• DC Comics publisher and creative chief Jim Lee told The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that original TV shows on the DC Universe streaming service will move to HBO Max, parent company WarnerMedia's new flagship streamer.
• "The amount of content you get, not just DC, but generally from WarnerMedia, is huge and it's the best value proposition if I'm allowed to use that marketing term," Lee said.
• In May, ahead of Max's launch, Business Insider reported that WarnerMedia was not prioritizing DC Universe and insiders questioned the service's longevity.
• But while the service's original content will leave for Max, Lee said that DCU is "definitely not going away." 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Speculation intensified about the future of the fan-centric DC Universe streaming service after DC was hit with massive layoffs on Monday as part of a larger restructuring for its parent company, WarnerMedia. The majority of the DCU staff was laid off, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In an interview with THR addressing the layoffs on Friday, DC publisher and creative chief Jim Lee said that the "original content that is on DCU is migrating to HBO Max," confirming that DCU's original TV shows will move to WarnerMedia's new flagship streaming platform that launched in May.

"Truthfully, that's the best platform for that content," Lee told THR. "The amount of content you get, not just DC, but generally from WarnerMedia, is huge and it's the best value proposition if I'm allowed to use that marketing term. We feel that is the place for that."

DCU's "Doom Patrol" and "Harley Quinn" are already streaming on Max. Another DC Universe original, "Stargirl," was renewed last month for a second season exclusively on The CW network.

But the writing has been on the wall for months regarding DCU's originals. Last year, DCU abruptly canceled its original series "Swamp Thing" after one season, shocking crewmembers. In May, ahead of Max's launch, Business Insider reported that WarnerMedia wasn't prioritizing DCU. People close to the service questioned its longevity.

"Everything is about HBO Max now," said a former employee of Warner Bros. Digital Labs, a product unit that works with the company's streaming services.

And in an interview in May, Max's former content chief Kevin Reilly — who was fired this month as part of the WarnerMedia shakeup — told Business Insider that there had been "extensive discussions around DCU because DC is such a valuable entity to us and the depth of fandom is so important."

DCU shows won't be the only original DC content on Max. The streamer is developing its own DC originals, including a Green Lantern spinoff of next year's "The Batman" movie about the Gotham City police. Reilly told Business Insider that fans should expect "the highest level of cinematic production values" on the shows.

While DCU's original content will be leaving the service, Lee told THR that it's "definitely not going away." The service also serves as a community hub for fans and offers a library of digital comics.

"In regards to the community and experience that DCU created, and all the backlist content, something like 20,000 to 25,000 different titles, and the way it connected with fans 24-7, there is always going to be a need for that," Lee said. "So we're excited to transform it and we'll have more news on what that will look like."

SEE ALSO: Insiders say major questions hang over DC Universe as its parent company prepares to launch Netflix rival HBO Max

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With speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G, and latency up to 120 times lower, 5G is poised to revolutionize the tech industry.

Telecoms in 18 countries will roll out 5G networks by the end of 2019, which means the race to secure global 5G leadership is officially underway. Winning would allow the opportunity to shape the future of the telecommunications industry, and could come with more than a decade of competitive advantages.

As the biggest mobile market in the world, China is at the front of the pack of global 5G development. China is projected to have 460 million 5G connections by 2025, which would make it the largest 5G market worldwide. After largely missing the opportunity of the 3G and 4G eras, 5G leadership is a top priority for China.

In the 5G Snapshot: China report, Business Insider Intelligence breaks down the key components and advantages of China's 5G mission, and provides summaries of the country's 3 largest wireless operators.

This exclusive report can be yours for FREE today.

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• Palantir, the data-mining company co-founded by Peter Thiel, was named after a mystical, all-powerful seeing stone in "Lord of the Rings."
• One of the story's villains, the wizard Saruman, uses a palantir to surveil his enemies.
• The stone's power and limitless knowledge corrupt Saruman and allow him to be manipulated, leading to his downfall.
• The story's heroes are also tasked with escaping their enemies' line of sight via the palantir in order to complete their mission of ridding Middle Earth of the evil One Ring.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Palantir, the secretive and controversial Silicon Valley data firm, is gearing up to go public — reportedly via a direct listing in September — in what could be one of the biggest IPOs in tech's history.

It was founded in 2003 by some of the "PayPal mafia," including now billionaire investor and Trump adviser Peter Thiel. He, along with the rest of the Valley's inner circle, harbors a deep-seated obsession with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"— so much so that Palantir's founders opted for a moniker inspired by a magical object in the fantastical universe.

The palantiri are a collection of indestructible crystal stones used in Tolkien's fictional Middle Earth as a means of "far-seeing" communication.

The wizard Saruman uses one of the all-powerful seeing stones to surveil his foes and is ultimately corrupted by the unbounded knowledge that it provides him. Sauron — the main villain in the books and the films — reaches Saruman through the palantir and manipulates him into doing his bidding.

Critic and leading Tolkien scholar Jane Chance Nitzsche wrote that Saruman uses the stone to "seek Godlike knowledge by gazing in a short-sighted way" into the palantir. By opting for "mere knowledge" instead of actual wisdom, the wizard eventually met his downfall.

In the movie, you might also remember Peregrin "Pippin" Took mischievously snatching a palantir while Gandalf and the others are asleep. He and the rest of the story's heroes continuously dodge their enemies' line of sight in order to complete their main quest: destroying the One Ring and ridding Middle Earth of such a source of evil.

Palantir, the tech firm, creates software that gives its customers a wide-ranging, searchable database to find what they're looking for. So naming the company after an object that provides a broad scope of sight might seem fitting.

But Palantir has drawn criticism for partnering with law enforcement agencies including ICE. Its ICE contract came under scrutiny last week from 15 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who also questioned whether Palantir was sharing people's health data with ICE. Palantir denied that it shares data between the different federal agencies. An HHS spokesperson also denied that the data was being shared.

Palantir isn't the only tech company connected to Thiel that bears a LOTR-inspired name and has drawn criticism.

He was an early investor in military-contracting startup Anduril, which was named after the magical sword in the series that was wielded by the trilogy's hero, Aragorn. The company, founded by Palmer Luckey in 2017, was recently awarded a contract with US Customs and Border Protection to build a virtual "wall" as a means to prevent illegal crossings into the US. The system will utilize surveillance towers to detect movement.

Fans of the beloved books have taken issue with companies that have names inspired by "Lord of the Rings" and work with border authorities like CBP.

"It's really not even close to the point, but between this and [Palantir], wtf is up with tech bros using Lord of the Rings names for their big data services for the military?" a Twitter user said last year. "Did I miss some pro-war/surveillance message in Tolkien's work?"

SEE ALSO: Secretive data firm Palantir built its business on a cloak-and-dagger image. But as the company braces for an IPO, insiders say it's lost its mystique and is struggling to figure out a steady revenue model.

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• This is a preview of The Internet of Things 2020 research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• Purchase this report.
• Business Insider Intelligence offers even more technology coverage with Connectivity & Tech Pro. Subscribe today to receive industry-changing connectivity news and analysis to your inbox.

IoT systems and solutions are iterating rapidly, and providers are coming to meet more and more of companies' and consumers' needs.

Emerging tools and technologies like smart speakers, machine learning, and 5G are enabling huge gains to efficiency and more control at home and in the workplace.

The continued growth of the IoT industry is going to be a transformative force across all organizations. By integrating all of our modern day devices with internet connectivity, the IoT market is on pace to grow to over $2.4 trillion annually by 2027.

To give companies insight into who's using IoT solutions, who isn't, and key trends in the development and deployment of IoT projects, Business Insider Intelligence conducted its fourth annual Global IoT Executive Survey.

The annual survey, combined with past iterations of the study, offers a longitudinal look at adoption of the IoT generally, anticipated trends and their realization, and the evolution of decision-making processes alongside other points of interest in the wider space. Our survey includes over 400 responses from key executives around the world, including C-suite and director-level respondents.

Through this exclusive study and broad-based research into the field, Business Insider Intelligence details the components that make up the IoT ecosystem. We size the IoT market and use exclusive data to identify key trends in the connected devices sector. And we profile the enterprise, governmental, and consumer IoT segments individually, drilling down into the drivers and characteristics that are shaping each market.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• We project that there will be more than 41 billion IoT devices by 2027, up from about 8 billion in 2019.
• 5G networks will figure into many companies' IoT projects before the year is out, with 39% of respondents to our survey saying they plan to support 5G in IoT products and services before 2021.
• AI and machine learning are critical systems that are continually evolving to provide IoT users with the tools they need to parse mountains of data and quickly discern usable insights, while edge computing solutions are growing more central to IoT discussions and increasingly sophisticated as companies seek to reduce data transmission costs and lower latency.
• The report highlights the opinions and experiences of IoT decision-makers on topics that include: drivers of adoption, major challenges and barriers, investment plans, and the types of solutions they're employing thus far.

In full, the report:

• Provides a primer on the basics of the IoT ecosystem.
• Offers forecasts for the IoT moving forward, and highlights areas of interest in the coming years.
• Looks at who is and is not adopting the IoT, and why.
• Highlights drivers and challenges facing companies that are implementing IoT solutions.

Companies mentioned in this report include: Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Attest, Audi, AWS, Baidu, Blink, Carbon Black, China, Mobile, China UnionPay, Cisco, Cimcon, Deutsche Telekom, eero, enSilo, Ericsson, Etisalat, Foninet, Goldman Sachs, Google, Google Cloud, Honeywell, Honeywell Connected Enterprise, Huawei, Internet of Things Consortium, Intersection, Jacuzzi, Michelin, Microsoft, NEC, Nest, NXP Semiconductors, Oracle, Orange, Particle, Qualcomm, Ring, Salesforce, Sidewalk Labs, Sigfox, Singtel, SoftBank, Software AG, Sprint, STMicroelectronics, T-Systems, Telefonica, Telstra, Tenable, Tencent, Tolaga Research, Verizon, VMWare, Z-Wave, ZigBee.

Interested in getting the full report? Here's how to get access:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
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• The quality of AI-generated deepfake videos has improved rapidly over the past few years – raising concerns around the potential for electoral interference and criminal activity. 
• Nina Schick, author of new book "Deep Fakes and the Infopocalypse", spoke to Business Insider about Donald Trump, COVID-19, and the coming disinformation crisis.  
• Written in just a few months, Schick's book outlines how we've only just begun to scratch the surface of dodgy information online.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Deepfake video technology is advancing more rapidly than many would have believed possible just a few years ago.

From politics to porn, experts around the world have warned of the threats posed by increasingly sophisticated AI-generated and manipulated videos – with fears they could mark an eerie new chapter in the battle against disinformation.

One author sounding the alarm is Nina Schick, a policy expert who only started writing her new book, "Deep Fakes and the Coming Infopocalypse", in February.

"I had already put out a few mainstream articles on the topic," Schick told Business Insider. "Then suddenly the publisher got in touch and said: 'You should write a book about this. Can you do it in six weeks?'"

A former executive at the now-defunct Open Europe, a think tank focusing the UK's relationship with the EU, and later an adviser to Emmanuel Macron on his 2017 presidential campaign, Schick has seen the realities of electoral interference up close.

"Even though I wrote it very quickly, these ideas had been bouncing around in my head for almost a decade."

As COVID-19 forced countries around the world into lockdown – while spurring a wave of false information online – Schick says she couldn't help but notice a "perfect case study unfolding" before her eyes.

"Deep Fakes" reads at points like it could have been written in the past week, with a chapter on COVID-19, and a damning account of Donald Trump's "injecting disinfectant" gaffe.

Touching on everything from fake celebrity porn, through to the Trump campaign feed and the Russian annexation of Crimea, Schick's page-turner outlines how we've only just begun to scratch the surface of dodgy information online.

"Misinformation campaigns have a long history, and battling for a political narrative is not a new thing," Schick explains.

"But the boundaries have been completely upended by the new features of our information ecosystem. It's become that much easier for bad actors to infiltrate the conversation."

With ever more sophisticated deepfakes on the horizon, a number of initiatives have sprung up to try and curb the problem. In 2019, tech giants like Facebook and Google sponsored a $500,000 prize for deepfake detection tools, and a number of smaller firms are designing software to combat the problem.

With all this in mind, is the chronicler of the infopocalypse optimistic about the future?

"Oh, I'm terrified," Schick laughs.

"I think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better," she adds. "But as the social and political realities begin to dawn on our representatives, I think we'll be able to get on top of it again.

"It just might take a few years."

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Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Monday. Sign up here to get this email in your inbox every morning.

1. President Trump issued a new executive order Friday seeking to force ByteDance to sell popular viral video app TikTok. Trump's order aims to retroactively invalidate ByteDance's purchase of Musical.ly, the app that eventually became TikTok, citing national security concerns.
2. TikTok's US employees are preparing to sue the Trump administration over fears they won't get paid if the app is banned. The President signed an executive order banning US individuals and firms from doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance. 
3. Facebook said Apple refused to reduce its App Store fee for the social network's new paid feature that could help small-business owners during the pandemic. Facebook executive Fidji Simo also told Bloomberg that the social-media giant was calling Apple out so that "they can join us and end up waiving their fees."
4. Facebook is treating India's ruling BJP favorably, allowing politicians to post content calling for Muslims to be shot without repercussions, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. The journal found one particular Indian executive, Ankhi Das, opposed applying Facebook's hate speech rules to Hindu nationalists.
5. Michigan is devoting a 40-mile stretch of highway to testing self-driving cars. The project marks the first time public infrastructure has been dedicated to the pursuit of developing driverless vehicles.
6. Streaming app Quibi has boosted TV and YouTube advertising to promote its new wave of programming . The ad push comes as Quibi has been retooling its platform and approach following a rough start in April. 
7. Self-driving cars could boost margins for Uber and Lyft — and open the door to competition from Amazon and Tesla. Major tech and automotive companies like Alphabet, Amazon, and Tesla are developing automated-driving systems they plan to integrate into robotaxi services. 
8. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says wanting to work 20 hours a day to be like Elon Musk is 'bulls---'. Dorsey said the key is to figure out what works for you instead of reading up on what's worked for other famous founders. 
9. European club promoters created a virtual nightclub in Berlin – and turned away 40,000 people on the first night. The virtual venue boasts a 360-degree-video dance floor, with the thumping bass of a techno set and visuals that range from futuristic greenhouses to industrial tunnels filled with laser lights. 
10. New data from Socialbakers suggests that micro-influencers make up the majority of brand collaborations on Instagram.. In a growing trend in influencer marketing, many brands are hiring influencers with small but loyal followings. 

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• The Trump administration's moves to throttle TikTok are serving as a kind of wake-up call for the venture and startup communities about the risk of doing business with foreign companies and investors. 
• The administration's attack on TikTok is rooted in two longstanding authorities that it has been using more aggressively to scrutinize foreign investment, particularly in tech firms.
• Both authorities give presidents and their aides wide discretion to act in the interests of national security, a concept that they are free to define for themselves and increasingly has been considered to encompass economic issues.
• Venture investors say the moves add to the risks of dealing with foreign buyers and investors and may make them wary of doing so.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Trump administration's crackdown on TikTok has served as a kind of wake-up call for Silicon Valley about the risks of working with foreign investors and companies.

On Friday, the president issued an executive order telling TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to undo the merger that led to the app's expansion into the US and around the world. The order followed one from last week that would effectively ban the video-sharing app in the US. And those actions came in the wake of threats by the administration to force a sale of TikTok's US and other operations and essentially undo a years-old acquisition that paved the way for its expansion into the country.

Together, the moves show the increasingly skeptical view the US government is taking of foreign investment — particularly from China — into technology and internet companies. They also illustrate the president's far-reaching powers to block or unwind such deals, even years after the fact, or throttle foreign-owned companies seeking to do business in the US.

"I don't feel that enough of the venture companies and the [private equity] backed companies in tech and data understand that this ... could be a real issue," said Doreen Edelman, a partner at Lowenstein Sandler and the chair of the law firm's global trade and policy group.

The president is using his emergency powers to attack TikTok

The president's moves against TikTok have been undergirded by two primary sources of power — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), which itself has its foundation in a series of laws and executive orders. Both IEEPA and CFIUS allow the president to take steps to protect national security.

IEEPA allows the president to restrict or bar US individuals or companies from doing business with a foreign entity after declaring a national emergency related to an "unusual and extraordinary threat" from a foreign actor. The law has been used primarily to put in place sanctions, such as those President Jimmy Carter slapped on Iran after the hostage crisis in that country, which started in 1979, and those that Trump put on foreign actors who interfered in US elections.

Trump's executive order last week was based on his authority under IEEPA. The president, who had already declared in May last year that the acquisition of certain technologies and services represented a national emergency, said TikTok amounted to one part of that threat. In his order, he declared that in 45 days, any transactions between US individuals or entities and TikTok would be prohibited.

The president has extremely broad powers under IEEPA, and companies or people targeted by it have little way to defend themselves in court against it, said Amy Deen Westbrook, a professor of international and commercial law at Washburn University School of Law.

"We're talking about a national security determination by the executive, which is almost unreviewable," Westbrook said.

Trump's cabinet and aides have also been scrutinizing TikTok

CFIUS, meanwhile, is an interagency group composed of presidential cabinet members and advisers, including the secretaries of Treasury, State, and Defense. The committee has the power to review transactions involving foreign actors purchasing or investing in US companies or real estate. It can approve such deals, force the parties involved to modify the deals to address national security concerns, or recommend to the president that the deals be blocked.

It was the president's authority under CFIUS that he used Friday to order the unwinding of ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly, which led to TikTok becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

In the past, the parties involved in foreign investments or acquisitions weren't required to notify CFIUS. But under a 2018 update to the laws underlying the committee, such parties now have an obligation to alert it to certain deals, most notably those involving companies that take part in the production of particular technologies or infrastructure or collect sensitive data on 1 million or more US individuals.

Some of CFIUS's authorities are extremely broad. It can review and force changes to deals long after they were finalized by the parties involved, if it was never notified about them when they happened. That retrospective power can extend back to deals that are years, even decades, old.

"There's no time limit," Edelman said. "Anytime in the future, the government can decide this is a national security issue and come after the transaction and require a divestiture."

And a decision by CFIUS to approve a deal by sending the parties a "no-action" letter doesn't necessarily mean they're home free. In 2006, the committee gave approval for a transaction in which a company based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, would purchase a British one that operated several US ports. Despite CFIUS's approval, Congress objected to the deal and essentially forced the Dubai company to sell the US operations to an American firm.

"Even if you negotiate one of these mitigation agreements with CFIUS, or even if CFIUS gives you the thumbs-up right away, there's no guarantee that that's a permanent approval," Westbrook said.

Another tricky thing about the CFIUS rules is that it takes a very broad look when considering the nationality of parties involved in a transaction. An entity can be considered a US business even if it's based elsewhere and has a minimal presence in this country. The statute underlying the committee defines a US business as simply a person or entity engaged in interstate commerce in this country, no matter where they're based.

On the flip side, an acquirer or investor can come under scrutiny even if that entity is based in the US or a friendly country. The CFIUS process looks at whether such parties are ultimately owned or controlled by foreign actors that may trigger a national security concern.

TikTok got snared by CFIUS's broad powers

TikTok got caught up by both of those CFIUS provisions — the committee's broad definition of nationality and its power to review deals that long since closed — thanks to ByteDance's acquisition in 2017 of a rival video-sharing service, Musical.ly. The app, previously focused on a Chinese audience, became a US and global phenomenon after that deal. ByteDance rebranded Musical.ly, which already had tens of millions of users around the world, as TikTok, combined the app with its own, and used Musical.ly as the basis for TikTok's global expansion.

Both ByteDance and Musical.ly were based in China. At the time of the deal, ByteDance was not required to notify CFIUS about it, and it didn't do so.

But Musical.ly had a US office in Santa Monica, California, and millions of US users. That was enough for CFIUS to have the authority to launch a retroactive review of the deal two years after the parties announced it.

In terms of the size of the presence a company has to have in the US to fall under CFIUS's jurisdiction, "there's no de minimis," Edelman said. "There's no lower threshold."

Another complicating factor: With both CFIUS and IEEPA, "national security" is left largely undefined, the legal experts told Business Insider. That's intentional because it allows the government to adapt to new challenges or policy priorities as times and administrations change.

In years past, national security was usually construed in terms of military or geopolitical threats, rather than economic ones. But that's no longer the case.

"The distinction between economic and national security, or military national security, is fully blurred at this point," Westbrook said.

Venture investors are worried about the risks

The stepped-up use of CFIUS and IEEPA by the Trump administration — and potentially by its successors — poses a distinct risk for the venture and startup industries. The vast majority of startups that don't go out of business are acquired, either by other companies or by private-equity firms.

Foreign buyers play a big role in that market. Nearly 30% of all venture-backed startups acquired last year were bought by foreign companies, according to PitchBook. And of all the money that was spent to buy or acquire those startups, nearly 40% came from foreign investors.

At least some venture investors are worried about the increasing government scrutiny of TikTok and other such deals. The Trump administration has a legitimate concern about China's access to data on American citizens and companies, as well as China's encouragement for the censorship of criticism of companies based there, Duncan Davidson, a general partner at the venture firm Bullpen Capital, said.

But the way the administration has gone about addressing those concerns seems unprincipled and is leading to a lot of uncertainty in the market, he said. Such moves make Duncan less likely to invest in foreign companies or pursue foreign buyers for his startups.

"It seems a little random," he said. "Unpredictability is not good."

Venture investing already entails lots of risk, James Currier, a managing partner at the venture firm NFX, said. Investing in foreign startups adds even more complications — legal, cultural, geopolitical — on top of that, he said.

Venture capitalists invest for the long term. They don't expect a payoff for 10 or more years into the future. They have a lot of experience weighing risks over such time scales. Many successful ones choose to focus solely on their home markets, rather than investing overseas as a way of mitigating such risks, Currier said.

Currier isn't as concerned as Duncan about the influence of Trump's moves against TikTok and other companies on venture investing. But, he said, the aggressive stance the Trump administration has taken toward foreign investment, particularly from China, does compound the problems faced by firms that invest in or seek investment from foreign companies and pushes such firms into largely uncharted territories. Few venture investors have experience navigating trade wars and don't know how such disputes can affect their investments, he said.

"This stuff is not predictable," Currier said. "There's no historical intuition that we as a group have about how these governments might impact the outcome for one of these companies six, seven, eight years from now."

Business Insider reporter Max Jungreis contributed to this story.

Got a tip about startups, venture investing or TikTok? Contact Troy Wolverton via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

• Read more about the TikTok dispute:
• SCOTT GALLOWAY: Why TikTok is unlikely to be banned in the US, despite plenty of US apps being banned in China
• TikTok reportedly has 18 million users who are 14 or younger, renewing concerns for children's safety
• TikTok's US employees are scared they won't get paid if the app is banned, and now they're planning to sue the Trump administration
• Here's everything we do and don't know about Microsoft's bid to acquire TikTok so far

SEE ALSO: These 3 startups were recently accused of misstating their financial information, highlighting how little such companies may be required to disclose to their VC backers and other investors

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• Apple's iOS 14 update introduces a new accessibility feature called "Back Tap."
• "Back Tap" makes it possible to execute certain actions on your phone, like taking a screenshot or launching a shortcut, just by tapping on the back of your device two or three times.
• iOS 14 officially launches in the fall, but you can try it early by installing the public beta.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When Apple introduced its iOS 14 update in June, it spent much of its presentation highlighting updates coming to the home screen and apps like Safari, Messages, and Siri. But iOS 14 is also full of new accessibility-oriented features, among the most interesting being a new capability that lets you perform actions by simply tapping the back of your iPhone.

Although it's meant for those who may face challenges using their iPhone because of physical or motor impairments, the new "Back Tap" feature can be useful for anyone looking for a quicker way to take a screenshot or launch an app.

The software update will be launching for iPhones in the fall, but you can try an early version of the update by installing the public beta via Apple's website. In addition to features like Back Tap, iOS 14 brings broader, sweeping changes to the iPhone like the ability to add widgets to the home screen and a new App Library that automatically organizes and sorts your apps.

When iOS 14 launches, Back Tap will work on the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Here's how to use it. 

SEE ALSO: Now is the worst time to buy a new Apple Watch

First, open your iPhone's settings menu and tap the "Accessibility" option.

Then, tap "Touch."

Scroll down and choose "Back Tap."

Decide whether you want to double tap or triple tap the back of your phone when using "Back Tap."

Choose the shortcut you'd like to launch when tapping the back of your phone.

As shown in the screenshot above, there is a variety of commands you can execute through Back Tap, such as launching Siri, taking a screenshot, adjusting the volume, and navigating back to the home screen. When trying this feature on an iPhone 11 Pro Max, I found that double-tapping the back of the device to capture a screenshot worked smoothly even with a case on the phone.

In addition to these actions, you can also use Back Tap to scroll, launch accessibility features, or run Siri shortcuts.

Back Tap seems like it could be particularly useful for launching Siri shortcuts, which lets you launch a chain of actions with a single command.

One example of a shortcut could be a "heading to work" sequence that would pull up the estimated travel time to your office, show your first calendar event, and start your morning commute playlist with just one command.

With Back Tap, you can trigger this sequence just by double tapping the back of your device after creating the shortcut in Apple's Shortcuts app.

• TikTok has transformed the music industry in recent months as tracks that go viral on the app have taken over the Billboard 100 and Spotify Viral 50 charts.
• Business Insider spoke with Corey Sheridan, TikTok's head of music-content operations for North America, and Isabel Quinteros, its senior manager of music partnerships and artist relations, to learn more about how the company works with artists, record labels, and users to shape the music experience on the app.
• "Music is part of the DNA of the product itself," Sheridan said. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

TikTok has captured the full attention of the music industry.

Record labels, artists, and music marketers are well aware of the app's ability to drive song streams and album purchases (a marketer recently told Rolling Stone that a TikTok ban would be a "s---show" for the industry).

And as TikTok has become an essential promotional tool for labels and artists alike, the company's music operations and artist- and label-relations employees have become industry tastemakers. The team has a series of levers it can pull to promote tracks on TikTok that end up topping the Billboard 100 and Spotify Viral 50 charts.

These "promo levers" include adding songs to playlists in the "Sounds" section of the app (where all users go to create videos), promoting artists or tracks in a banner carousel unit that lives at the top of that page and applying keywords on the back end to optimize song discoverability in the app's search interface. TikTok also works with digital service providers like Apple Music to curate playlists off-platform.

The company takes into consideration the priorities of record labels and artists — many of whom are doing influencer marketing or ad campaigns on TikTok — when deciding which songs to promote.

"We have dedicated points of contact for all of the labels, and we work very closely with them to understand what their priorities are," Corey Sheridan, TikTok's head of music-content operations for North America, told Business Insider. "If they have an influencer campaign working on a specific single, or on the artist side, if we understand that the artist has their own content strategy rollout, that's definitely a very strong signal."

The company also closely watches patterns in its users' videos to identify new songs that are gaining popularity and could benefit from more in-app exposure.

"One of the things that's so unique about TikTok, and this is no secret, is that hits that are born and driven from TikTok often aren't focus tracks," Sheridan said. "It's what's resonating with the community that ultimately drives virality."

Such was the case for Megan Thee Stallion's 2020 single "Savage," which took off on TikTok, despite its label 300 Entertainment's initial plans to promote another track on her album, "Captain Hook."

"The focus track that they really wanted to push was 'Captain Hook,' and they had all of these creative ideas of how they wanted to roll it out," said Isabel Quinteros, TikTok's senior manager of music partnerships and artist relations.

"My advice to them was, 'Hey let's just give it a minute. Let's take a beat. Let's see what our community is really gravitating towards, and then let's pull our levers against that particular track,' which in fact came to be 'Savage,'" she added.

Onboarding new artists to TikTok when their songs begin to 'bubble'

Similar to third-party influencer marketers, TikTok's music team looks at video-engagement metrics like comments, shares, likes, and views to understand which songs are becoming popular among its users. The company will often identify that an artist is surging on TikTok before the artist is aware.

"When we see something that is bubbling up, part of my team's scope of work is making sure that we're reaching out to these artists, giving them support in the app, and ensuring that they're onboarded properly," Quinteros said. "Some of them don't even really know that they're trending in the app until after we reach out to them, which is an interesting dynamic."

While Quinteros said she's worked with stars like Jason Derulo who have fully embraced TikTok as a promotional tool, her team also encounters artists who are hesitant to join the app because of preconceived notions about what it means to be a TikToker.

"There's always that question of like, 'Hey, TikTok is cool, but I don't really want to dance. It's just not my thing.' And so there's a lot of educational best practices that come into play," Quinteros said. "Ultimately the goal is for them to have fun with the app and be able to connect with fans and be creative and that's kind of what guides the work that we do."

For a full breakdown of how the TikTok music team and other industry players are using the app to transform popular music in 2020, read this story:

The 24 power players using TikTok to transform the music industry, from marketers and record execs to artists

And for more stories on how record labels, artists, and marketers are taking advantage of music trends on TikTok, check out these other Business Insider posts:

• TikTok influencers are getting paid thousands of dollars to promote songs, as the app becomes a major force in the music industry: TikTok creators, talent managers, and music marketers shared how much influencers earn by promoting songs in videos on the app.
• A Sony Music exec explains the label's TikTok strategy and how it responds when a song like 'Break My Stride' catches fire: Business Insider spoke with the marketing team at Sony Music's Legacy Recordings to learn about its strategy for promoting trending songs on TikTok.
• The agency behind one of TikTok's top ad campaigns says brands can build a massive audience through original music and dance trends but the 'window is closing quickly': Business Insider spoke with the cofounders of Movers and Shakers to learn more about their TikTok strategy and how brands fit into the app's future.
• Music artist Tiagz explains how he mastered TikTok's algorithm to score a major record deal, with help from Charli D'Amelio and a 1950s jazz classic: The Canadian rapper Tiagz (Tiago Garcia-Arenas) has built a career as a producer by strategically uploading songs to the short-form-video app TikTok.

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NOW WATCH: How waste is dealt with on the world's largest cruise ship

• The 2019-20 NBA season officially resumed on July 30 with 22 teams quarantined at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.
• The 2020 NBA Playoffs began on August 17 after the Portland Trail Blazers claimed the final playoff spot with a win over the Memphis Grizzlies in a decisive play-in game.
• The NBA has scheduled four playoff games every day during the first round with broadcasts on ESPN, TNT, ABC and NBA TV.

• To watch NBA games without a cable provider, we recommend subscribing to a live TV streaming service, like AT&T TV, Sling TV, Hulu TV, or YouTube TV.

The NBA Playoffs are now underway in Orlando, Florida with four back-to-back games scheduled each day during the first round of the playoffs. The NBA will air every playoff game on TNT, ESPN, ABC, and NBA TV, with each series scheduled to play every other day.

The coronavirus pandemic brought the NBA to a sudden halt on March 11 when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. At the time, teams were more than 60 games into the 82-game season and preparing for the playoffs.

Four months later, hundreds of NBA players, coaches, and staff have quarantined themselves at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, for the NBA Restart, giving 22 of the league's 30 teams an opportunity to complete the season and win the 2020 NBA Finals.

Now the number of teams has been whittled down to 16 after a series of games that concluded the NBA regular season and decided the final playoff seeds. The Portland Trail Blazers earned the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference after defeating the Memphis Grizzlies in a decisive play-in game. Blazers guard Damian Lillard was voted the most valuable player of the restart period after averaging 37.6 points through eight games to lead his team to the playoffs.

As of August 12, the NBA reported that none of the 342 players in the NBA Restart "bubble" had tested positive for coronavirus. However, ongoing family concerns, injuries, and logistical issues could lead to some players leaving the quarantined site. As teams are eliminated from the playoffs, the remaining players will be able to welcome their families to the Orlando bubble.

How to watch the NBA Playoffs starting August 17

The NBA has posted schedule information for the first round playoffs series through August 30, though times are subject to change as teams are eliminated. The 2020 NBA playoffs will still use a best of seven format, so teams need to win four games to advance to the next round.

Games will be broadcast on ESPN, ABC, TNT, and NBA TV. If you subscribe to these channels through your cable provider you can stream the games on your phone or PC. If you're not an NBA TV cable subscriber, you can pay $20 for NBA TV streaming for the rest of the season, or $5.99 for a single game.

Otherwise, you can use a live TV streaming service like Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, AT&T TV, and YouTube TV to watch every NBA playoff game. Of those options, AT&T TV Choice and YouTube TV both include access to ESPN, ABC, TNT, and NBA TV. Each service costs $64.99 a month.

Meanwhile, Hulu + Live TV includes access to ESPN, ABC, and TNT for $54.99 a month. With that said, Hulu + Live does not offer NBA TV. Finally, Sling TV Orange with the Sports Extra add-on offers access to ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV for $40 a month. ABC, however, is not included with Sling TV. ESPN+ doesn't provide access to the live NBA games so you'll need to opt for a service that streams the cable channel directly.

The NBA Finals will begin on September 30

The NBA Finals are scheduled to begin on September 30, and the last possible date for Game 7 of the NBA Finals is October 13, 2020. The NBA will update schedule and network information as the playoffs progress.

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• Jeff Bezos appears to have grown his Southern California real estate portfolio once again.
• Back in February, Bezos became the new owner of the Warner estate, a sprawling compound in Beverly Hills, California, that he purchased for $165 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. 
• The estate features a 13,600-square-foot mansion, two guesthouses, a pool, and a tennis court. 
• Now, both Variety and Daily Mail report that Bezos is the new owner of an adjacent house, which he is said to have purchased for $10 million. 
• The three bedroom, five bathroom house is directly next door to the Warner estate and shares a hedge with the compound. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jeff Bezos appears to be compiling a massive Beverly Hills compound. 

Back in February, the Amazon CEO purchased the Warner estate, a piece of Hollywood history belonging to billionaire David Geffen. The $165 million sale broke a record for the most expensive home sale in California state history. 

Now, Bezos appears to have made another purchase, this time right next door: a $10 million home that shares a hedge line with the Warner estate. According to property records viewed by both Variety and Daily Mail, Bezos is the new owner of the 1930s-era home on a side street in Beverly Hills' Benedict Canyon neighborhood. 

A spokesperson for Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the sale. 

While there are few photos of the estate and the adjacent home, Los Angeles County has plenty of aerial views of the property that give us our best look yet at Bezos' rumored purchases. 

SEE ALSO: The most unusual, extravagant ways tech executives like Larry Ellison and Elon Musk have spent their money

Jack Warner, the cofounder and onetime president of Warner Bros., built his estate in 1937.

Warner started constructing the property in 1926, beginning with three acres of what used to be farmland in Beverly Hills, California. Slowly but surely, Warner started adding parcels of adjacent land and building out the grounds of the estate, adding a golf course and two ponds. 

Source: Architectural Digest

Warner liked to throw extravagant parties that were attended by stars like Olivia de Havilland and Jimmy Stewart and moguls like Howard Hughes. An invitation to a party at the estate was apparently one of the most sought-after in Hollywood in the late 1930s and early '40s.

Warner filled the estate with expensive art, including a portrait of his wife, Ann, painted by Salvador Dali, according to Architectural Digest.

Source: Architectural Digest

Warner died in 1978, and Ann Warner owned the house until she died in 1990. That same year, the music and movie tycoon David Geffen bought the whole estate, including the art, for $47.5 million, according to Forbes. The sale set a record at the time.

Source: Forbes, The Wall Street Journal

Geffen, who is worth an estimated $9 billion, has a multimillion-dollar real-estate portfolio that includes homes in Malibu, California, and in New York's East Hampton, and Manhattan.

Source: Forbes, Forbes

Geffen is also the owner of a $590 million superyacht called the Rising Sun, where he frequently hosts fellow moguls and celebrities — including Jeff Bezos.

Source: Business Insider

Bezos has vacationed aboard the yacht near the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. Last year, he was pictured on the deck of the yacht alongside former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, model Karlie Kloss, and investor Josh Kushner.

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Geffen frequently hosts high-powered celebrities on the 400-foot-plus Rising Sun. Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bradley Cooper, and Barack and Michelle Obama have all been spotted on board. 

Source: Business Insider

In February, Bezos became the new owner of the Warner estate, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal reported that Bezos purchased the property for $165 million, making it the most expensive home sale in California history. No brokers were involved in the sale, according to The Journal.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, had been house hunting in Los Angeles and touring mansions throughout the area in previous weeks, the New York Post reported.

Source: New York Post

The Warner estate spans eight acres and is situated in the Benedict Canyon neighborhood of Beverly Hills.

Source: Los Angeles County

The estate promises the utmost privacy. It's surrounded by tall hedges, blocked off by a large gate, and completely hidden from view from the street.

Source: Google Maps

The compound is home to multiple dwellings, including two guesthouses and a 13,600-square-foot mansion.

The Georgian-style home has eight bedrooms and nine bathrooms. It includes a floor that was once owned by Napoleon, according to The Journal.

Source: Los Angeles County, Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal

Photos shot of the interior of the estate by Architectural Digest in the early '90s show a screening room, an expansive bar, and a dining room that could easily fit 14 guests.

Source: Architectural Digest

The grounds also include a tennis court and manicured gardens. Geffen spent $45 million renovating the property, including $20 million on landscaping alone, The Journal reported.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

There's a large pool and what appears to be an adjacent hot tub outside one of the large guesthouses.

Source: Los Angeles County

At one point, the property also included a nine-hole golf course and a "motor court" with a garage and gas pumps, according to Architectural Digest, though it's not clear if those amenities are still on the property.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Architectural Digest

Bezos reportedly bought an adjacent property in July for $10 million. That property is on Tropical Avenue, which is perpendicular to the Warner estate. It shares a hedge with the compound, though it is currently accessed from a different street.

Source: Variety

That adjacent property was built in 1930 and was last sold for $5.45 million, according to Variety. It features three bedrooms and five bathrooms, six fireplaces, a rear patio, and rose and vegetable gardens.

Source: Variety,Zillow

It's not clear what Bezos would want with an adjacent property, but he has a history of snatching up homes near his larger estates. In 2017, he bought the house next door to his previous Beverly Hills mansion for $12.9 million. His ex-wife, McKenzie Scott, was granted both homes in the couple's divorce.

Source: Business Insider, Variety

• San Francisco housing inventory has risen 96% year-over-year, meaning there are nearly twice as many homes listed for sale as there were this time last year, per a Zillow report.
• The statistic is just one of the latest in a growing pile of evidence that the pandemic and a rise in remote work are allowing residents to leave for more affordable places.
• San Francisco is just one of the major cities across the country is at the center of a debate around the post-coronavirus future of urban areas.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Nearly twice as many homes are for sale in San Francisco as residents continue to leave one of the most expensive cities in the country amid a pandemic-driven exodus.

According to a Zillow report published last week, housing inventory is up 96% from this time last year, and listing prices have also dropped by 5%. Though you'll still spot San Francisco's infamously high price tags on online housing sites — Zillow lists the city's median home value at about $1.45 million.

The report points out that other metro areas are not seeing the flood of new listings that San Francisco is experiencing — inventory in and around cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston is either steady or dropping.

The Zillow report is just the latest data point in a growing consensus that more people are leaving San Francisco during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reports of residents leaving the city are nothing new and predate the COVID-19 pandemic — soaring housing prices, a high cost of living, and other factors have been cited as key drivers to people exiting the city in recent years. But the "urban flight" from the city has been accelerated as some of the city's most attractive amenities — like museums, indoor restaurants, and bars — remain shuttered and as the rise of remote work has allowed workers in tech and other sectors to move to places with cheaper costs of living. 

Tech workers are a major part of the region's talent pool, and industry giants like Facebook and Google have announced that their workforces will be working from home well into 2021.

Moving companies in the San Francisco Bay Area have seen a surge in business in recent months, as Business Insider's Rob Price reported. And many in Silicon Valley have escaped to surrounding areas, like the affluent wine country to the north, where wealthy homebuyers have reportedly fled dense San Francisco to snatch up hillside homes.

Since the onset of the pandemic, a debate has ensued on whether or not people will want to live in major US metro areas in the short and long term. 

SEE ALSO: An ex-Uber exec wants to build a private, politically autonomous city to welcome newly remote techies fleeing Silicon Valley

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• The market research firm Canalys named Google Cloud the leading cloud in the retail industry. 
• That's notable, given that rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are seen to dominate the overall cloud computing industry.
• Under CEO Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud has placed its focus on appealing directly to six specific industries, including retail — a strategy that includes hiring sales and marketing staff dedicated to that purpose. 
• Canalys says that in Google Cloud's ability to offer advertising and search services to retailers alongside its core cloud offering makes it stand out from Microsoft, and those same customers like that it doesn't compete in e-commerce the way that Amazon does.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

One of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's key strategies to take on the dominant Amazon Web Services and Microsoft has been to focus on selling directly to certain, specific industries. Now, a new report from market research Canalys shows this initiative has borne fruit, as Google Cloud is named the leading cloud in the retail sector.

Analysts say that this is thanks to Google Cloud's abilities to offer advertising and search services alongside its core cloud platform, its industry-specific focus, and that it's not seen as a competitor in e-commerce, the way that leading cloud platform Amazon Web Services is. 

Google Cloud already has some major retail customer wins under its belt. Earlier this month, Google Cloud announced an expanded multi-year partnership with Best Buy to provide infrastructure and analytics services to help with retail strategy and customize shopping experiences. Google Cloud also counts retailers Costco and Target as customers. 

Still, Google Cloud is far behind AWS and Microsoft when it comes to cloud market share in the United States, with Alibaba also a strong contender on the global stage.

Retail is one of the six industries targeted by Kurian's strategy, with the others being financial services, health care, manufacturing, media and entertainment, and the public sector. As part of this master plan,  Google Cloud has hired salespeople aggressively, as well as forged partnerships to win over customers in each sector.

As part of the initiative, Google Cloud now has a sales team entirely focused on retail customers, while also building specific products like Google Cloud for Retail, designed to help retailers with hosting, inventory management, search, and product recommendation. It also offers AI-powered search engine optimization services, a boon to sellers.

The coronavirus pandemic has likely only accelerated Google's appeal to retailers, many of whom were forced to double down on e-commerce as physical retail stores closed or reduced their capacity in the name of public health. That means using a platform like Google Cloud to modernize and go online.

Read more: Here's how Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are making their big pushes to win over customers in niche markets like retail and finance

"Especially during this pandemic, people need to move their online experience along," Canalys research analyst Blake Murray told Business Insider. "Google is in a great place to do that, They are leaders using artificial intelligence and machine learning. I think it gives them an edge in that way."

Competing against AWS, Microsoft, and Alibaba

Google Cloud isn't the only cloud company going after the retail sector: Amazon Web Services has made its own play for the space.

AWS was originally designed for Amazon's internal use, meaning it has a notable e-commerce pedigree, as well as a partner program focused on retail. Nike and Disney are both big AWS customers. However, on the other hand, many of the retailers that AWS is going after are also competitors on some level, which could turn them away. 

"Due to this competitive aspect, many major retailers have opted to work with other cloud service providers," Murray said. 

Microsoft, meanwhile, has a huge, decades-old partner-network with over 2,000 retail-specific applications, Murray notes. 

However, Murray says, Google's strong position in search and advertising makes it appealing to retailers, as well as its charm offensive in the sector. Google Cloud gives customers more customizable contracts and service "in a way that's arguably better off than Microsoft is," Murray says.

Murray says that ultimately, Google Cloud's momentum with retailers is a sign that the company has a real shot at catching up with its rivals, but that it's far from a sure thing.

"They can work with huge retailers," Murray said. "They have customized solutions and support teams ready to go. It's a big question over time. Can Google catch up to Microsoft and AWS? I think the answer is 'yes,' but it really depends on how they utilize their strategy and how well it works out in the long term, not just in retail but all the other verticals."

Do you work at Google Cloud? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. 

SEE ALSO: Google Cloud partners explain all the ways that the search giant is getting more flexible, from letting customers reallocate their cloud resources to helping developers pay for their own sales and marketing pushes

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• Attentive is a buzzy New York ad tech startup.
• But it might never have been born if investor Scott Friend, a partner with Bain Capital Ventures, hadn't told founder and CEO Brian Long that his original idea for the company was mediocre.
• Friend and Long had met and grew to trust one another when Friend invested in Long's previous startup, TapCommerce, which sold to Twitter for $100 million in 2014.
• Long had VCs pounding down his door offering excellent terms for his second idea, he told Business Insider. He had the product built and a big customer.
• But Friend convinced him that his idea wouldn't pan out in the long run, Friend told us.
• Because Long trusted Friend, he listened and Attentive was born: a company that makes a mobile messaging app used by over 3,000 brands and organizations, including Coach, Sephora.
• Here's how their friendship helped turn Attentive into a company that might "go on forever."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Attentive is a New York startup with pedigreed founders and fast success that ad tech VCs are watching.

Attentive offers a mobile messaging app used by over 3,000 brands and organizations, including Coach, Sephora, and Urban Outfitters. Founded in 2016, it has raised a total of $163 million from firms like Bain, IVP, and Sequoia, including an oversubscribed $110 million round that closed in April, raised while the economy was melting down from the pandemic.

But such success might not have happened if Bain Capital's Scott Friend hadn't told Attentive CEO Brian Long that Long's original idea for Attentive was mediocre. This even though Long had already launched a product and signed a big customer.

Friend and Long forged a friendship back in 2013, when Long was running his previous startup TapCommerce and Friend became an investor and board member. 

Long and the TapCommerce team were rising stars, Friend thought at the time.

"They were firing on all cylinders," Friend told Business Insider. At the first board meeting, Friend recalled, the startup's revenue projections were actually higher than what they had originally pitched. It didn't take long for Friend to develop a "fundamental trust" in Long, 

Soon after, in 2014, TapCommerce sold to Twitter in 2014 for $100 million.

With that kind of track record, when Long set out for his second venture, he had lots of VC suitors knocking on his door, Friend said.

Long acknowledged that other investors were offering bigger, more tempting term sheets, but he selected Friend because they had already built up a lot of trust with one another.

"The analogy to it being marriage is a good one," Long said of the relationship between founder and VC, "but I actually think that it's more than a marriage. There's no way to really end your relationship with an investor."

While Friend was game to invest in Long's company again, he was underwhelmed with it. 

"The category they were experimenting in with mobile workforce management was a robust category," Friend said. The founders "could've raised money for that, for sure."

But Friend had previously met with over half a dozen other startups working in the area and felt that the idea would not lead to an attractive exit. The VC thought this even though Attentive had already obtained the Holy Grail for startups: traction.

"They had built something," Friend explained. "They were getting early trials." The startup even scored a multi-year contract with a major public company. 

Still, Friend advised the co-founders to switch gears. 

Despite the early signs of success, Long said he wasn't "feeling great about" the startup's direction either.

When he heard Friend's advice, he, to the surprise of the customer, pulled out of the contract and "pivoted into what became Attentive," he said.

"Relative to what they're doing now," Friend said, their first idea "would've been a disaster."

Nice vs candid

Far too often, Long explained, founders are too nervous to seek out candid feedback about their products.

"You get a lot of false signals when you meet a friend of a friend," Long said, referring to the types of people entrepreneurs often lean on at first to seek advice. Usually "they're just being polite."

Another major challenge is that many VCs, especially when funding seed and Series A rounds, prioritize founders' previous successes rather than the actual products they've pitched.

Long's track record with TapCommerce meant that he could have raised funds for just about any idea he had, including mobile workforce management, but that doesn't mean his new company would have automatically turned into "the large-scale, high-growth business" that Attentive has become today, Friend said.

Now, "Attentive may be in the rare situation where the company goes on forever," Friend said, hinting that an IPO might be on the horizon. 

SEE ALSO: 2 Bain VCs say the firm is on the hunt for early-stage founders. Here's an exclusive look at Bain's plan to support 'outlier' entrepreneurs and nurture unicorn-track startups https://www.businessinsider.com/bain-venture-capital-vcs-explains-strategy-for-early-stage-investments-2020-8

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• Tesla registered 24% fewer cars in China during July than it did in June, a state-backed group said.
• The slump comes as the world's largest market makes a rebound from pandemic-induced lows. 
• China is increasingly important to Tesla's success, but competitors are slowly beginning to encroach. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla registrations in China decreased 24% between June and July, a state-backed industry group said, as China's auto market stages a comeback from pandemic-induced lows. 

As first reported by Bloomberg on Monday, China Automotive Information Net said Tesla registered 11,456 cars built in the country in July. Tesla, like most of its competitors, does not break out monthly figures. 

The news follows a separate report from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, which last week showed passenger-car sales staging an 8.5% rebound in July compared to last year. The group said overall sales, which include commercial vehicles and trucks, were up 16.4% after a dramatic plunge earlier this year amid the pandemic.

Between June and July 2020, when Tesla had its 24% drop, numbers from the China Passenger Car Association showed a dip in overall vehicle sales as well. 

China is widely seen as the linchpin for Tesla's continued growth. The country accounted for 23% of Tesla's overall revenues in the second quarter, according to regulatory filings — the highest share ever. But competition is heating up.

Nio — already called the "Tesla of China" by some industry watchers— last week reported quarterly financials that topped Wall Street's expectation while tripling vehicles sold compared to the same period of 2019. To be sure, however, the company's deliveries of 3,533 in July are still far overshadowed by Tesla's numbers, which topped 90,000 in the second quarter.

Like Tesla, Nio's stock has also seen massive gains this year, with shares up more than 250% since January 1.

"We continue to believe EV demand in China is starting to accelerate in July/August with Tesla competing with a number of domestic and international competitors for market share," Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush with a remarkably bullish outlook on Tesla, told clients Monday. "We believe Tesla thus far in 3Q has seen strong demand in Europe and China with the US market remaining softer."

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NOW WATCH: Why electric planes haven't taken off yet

• Google is asking the government to let it test next-generation 6GHz WiFi in dozens of cities across the US, according to filings seen by Business Insider.
• The company wants to test the new technology in 17 states in total, and several cities within California.
• 6GHz WiFi will be a major upgrade, but don't expect it to arrive in devices for some time to come.
• Are you a Google insider with more to share? Contact this reporter using encrypted email (hslangley@protonmail.com) or encrypted messaging apps Signal/Telegram (628-228-1836).
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In April, the Federal Communications Commission voted to open up a chunk of spectrum in the 6GHz band that would eventually usher in faster WiFi. 

Unsurprisingly, Google wants in on the action.

The company has requested government approval to test next-generation 6GHz WiFi in dozens of cities, according to Federal Communications Commission filings seen by Business Insider.

In a redacted version of a letter dated last Saturday, Google asks the FCC for "authorization to conduct radio experiments in and near the 6GHz band (5650 MHz - 7125 MHz)."

Google is requesting to test across 17 states in total: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.

Google wants to test in just one or two cities in each state — except in its home of California, of course, where it's requesting to test in seven cities including Los Angeles and San Francisco.

"Google proposes to conduct experimental propagation testing in the 6GHz band to produce technical information relevant to the utility of these frequencies for providing reliable broadband connections," the company wrote in the request.

A Google spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

When the FCC voted to open up a section of the 6GHz band for unlicensed use, several of the big tech companies were supportive, but some voiced opposition. AT&T said at the time that the ruling opened up risks of interference with the existing infrastructure.

In its test proposal, Google appears to acknowledge some of these fears, promising its work will be conducted "without harmful interference to other authorized users."

6Ghz WiFi would deliver faster speeds by more than doubling the available WiFi frequencies. but don't expect those blazing-fast speeds to arrive in devices for a few months — and maybe even longer for Google, which has asked for 24 months to carry out its testing.

We don't know the exact purpose for Google's testing, but there are several reasons it will be interested. The company is already in the business of internet delivery. It has its own range of Nest home WiFi devices, while Access – a sister company that sits under its parent Alphabet – is focused on delivering ultra-high-speed Fiber internet to people's homes. 

Plus, it has a range of devices such as smartphones and smart speakers that it will obviously want to work without a hitch, not to mention plans for plenty of future devices that could take advantage of the next-generation wireless standard.

SEE ALSO: POWER PLAYERS: The 18 leaders at Google Health shaping the tech giant's secretive healthcare business

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• In the past few years, Python has become one of the most popular, fastest growing, and best loved programming languages.
• It has grown quickly because of its ease of use, utility, and open source nature, experts say, as well as because of the boom in artificial intelligence and data science jobs.
• For example, the popular AI project TensorFlow runs uses Python, as does Facebook's Instagram.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The programming language Python has made learning to code much easier, including for would-be developers without computer science degrees. 

Since it launched in 1991, it has gained popularity among engineers and non-programmers alike, including data scientists, students, and business professionals. Dr. Chuck Severance, a clinical professor at the University of Michigan School of Information who teaches a 10-week Python course on Coursera, calls Python the "Netflix of programming."

It's approachable, widely useful, and extremely popular right now. In just the second week of August, nearly 8,000 people completed his course, and many former students have walked away with new jobs, he says. Python's popularity has grown largely because of the explosion in data science jobs, experts say, which the language is particularly well-suited for. 

Python even surpassed Oracle's Java for the first time in usage and popularity in 2019, according to GitHub, to become the second most-used language after the web programming language JavaScript. A June survey from developer-focused analyst firm RedMonk found the same results. Usage of Python on GitHub projects grew 151% last year.

"Python has been making an ascent," KellyAnn Fitzpatrick, industry analyst at RedMonk, told Business Insider. 

And not only is the language widely used and growing fast, developers love it. According to developer Q&A site Stack Overflow, Python is the third most loved programming language.

Python is a good beginners' language 

Because it's a relatively simple language, Python is increasingly used as to teach students how to program.

"The reason why Python is so popular is it's easy to learn," AnnElizabeth Konkel, economist at Indeed, told Business Insider. "It does not require cloud access and does not require excessive license. There are plenty of resources for people to learn how to download it, how to start learning. Also, it's versatile."

For the first time, Python overtook Java as the most-studied language in 2020, according to a survey from software developer company JetBrains. 30% of respondents have started, or continued, to learn Python, and many beginners and nonprofessional developers are using it, including in fields like medicine and government.

"It's so powerful and easy for beginners at the same time," Anastassiya Sichkarenko, marketing analyst at JetBrains, told Business Insider. "It has a great future."

Peter Wang, cofounder and CTO of the data science platform Anaconda, says that what makes Python special is how it can be used for so many types of tasks.

"The future of Python ties to the future of software development in general," Wang told Business Insider. "It's the future of machine learning. It will be a mainstay. Python will be a significant part of that movement. My hope is that it never loses its accessibility and never loses its roots as a pedigree in teaching language."

Languages that are good for web programming — like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — are not as useful for tasks like crunching or analyzing numbers as Python is. And while languages like Java and C# are well-suited for large teams working on large projects, Python is versatile enough for teams or individual projects. It's an easy language for beginners to start with, but also useful for enterprises. 

Another factor behind its rapid spread among developers is that it's an independent, open source language that's free for anyone to use or download, without a specific company pushing it. As a result, much of its growth has been organic. 

"Python has had a community focus that is unique among massively popular programming languages," Christopher Neugebauer, vice chair at the Python Software Foundation, told Business Insider. "It's not a language designed by a small number of people. It's been made available by collaboration over the Internet."

Today, apps like Instagram run on Python, and just recently, Facebook made one of its Python-based security projects — Pysa — available as open source. And there's a large ecosystem of popular Python projects, including the mathematical computing project NumPy,  the scientific computing project SciPy, and TensorFlow. And a crop of AI and data science companies have emerged based on Python, too. 

Read more: Everything you need to know about TensorFlow, Google's own home-made AI software that's now helping NASA discover planets and beating champions at Go

There's been a surge in jobs that need Python skills

Python is most often used in web development, data science, data analysis, statistics, machine learning, and scientific computing, like analyzing genes.

Data science has grown especially fast in the last five years, says Dmitry Trofimov, project lead for the Datalore project. As jobs like data scientists and data engineers have been growing, Python, too, has boomed. For example, data scientists may use Python to analyze how often people click on ads to better target them to customers.

"Python is definitely not slowing down," Trofimov told Business Insider. "It's accelerating. It's pretty stable and pretty fast, mostly because of data analytics and data science."

According to an Indeed report in November 2019, Python is the third most in demand tech skill and was listed in 18% of job postings.

Stack Overflow has also seen an increase in jobs that require Python. In 2017, there were 500 jobs per month on Stack Overflow that required Python skills.  In 2018, there were about 750 per month. It's now 1000 jobs per month.

Python programmers in the US make an average salary of $120,000, according to Stack Overflow, and $59,000 globally.

Still, as coronavirus pandemic has thrown nearly every industry into disarray, different organizations have seen different impacts on the demand for Python. 

On Indeed, there has been a decline in demand for data science jobs since March, along with other types of software engineering jobs, while companies are prioritizing jobs like IT and systems engineers to help employees working from home. Likewise, HackerRank saw a 27% decline in roles for Python developers during the pandemic.

However, HackerRank did see a 9% growth in demand for data scientists, who frequently use Python.

"The data that companies are working with right now is unprecedented, and has virtually no correlation to anything most companies have faced," Vivek Ravisankar, cofounder and CEO of HackerRank, told Business Insider. "It's confusing at best, and useless at worst due to the unique circumstances we're facing. This confusion brings an increased need for data scientists, who can parse through increasingly complex data and draw out trends and notable insights that could help companies get a leg up on their competitors."

The firm notes that it's possible this growth may have occurred even without the effects of COVID-19, since data science has been one of the fastest-growing job roles for several years already.

Even though the pandemic has put many tech companies under uncertainty, Indeed's Konkel says companies see data science as an investment, and many jobs outside tech — like medical research — require Python skills. 

"If someone was interested in learning Python pre-COVID, I would encourage it," Konkel said. "I wouldn't interpret it as a silver bullet."

The future of Python

In the last nine to twelve months, Stack Overflow has seen an acceleration in the number of questions asked about Python each day, though that rate exploded during the coronavirus pandemic. Starting in the second half of March, questions about Python went from 750 on average per day to between 1100 and 1200 questions. 

Jason Punyon, developer at Stack Overflow, suspects that this is because Python was already popular, but that during the pandemic, people have more time to pick up and toy with the language. 

Python is also a gateway language: It helps people learn about what programming is and become more confident about learning new languages. Because it's possible to pick it up without a computer science degree, Python can help narrow the diversity gap in programming, University of Michigan's Dr. Severance said. 

"If we think about economic justice and who your parents are and what economic status you lived in and where you were born, it's really difficult for a person that did not get born into an ideal situation to find their way into and survive a computer science degree," Severance said, citing how women and minorities have long been underrepresented in the programming field.

There are now more opportunities for people of all ages, races, genders, and economic backgrounds to learn programming through online resources, and he says that Python is "the enabler" for that. Tech does, of course, still have a long way to go, he added. 

"For me, I'm proud that I graduate more people than every computer science department in the whole world," Severance said. "To change the world in a positive way through technology, this is just the beginning."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.

SEE ALSO: A study co-authored by Microsoft found that developer interviews evaluate for stress, not actual coding skills. Now, companies are trying to fix that.

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• Last week, the wildly popular game "Fortnite" got an update on Apple and Android smartphones that allowed players to bypass Apple and Google's digital payment systems. Instead of Apple and Google, the payment went directly to "Fortnite" studio Epic Games.
• In response, Apple and Google pulled "Fortnite" from their respective digital storefronts and cited the update as a terms of service violation. Epic Games sued both companies shortly thereafter for what it says is anticompetitive behavior.
• On Monday, the legal saga got more complicated: Epic filed for a temporary restraining order against Apple to keep the company from "removing, de-listing, refusing to list or otherwise making
  unavailable the app 'Fortnite,' including any update thereof."
• Epic says that Apple is threatening to boot it from the Apple Developer Program — a move that Epic says would force it to discontinue iOS and Mac support for Unreal Engine, its popular game development software. That could mean big headaches for the many developers using Unreal Engine on iOS.
• If approved by a judge, the temporary restraining order could put "Fortnite" back on Apple's smartphone and tablets.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The legal battle between Apple and "Fortnite" maker Epic Games got another wrinkle on Monday: Epic Games filed a temporary restraining order against Apple with the intention of getting "Fortnite" back on Apple's App Store.

If granted by a judge, the restraining order would legally stop Apple from "removing, de-listing, refusing to list or otherwise making unavailable the app 'Fortnite,' including any update thereof." 

In short: It would put "Fortnite" back on the App Store, and stop Apple from blocking updates to the app.

Moreover, the filing revealed the potentially far-wider impact of Apple and Epic's legal fight. Epic will lose access to Apple's Developer Program by August 28th, the company said, if its app doesn't comply with App Store guidelines. This would mean that all of Epic's apps in the iOS App Store would be pulled from listing. Importantly, Epic says, getting booted from the program would also mean it can't access certain Apple technology for developers. 

Beyond "Fortnite," Epic also creates the Unreal Engine software suite – a set of software that's used to create games, including the smartphone versions of "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds."

Without access to Apple's developer technology, Epic says that it would be unable to issue updates to the Unreal Engine on iOS or Mac, which would in turn mean that any developer using the software to would be unable to update their own games to support the new versions of iOS and Mac OS coming this year. 

In its filing, Epic and CEO Tim Sweeney indicate that this would cause big problems for Unreal Engine users, who would have to undergo the significant challenge of retooling their games on iOS and Mac, as well as for Epic itself, which would have to discontinue support for Apple's platforms in the software.

"Fortnite" was pulled from Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store late last week following an update issued by Epic that allowed users to bypass Apple and Google's digital payment systems. Instead of buying in-game virtual money ("V-bucks") through Apple or Google, players could buy them directly from Epic – at a 30% discount, no less.

In response, the two main smartphone conglomerates pulled "Fortnite" from their respective digital storefronts. 

Epic Games, anticipating as much, filed suits against each company. Epic also published a parody of Apple's infamous 1984 advertisement, albeit within the "Fortnite" universe:

When reached for comment regarding Monday's filing from Epic Games, an Apple offered the following statement late on Monday night:

"The App Store is designed to be a safe and trusted place for users and a great business opportunity for all developers. Epic has been one of the most successful developers on the App Store, growing into a multibillion dollar business that reaches millions of iOS customers around the world," the statement said. "We very much want to keep the company as part of the Apple Developer Program and their apps on the Store. The problem Epic has created for itself is one that can easily be remedied if they submit an update of their app that reverts it to comply with the guidelines they agreed to and which apply to all developers. We won't make an exception for Epic because we don't think it's right to put their business interests ahead of the guidelines that protect our customers."

SEE ALSO: Apple and Google just got sued by the maker of the hugely popular video game 'Fortnite' over their app store policies. Here's what you need to know about the major antitrust battle it reignited.

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Hi! Welcome to the Insider Advertising daily for August 18. I'm Lauren Johnson, a senior advertising reporter at Business Insider. Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday. Send me feedback or tips at ljohnson@businessinsider.com

First, Business Insider is looking for nominations for the chief marketing officers to watch in 2020. Submit your nominations here by August 24.

Today's news: Spanish-language streaming service Vix vies for OTT ad dollars, Pizza Hut closes up to 300 locations, and influencers' most popular Instagram topics.

• Ashley Rodriguez reported that Spanish-language streaming company Vix launched in Brazil last week and is vying for a piece of the growing advertising video-on-demand market.
• Vix is competing against other ad-supported video services like Pluto TV and Tubi that are expanding internationally.
• Vix said it was on track to hit 10 million app installs and wants to build a direct sales team to sell advertising packages.

Read the full story here.

• NPC International, Pizza Hut's largest franchisee, said that it would close up to 300 locations after filing for bankruptcy in early July, reported Kate Taylor.
• The franchisee also plans to sell its Pizza Hut locations, which make up 20% of the company's total locations.
• In its Chapter 11 filing, NPC International said that the coronavirus provided some relief as pizza sales have increased but cited expensive safety measures that cost the company about $750,000 per month.

Read the full story here.

More stories we're reading:

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow! You can reach me in the meantime at ljohnson@businessinsider.com and subscribe to this daily email here.

— Lauren

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• An asteroid the size of a car flew within about 1,830 miles of Earth this weekend — closer than any known space rock has ever come without crashing into the planet.
• A NASA-funded program detected the asteroid, called 2020 QG, six hours after its close approach.
• If the asteroid had hit Earth, it probably would have exploded in the atmosphere in an airburst too high up to do any damage on the ground.
• But the near miss highlights a major blind spot in Earth's programs to search for dangerous asteroids.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A car-sized asteroid flew within about 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) of Earth on Sunday.

That's a remarkably close shave — the closest ever recorded, in fact, according to asteroid trackers and a catalog compiled by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy. 

Because of its size, the space rock likely wouldn't have posed any danger to people on the ground had it struck our planet. But the close call is worrisome nonetheless, since astronomers had no idea the asteroid existed until after it passed by.

"The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the sun," Paul Chodas, the director of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider. "We didn't see it coming."

Instead, the Palomar Observatory in California first detected the space rock about six hours after it flew by Earth.

Chodas confirmed the record-breaking nature of the event: "Yesterday's close approach is closest on record, if you discount a few known asteroids that have actually impacted our planet," he said.

NASA knows about only a fraction of near-Earth objects (NEOs) like this one. Many do not cross any telescope's line of sight, and several potentially dangerous asteroids have snuck up on scientists in recent years. If the wrong one slipped through the gaps in our NEO-surveillance systems, it could kill tens of thousands of people. 

2020 QG flew over the Southern Hemisphere

This recent near-Earth asteroid was initially called ZTF0DxQ but is now formally known to astronomers as 2020 QG. Business Insider first learned about it from Tony Dunn, the creator of the website orbitsimulator.com.

"Newly-discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ passed less than 1/4 Earth diameter yesterday, making it the closest-known flyby that didn't hit our planet," Dunn tweeted on Monday. He shared the animation below, republished here with permission.

The sped-up simulation shows the approximate orbital path of 2020 QG as it careened by at a speed of about 7.7 miles per second (12.4 kilometers per second) or about 27,600 mph.

Early observations suggest the space rock flew over the Southern Hemisphere just after 4 a.m. Universal Time (midnight ET) on Sunday.

The animation above shows 2020 QG flying over the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. However, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center calculated a slightly different trajectory. The group's rendering (shown at the beginning of this story), suggests the asteroid flew over the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles east of Australia.

Not dangerous, but definitely not welcome

As far as space rocks go, 2020 QG wasn't too dangerous.

Telescope observations suggest the object is between 6 feet (2 meters) and 18 feet (5.5 meters) wide — somewhere between the size of a small car and an extended-cab pickup truck. But even if it was on the largest end of that spectrum and made of dense iron (most asteroids are rocky), only small pieces of such an asteroid may have reached the ground, according to the "Impact Earth" simulator from Purdue University and Imperial College London.

Such an asteroid would have exploded in the atmosphere, creating a brilliant fireball and unleashing an airburst equivalent to detonating a couple dozen kilotons of TNT. That's about the same as one of the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945. But the airburst would have happened about 2 or 3 miles above the ground, so it wouldn't have sounded any louder than heavy traffic to people on the ground.

This doesn't make the asteroid's discovery much less unnerving, though — it does not take a huge space rock to create a big problem.

Take, for example, the roughly 66-foot-wide (20-meter) asteroid that exploded without warning over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013. That space rock created a superbolide event, unleashing an airburst equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT — about 30 Hiroshima nuclear bombs' worth of energy. The explosion, which began about 12 miles (20 kilometers) above Earth, triggered a blast wave that shattered windows in six Russian cities and injured about 1,500 people.

And in July 2019, a 427-foot (130-meter) asteroid called 2019 OK passed within 45,000 miles (72,400 kilometers) of our planet, or less than 20% of the distance between Earth and the moon. Astronomers detected that rock less than a week before its closest approach, leading one scientist to tell The Washington Post that the asteroid essentially appeared "out of nowhere."

In an unlikely direct hit to a city, such a wayward space rock might kill tens of thousands of people.

NASA is actively scanning the skies for such threats, as Congress has required it to do since 2005. However, the agency is mandated to detect only 90% of "city killer" space rocks larger than about 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter.

In May 2019, NASA said it had found less than half of the estimated 25,000 objects of that size or larger. And of course, that doesn't count smaller rocks such as the Chelyabinsk and 2019 OK asteroids.

Objects that come from the direction of the sun, meanwhile — like 2020 QG — are notoriously difficult to spot.

"There's not much we can do about detecting inbound asteroids coming from the sunward direction, as asteroids are detected using optical telescopes only (like ZTF), and we can only search for them in the night sky," Chodas said. "The idea is that we discover them on one of their prior passages by our planet, and then make predictions years and decades in advance to see whether they have any possibility of impacting."

NASA has a plan to address these gaps in its asteroid-hunting program. The agency is in the early stages of developing a space telescope that could detect asteroids and comets coming from the sun's direction. NASA's 2020 budget allotted nearly $36 million for that telescope, called the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission. If funding continues, it could launch as early as 2025.

This story has been updated with new information.

SEE ALSO: 16 plutonium-powered space missions shaping our understanding of space — including the NASA rover that will search for alien life on Mars

DON'T MISS: NASA added 6 HD video cameras to its next Mars rover so we can all watch the first footage of a spacecraft landing on another planet

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