blackstone Chief Technology Officer John Stecher told Insider that Blackstone now uses Data Direct — previously called Real Estate Data Direct — across both its real estate and private-equity portfolios. From real estate to private equityInsider first detailed the launch of Data Direct, then known as Real Estate Data Direct (REDD), last year. Data Direct, at its heart, is a data tool, and its success is predicated upon importing reliable information in the first place. Having good, clean data has made Data Direct very successful," he added.

☆ ‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games to pay $520 million in record-breaking FTC settlement
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

In a second and separate settlement, Epic will pay $245 million as refunds to consumers who were allegedly harmed by user-interface design choices the FTC claimed were deceptive. That agreement is the largest administrative order in FTC history, the FTC added. The FTC’s complaint and proposed settlement dealing with children’s privacy was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. In its blog post, Epic said it has agreed with the FTC to implement a feature that explicitly asks Fortnite users whether to save their payment information for future use. The FTC said that as part of its children’s privacy settlement, Epic may no longer enable text and voice chat by default for teenage Fortnite players or those under the age of 13.

☆ Elon Musk responds to a Twitter user saying Jeff Bezos copies every business move the billionaire makes: 'Maybe it's a coincidence'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk has stoked his ongoing rivalry with Jeff Bezos. Responding to a tweet suggesting the Amazon founder "copies" every business move he makes, Musk said, apparently sarcastically: "Maybe it's a coincidence." Musk has been feuding with Jeff Bezos for some 15 years and regularly accuses him of being a copycat. The Amazon founder has long had an interest in space exploration, starting up spaceflight firm Blue Origin in 2000. Musk founded his own commercial space firm SpaceX two years later.

The firm's "years-long" fraud didn't just extend to playing with customer money, according to the SEC. Unlike those other market makers or power users, Alameda had a set of powerful tools at its disposal. The kind of high-frequency trading that FTX users engaged in made that invaluable. Alameda secured its loans from Voyager and BlockFi with FTT tokens, which FTX minted itself. Major Alameda lenders, like Voyager, declared bankruptcy.

☆ Here are the 34 tech companies most likely to be on the holiday shopping lists of private-equity firms after valuations plunged this year, according to bankers and private data
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Ben Bergman | Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

With a stock price down 45% in the last year, though, it may soon find itself on the other side of the table. But it has $732 million in cash on hand, with zero debt, and analysts are projecting 16% revenue growth. This year, though, Varonis has come back to earth — its stock price has sunk over 57% in the last 12 months. However, with strong projected 2023 revenue growth of 18.6%, Zuora remains a strong target for PE firms. Its stock price has been hammered, going down about 40% this year and making it the subject of mergers-and-acquisitions chatter.

You can eke some extra performance out of your own Windows computer by following NASA's lead. But of course, the best way to speed up any Windows computer is by upgrading the hardware. Here are 17 ways to speed up Windows 10 and Windows 11. To do this, open the Settings app on your computer and click Apps, and then Apps & features. Modern Windows users are lucky, because both Windows 10 and Windows 11 come pre-installed with Windows Defender.

☆ Morgan Stanley weighs in on the ChatGPT obession and the risk to Google's search business
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Google and search go together like Kleenex and tissues, Band-Aid and bandages and Crock-Pots and slow cookers. In other words, Google's brand is so connected to search that people talk about googling for information they need, even if they use an alternative search engine. ChatGPT may pose an emerging threat to the artificial intelligence industry, but Google's sheer scale, size, and dominance in the search business positions it well for battle, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak. In the long run, however, don't be surprised if ChatGPT, or other AI competitiors, impact consumer behavior patterns around travel search, he added. "While we believe the near-term risk is limited – we believe the use case of search (and paid search) is different than AI-driven content creation – we are not dismissive of threats from new, unique consumer offerings," Nowak wrote.

☆ More arrests expected in German coup plot in coming days, say authorities
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Police escorts a person after 25 suspected members and supporters of a far-right group were detained during raids across Germany, in Karlsruhe, Germany December 7, 2022. REUTERS/Heiko BeckerBERLIN, Dec 8 (Reuters) - German authorities expect further arrests and raids in the coming days in connection with a far-right group that prosecutors say were preparing a violent overthrow of the state to install a former member of a German royal family as national leader. "Based on my experience, there is usually a second wave of arrests," Georg Maier, the interior minister of the eastern German state of Thuringia, told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Thursday. Twenty-five members and supporters of the group were detained on Wednesday in raids involving some 3,000 security personnel that Maier described as unprecedented in modern German history. Reporting by Miranda Murray, editing by Kirsti Knolle and Toby ChopraOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Factbox: Neuralink: what you need to know about Elon Musk's brain chip company
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Dec 7 (Reuters) - Neuralink, the Elon Musk company that Reuters reported on Monday is the target of a federal investigation over its animal trial program, has been trying to develop a brain chip that would enable the paralyzed to walk and the blind to see. In a presentation webcast last week, the company showcased improvements in the speed and capabilities of the chip. Neuralink has yet to secure U.S. regulatory approval to move to human trials - unlike competitor Synchron, which has less ambitious goals for its medical advances. Neuralink has missed Musk's publicly stated deadlines to start human trials and this year submitted its application to the Food and Drug Administration to begin them. Musk said last week he believes Neuralink can start human clinical trials in six months.

☆ India cenbank says digital currency transactions to stay largely anonymous
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Nupur Anand | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

India started the pilot project for its digital currency, or e-rupee, from Nov 1, when it was opened for initial trial. Then only being used by banks for settlements with each other, the scope of the project was expanded to include consumers and retailers-led transactions from Dec. 1. "E-rupee is money, UPI is a payment method," RBI's Sankar said. "Digital currency is like payment of cash, it is possible that two private entities can provide wallet features and money can move in between them. That is not possible with UPI which has to be from one bank to the other," he said, adding that e-rupee provides privacy unlike UPI.

☆ Top media analyst from Bank of America names the best value stock in the sector
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Carmen Reinicke | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Warner Bros. Discovery is the best value stock in the media and entertainment sector, according to Bank of America. That implies that Warner Bros. Discovery has made a tremendous amount of operational and strategic changes since April, wrote analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich. Warner Bros.

☆ Elon Musk reportedly told workers at his brain-chip startup to imagine they had bombs strapped to their heads to make them work faster
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elon Musk told Neuralink staff to imagine they had bombs strapped to their heads to drive faster work, Reuters reported. Employees told Reuters Musk's push for speed led to an increase in the number of animals killed in testing. One former staffer said that Musk told workers he'd initiate a "market failure" at the company if employees couldn't speed up progress, Reuters reported. Earlier this year, Musk told workers in an email that the company wasn't moving fast enough, per Reuters. It's not the first time Musk has been known to push employees to work at a break-neck pace.

☆ Increasing tech innovation also brings increasing fraud
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Banks are coming under fire for weak security controls which are leaving consumers more vulnerable to spoofs, scams, and hackers. Elsewhere, UK banks aren’t taking full advantage of resources that can prevent their customers from falling victim to authorized push payment (APP) fraud , per FinExtra. APIs power open banking: In partnering with fintechs, banks rely heavily on APIs to create quick and easy connections with third-party providers. The practice is common in the UK, where open banking is part of a national mandate. US banks aren’t yet required to implement open banking solutions, though requirements are likely coming .

☆ Factbox: What does Elon Musk's brain chip company Neuralink do?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Neuralink has produced several examples of testing aspects of its technology successfully on animals, including a video in 2021 that showed a macaque playing a simple videogame after being implanted with a brain chip. In a presentation webcast last week, the company showcased improvements in the speed and capabilities of the chip. Neuralink has yet to secure U.S. regulatory approval to move to human trials - unlike competitor Synchron, which has less ambitious goals for its medical advances. Neuralink has missed Musk's publicly stated deadlines to start human trials and this year submitted its application to the Food and Drug Administration to begin them. Musk said last week he believes Neuralink can start human clinical trials in six months.

☆ The story of Neuralink: Elon Musk's AI brain chip company where he had twins with a top executive
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Isobel Asher Hamilton | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Neuralink is one of Elon Musk's strange and futuristic companies. Neuralink is Musk's neural interface technology company. It's developing a device that would be embedded in a person's brain, where it would record brain activity and potentially stimulate it. Musk also had twins with top Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, Insider was first to report. While Musk likes to talk up his futuristic vision for the technology, the tech has some potential near-term medical applications.

☆ India extends deadline to levy cap on digital payment transactions
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MUMBAI, Dec 2 (Reuters) - India has decided to extend the deadline on capping the share of digital payment transactions by about two years to Dec. 31, 2024, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said on Friday. The NPCI had said in late 2020 that payment firms will not be allowed to process more than 30% of the total volume of transactions on UPI from Jan 1. The move comes as a breather to companies like Walmart Inc's (WMT.N) PhonePe and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google, which are among the leading digital money transfer apps in the country. They are powered by the state-backed United Payments Interface (UPI) framework, which facilitates peer-to-peer money transfer online through mobile apps. Reporting by Nupur Anand; Editing by Nivedita BhattacharjeeOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Elon Musk says he'd be comfortable implanting a Neuralink brain chip in one of his children
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk says he'd be comfortable implanting a Neuralink brain chip into one of his children. Speaking at a company event, Musk said such a move would not be dangerous, in his opinion. Neuralink's brain chip has tiny wires embedded with electrodes that monitor brain activity and aim to electrically stimulate the brain. He also said he planned to install a Neuralink brain implant in himself when the device is ready. "You could have a Neuralink device implanted right now and you wouldn't even know.

☆ Elon Musk said he plans to get the Neuralink brain implant for himself when it's available
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk said he plans to implant a Neuralink device in his brain once it's available to humans. The billionaire said on Wednesday that he expects Neuralink will start human trials in the next 6 months. The startup aims to create brain implants that can read and write brain activity. "You could have a Neuralink device implanted right now and you wouldn't even know. The founder of the brain computer startup reiterated his pledge to get an implant of the device on Twitter.

☆ Elon Musk's brain-chip startup shares video it says shows a monkey telepathically 'typing'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk shared a video he said showed a monkey with a brain chip selecting letters with its mind. The demo video was shown at Neuralink's show-and-tell event on Wednesday night. In the demo video, the monkey appears to type out words on a screen using only his mind, thanks to an implanted brain chip. Last year, Neuralink shared a demo video that appeared to show a monkey playing the video game "Pong," using only its mind. The year before, Neuralink shared footage that appeared to be neural readouts from a chip that had been implanted in a pig.

☆ Noom sells psychology-driven weight loss — but former employees say they were unprepared for and overwhelmed by users' eating disorders, depression, and trauma
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +31 min

Before joining Noom, users fill out a questionnaire asking about what diet programs or mental health apps they've used in the past. Very overly optimistic and happy, doesn't acknowledge what I'm really saying," one Noom user wrote on Reddit. Some of the coaches Insider interviewed said they were interacting with Noom users within two weeks of starting. Emotional bandwidthRachel Clair was hired as a Noom coach in 2018, at a time when the coaching staff grew from 60 to about 200. Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty ImagesIn October, 500 more Noom coaches were abruptly called into a virtual meeting and laid off.

☆ Elon Musk says he's confident Neuralink will be ready to put chips into human brains in the next 6 months
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk says he's confident that Neuralink's chips will soon be inserted into human brains. The billionaire has set and missed multiple timelines for getting the brain chips into humans. At the event, Musk demonstrated the brain-computer interface technology by showing a video of a monkey apparently fitted with a Neuralink brain chip. Musk has set — and missed — multiple timelines for getting Neuralink's brain chips into humans. In 2019, Musk said the company hoped to get a brain chip into a human patient by the end of 2020.

☆ Elon Musk has criticized Apple for years. Apple has mostly ignored him.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Kif Leswing | Lora Kolodny | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

This week, Musk claimed in a tweet that Apple had mostly stopped advertising on the Twitter platform. Apple is not alone in reducing its campaigns on the social media platform since Musk took over. If the so-called “Apple Car” ever came to market, Tesla and Apple would be direct competitors. Cook and MuskHave Apple CEO Tim Cook and Musk ever spoken in depth? Around 2016, according to the book, Musk and Cook spoke about Apple potentially acquiring Tesla.

This week, Musk claimed in a tweet that Apple had mostly stopped advertising on the Twitter platform. Apple is not alone in reducing its campaigns on the social media platform since Musk took over. Whether accurate or not, Musk's allegation that Apple has "threatened to withhold" Twitter from its App Store may resonate with other developers. One of the most notable people to switch sides was Doug Field, who started at Apple, joined Tesla and then rejoined Apple. In case anybody missed the reference to Apple's App Store, which Apple maintains as the exclusive way to distribute apps to its devices, Musk then faked a cough and said, "Apple."

☆ Elon Musk’s Neuralink shows brain implant prototype and robotic surgeon during recruiting event
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The event showcased a video that Musk said showed a monkey using a brain implant to control a cursor and type on a computer. Musk noted during the “show and tell” event that the primary goal of the evening was to recruit talent to Neuralink. Musk, however, also tends to emphasize non-medical uses, such as using brain implants to even the playing field, if digital artificial intelligence becomes smarter than any human. During Wednesday’s event, Musk was asked if Neuralink would plan to make its tools available to neuroscientists. Before Neuralink’s brain implants are mass produced and hit the broader market, they’ll need regulatory approval.

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