• Walmart and Amazon's pickup lockers allow shoppers to place orders online and pick them up in stores, rather than having their packages shipped home. 
• Walmart has pickup towers in 700 stores. Amazon has more than 2,000 locker locations. 
• We compared the two online-order pickup systems and found there was a clear winner. 

Walmart and Amazon's pickup lockers allow shoppers to place orders online and pick them up in stores, rather than having them shipped home. 

In April, Walmart announced it would be adding pickup towers to 700 of its stores, making the option to pick up orders available to 40% of the United States. 

Likewise, Amazon has installed lockers in thousands of locations in more than 70 cities across the US. Shoppers are able to ship orders directly to the nearest locker location instead of their homes. Prime members can still get free two-day or same-day shipping to lockers, depending on their location. 

In-store pickup is supposed to make shopping easier by allowing customers to skip lines and get their items right away, without having to pay higher rates for shipping. The service is also meant to help prevent package theft. 

Amazon Lockers offer the additional perk of allowing shoppers to make returns. Regardless of where the product was delivered, you can drop it off in a locker to return it. Walmart's pickup towers do not offer a similar feature. 

Both the Walmart pickup towers and Amazon Lockers have their limits — larger products can't be delivered to either one. However, Walmart is working to change this with its own pickup lockers, which can hold larger items like TVs. The pickup lockers are currently being tested at 10 Walmart stores in the Washington, DC, area. 

We tested out both pickup systems for online orders and found one was much easier to use than the other: 

SEE ALSO: We walked around Long Island City, the New York neighborhood where Amazon is reportedly planning to bring HQ2, and saw why it'd be appealing to the e-commerce giant

I used Walmart's pickup towers first.

I ordered two small products on Walmart's website and then selected "pickup" at checkout. Choosing pickup saved me $5.99 in shipping fees.

I chose my location and filled out the fields as prompted.

• Emma Stone made an appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Thursday.
• During the show, Stone said she was "super blonde" growing up and "wanted to be called Emma because of Baby Spice."'
• Emma Bunton, or Baby Spice, was one of the five members of the Spice Girls.
• The girl group announced on Monday that they will reunite, without Victoria Beckham, for a tour in the UK starting June 2019.

Emma Stone has revealed that she changed her first name after being inspired by the Spice Girls.

During an appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Thursday, Stone said she was "super blonde" growing up and "wanted to be called Emma because of Baby Spice."

"And guess what? Now I am," the actress, whose real first name is Emily, continued.

Stone, who previously said in a 2017 interview with W Magazine that she changed her name because there was another actress in the industry named Emily Stone, also told host Jimmy Fallon that she asked her second-grade teacher to call her Emma because of Baby Spice.

Read more: 41 celebrities who were born with very different names

Emma Bunton, or Baby Spice, was one of the five members of the Spice Girls. The girl group announced on Monday that they will reunite, without Victoria Beckham, for a tour in the UK starting June 2019.

Beckham, who was known as Posh Spice, later wished her former bandmates "so much love" in a post on Instagram.

"I won't be joining my girls on stage again but being in the Spice Girls was a hugely important part of my life and I wish them so much love and fun as they go back on tour next year," the singer wrote.

"I know they will put on an amazing show and the fantastic fans past and present are going to have a wonderful time!" Beckham continued.

Watch the video of Stone talking about her name change below, which starts around the 0:25 mark.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

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NOW WATCH: The first woman in space almost didn't make it back to Earth and she had to keep it a secret for 30 years

• The death toll from the still-raging California wildfires has risen to 23 after 14 bodies were recovered Saturday, the Butte County sheriff said.
• The Woolsey and Hill fires are burning on the outskirts of LA, and now stretch more than 100 square miles across the area, authorities said.
• The Camp Fire in northern California destroyed an entire town in less than a day and has killed at least nine people. Authorities said it was 25% contained by Sunday morning.
• The flames are being fueled by dry, hot conditions as well as strong winds.
• California wildfires are becoming so frequent and pervasive that officials there say there's almost no need for the term "wildfire season" anymore.

Three dangerous wildfires are raging in California.

The Butte County Sheriff announced Saturday that 14 additional bodies were recovered — some found in cars and houses — bringing the death toll to 23 so far.

The Camp Fire, in northern California, started Thursday morning and quickly charred the entire town of Paradise, which is home to 27,000.

The flames grew so fast — at a pace of 80 football fields per minute— that four people were burned to death in their cars, the Butte County sheriff Korey Honea told the Associated Press. One deceased person was found near a vehicle.

According to the sheriff, the department has received 35 missing persons reports. So far, at least nine people have died as a result of the Camp Fire. In addition to those found in or near a vehicle, one person was found inside a home.

Authorities announced Saturday that two people were found dead in Malibu after the Woolsey and Hill fires raged over 100 square miles of Southern California.

As of 7 a.m. PT on Sunday, the Camp Fire had burned 109,000 acres and was 25% contained.

More than 6,700 structures were destroyed. The Camp Fire is now considered the most destructive wildfire in California history in terms of the number of structures destroyed.

To the south, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, two smaller fires also started Thursday and are now creating havoc for drivers and forcing homeowners to flee. The Woolsey and Hill Fires are burning through parts of Ventura and LA counties. The flames have threatened the homes of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian West and shut down stretches of the 101 freeway.

By Sunday morning, CalFire reported the Wollsey Fire had burned over 83,000 acres and was 5% contained, and the Hill Fire had burned over 4,500 acres and was 65% contained.

Inside the city limits of LA, another smaller fire broke out Friday morning in Griffith Park near the zoo. Firefighters scrambled to reach the area by helicopter since the area was not accessible by truck. The fire scorched about 30 acres before it was fully extinguished Friday.

Southern California fire officials say the flames have burned at least 150 homes. They say that number is likely to increase.

Already this year, 7,578 fires have burned across California, fueled by hot, dry conditions and aggressive winds.

Camp Fire kills at least 9 people

The Camp Fire started about 6:30 a.m. on Thursday. So far, more than 6,700 structures have burned, and thousands more are threatened.

According to the Butte County sheriff's office, five of the people whose deaths have been confirmed were found near Edgewood Lane in Paradise, California, in or near "vehicles that were overcome by the Camp Fire." The sheriff's office was not yet able to identify those victims because of their burn injuries. Other residents ran from the fire, the Sacramento Bee reported.

California Acting Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Butte County because of the Camp Fire Thursday, and sent a letter to President Donald Trump and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) asking for federal assistance.

Smoke from that fire is blanketing wide swaths of Northern California in a gray haze. On Friday morning, people in San Francisco woke up to the smell of smoke and poor air quality, and some donned masks to protect their lungs.

Federal air monitors have suggested that older adults, children, teens, and people with heart and lung conditions should limit their time outside because of the high number of dangerously small pollutants in the air. The air in San Francisco right now is as bad as Beijing, CBS reported.

Hill and Woolsey fires swallow 100 square miles in Ventura and LA counties

Authorities announced Saturday two people were found dead near Mulholland Highway in Malibu Los Angeles County sheriff’s Chief John Benedict said. Benedict did not explain further, saying detectives are investigating.

Late Friday night, fire officials downgraded the Hill Fire to 4,500 acres burned in Ventura County, and mandatory evacuation orders are in place for people at the Point Mugu Naval Base and California State University Channel Islands, among other areas. The blaze was 65% contained as of 7 a.m. local time Sunday.

The Woolsey Fire (the one that forced Kim and Kourtney Kardashian out of their homes) has charred 129 square miles, and CalFire said the blaze was only 5% contained as of 7 a.m. PT on Sunday.

Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in areas including Malibu, Topanga, and Thousand Oaks (the same city where a mass shooter killed 12 people on Wednesday), the LA Times reported.

"Imminent threat! Malibu lakes residents must leave area immediately," the LA County fire department wrote on Twitter Friday morning.

Shortly after noon on Friday, the City of Malibu said on its website that the "fire is now burning out of control and heading into populated areas of Malibu. All residents must evacuate immediately."LA County Sheriff's Deputies were knocking on doors there, telling everyone in the star-studded beach town to get out.

You can view the full evacuation orders on the Ventura County Emergency Information site and the LA County Woolsey Fire site.

As a result of the blazes, 250,000 people in Ventura and LA counties had been evacuated as of Friday night, the Times said.

By Friday evening, about 75% of the Ventura County city of Thousand Oaks had been abandoned, fire officials said according to the Associated Press.

Firefighters are racing to keep flames from charring people's homes, but as the LA Fire Department's Eric Scott pointed out on Twitter, some houses are better protected than others, since green vegetation can help keep flames back.

On Friday morning, less than 24 hours after the two fires broke out, acting Gov. Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Read More: Why wildfire season is getting longer and stronger

The fires forced the 101 freeway to shut down in a couple different areas.

In Ventura County, a nine-mile southbound stretch from Wendy Drive to Lewis Road where the Hill Fire raged, was closed. In LA County, a section of the freeway from the Mulholland Drive/Valley Circle Boulevard exit to Reyes Adobe Road was closed to traffic both ways after flames from the Woolsey Fire jumped across the highway.

Many of the Ventura County public schools closed on Friday, as well as Pepperdine University, Moorpark Community College, California State University Channel Islands, and Cal Lutheran University.

Wildfire "season," in California used to run from late summer through the fall, since autumn's Santa Ana winds help blow flames around.

But as the planet heats up, unseasonably high temperatures and drought conditions are becoming more common. So fire officials in the state are succumbing to the idea that fires may not be limited to any specific season anymore.

Bryan Logan contributed reporting.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

SEE ALSO: A California wildfire just demolished an entire town and forced the Kardashians to evacuate. Here’s why wildfire season is getting longer and stronger.

DON'T MISS: Here's what the wildfires look like on the ground

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NOW WATCH: A 'firenado' is a real thing — here’s how the dangerous phenomenon forms

• Political arguments can have the power to ruin your relationships, or become intensely divisive. 
• Jeanne Safer, a liberal psychotherapist, created the podcast "I Love You But I Hate You Politics" to help people find ways to discuss their political opinions without getting into bitter fights.
• Safer has been married to a conservative editor for almost 40 years, and she manages to avoid political arguments with her husband by using a few conversational strategies. 
• Below are eight tips culled from her own experience, and her podcast guests, on how to discuss politics with friends and family — without ruining your relationships. 

We're in perilous times for political dialogue across the aisle.

Many people think it's no longer even possible to have cordial political discussion. According to my patients, my podcast guests, and the 50 people I interviewed for my forthcoming book on the topic, far too many people — romantic partners, friends, family members — are engaging in bruising political arguments that accomplish nothing except irreparably harming their relationships.

A man familiar with my work wrote me that his sister-in-law had called off her engagement over a difference of opinion with her fiancé about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Senate hearing, and another man emailed me that he and his brother had unfriended each other on Facebook for the same reason.

But regardless of the wreckage we are seeing, often abetted by the partisan media and the internet, there is hope!

Take my relationship, for example. I'm a committed liberal psychotherapist and author. My husband, Rick Brookhiser, is a senior editor of the "National Review," the leading journal of conservative opinion. We agree about almost nothing political, yet he and I have managed to remain civil for almost 40 years.

How did we accomplish this astonishing feat?

We've learned how to talk about politics, and what not to talk about — and we agree about almost everything else.

In the run-up to the midterm elections, political arguments have become even more acrid, and we desperately need help communicating with the many people in our lives who are on the other side. I've created a podcast called "I Love You But I HATE Your Politics," where I interviewed 50 people in bipartisan couples of all sorts, and I showcase those who have figured out how to communicate about hot-button issues without mutually assured destruction, so that listeners can be inspired to try these techniques themselves. In the most recent episode — coming soon! — I interviewed my husband.

Below are some recommendations culled from what my guests have learned, from my own experience as a psychotherapist, and what I know from my own marriage. Here's how to cultivate civility in political disputes.

1. Do not raise your voice

Your opponent will likely interpret even a slight increase in volume as shouting, and will stop listening as a result. Rational discussion will then become impossible.

When discussing politics with my husband,  if I think before I speak, and make sure I'm not communicating in a tone that could be construed as contempt, dismissal, or outrage — which a raised voice does — he is more receptive and less defensive. Using this tactic, we were able to have a conversation about Roe v. Wade — my premier hot-button issue, which he believes should be overturned — that was civil and thoughtful. This hadn't been possible years ago, before I understood  that the tone and volume in which I expressed myself is more important than what I actually said.

2. Friends don't let friends drink and discuss politics

It's hard enough to react well in difficult conversations when you're stone-cold sober, let alone when you've had a few drinks.

Two interview subjects of mine, a gay couple who are both supporters of President Donald Trump, were in the habit of getting into political arguments about Trump's character after they had quite a few drinks. This inevitably led to yelling (see tactic number one, above), slammed doors, and, on one occasion, a smashed cell phone. Shortly thereafter they agreed to never mix alcohol and politics.

3. Never send an unsolicited partisan article from your side of a contentious issue to your mate, relative, or friend

Thrusting an unsolicited article on someone is an automatic turn-off, and will not get your point across.

The way to share partisan articles with your friend or partner is doing it like two of my podcast guests, Harry and Allan, did. Allan wrote a note to Harry, saying, "Harry, if I gave you an article expressing my viewpoint on something, would you read it? Of course, I'll read something you send me as well." 

And he only did it once.

4. If the two of you can't talk about a political issue, simply don't talk about it

There are lots of people on your side that you can talk to instead of the person with whom you can't have a civil conversation about the issue.

Make avoidance of destructive controversy a joint decision, and don't violate the contract. Part of maturity is recognizing that there are some issues that cannot be discussed without misery ensuing.

This isn't just true about politics, it applies to other issues, as well — your partner's mother, for example. You can still be true to your beliefs without foisting them on an unwilling audience.

There are plenty of other people who agree with you and who would be eager to discuss the very things that are taboo in your intimate relationship.

5. Do not start any political conversation with, 'How can your side possibly think...?'

This is not a conversation-starter. It's an indictment. You automatically turn off the other person by signalling that you abhor his or her stance, and you won't have a rational or amicable discussion after delivering an insult.

6. Do not read your politically-divergent partner's political posts on social media

You probably already know what you'll find, and it will come back to haunt you.

Consider doing this as much of a taboo as reading the other person's diary, even though online comments are public. People are pathologically uninhibited online. They tend to be more restrained and more receptive when they talk directly — so do that instead.

7. Never conduct a political argument via email or text

It may seem more convenient, but texts and email are  easy to misinterpret, and offensively impersonal. If you really want to talk about something, call or arrange to meet in person.

8. This is the hardest and most important principle of all: Stop trying to change the other person's mind, no matter how compelling it is to try

It is a universal fantasy that we can change other people, especially the ones we love. Thinking you can is a refusal to accept the limits of your influence over others. Giving up your desire to change someone — whether you're trying to make an unresponsive person love you, or a politically-opposed person agree with you — might be difficult, but once you do, you will improve the quality of your communication.

Constant attempts to convert your opponent will likely only make your fights worse. 

Using these same guidelines, my husband and I have found a way to talk about politics, and I've learned a great deal about how people outside my own perspective think and feel. This has been especially delightful during the Trump administration, because it is the first time we actually agree about a president: We both abhor his character.

Most of the time, though, we prefer to talk about topics other than politics, things that seem more fundamental and more fruitful to our relationship, like the books we're writing and reading, our many shared interests in music and the arts, human nature, and psychology.

So now is an excellent time to strike a blow for civility in your home or office, and good practice for 2020. If you make an effort to live by these rules, your partner will appreciate them — and you might actually even begin to enjoy talking about politics.

Jeanne Safer, Phd has been a psychoanalyst and relationship specialist in private practice for 44 years. She is host of the podcast "I Love You, But I HATE Your Politics." Her book of the same name will be published in April 2019 by St. Martins Press.

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NOW WATCH: Trump once won a lawsuit against the NFL — but the result was an embarrassment

• Incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Democrats were prepared to challenge acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker's legitimacy in overseeing the special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
• Speaking on Sunday's "Meet the Press," Schiff said if Whitaker did not recuse himself from the investigation, he would be "called to answer" by Democrats' full discoveries about any "commitments to the president" in his role.
• After Attorney General Jeff Sessions was fired last week, Whitaker assumed authority over the Russia investigation and the special counsel Robert Mueller and has been the subject of widespread reports and statements questioning his independence as an official.

Incoming House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff warned that any of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker's ulterior motives in overseeing the special counsel Robert Mueller's probe would be exposed if he did not recuse himself from the investigation.

Schiff told host Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Democrats were prepared to challenge Whitaker's legitimacy in overseeing the Russia investigation and Mueller.

"I want to make this very clear, if he doesn't recuse himself, if he has any involvement whatsoever in this Russia probe we are going to find out whether he made commitments to the president about the probe," Schiff said. "Whether he is serving as a back channel to the president or his lawyers about the probe, whether he's doing anything to interfere with the probe."

He continued: "Mr. Whitaker needs to understand that he will be called to answer. Any role that he plays will be exposed to the public. We don't want there to be any ambiguity about that."

Since he was announced as Jeff Sessions' successor, Whitaker's independence has been widely questioned due to his past record and statements on the Justice Department's authority and the Mueller probe.

The Washington Post reported last week that Whitaker does not plan to recuse himself and would block Mueller from subpoenaing Trump if the president does not agree to a sit-down interview.

Read more: While he was Jeff Sessions' top aide, Matthew Whitaker reportedly advised Trump on how he could force the DOJ to cave to his demands

Department of Justice ethics officials will reportedly examine Whitaker's work and public record to determine any financial or personal conflicts that could interfere with his oversight of the Russia probe. The officials may then make a recommendation, but Whitaker would not be legally required to follow it.

Schiff's comments are the latest call from Democrats on Whitaker's legitimacy for the role and calls for him to recuse himself.

Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said on ABC's "This Week" that Whitaker has shown "total hostility" to the investigation and his "appointment is simply part of an attack" on the special counsel.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on CNN's "State of the Union" that he, along with other top Democrats, sent a letter advising recusal to the Justice Department's chief ethics officer.

"Allowing a vocal opponent of the investigation to oversee it will severely undermine public confidence in the Justice Department’s work on this critically important matter," the letter said.

Watch Schiff's interview below:

SEE ALSO: Macron condemned the rise of nationalism in front of Trump and Putin, warning that 'old demons are reawakening

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• Alibaba made e-commerce history on Sunday, with $30.8 billion in sales over the last 24 hours as part of the company's massive Singles' Day celebration. 
• The $30.8 billion in generated sales is a significant increase from 2017, when customers spent $25.3 billion. 
• For comparison, total online sales on Black Friday reached $5 billion in 2017, according to Adobe Analytics data. Cyber Monday sales last year reached about $6.6 billion. 

SHANGHAI, China — Alibaba just made e-commerce history. 

With the company's massive Singles' Day celebration on 11/11 — November 11 — coming to a close, Alibaba reports that customers spent $30.8 billion online over the last 24 hours. That is a significant increase from the $25.3 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) Alibaba shoppers spent in 2017. 

Alibaba's Singles' Day celebration is the biggest shopping day of the year, as the company dominates the Chinese e-commerce market. Shoppers — primarily in China, though the company is increasingly offering Singles' Day deals in new countries — flock to Alibaba sites including Taobao.com and Tmall.com. 

More than one billion delivery orders were placed over the course of the 24 hours, the first time Alibaba's Singles' Day sales surpassed the billion-package landmark. Last year, 812 million orders were placed on 11/11. 

Total online sales on Black Friday reached $5 billion in 2017, according to Adobe Analytics data. Cyber Monday sales were roughly $6.6 billion. 

"Everywhere I go, which is pretty much everywhere in the world, there are not very many people who do not know about 11/11," Alibaba's president, Michael Evans, told Business Insider in an interview on Sunday.

"Many people ask the question — how can we participate next year? People are very interested, I think partly because they've heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and they think that's quite big." 

He continued: "They've heard of Amazon Prime Day. But, we sold as much in five minutes as Amazon sold in an entire Prime Day." 

Alibaba exceeded $4.68 billion in GMV in less than 10 minutes after 11/11 kicked off on Sunday morning. 

While not an exact match, Alibaba's Singles' Day is similar to Amazon's Prime Day in many ways. Both "holidays" were created or built up for pretty much the sole purpose of offering deals and pushing sales. 

However, Singles' Day is far larger than Prime Day. While Amazon does not release Prime Day sales figures, total online sales are estimated to have topped $4.2 billion over the company's 36-hour Prime Day event in July 2018, according to Wedbush Securities Inc. analyst Michael Pachter.

Alibaba was crucial in making Singles' Day, previously an obscure holiday observed by just a handful of companies, a massive cultural phenomenon over the last decade. This is the 10th year that the company has celebrated 11/11. 

As the company celebrated a decade of Singles' Day, Alibaba executives emphasized the need to find new ways to continue to evolve, whether that means expanding in different regions or exploring new types of business. This year, more than 20 Alibaba-owned businesses including online shopping site Taobao, delivery platform Ele.me, and supermarket chain Hema participated in 11/11 deals. 

"Philosophically, how we look at whether we got into one business or another ... we never ask ourselves whether this is a lucrative area or whether it's going to be a commercially successful thing," Alibaba cofounder and executive vice chairman Joe Tsai told Business Insider.

"We do things out of necessity and we do things out of fear," Tsai continued, citing Alibaba's 2003 launch of Taobao to shut down the threat of eBay expanding in China.

"There's a high sense of paranoia within the company." 

SEE ALSO: Alibaba just eclipsed Amazon's estimated Prime Day sales in less than 10 minutes

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• LinkedIn just released its report on the most recruited jobs of 2018, and the top job is a DevOps engineer.
• DevOps is a term combining "development" and "operations," two vital roles on any software team. 
• Interest in DevOps has increased over the past few years, both for recruiters and investors.
• Engineers see DevOps more as a mindset than a job, but DevOps engineers still need strong skills in writing, testing, and delivering on a faster basis. 

Turns out the hottest job of 2018 could be that of a DevOps engineer.

LinkedIn just released its report on the most-recruited jobs of 2018, showing that DevOps engineer was the most recruited job, followed by enterprise account executives and frontend engineers, in second and third place, respectively. 

This job is in high demand, and the money shows it. According to Indeed, job postings for DevOps engineers shot up 91 percent between 2014 and 2017. And the average base salary cashes in at $125,714, per the same data.

According to the LinkedIn report, DevOps engineers are also the most recruited jobs specific to the engineering field, followed by frontend engineers and cloud architects.

So what does a DevOps engineer do, anyway?

The term “DevOps” is a portmanteau of “Development” and “Operations,” two roles that are vital to the field of software engineering. In short, the term refers to tools and practices that help engineers deliver and fix code on a more regular and faster basis, often multiple times a day — a practice pioneered by Facebook and its cohort. 

Before, developer teams would build and test the code, while operations teams would deploy and monitor the code. A DevOps engineer does both, and generally carries the end-to-end responsibility of developing, testing, deploying, monitoring and improving the code.

That said, the relatively flashy new job title can be somewhat vague, and the responsibilities of the role can differ across companies.

Indeed, Engineers argue that “DevOps” is more of a culture and mindset, rather than a single job. A DevOps engineer’s responsibilities can overlap with other types of engineers, such as site reliability engineers. And like other software engineers, DevOps engineers have to collaborate with their team to write and restructure code.

At the same time, these engineers have to have the right skills to back up this mindset. DevOps engineers have to ensure that the software will work across different platforms, as well as frequently test and deploy their code.

To become a DevOps engineer, one should be able to use open source technologies and automation tools, as well as have strong skills in testing, coding and scripting. People skills are also crucial, as the DevOps philosophy requires more collaboration among, well, developers and operations. 

Still, the very concept of DevOps has become a hot commodity in Silicon Valley:  Investors are putting massive amounts of cash into DevOps startups that help their teams take advantage of this mindset. In that light, it's not surprising that companies are hiring for DevOps talent, too. 

As for the rest of the top three: Frontend engineers build the user interface of websites and apps, which is a crucial part of any software team. Enterprise account executives manage business relationships with a company's large customers, which speaks to the importance of the sales function. 

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• On Saturday, Justin Bieber posted a black-and-white photo of him and Hailey Baldwin kissing.
• Bieber captioned the intimate shot, "Hunny buns punkin," an apparent reference to the model.
• In the comments section under the post, people could not get enough of the singer's nickname for Baldwin, which appears to be a take on both "honey buns" and "pumpkin."
• Fans called the couple everything from "love birds" to "perfect" to the "cutest ever."
• Since Bieber and Baldwin confirmed they got engaged in July, neither has commented publicly on their marital status.

Justin Bieber called Hailey Baldwin a nickname in a recent Instagram post, much to the delight of their fans.

On Saturday, the singer posted a black-and-white photo of the couple kissing in a close embrace. Beiber captioned the intimate shot, "Hunny buns punkin," an apparent reference to the model.

In the comments section under the post, people could not get enough of the singer's nickname for Baldwin, which appears to be a take on both "honey buns" and "pumpkin."

Fans called the couple everything from "love birds" to "perfect" to the "cutest ever."

Bieber and Baldwin, who met in 2009, have been romantically linked several times — first in 2015, and then again in 2016. In July, one month after they appeared to rekindle their relationship, the pair confirmed they got engaged.

Since then, neither Baldwin nor Bieber has commented publicly on their marital status. However, in September, people speculated that they were secretly married after the couple was reportedly spotted at a New York City courthouse where marriage licenses are issued, according to TMZ.

At the time, an unnamed "religious source" told People that Baldwin and Bieber were legally married in the courthouse but are planning to have a "big blowout" with friends and family "soon."

Last month, Baldwin also filed to register the name "Hailey Bieber" for the purposes of a clothing line, The Blast reported.

According to a document found on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website, the trademark application was filed through Baldwin's company, Rhodedeodato Corp — a combination of the model's middle name, Rhode, and her mother's maiden name, Deodato — on October 10.

Read more: Hailey Baldwin is trying to trademark the name 'Hailey Bieber' weeks after she and Justin Bieber were reportedly spotted getting a marriage license

Bieber and Baldwin have also allegedly told fans that they are married. According to Us Weekly, the couple reportedly "simultaneously said yes" when a fan in Los Angeles asked them if they were married on October 16.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

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• An "SNL" rap called "Permission" that features Future and Lil Wayne is hilarious but also sends a great message about consent reflective of the #MeToo movement.
• Throughout the song, the characters try to prove that they respect women and that they are allies, and willing to learn how to be better.
• The characters even wear Time's Up pins and say, "we're allies in this b----."

An "SNL" rap about butts from Saturday night that features Future and Lil Wayne is hilarious but also sends an important message about consent.

"Permission" starts off introducing the "Booty Kings" played by Chris Redd, Kenan Thompson, and Pete Davidson (as a character called "Uncle Butt").

They're in a music video that appears to be a rap about women's' butts. One of the first things Redd's character says is, "I'm nasty, I'll bite your booty like an apple."

But things take an unexpected turn when Redd and Thompson's characters accept that two women are not interested in them at all.

"Okay sorry, we're just here with our friends," one of the women says. When the Booty Kings tell the women it's cool and to have a good night, the woman, shocked, replies, "Wait? You're just going to respect our wishes?"

The Booty Kings say, "Hell yeah. Times have changed. We have some new respect for stuff."

Then they rap things like, "Drop that booty if you wanna" and, "Shake that booty, it's your choice." Later in the song, they wear Time's Up pins.

Future and Lil Wayne (Saturday night's musical guest) appeared later in the song as themselves.

You can watch "Permission" below:

SEE ALSO: Robert De Niro returns to 'SNL' as Robert Mueller to say farewell to Jeff Sessions

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• The Nudge is a text messaging service that sends messages to its community of subscribers, trying to get people off their phones and off on adventures in the San Francisco Bay Area. 
• The company was co-founded by the brother and sister team of John and Sarah Peterson. 
• The company raised $540,000 in "pre-seed" round in July and will be expanding to Seattle in the coming months, after some early success in San Francisco. 
• When asked about starting a company as siblings, John told us: "It's kind of intense sometimes, to be honest."

Sarah Peterson was working for Apple in Munich, Germany when she found out that her older brother John was starting his own company.

That company, called Livday, created daily itineraries for people exploring new cities. The plans told users not only where to hike and which museums to explore, but also where to get a coffee beforehand, and where to grab a post-adventure meal.

Sarah was obsessed. She created over 50 Livday plans while living overseas, trying to convince John to expand his operations to Munich. 

Instead, the siblings decided to team up for a grander plan, and Sarah moved back to San Francisco. She quit her job at Apple and, together with her brother, rebranded the company as The Nudge, with John as CEO and Sarah as chief marketing officer.

In a recent interview with the family duo, John told me that most people are pretty bad with their free time and often rely on that one "planner friend" to create an exciting, weekend itinerary. 

"The Nudge is that planner friend in your pocket," he explains. 

Available only in San Francisco for now, The Nudge sends text messages, usually close to the weekend, to its users, giving them ideas of fun things to do in and out of the city. 

Some of the most successful "nudges," Sarah tells me, were a hike to the Tourist Club (a beer garden atop the San Francisco Bay Area's Mt. Tamalpais, only open to guests on certain days of the year) and a run with the Electric Flight Club (an "exclusive fitness and social club" with a chapter in the Bay Area).

The idea, the duo says, is to help encourage people to stop checking their phone and start having real-life experiences. 

Get up and go

The Nudge's primary goal is to get people to get off their rear ends and go have adventures, but John tells me that's not an easy task. 

"There's a reason why technology has not really figured this space out yet for people because it's just hard," he explains. "People are lazy. Psychology is complicated. You're trying to compete with something that is very similar to an actual cocaine addiction and checking of Instagram." 

To help them with this undertaking, the Peterson's raised a $540,000 "pre-seed" round in July with NextView Ventures as its lead investor. To date, The Nudge says it has over 10,000 subscribers in San Francisco.

The Nudge is free to download for now, but the team is considering making it a subscription service, so as to avoid having to rely on advertising.  The company has also tested paid products that "nudge" its users in other parts of their lives — like fitness. 

One recent pilot program, called The Fit 30 Nudge was launched nationally and texted people daily workout routines. To keep users accountable, the team created a "sweaty selfie-tracker" that prompted users to take a selfie after each workout. Around 2,000 people participated in the Fit 30 Nudge, which cost $19 to sign up. 

The Nudge app's user base is 70% female and Sarah — the company's CMO — tells me that 1 in 10 millennial women in San Francisco is subscribed to the Nudge. 

The team believes that the personal touch of SMS texting has been a key to their success thus far. They experimented with other mediums — like newsletters, calendar integrations, and Slack bots — but found those to be much less effective when it came to helping people find their initiative. 

Those receiving SMS messages had a different perception of the interaction as well."The text people would be like, 'Oh, you're one of my friends who texts me what to do in my free time,'" John explains. "Texting is a sacred thing."

How to make a Nudge

For the 34-year-old former consultant, The Nudge has been four long years in the making.

Like many Silicon Valley startups of legend, John worked out of his garage. This time, though, the garage was also his roommate's woodworking studio. He spent months covered in dust and wearing a construction mask to help him breathe. 

Today, the future is looking brighter for The Nudge. The team has grown to five employees and will be expanding to Seattle in the next few months — its first market outside of the Bay Area. 

As for a brother-sister duo leading the way, John and Sarah say it's been mostly positive thus far. 

"You don't waste any time," John says. "But it's kind intense sometimes, to be honest. We're siblings. We have a lifetime of experience together, so things can get intense. But it's good. It's productive." 

"You do need to unlearn some habits with the person," Sarah explains. "You might have a more fiery opinion on something, and I think that can be good and bad. We moved really quickly in the beginning because we didn't have to spend time building respect or trust with each other. We could just have a healthy debate and move on." 

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• The latest animated movie by the studio behind "Despicable Me" and "Minions" has another hit with "The Grinch."
• This most recent retelling of the classic Dr. Seuss story won the weekend box office with $66 million.
• This opening bests the 2000 Jim Carrey-starring version, which had a $55 million opening.
• But it wasn't good news for "The Girl in the Spider's Web." The $40 million-plus reboot of the Lisbeth Salander franchise only had an $8 million opening.

It seems like everyone is already in the holiday spirit as the latest telling of the Dr. Seuss classic, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" took a nice bite out of the US box office over the weekend.

The most recent title from animation studio Illumination (creators of "Despicable Me,""Minions," and "Sing") has definitely put a smile on Universal's face, which releases the animation studio's works. The movie took in an estimated $66 million to easily win the weekend.

Benedict Cumberbatch had the task of voicing the green menace of Whoville and seems to have passed with flying colors. Previously, the holiday classic was told with the ambitious live-action 2000 release, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," with Jim Carrey playing the title role.

That had a $55 million opening and went on to earn over $345 million worldwide.

Read more:Netflix's Oscar contender 'Roma' will not be shown at Alamo Drafthouse in a big blow to its exclusive theatrical run

While Universal/Illumination found success dusting off a known property, Sony/MGM/New Regency didn't have the same luck with "The Girl in the Spider's Web."

The latest American release from the beloved Millennium book series that features the adventures of hacker Lisbeth Salander, "Spider's Web" comes seven years after the US kickoff of the franchise with "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Helmed by David Fincher and starring Rooney Mara in the Salander role, the movie opened with a soft $12.7 million opening (made for $90 million) but went on to earn a solid $232.6 million worldwide.

Sony will have to work a lot harder to make back its money this time. The revamp of the franchise with Claire Foy in the lead and Fede Alvarez ("Don't Breathe") directing didn't excite audiences, as the movie only took in $8 million over the weekend (its production budget was around $40 million).

SEE ALSO: "The Girl in the Spider's Web" director explains how "The Crown" convinced him Claire Foy should be his lead, and why he hopes some people will leave the movie "pissed"

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NOW WATCH: How 'The Price Is Right' is made

Every year, migrants send hundreds of billions of dollars worth of remittances back to friends and family in their home country. And there's a massive industry that facilitates these payments — and has for more than a century. 

The legacy remittance industry has been long dominated by cash, which requires physical locations where customers can hand over or pick up money. Building out those retail networks is a huge investment. It's left just a few players, called Money Transfer Operators (MTOs), controlling a bulk of the industry. 

But these companies' comfortable hold on the industry is now being challenged by digital remittance startups. Digital-first remittance companies are competing on fees and usability, and capitalizing on the way people's expectations have changed with the advent of digital and mobile channels.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we size the total remittance market, company-specific market share, digital's market share, and digital's growth at major remittance firms. We also assess how disruptive digital startups have been by comparing their fees with market leaders, and by juxtaposing their business models with those of legacy companies. 

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Digital's share of the global remittance industry is still fairly small at 6% — but growth is extremely fast at digital-first startups and legacy companies.
• Fourteen year-old Xoom makes more revenue from electronic channels than 75 year-old MoneyGram, the second-largest remittance company in the world.
• Startups are undercutting incumbents' fees in certain corridors; however, legacy firms have matched prices in many major corridors. 
• Legacy firms' businesses are already responding to the threats posed by digital by lowering fees and adjusting business strategies. However, they face lower margins if they continue to compete with startups on pricing. 

In full, the report:

• Sizes the remittance market and calculates major remittance companies' market share. 
• Estimates digital's share of the market vs. cash. 
• Quantifies digital's impact at remittance startups and legacy firms.
• Breaks down the business models employed by each type of remittance company, and determines which ones are in a better position for growth. 
• Compares transfer fees in various corridors to assess the competitiveness of each firm. 
• Explores other platforms that could completely upend the industry from the outside.
• Determines how legacy remittance companies will fare in the digital age – the answer may surprise you.  

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
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• Friends don't have to be the same age to get along, despite common misconceptions.
• One friendship expert told The New York Times that all you really need to become friends is positivity, consistency, and vulnerability.
• Hitting these markers can be harder than it sounds, but intergenerational friendships especially can be rewarding.

A recent New York Times article by Abby Ellin spotlights the proliferation of new "women's groups" that bring together ladies of different ages.

The fact that this is news — people can still get along even if they were born in different eras! — speaks to the prevalence of myths and misunderstandings around adult friendship.

According to one expert Ellin interviewed — Shasta Nelson, author of the book "Frientimacy"— there are three prerequisites for a flourishing friendship, and a similar age is not one of them.

Those three items are: positivity, consistency, and vulnerability. In other words, you have to enjoy each other's company, be in touch regularly, and feel safe with each other.

Read more:There's a limit to how many close friends you can realistically have at once

Nelson isn't the first to observe the importance of these three factors.

Psychologists have long known about the "mere exposure effect," which explains why we tend to like people or things just because they're familiar. So the more you hang out with someone, the more you'll probably like the person.

Meanwhile, research from SUNY Stony Brook found that a bit of self-disclosure— i.e. talking about things that are meaningful to you and somewhat private, as opposed to regular old small talk — can make people feel closer.

People typically only spend time with other generations at work

Hitting all those markers is easier said than done. People are busy and fall out of touch; telling a relative acquaintance about your parents' divorce can be difficult.

What's more, people tend to spend more time with those who appear similar on the surface — i.e. are the same age. As Ellin writes for The Times, "millennials and baby boomers tend to stick with their same-aged cohort, rarely associating out of the office."

Still, intergenerational friendships can be rewarding in their own way. On a Reddit thread about age differences in friendships, PM_ME_YOUR_BEARD_PLS mused, "It's kind of funny how people are sometimes weirded out by a friendship with a large age difference, but not someone hanging out with much older relatives. My grandmas are my grandmas, but they are also my friends. So I don't see how it is much different to me having a friendship with someone in their 60s or 70s or 80s."

And one 60-year old writer who attends intergenerational retreats told The Times that she's "blown away by [younger women's] emotional skills and self-awareness." She added, "Things I came to in my 40s and 50s, young women are coming to so much earlier. I find permission to be themselves and to be creative in them that just thrills me. I'm delighted by it."

SEE ALSO: Science says the difference between a friend and a best friend comes down to two things

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NOW WATCH: Valedictorians rarely become rich and famous — here's why the average millionaire's college GPA is 2.9

• Travis Kalanick's net worth is $5.45 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
• Kalanick keeps his personal life fairly under wraps, but it's clear he spends much of his fortune on real estate and travel.
• He has no clear ventures into philanthropy. 

Travis Kalanick co-founded Uber in 2009. But, after a series of scandals and a workplace culture where discrimination and sexual harassment were the norm, Kalanick resigned as CEO in 2017. 

Though he's no longer leading the global ride-hailing company, Kalanick remains wealthy. He's worth $5.45 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Here's how he spends his fortune:

SEE ALSO: Tim Cook is worth $625 million and leads a $1 trillion company — but he reportedly buys discounted underwear and wants to give his money away after paying for his nephew's tuition

Travis Kalanick presently has a reported net worth of $5.45 billion. Much of that is from holding 7% of Uber's stock, a company now valued at $76 billion.

As Business Insider previously reported, he was, up until recently, relatively "cash-poor for a billionaire." But his liquid assets saw a boost after he sold $1.4 billion in Uber shares to Japanese tech giant SoftBank.

Source:Business Insider

Kalanick grew up in the middle-income Los Angeles neighborhood of Northridge. He wanted to be a spy when he grew up.

Source:Business Insider, LA Times

• Healthcare IT company Athenahealth reached an agreement with Veritas Capital and Elliott Management to be acquired in a $5.7 billion deal. 
• The deal comes after a long-running push from Elliott for Athenahealth to sell itself. 
• Under the two big investment firms, Athenahealth will be combined with Virence Health, a company Veritas acquired earlier this year. 

The Athenahealth saga is coming to a close. 

On Monday, the healthcare company reached a $5.7 billion agreement with Veritas Capital and Elliott Management to be acquired. 

The deal, which values Athenahealth at $135 a share, follows months of pressure from Elliott to strike a deal and go private. Athenahealth provides technology used by doctors and hospitals.

Elliott took a stake in the company in 2017 and started putting pressure on the company to sell itself. In May, Elliott made a bid for the company at $160 a share.

Tensions came to a head in June after the company's then-CEO Jonathan Bush stepped down after apologizing amid a report that he had assaulted his former wife 14 years ago. He also faced other allegations of misconduct involving women who worked for him at Athenahealth. Bush is a nephew of President George H.W. Bush and co-founded the company back in 1997. 

Read more:Morgan Stanley just hired a top doctor for a new role as America's biggest companies start to shake up the healthcare system

This wasn't Athenahealth's first brush with activist investors. In 2014, Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn shorted the company, arguing the stock was overvalued. 

What's next

Under the two investment firms, Athenahealth will be joined up with Virence Health, a company Veritas acquired in 2018 for $1 billion from GE Healthcare. 

Virence's chairman and CEO Bob Segert will lead the new company, which will be privately held. The combined company will keep the name Athenahealth.

Athenahealth is known for its cloud-based electronic health record software doctors and hospitals use to keep track of patient information and billing. Virence, for its part, also works with medical practices, providing technology that helps them track patients and billing, and coordinate their outpatient practices. 

"Combining with Virence will create new opportunities for collaboration and growth," Athenahealth executive chairman and former GE CEO Jeff Immelt said in a release Monday. "Operating as a private company with Veritas's ownership and support will provide athenahealth with increased flexibility to achieve our purpose of unleashing our collective potential to transform healthcare."

Joined up, the two could have a bright future.

"The combined company, at some point, could become a more formidable competitor, especially in the population health area, which remains the next significant growth opportunity within healthcare IT industry," Cantor Fitzgerald analysts wrote in a note Monday.

See also: 

• Investors including Andreessen Horowitz just made a $300 million bet that a startup can take on healthcare giants at caring for elderly Americans
• The president of the company headed for the biggest IPO in biotech history has a surprisingly large pay package

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Dozens of people are dead and thousands of homes are destroyed as three wildfires are burning hundreds of square miles across northern and southern California.

The Camp Fire in northern California and has destroyed so many structures that it was declared the most destructive wildfire in California history.

Meanwhile, two smaller fires — the Woolsey and Hill fires — are burning through parts of Southern California's Ventura and the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Since the California wildfires began on Thursday, they have displaced hundreds of thousands of people and animals. Emergency workers have battled flames and searched properties around the clock, working to contain the blazes.

The US Center for International Disaster Information has declared sending money is the most effective way to help in a crisis, so we compiled a list of several reputable organizations accepting donations for supplies, meals, and relief funds, with the help of Charity Navigator.

Here's how you can help.

General aid: California Community Foundation

The foundation's Supplying Aid to Victims of Emergency (SAVE) program takes donations to provide emergency short-term financial assistance to both firefighters and civilians affected by fires and natural disasters in California year-round.

Donate here »

General aid: American Red Cross

The Red Cross is collecting donations to provide shelter, food, relief, and medical services to both civilians and emergency workers affected by the fires.

Donate here »

Child resources: Baby2Baby

The organization set up a Target wishlist for high-need items including diapers, blankets, and some clothing.

See items here »

• In the age of biometric security measures, some young people are choosing to grant phone access via fingerprint to their significant other. 
• Young couples say it's convenient and serves as a measure of trust in the relationship. 
• However, that trust could backfire, as a current or former significant another acting in bad faith could cause a lot of damage with unrestricted access to a personal phone. 

In the age of biometric security, some young couples are displaying a new form of trust. 

Millennial and Gen Z are choosing to grant phone access via fingerprint to their significant other, which some say is convenient and serves as a measure of trust in the relationship, CNBC reports. Others say sharing that level of access could become an issue if a current or former significant other wants to cause some serious damage. 

Many modern phones incorporate some level of biometric security — older iPhones use fingerprint technology while newer models use facial recognition, and plenty of Android phones utilize either method. This allows users to open their phones quickly without needing to remember or input a password, but additional fingerprints and faces can be  granted access as well. 

"I think that inherently, people desire to share themselves and to be known. Sharing your phone fingerprints demonstrates trust between two people, and that you are OK with being known by that person, and that they're OK with you knowing them too," said Emma Clarke, a 24-year-old who spoke with CNBC and has shared fingerprint access with a boyfriend in the past. 

Here's the reasoning some young couples gave CNBC for granting biometric access to a significant other: 

• It's convenient — you can switch songs while the other is driving, use apps that aren't on your phone, or use the phone for a task while the other is busy. 
• It's a display of trust and intimacy. 
• One person compared the action to putting a significant other in the "top friends" group on Myspace.

However, phones are powerful tools that are connected to most aspects of our online lives, and providing someone that level of access could prove troublesome if the relationship deteriorates, or if people in the relationship have different definitions of privacy. It's best to remember that biometric access can be revoked via the phone's settings. 

SEE ALSO: These are the screen sizes for next year's iPhone lineup, according to the most accurate Apple analyst

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• GPS signals in Norway and Finland were disrupted in late October and early November.
• The disruptions took place as NATO carried out a massive military exercise across the region.
• Some, including Finland's prime minister, suspect Russia was up to something.

Finland's prime minister said on Sunday that GPS signals in the country were intentionally disrupted during NATO military exercise in the region over the past few weeks and the culprit could have been Russia.

Finnish air-navigation services issued a warning for air traffic on November 6 due to a large-scale GPS interruption in the north of the country. Norway posted a similar warning about loss of GPS signals for pilots in its own airspace at the end of the October.

The NATO exercise, called Trident Juncture, ran from October 25 to November 7.

Read also: The US military's top officer says Russia and China present different challenges — but they both can rival US power

"It is technically reasonably easy to interfere with the radio signal in the open space," Prime Minister Juha Sipila told public broadcaster Yle. "It is possible that Russia has been the disrupting party in this. Russia is known to possess such capabilities."

Sipila, who is a pilot, said the goal of such interference would be to demonstrate the culprit's ability to do so and that the incident would be treated as a breach of Finland's airspace.

"We will investigate, and then we will respond," he said. "This is not a joke. It threatened the air security of ordinary people."

Finland is not a NATO member, but it took part in Trident Juncture, which NATO officials said was the alliance's largest exercise in decades. Forces from 31 countries — all 29 NATO members, Finland, and Sweden — participated in the exercise, which took place close to Russian borders in an area stretching from the Baltic Sea to Iceland.

The exercise involved some 50,000 troops, tens of thousands of vehicles, and dozens of ships and aircraft. While much of the activity was based in central and southern Norway, fighter jets and other military aircraft used airports in northern Norway and Finland.

Now read: The US Navy is pushing north, closer to Russia and into freezing conditions — and it plans to hang around up there

Russia dismissed Finland's suggestion that it intentionally interfered with GPS signals. "We are not aware that there could be something to do with GPS harassment in Russia," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

Finland shares an 830-mile border and a fraught history with Russia. In recent years, Helsinki has moved closer to NATO but stopped short of joining the alliance, in keeping with its history of avoiding confrontation with its larger eastern neighbor.

Russia has warned Finland and Sweden, which is also a close NATO partner but not an alliance member, against joining the defense bloc.

Reuters contributed to this report.

SEE ALSO: Finland and Norway are telling airline pilots to be ready to fly without GPS, and some think Russia is up to something

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• Nintendo's Wii console is going to drop support for Netflix in January.
• With over 100 million sold, the Nintendo Wii is one of the most popular game consoles ever released.
• The end of Netflix functionality on the Wii coincides with a larger sunsetting of Wii online services in January 2019.

Sorry, Nintendo Wii users: the "Wii Sports" console is losing Netflix in January 2019.

More specifically, as of January 30, all online services for the Nintendo Wii will be sunset. No more Wii Shop Channel and Virtual Console for buying games, and no more video streaming services — including Netflix.

The service lasted just over eight years on the Nintendo Wii, having first arrived in 2010. It quickly became a hit on the Wii — a measure of the console's massive popularity at exactly the time when services like Netflix were evolving into video streaming giants. 

With over 100 million Nintendo Wii consoles sold as of 2016, the Wii is Nintendo's best-selling home game console of all time. It's only bested by the Game Boy and Nintendo DS — handheld consoles that cost less than the Wii. 

For now, Netflix will continue functioning on the Nintendo Wii. But don't worry too much about its impending closure. In 2018, Netflix runs on nearly anything — from your smartphone to your TV to Google's very inexpensive Chromecast dongle.

Here's the full list from Netflix to get you started.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best video games of all time, according to critics

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• Lime executive Caen Contee has insisted the scooter startup has "the safest product" despite the firm issuing two product recalls this month.
• People reported handlebars falling off scooters and the vehicles catching light.
• Contee said the firm went through several hardware iterations to improve the product and was transparent about what it offered.
• Lime is one of several fast-growing startups racing rivals — and the law — to establish dominance in the scooter market.

One of the executive on Lime's founding team has insisted that the billion-dollar scooter startup has "the safest product"— despite the firm issuing its second scooter recall in a month.

Caen Contee, vice president of global expansion and marketing told Business Insider at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon last week that the company designs its scooters in the US and then outsources the production to different companies. 

"One of the reasons we’ve done customized devices and learnt so fast is to create what is the safest product, to create something that really does from day one... [serve] that trust [that] we're always here, we're always learning and always creating something better," he said.

On October 31, Lime had recalled 2,000 Ninebot scooters after "unconfirmed" reports that some caught fire in at least three cities.

Now the company has recalled an unknown number of scooters made by Chinese manufacturer Okai after users across multiple cities reported that the handlebars had fallen off. Users on social media in Portland, Denver and Baltimore in the US reported problems, as well as in Paris.

Contee, who spoke to Business Insider before the reports of broken handlebars emerged, said scooter hardware was "nascent" but said the firm was innovating on the way Lime's software made the vehicles safer. He pointed to the fact that Lime's scooters have a capped speed limit in certain places at night, and that in Prague scooters aren't permitted in "high pedestrian" areas.

Read more: Lime issues its second scooter recall in less than a month

Contee suggested Lime's users were loyal because the company learns from its mistakes.

"Ultimately when you're trying to move in this space where it's so nascent, where no one has created a vehicle for this particular use... if you haven't made a core competency of being able to learn and take that feedback and iterate on hardware, then what can be done in six months of learning and [with] a different fleet type creates a loyalty you wouldn't have otherwise."

When Business Insider asked Contee how he might reassure would-be scooter riders alarmed by the flimsiness of the devices, he said the firm had been transparent in what it's created.

Still, Lime's terms of service state baldly: "You agree that neither Lime nor the Released Persons are liable for any injury or death suffered by You while using the Services, whether or not You are wearing a helmet at the time of injury."

Scooter startups are worth billions, but there are lots of questions about the law and safety

Lime has clocked 20 million in the 18 months since its launched, and is worth $1.1 billion after raising $335 million from high-profile backers including Uber and Alphabet. Its biggest rivals include Bird, another US startup worth millions in backing, Europe's Taxify, and a host of smaller regional firms.

All of the firms are racing to lure as many users onto their apps as possible, and to offer different types of new city transport, with Lime also offering electric bikes and electric cars.

But regulation and safety are proving thorny problems for companies that are taking a leaf out of the Uber playbook and perhaps prioritizing speedy expansion over compliance.

A US man died in September after falling off a Lime scooter and not wearing a helmet, while a class-action filed in the US in October accuses both Lime and Bird of "gross negligence."

Meanwhile, scooter startups have struggled to expand to Europe's biggest market, London, because their vehicles don't meet local regulatory standards. Business Insider revealed in August that both firms were hoping to see changes in UK law that would permit scooters on London roads.

Contee said Lime was "pro-regulation" and that the firm hoped to convince London's transport regulator, Transport for London, that it had created the best product.

The firm will introduce electric bikes to the UK, then plans to expand to other vehicles in time. "We will work to create relationships based on that, and we will work over time to add vehicles."

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg reportedly pressured a top Facebook VR exec to drop his public support of Trump in favor of another candidate

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