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75Tech Insider / by Edoardo Maggio / 1h

Google has signed a $1.1 billion dollar cooperation agreement with HTC, the technology company said in a statement on Thursday, after trading of HTC shares were halted on Taiwan's stock exchange before the announcement. The move, first rumored earlier this month and then re-emerged this week , is the search giant's latest attempt to juice up its growing hardware division . Google hardware exec Ri

The US is still the leader in requesting data on Twitter users, but other countries are catching up (TWTR)

56Tech Insider / by Caroline Cakebread / 4h

When it comes to requesting data on Twitter users, the US remains the leader among governments around the world. But other countries are quickly catching up. According to the latest transparency report from Twitter , information requests by the US fell to 2,111 in the first half of this year. That was down 8% from the second half of 2016. Even with that drop, other countries still trail far behin

Google acquires HTC team in $1.1 billion agreement to beef up hardware division (GOOG, GOOGL)

18Tech Insider / by Edoardo Maggio / 33min

TODAY

Top senator says there are likely 'a lot more' fake Facebook accounts tied to Russia (FB, TWTR)

94Tech Insider / by Alex Heath / 5h

There are likely "a lot more" fake Facebook accounts affiliated with Russia than what the company has so far disclosed, the vice chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, said on Wednesday. Warner, who is helping lead the committee's investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election, told CNN's Jake Tapper that the 470 fake accounts Facebook identifi

YESTERDAY

Amazon is making noise in pharma these days — here's what it could all mean

16Tech Insider / by Linette Lopez / 5h

An investment bank's report that Amazon is tip-toeing around the pharmacy space sent Wall Street scrambling to understand CEO Jeff Bezos' next move. Analysts at Leerink Partners wrote that Amazon may be in discussions with mid-sized pharmacy benefit managers "i n an effort to get into various contract arrangements." Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) act as the gatekeeper between whoever is paying

Bill Gates on if he regrets Control-Alt-Delete: 'You can’t go back and change the small things in your life without putting the other things at risk' (MSFT, IBM)

100+Tech Insider / by Matt Weinberger / 5h

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and the world's richest man, is not usually one to look back. Indeed, his first and most famous book to date was titled "The Road Ahead." So it's no surprise that Gates had a philosophical answer when pressed at a Bloomberg event today on whether or not he regrets " control-alt-delete ," the infamous two-handed keystroke for logging in to or restarting a Windo

Apple can patch bugs, but its biggest Apple Watch problem can't be fixed (AAPL)

500+Tech Insider / by Kif Leswing / 5h

Apple's new Watch made lots of headlines on Wednesday — but for all the wrong reasons. The latest version of the company's wrist-worn gadget — the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE — was found to have an embarrassing glitch. It turns out that the watch's LTE cellular connectivity, which is supposed to let users make phone calls directly from their wrists and has been touted by Apple as a key selling

Apple just made a big change to iMessage — here’s how to use it (AAPL)

27Tech Insider / by Avery Hartmans / 6h

When you downloaded iOS 11, you may have noticed something new inside iMessage: a strip of app icons at the bottom of the screen. The icons, called an app drawer, include a brand-new GIFs button, quick access to the App Store, the ability to send songs via Apple Music, and more. The new app drawer is Apple's way of building off the changes it made to iMessage in iOS 10. Back then, Apple introduce

Chrysler sells the only hybrid minivan in the US — and it's seriously impressive (FCAU)

29Tech Insider / by Matthew DeBord / 6h

PROS: Suave styling; scads of space for people, pets, and stuff; robust drivetrain, fuel economy, sneaky good Uconnect infotainment system. CONS: Apart from being a minivan, none really. Lacks an onboard vacuum cleaner in hybrid trim and doesn't have all-wheel-drive. In minivan land, the question of which versatile family hauler often distills to a simple choice: Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna ?

Tesla is reportedly working on its own chip to power self-driving cars (TSLA, NVDA, AMD)

100+Tech Insider / by Danielle Muoio / 6h

Tesla is taking steps to decrease its reliance on Nvidia , which has supplied the electric automaker with the graphic processing units powering Tesla's Autopilot and future self-driving system. Tesla is developing its own chip to power its self-driving cars, CNBC's Jordan Novet first reported . The move would reduce Nvidia's role in Tesla's self-driving-car ambitions and bring more of the project

Seattle has entered the vicious $5 billion battle for Amazon's second headquarters — here's why that's a terrible idea (AMZN)

100+Tech Insider / by Kate Taylor / 7h

Seattle — home of Amazon's current headquarters — also wants to be the site of the e-commerce giant's second headquarters. Bruce Harrell, during his recent short-lived role as mayor of Seattle, signed an executive order stating the city's intent to compete for Amazon's second headquarters, local alternative newspaper The Stranger reported. Amazon announced earlier in September that it was solicit

Ads for this season of 'American Horror Story' are giving people panic attacks — here's the science behind it

400+Tech Insider / by John Lynch / 7h

An advertising campaign for the new season of "American Horror Story" has been giving people panic attacks with its disturbing, hole-covered imagery, and the underlying cause is a rare but intense feeling of disgust that scientists are still trying to figure out. Trypophobia , this fear of clustered holes, bumps, and similar patterns, affects around 15% of the general population. Some researchers

Coinbase adds customer support line after months of uproar from unhappy bitcoin customers

43Tech Insider / by Becky Peterson / 7h

- Coinbase announced a new customer support phone line to help users facing issues with the cryptocurrency platform. - The company promised to expand customer service operations as early as June, but has faced an onslaught of unhappy customers in recent months as the userbase overpowered the support staff. -However, one call we placed to the support line never made it through to a human customer

Equifax mistakenly told consumers worried about its data breach to go to a spoof site (EFX)

4KTech Insider / by Troy Wolverton / 7h

Add another "oops" to Equifax's pile. For more than a week, company representatives have been directing consumers to a fake phishing site instead of to one maintained by the credit-reporting agency, according to a new report by The Verge . The site — securityequifax2017.com — was created by a software developer to show how easy it would be to spoof the webpage Equifax created to inform consumers

Facebook promises more human oversight of its ad targeting, as COO Sheryl Sandberg says recent anti-Semitic mishap is a 'fail on our part'

65Tech Insider / by Tanya Dua / 7h

After removing self-reported targeting fields last week , Facebook today announced a broader set of long-term measures to improve ad targeting on the platform. In a Facebook post published Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that the company was adding m ore human oversight to its automated ad targeting processes. The move was prompted by a n investigation by the news outlet ProPublica,

A startup CEO named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 says everyone should cold email their idols — here's how

200+Tech Insider / by Áine Cain / 8h

Want to become successful in your 20s? Cold email your career idols. That's the secret to success, said Tiffany Pham, the CEO and founder of women-only social media platform Mogul . Of course, Pham said it's best to first scour your contacts for potential connections who can introduce you in person. But if that's out of the question, send a cold email. Pham, who was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 i

Everyone is focused on the wrong area of tech right now (AAPL, GOOGL, MSFT, NVDA)

96Tech Insider / by Seth Archer / 8h

The world is focused on augmented reality right now when they should be paying more attention to machine learning. Both are exciting, but machine learning is the tech powering AR and will make our lives simpler and easier. Everyone is focused on the wrong area of tech right now. Augmented reality is arguably the hottest trend in the sector, and it's one of the most exciting features of Apple's re

Barack Obama has a one-question test that proves how good the world is today

200+Tech Insider / by Chris Weller / 8h

Former President Barack Obama knows the world is getting better, and he can prove it with one question. At the Goalkeepers 2017 conference, held by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today in New York, Obama gave a keynote address in which he shared a one-question test to demonstrate how humanity is making progress. "If you had to choose one moment in history in which to be born, and you didn'

5 hacks that will cut down your expenses

8Tech Insider / by Sponsor Post / 8h

In 2015, American consumers, on average, spent $55,978. That’s a 4.6% jump from 2014. It seems that saving is getting harder, not easier. One can plan the perfect budget, but accidents, emergencies, and unexpected shopping sprees happen. The trick is to hack the system to be able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle for less. Here are five ways to cut costs without abandoning your everyday luxurie

Everyone is focused on the wrong area of tech right now (AAPL, GOOGL, MSFT, NVDA)

96Tech Insider / by Seth Archer / 8h

Apple can patch bugs, but its biggest Apple Watch problem can't be fixed (AAPL)

500+ Tech Insider by Kif Leswing / 5h // keep unread // hide

Apple's new Watch made lots of headlines on Wednesday — but for all the wrong reasons.

The latest version of the company's wrist-worn gadget — the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE — was found to have an embarrassing glitch.

It turns out that the watch's LTE cellular connectivity, which is supposed to let users make phone calls directly from their wrists and has been touted by Apple as a key selling point, doesn't always work very well.

Actually, it's a bug with the watch's Wi-Fi, but the end-result is the same: LTE doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Reviews of the device, which hits stores shelves on Friday, were merciless. Apple's stock fell as much as 3% at one point on Wednesday.

Apple is working on a fix, which will be delivered in a future software release, an Apple spokesperson told Business Insider.

But the issues with Apple's new watch don't stop at bad reviews, inconsistent wireless, or even a short battery life. (It can only manage an hour of talk time when using LTE.)

The problem with the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE is that it's a sign that Apple has lost sight of the principle that led to its meteoric rise: Apple doesn't sell technology for technology's sake. It figures out what people want to do (even when people don't know it themselves) and provides technology to make it possible.

"Part of the hardest thing about coming up with new products is to figure out a really cool set of technologies that you can implement it with and make it easy, but also figuring out something that people want to do," late Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said. "We've all seen products that have come out that have been interesting but just fall on their face because not enough people want to do them."

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen puts this same concept in a similar way he calls the "jobs to be done" theory. In an over-simplified nutshell, consumers don't buy technologies or products, they pick things that can complete specific jobs for them.

And recently, at least one Wall Street analyst has suggested that Apple has lost its ability to find new jobs to be done.

"[Apple chief design officer] Jony Ive's Industrial Design Group has shown a knack for identifying jobs even before consumers know of their need. The iPod's '1,000 songs in your pocket' was an example. Moreover, Apple's functional organization and metrics appear to align with the jobs to be done approach. Still, the company seems to be struggling to identify the jobs for Apple Watch and Apple Pay," UBS analyst Steven Milunovich wrote last year.

Beyond beach bums

So what's the Apple Watch Series 3 With LTE's job?

Here's the marketing copy Apple wrote on its website:

Answer a call from your surfboard. Ask Siri to send a message. Stream your favorite songs on your run. And do it all while leaving your phone behind.

Are these really jobs that consumers are trying to fill? Hardcore surfers who want to answer pressing business calls in the ocean seems like a niche.

Siri can already send a message from an iPhone, and there isn't a ton of evidence that that's a popular feature on the phone, anyway. Having the ability to leave your phone at home is a big deal for runners but that's still a subset of the general population.

Here's how Apple COO Jeff Williams introduced the new watch earlier this month:

Now you have the freedom to go anywhere with just your Apple Watch. This has been our vision from the very beginning and we believe built-in cellular make Series 3 the ultimate expression of Apple Watch. Now you can go for a run with just your watch and still be connected. You can leave your phone when you go to the beach or just run a quick errand. And it’s really nice to know you can be reached if needed while staying in the moment.

...

For Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, we developed a custom wireless chip, we call W2. There’s nothing else like it. It delivers up to 85% faster Wi-Fi while being 50% more power efficient for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. And we’ve added a barometric altimeter. So now you get flights of stairs climbed and elevation gains after a workout. We’re also releasing an app for developers. This can be great for skiing and snowboarding acts.

Of course, the biggest challenge of all was adding cellular. You see, our little watch is already packed, and you have to add antennas, radios, power amplifiers, a SIM card. And if you don’t do it right, it gets so big it looks like a house arrest bracelet and you’re not going to want to wear it.

Aside from this specific use case Apple keeps repeating that involves a beach bum who also needs to pick up important calls from the shore, the main sales pitch is focused on how impressive the device is technologically.

Selling the wrong thing

Sure, it's an achievement that Apple figured out how to make LTE wireless work on a such a small device, and managed to do it with same sized-battery as the previous, non-LTE model. But most people don't buy $400 gadgets because the cellular chip is so technically impressive.

One hour of "talk time" battery life may actually be a huge accomplishment given how power-hungry an LTE modem is. But for the average consumer, one hour of talk time sounds like a weakness, not a selling point.

The potential of the Apple Watch is easy to see. If it didn't have any battery issues, and it were slightly more powerful, it's easy to imagine it replacing a phone for some people. If and when it gets packed with more advanced sensors, it could become a critical tool that everyone needs to keep an informed eye on their health. And someday, if technology breaks the right way, you could leave your keys at home and use your watch as your universal ID to do everything from starting your car to unlocking the door at the office.

But consumers don't buy the potential of a product, they buy a device to fill a specific job in their lives today. And adding LTE to the Apple Watch doesn't really solve any additional use cases, except maybe for a runner. Instead, it seems like Apple released this cellular watch because it was on a hardware roadmap from two years ago — "this has been our vision from the very beginning" — and because it could.

And that's ultimately a much bigger problem with the Apple Watch than some pre-release glitches.

SEE ALSO: Reviewers say the new Apple Watch is pretty bad

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