• Hailey Baldwin has opened up about her anxiety on her Instagram page.
• She shared a long post which explains how she is human and often compares herself to other people.
• She said she will try this year to be confident in herself and accept her flaws, and encouraged her fans to do the same.
• Justin Bieber, her husband, replied: "This is beautiful hun."

Hailey Baldwin has had a transformative couple of months on social media, changing her name on Instagram at the end of 2018 to "haileybieber."

Now, she has kicked off 2019 with a post opening up about her mental health.

The 22-year-old model posted a photo of her smiling in a Coors Light jacket, with a long message in the caption about body positivity, her relationship to the internet, and her anxiety.

"Stepping into 2019 I want to be more open," Baldwin wrote in the post. "I want to be more open about the things I struggle with, and be able to be more vulnerable."

She said although her life may look amazing, she has struggles like many people, particularly with insecurity.

"I'm fragile, I'm hurting, I have fears, I have doubts, I have anxiety, I get sad, I get angry," she wrote.

"I have had more days than I can count where I've found myself scrolling through Instagram comparing myself, comparing my looks, feeling like I'm not good enough feeling like I lack so many things and really struggling to be confident in who I am because I constantly feel like I'm just not good enough."

Read more: Diagnosing the mental health of celebrities like Kanye West and Amanda Bynes from afar is damaging and dangerous

Rather than writing the post for sympathy, Baldwin said she wanted to show that she is human, and how the process of learning who she is is really hard. She added that it would be "incredible" if other girls and women could find it in themselves to lift each other up, rather than put each other down.

"We ALL have flaws, and that will never change," she wrote. "What I do know is, God made us individuals for a reason, with our own beauty, our own personalities, and our own story because there's a specific plan and purpose for each and every human created and he makes no mistakes!!"

Baldwin vowed this year to do her best just to be her and find confidence in who she is, and she urged her fans to do the same.

"Cause I am enough, and I'm loved, and you are enough and you're loved," she wrote.

In response, Baldwin's husband Justin Bieber wrote "this is beautiful hun."

She also received messages of support from other celebrities like Patrick Schwarzenegger who said "Great caption" with a heart emoji, and Millie Bobbie Brown who wrote "couldn't agree more! [heart emoji] you shouldn't compare your life to controlled content. everyone is human. sending my love and kisses to you x".

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I'm a diehard iPhone user who switched to Android for a week — here's what I loved and hated about the Google Pixel 3 XL

• Amazon removed a number of bathmats and doormats featuring Islamic scripture from its site after a complaint from The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
• CAIR said the mats were offensive because the holy writings would be "stepped-on or otherwise disrespected by customers."
• Since Amazon removed the mats, a CAIR spokesman told CNN that more complaints have come in about similar products, including toilet covers.

Amazon has removed multiple products featuring verses from the Quran after a complaint from a Muslim civil liberties union.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a statement on Thursday asking Amazon to remove doormats and bath mats printed with Islamic scripture. CAIR said the mats were offensive because they would be "stepped-on or otherwise disrespected by customers."

Amazon removed the products which were available through third-party seller, Emvency, and CAIR welcomed the decision on Friday.

An Amazon spokesman confirmed the products' removal to Business Insider, adding: "All sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action including potential removal of their account."

Read more:Amazon removed a bunch of products featuring Nazi and white supremacist insignia from its site

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told CNN that since the press release went out, CAIR has received more complaints about similar products on Amazon, including toilet covers.

Hooper said in some instances, he didn't believe the use of Quranic verse was malicious.

"My gut feeling is that at least for the bath mats, shower curtains, and stuff like that, it's these companies just slapping these designs on everything without even thinking about it," he told CNN.

"But there are others crossing the line into intentional Islamophobia. Some of the companies have things like toilet seats. I mean come on, why else would you do that?"

SEE ALSO: Some Amazon employees are reportedly accepting cash bribes from online sellers to delete negative product reviews

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why it's so difficult to land a spacecraft on Mars

• Kyle Weaver, who oversees $5 billion as lead manager of the Fidelity Advisor Growth Opportunities Fund, shares his three top stock picks for 2019.
• Weaver's fund has returned 12.71% over the past year through Jan. 4, putting it in the 99th percentile relative to competitors.

Just as everyone expected the stock market to ease quietly into the end of 2018, chaos reigned supreme over the final week of the year.

Faced with some of the sharpest losses of the nearly 10-year bull market, US equity indexes threw portfolio managers for a loop, disrupting many best-laid plans for year-end.

Which is why it's that much more impressive that Kyle Weaver — who oversees $5 billion as lead manager of the Fidelity Advisor Growth Opportunities Fund— has been able to remain atop Wall Street fund manager rankings. He was in the 99th percentile through the end of November, and remained there as of Jan. 4, even following the market's turbulent December.

It's no mistake that Weaver stayed relatively insulated from the widespread damage that took stocks by storm. His entire strategy is built around stable, standalone businesses that are largely immune to macro conditions and negative external forces.

Read more:We interviewed Wall Street's 8 top-performing investors to get their best ideas for 2019

Beyond that, Weaver picks stocks based on what he calls a "deep value" approach. That means he looks for companies trading at inexpensive valuations right now — perhaps at two to three times earnings — that also possess massive upside over a five- to 10-year period.

To that end, Weaver shared with Business Insider three of his top stock picks for 2019. They are as follows. All quotes attributable to Weaver.

Wayfair (W)

"What’s amazing about Wayfair is watching someone beating Amazon at its own game. In e-commerce and home furnishings, Wayfair is the 800-pound gorilla. It’s a really big market in the US and Europe, and it's a very different kind than the books and CDs and groceries that you may think of as Amazon's core franchise."

"Wayfair divides its delivery network into small and large parcels. A Wayfair small parcel would be considered a very large one for Amazon. That requires a very different distribution network. These are large packages that are easy to damage and hard to deliver."

"In some ways they're following the Amazon playbook by investing in growth and being customer-focused. They own the process end to end, to make the experience better and better. As they do that, it’s been dampening their current levels of profitability, but amplifying their long-term earnings power."

"When dollars and industries move to the internet, market concentration increases. The internet is much more of a winner-takes-most environment. Wayfair is in a nice position as the current largest company in that niche, even though it’s huge."

The Trade Desk (TTD)

"Usually when you talk about internet advertising, the discussion is dominated by Google and Facebook, who have taken the vast majority of the ad dollars that have flowed to online advertising. What made Trade Desk controversial — and what created opportunity for a stock that was overlooked a year ago — was that there is a lot of internet left out there outside of Google and Facebook."

"There are a lot of advertisers who really want to figure out how to stop guessing, and start making data-driven insights to make sure their ad dollars aren't wasted. The Trade Desk was pretty much founded on that vision. It’s founder-led and has been profitable since day one. They’re just extremely customer-focused. One of their biggest innovations wasn’t actually their technology."

"Instead of trying to disrupt the traditional ad agency model, they aligned with them and became their tool for serving digital advertising to their customers. They built a great tool with great technology, and had the correct vision. It was a unique model. At a time when people were trying to disrupt the ad industry, they kind of enabled it. It's proven to be a really winning value proposition."

"They're still a $400-500 million revenue company in a $700 billion global advertising industry. The fact that they're taking share in programmatic advertising — which is the fastest-growing part of the online market, which is taking share from the traditional market — gives them a lot of tailwinds to benefit from over the next several years.

American Tower (AMT)

"It kind of proves how boring is beautiful. The tower business model hasn't changed in the multiple decades it's existed."

"The company's business model is simply to collect rent from telecom carriers that need to put equipment on those towers in order to get signal to their customers. The contracts are 5-10 years long, and they come with 2-3% price increases every year."

"Each tower is like its own tiny local monopoly. For that area of your neighborhood, there probably isn't another spot to put that equipment, which gives the tower companies a pretty unique advantage. And nobody wants new towers built in their area."

"Ten years ago, you could sit back and say wireless data would be a huge demand driver for carriers. Understanding the business model for the tower stocks, you could look out and see it was only trading at 3 to 4 times earnings 8 to 10 years out, and that's been what's come to pass. The stock is $160 instead of $30 now as it’s traveled up with earnings growth."

"AMT has differentiated itself from other tower companies in the US by investing abroad in emerging markets like India and Nigeria, where wireless data growth is on an even steeper growth trajectory. That comes with some risks, but they're a very long-term focused company. They're aligned with us as long-term shareholders."

Click here to read our full story, featuring exclusive interviews with Wall Street's top 8 fund managers

SEE ALSO: The global investment chief at $3 trillion Charles Schwab outlines the 3 ways his firm is preparing for the next meltdown — and how you can do the same

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The equity chief at $6.3 trillion BlackRock weighs in on the trade war, a possible recession, and offers her best investing advice for a tricky 2019 landscape

• Steve Eisman, the hedge fund manager famous for betting against the US housing market ahead of the 2008 crash, is sounding the alarm on the spectacular rise of poorly rated debt among corporations.
• Eisman — who was a central figure in the book, and subsequent film, 'The Big Short' — told the Financial Times that the rising stock of corporate debt rated at BBB, just one notch above junk status, is a cause for serious concern.
• Stocks of such debt have more than quadrupled since the crisis, standing at around $2.7 trillion.

Steve Eisman, the hedge fund manager famous for betting against the US housing market ahead of the 2008 crash, is sounding the alarm on the spectacular rise of poorly rated debt among corporations.

Eisman — who was a central figure in the book, and subsequent film, 'The Big Short' — told the Financial Times that the rising stock of corporate debt rated at BBB, just one notch above junk status, is a cause for serious concern.

Stocks of such debt have more than quadrupled since the financial crisis, standing at around $2.7 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Barclays index, which tracks corporate debt issuance.

According to the FT, Eisman's concern is not with the actual amount of debt, but with the fact that major banks have cut the amount of trading capacity they have for BBB rated debt. As a result, he says, when the next recession does come, the only way to sell such debt will be to do so at a big discount, costing funds and asset managers.

Read more:Here's how the risky behavior of debt-heavy corporate giants like GE and AT&T could spark the next financial crisis

Rising stocks of risky and badly-rated corporate debt have become a major worry for many in the markets, with the growth of leveraged loans a particular concern.

The major surge in debt issuance by US corporations through highly levered buyouts and low-interest-rate acquisitions could be a major part of the next financial crisis, research firm CLSA said in a note last week.

Eisman, however, is marginally less concerned, saying that he does not see a recession on the horizon imminently.

"You can’t have a recession when consumer credit quality is as good as I’ve seen it in my whole career," Eisman, who is now a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman in New York, told the FT.

Since gaining recognition beyond the financial sphere after the book's publication, Eisman has been a vocal market commentator, and in the past couple of years in particular he has warned frequently about the health of European banks, particularly those in Italy and Germany's biggest lender, Deutsche Bank.

In November last year Eisman said he is shorting two British bank stocks in anticipation that the UK falls out of the European Union without securing an exit deal.

SEE ALSO: The Bank of England is sounding the alarm on a quiet corner of the debt market now worth $1.4 trillion

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The equity chief at $6.3 trillion BlackRock weighs in on the trade war, a possible recession, and offers her best investing advice for a tricky 2019 landscape

• Bastion Collective is buying regional agencies around the US to form an alternative to the holding company model.
• It’s bought three Southern California agencies and plans to acquire more at a rate of three per year.
• The company sees an opportunity to serve marketers better than holding companies, arguing they have failed to adapt to changing consumer habits.

The latest salvo against the US ad agency holding company model is being fired from Down Under.

Bastion Collective, a private marketing and communications company in Australia, is buying regional agencies around the US to form an alternative to the holding company model.

Bastion’s pitch goes like this: It’s not a holding company, but rather a collective of regional agencies specializing in engagement and experiential work. Being small, each agency will be able to give clients personalized service, but be able to tap into other agencies in the collective that offer different services.

Read more:Huge consulting firms are coming after the ad agency business — here's how agencies are fighting back

The other difference with holding companies is that the agencies in the collective retain at least 20% ownership and run their businesses independently, so there’s not massive turnover. At the same time, they’ll gain efficiencies by sharing back-office functions like HR and finance across the collective.

This charge is being led by Dax Cornelius, who is CEO of Bastion Collective’s US arm. He said the company built this model in Australia 10 years ago and that it’s helped make the company a leading private marketing company. He said the holding companies haven’t kept up with consumers' increasing intolerance for ads and clients’ demand for lower marketing costs.

Bastion is focusing on engagement and experiential work

“We built this model because the conglomerates have become too unwieldy, and they’ve become sitting ducks for nimble competitors like us,” he said. “The conglomerates target [consumers] with constant disruption. Our approach is, it needs to be not reach but engagement, experiential.”

To accomplish this, Bastion is buying regional agencies — since setting up shop in Irvine, California, in October 2017, it’s already bought three in Southern California, called Rare Branding, Digital Brand Group (combining and rebranding them as Bastion Rare), and LFPR (rebranded Bastion Elevate). It’s looking to acquire research, content, and experiential agencies next, spending 20% of its $55 million in annual revenue on the first six acquisitions. Going forward, the plan is to do three acquisitions per year.

Among its clients in Australia and Asia are Nissan, Jeep, Target, Costco, and McDonald’s, according to Cornelius. Bastion’s US clients are smaller-scale, but it has no doubt that over time, it will have the same kind of big names on its roster in the US.

“What we’ve done in Australia in 10 years, we’ll do in the US in four to five years,” Cornelius said. “We’re already working for those brands overseas, and with the cross-pollination of our agencies, I expect we’ll be handling those clients in the US.”

The moves come as US marketers are looking for alternatives to big agencies, holding companies are consolidating their own shops, and agencies face competition from consulting companies, media companies, and new forms of holding companies.

One such venture was formed by Andrew Essex, former CEO of Droga5. He along with MT Carney formed Plan A, a collection of boutique agencies.

Essex expressed skepticism of Bastion’s ambitions, coming from outside the US. “They’re not known as operators in the US, so be careful what you wish for when you try to penetrate the US. The people who are putting together new model holding companies, present company included, have operating experience and track record.”

Cornelius also is hardly a household name in agency circles — he’s spent half his career in the US Air Force and describes himself as an M&A expert — but he said that lack of agency operating experience is actually an asset.

“My mind is not cluttered with some of the bureaucracy and red tape of agency life,” he said. “I was a demo pilot. I was using all these assets to deliver on a mission. The difference is, lives were at stake. I’m doing the exact same thing when you think about it. I wouldn’t say lives are at stake, but families are at stake.”

SEE ALSO: 'It means the death of the Y&R and Thompson brand': Sir Martin Sorrell says he would have handled WPP's recent mergers differently

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The world's largest cruise ship just landed in Miami — here's what it's like on board

• As concerns of a slowdown in global growth swirl, some experts on Wall Street are suggesting investors bulk up on defensive holdings.
• Goldman Sachs just told clients to "increase portfolio defensiveness," and Bank of America said investors' exposure to "low quality" stocks is a key risk this year.
• The calls come amid continued US-China trade negotiations, central banks around the world unwinding fiscal stimulus, and continued Brexit uncertainty.

Economists and strategists on Wall Street are increasingly asking not if, but when, a slowing global economy will accelerate into a more severe downturn.

Amid calls for slowdowns in major economies, along with lingering political uncertainty, and central banks unwinding accommodative monetary policy, some macroeconomic experts are recommending that investors bulk up on defensive assets.

Investors are gearing up to deal with volatility-inducing events like ongoing trade negotiations between the US and China, the Federal Reserve potentially scaling back its tightening, and looming Brexit uncertainty. 

"Strategically, we recommend investors increase portfolio defensiveness," a team of Goldman Sachs strategists led by David Kostin told clients in a note on Monday. "Cash allocations are at or near the bottom of their 30-year historical distribution for many investors."

Investors might wonder what defensive means, especially in a challenging market like last year's when few trades worked out. Investors across markets and asset classes mostly counted 2018 as a loss, and cash became more attractive as equities around the world languished.

Kostin and his team said investors should consider stocks well-positioned to outperform in an "uncertain economic environment" and came up with a list of 30 names that would still boast an above-average valuation even if earnings were to sharply decline. They included stocks across traditionally defensive sectors like industrials and consumer staples, including the likes of FedEx, Raytheon, Kroger and Philip Morris.

Read more: Bridgewater, the biggest hedge fund in the world, crushed it in 2018 as most funds struggled

Others say even as positive growth is still expected for this year, a more conservative approach is prudent.

A team of strategists at AllianceBernstein told clients Monday that while several indicators — including the flattening yield curve, a downturn in key US service sector data and Economic Surprise Index data — support the view that economic growth is indeed slowing, analysts are expecting positive earnings growth for this year.

"We face a slowing cycle with growth slowing in most regions, though the timing and pace of the slow-down differs by region," the team led by Inigo Fraser-Jenkins wrote.

"Monetary policy is also becoming less accommodative in most regions. Against this backdrop we have a somewhat defensive factor allocation, but we retain some cyclical exposure as despite the headwinds we think that growth will still be positive in 2019."

Specifically, AllianceBernstein is recommending investors buy companies with qualities like low debt-to-equity ratios, and those with high levels of free cash flow yield. Such a measurement of companies' "quality" tends to be less correlated with political risk, the strategists said.

Meanwhile, Bank of America told clients in a note that investors' exposure to "low quality" is a key risk this year.

"Managers have historically been overweight Low Quality (B or worse S&P quality rank) stocks," strategists led by Savita Subramanian wrote in a report out Monday.

"Their bias towards lower quality is a key risk in our view, particularly heading into the new year where we expect volatility to remain elevated."

Read more: BANK OF AMERICA: Here's a list of our 11 favorite stocks for next year

Among traditionally defensive sectors, the bank said active managers last year pared their holdings in consumer staples, a traditionally defensive group, and rotated into healthcare.

But that development in and of itself could be reason enough to lighten up on defensive names. Historically, when the healthcare sector reaches 15.6% of the S&P 500, which happened in mid-December, it begins underperforming and the broader market starts bottoming out, according to an analysis from DataTrek Research.

Now read:

• The best-performing investment of 2018 came as a shock to everyone — and the stars are now aligned for its continued dominance
• Here's how the risky behavior of debt-heavy corporate giants like GE and AT&T could spark the next financial crisis

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The equity chief at $6.3 trillion BlackRock weighs in on the trade war, a possible recession, and offers her best investing advice for a tricky 2019 landscape

• Goldman Sachs' equity strategy team has published its quarterly chart book detailing the final quarter of 2018, and what lies ahead for this year.
• Among its round-ups was a list of stocks trading at the highest premium to the firm's price targets. 
• Most of the names expected to fall the most can be found in two sectors: consumer staples and real estate.

Goldman Sachs' equity strategy team just put together its quarterly chart book, detailing the brutal final quarter — and month — of 2018, and the firm's outlook for this year.

The team, led by chief US equity strategist David Kostin, included a list of stocks with the most downside to the firm's price targets.

In other words, the strategists compiled stocks trading at the highest premium to the firm's price target, implying the stocks could fall sharply if the analysts are correct in their predictions.

Notably, of the 11 names Business Insider has listed below, most of the stocks are in the real estate or consumer staples sector. While the broader market posted a total return of -4% in 2018, real estate posted a total return of -2% in 2018, and consumer staples posted a total return of -8%. 

Here's a breakdown of the stocks, in the order of largest implied drop to the smallest implied drop.

Juniper Networks

Ticker: JNPR

Sector: Technology

2018 performance: -6%

Current price: $27.52

Downside to target: -25.7%

Source: Goldman Sachs

Church & Dwight

Ticker: Church & Dwight

Sector: Consumer staples

2018 performance: +33%

Current price: $65.88

Downside to target: -25.5%

Source: Goldman Sachs

Clorox

Ticker: CLX

Sector: Consumer staples

2018 performance: +6%

Current price: $154.88

Downside to target: -25.4%

Source: Goldman Sachs

• After a shaky start, wearables like smartwatches and fitness trackers have gained traction in healthcare, with US consumer use jumping from 9% in 2014 to 33% in 2018.
• More than 80% of consumers are willing to wear tech that measures health data — and penetration should continue to climb.
• The maturation of the wearable market will put more wearables in the hands of consumers and US businesses.

The US healthcare industry as it exists today is not sustainable. An aging patient population and rising burden of chronic disease have caused healthcare costs to skyrocket and left providers struggling to keep up with demand for care. 

Meanwhile, digital technologies in nearly every consumer experience outside of healthcare have raised patients’ expectations for good service to be higher than ever.

One of the key mechanisms through which healthcare providers can finally evolve their outdated practices and exceed these expectations is wearable technology.

Presently, 33% of US consumers have adopted wearables, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, to play a more active role in managing their health. In turn, insurers, providers, and employers are poised to become just as active leveraging these devices – and the data they capture – to abandon the traditional reimbursement model and improve patient outcomes with personalized, value-based care.

Adoption is going to keep climbing, as more than 80% of consumers are willing to wear tech that measures health data, according to Accenture — though they have reservations about who exactly should access it.

A new report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, follows the growing adoption of wearables and breadth of functions they offer to outline how healthcare organizations and stakeholders can overcome this challenge and add greater value with wearable technology.

For insurers, providers, and employers, wearables present three distinct opportunities:

• Insurers can use wearable data to enhance risk assessments and drive customer lifetime value. One study shows that wearables can incentivize healthier behavior associated with a 30% reduction in risk of cardiovascular events and death.
• Providers can use the remote patient monitoring capabilities of wearable technology to improve chronic disease management, lessen the burden of staff shortages, and navigate a changing reimbursement model. And since 90% of patients no longer feel obligated to stay with providers that don't deliver a satisfactory digital experience, wearables could help to attract and retain them.
• Employers can combine wearables with cash incentives to lower insurance costs and improve employee productivity. For example, The Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority yielded $5 million in healthcare cost savings through a wearable-based employee wellness program.

Want to Learn More?

The Wearables in US Healthcare Report details the current and future market landscape of wearables in the US healthcare sector. It explores the key drivers behind wearable usage by insurers, healthcare providers, and employers, and the opportunities wearables afford to each of these stakeholders. 

By outlining a successful case study from each stakeholder, the report highlights best practices in implementing wearables to reduce healthcare claims, improve patient outcomes, and drive insurance cost savings, as well as how the evolution of the market will create new, untapped opportunities for businesses.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Facebook allowed political ads for far-right British political group Britain First to run on its platform in December, despite the fact the group is banned from the social network.
• The ads ran for several days in late December, promoting a Britain First petition against an upgraded mosque in Maidstone.
• According to the BBC, the ads were bought by Political Gamers TV, which is not directly affiliated to Britain First.
• Facebook initially said the ads didn't violate its policies but eventually removed the posts.

Facebook is still finding its feet when it comes to enforcing new rules around political ads on its platform.

A BBC investigation found that the social network allowed at least two ads promoting a far-right British political group, Britain First, to run on its platform. Britain First and its leaders have been banned from Facebook since May 2018.

The ads ran for a few days in late December and promoted a Britain First petition to halt the reconstruction of a mosque in Maidstone. You can see an example of one ad below, and the rest on Facebook's archive of political ads:

The ads were not bought by direct representatives of Britain First, according to the BBC.

Instead they were bought by a page called Political Gamers TV, which described itself to the BBC as: "A new, growing patriotic gaming youth movement... here to defend the rights of gamers and games from the unfair treatment of male gamers coming from SJWs [social justice warriors], feminists and left-wing activists."

The ads were initially flagged by a Facebook user, Brian Whelan, in January and Facebook said the posts didn't violate its rules. When the BBC flagged the ads, Facebook removed all three ads and the Political Gamers TV page.

"We thank the BBC for bringing the page Political Gamers TV to our attention, which violated our policies and has now been removed," Facebook told the BBC.

"We urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our community standards, so we can continue to take appropriate action such as this."

Read more:We ran 2 fake ads pretending to be Cambridge Analytica — and Facebook failed to catch that they were frauds

Britain First criticised Facebook for removing content that supported the group, and said it was suing for "political discrimination."

"This is political gerrymandering and censorship at its worst," the group told the BBC. "This is why Britain First is suing Facebook for political discrimination, in Belfast High Court."

This appears to be one of the first real-world tests of Facebook's new political transparency tools, which were rolled out in 2018 and were designed to tackle foreign interference in elections and to help with the spread of fake news.

It follows investigations by Vice and Business Insider which show that it's easy to post prohibited political ads on Facebook, despite its stricter rules. Vice posed as 100 US senators to post fake political ads and was approved by Facebook. Business Insider posed as banned data consultancy Cambridge Analytica and successfully posted divisive ads about Brexit.

Facebook delayed the rollout of its new political ad transparency tools in the UK as a result. The tools eventually rolled out in November with what Facebook described as tighter approval processes.

SEE ALSO: Facebook has banned far-right party Britain First and its leaders

SEE ALSO: We ran 2 fake ads pretending to be Cambridge Analytica — and Facebook failed to catch that they were frauds

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: China made an artificial star that's 6 times as hot as the sun, and it could be the future of energy

• "Fortnite" is a money-making behemoth.
• The game reportedly generated just shy of $500 million in revenue in 2018 — and that's only on Apple's devices.
• In December 2018 alone, the game reportedly made just under $70 million on Apple devices.

"Fortnite"continues to dominate the attention of tens of millions of players around the world.

Despite the fact that it's a free game, "Fortnite" brings in hundreds of millions of dollars through sales of virtual items, sales of virtual money, and the ever-important seasonal Battle Pass.

The game is available on seven different gaming platforms, but it's perhaps most popular on Apple's ubiquitous iPhone and iPad.

It's no surprise, then, that "Fortnite" is estimated to have grossed over $455 million in iOS revenue in 2018.

That's according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, which says 82.6 million people worldwide have downloaded the game on iOS devices since the game's mobile launch in April 2018. 

To be all the way clear, that means "Fortnite" reportedly grossed nearly half a billion dollars on only Apple devices, and it did so in just eight months of availability. Not too shabby!

Of course, these are only estimates. "Fortnite" maker Epic Games hasn't released any official revenue figures and remains a private company. But the latest figures appear to be in line with previous reports about the direction and momentum of "Fortnite's" revenue.

Keeping its own cut

Broken down further, "Fortnite" is said to have made $1.6 million each day on Apple's devices; if Apple is pulling in its standard cut of 30%, Apple made somewhere in the realm of $136.5 million on "Fortnite" in 2018.

With that kind of money at stake, it's no wonder Epic Games launched "Fortnite" on Android without Google's help — you simply download the game directly from Epic's website. That lets Epic sidestep the Google Play store cut and keep all the revenue to itself when Android users download the game on their phones. 

We don't know how much revenue "Fortnite" has generated on Android devices. Sensor Tower's estimates are only for iOS. 

As a general rule, Apple iPhone users tend to spend more money than Android users on mobile apps and in-app purchases. But outside of the US, Android is the dominant mobile platform, with a roughly 80% market share. That means "Fortnite's" global Android revenue, which Epic keeps 100% of, may add up to a nice chunk of change. 

Not a bad first year for a game.

SEE ALSO: The CEO behind 'Fortnite' is now worth over $7 billion

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: British Airways has a $13 million flight simulator that taught us how to take off, fly, and land an airplane

• Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney's Office has opened a criminal investigation in R. Kelly, sources close to the case told TMZ.
• The insiders told TMZ that the investigation was launched as a direct result of the Lifetime docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly."
• The docuseries details Kelly's history of alleged abuse, including allegations that he preyed on underage girls.
• Kelly has denied all allegations against him.
• A spokesperson from the District Attorney's office would not comment to INSIDER when asked about the investigation.

Officials in Georgia have launched a criminal investigation into singer Robert Sylvester Kelly, also known as R. Kelly, in connection to allegations made in the Lifetime docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly,"sources "connected to the case" told TMZ.

The sources reportedly told TMZ that the Fulton County District Attorney's Office opened an investigation as a direct result of the docuseries and allegations made within it.

A spokesperson from the DA's office would not comment to INSIDER when asked about the investigation.

The docuseries details Kelly's long history of alleged abuse, including claims that he preyed on underage girls and held women against their will in what they called a "sex cult."

Read more:Chance the Rapper apologized for working with R. Kelly 'and for taking this long to speak out'

The source told TMZ that investigators have reportedly contacted several women featured in the show, including Asante McGee, a woman who spoke out against Kelly and claimed she was part of the alleged "sex cult."

The investigators have asked the women for contact information for others who lived in Kelly's former Atlanta home or have information about what happened there, according to TMZ.

The source told TMZ that the DA's office was flooded with phone calls after "Surviving R. Kelly" aired last week.

"Surviving R. Kelly" featured interviews from multiple women who said that Kelly had sex with them when they were underage; physically and emotionally abused them; and regulated their diets, bowel movements, and outside contact to family members.

Kelly has denied all allegations against him.

• Read more:
• R Kelly released an explosive new track called 'I Admit,' where he addresses the 'sex cult' allegations and says he sleeps with 'young ladies'
• R. Kelly's ex-wife Andrea Kelly said an online quiz made her realize she was in an abusive relationship — and gave her the courage to leave
• Women are using the hashtag #MuteRKelly to urge the music industry to hold R. Kelly accountable for past sexual abuse allegations
• R Kelly accused of sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl he was keeping as a 'pet'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is 35 — here's how he became one of the world's scariest dictators

• Former Facebook employees say they felt pressure to remain positive and were discouraged from speaking up while working for the social media giant, according to a CNBC report on Tuesday. 
• Some even characterized the internal culture at Facebook as "cult-like." 
• The former employees put much of the blame on Facebook's bi-annual peer review system, where employees are "stack ranked" and assigned a grade by management.

Former Facebook employees reportedly say they felt pressure to remain positive and were discouraged from speaking up while working for the social media giant, according to a CNBC report on Tuesday. 

Some even characterized the internal culture at Facebook as "cult-like," according to the report. 

“There’s a real culture of ‘Even if you are f---ing miserable, you need to act like you love this place,’” one former employee who left in October told CNBC. “It is not OK to act like this is not the best place to work.”

Read more:Mark Zuckerberg's new year's resolution is to host public debates about the impact of tech on society

The former employees put much of the blame on Facebook's bi-annual peer review system, in which each employee was typically given feedback by five of their colleagues.

The system made employees feel the need to participate in after-hours social events, grab daily lunches with teammates, and remain a positive advocate for the company in order remain in good standing with colleagues, according to the report. 

“It’s a little bit of a popularity contest,” one of the former employees said. “You can cherry-pick the people who like you — maybe throw in one bad apple to equalize it.”

Once peer feedback is collected, employees are "stack ranked" and assigned a grade by management. Only a certain percentage of employees can receive each grade, so managers must advocate for their direct reports to receive the highest honors, according to the report. 

“There’s a saying at Facebook that once you have one bad half, you’re destined for bad halves the rest of your time there. That stigma will follow you,” one former manager told CNBC. 

The "stack rank" system was introduced by management-guru and General Electric CEO Jack Welch in the 1990s and adopted by Microsoft until 2013 when the company stopped the practice amid a declining employee morale.  

Read the full CNBC report here. 

SEE ALSO: Google is running a Disneyland-style ride from its massive booth at the world's largest tech show

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We put the 7 best smartphones of 2018 head-to-head and there was a clear winner for the best value

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

• EyeBuyDirect is a direct-to-consumer eyewear brand that makes getting on-trend prescription (or non-prescription) eyeglasses and sunglasses easy and affordable.
• The company offers over 1,200 frames starting as low as $6.
• Now through January 20, you can buy one pair of glasses and get the second pair half off with the promo code "BOHO" at checkout.
• This sale is the perfect opportunity to pick up an extra pair of unique eyeglasses or a pair of prescription shades.

If you've ever bought glasses at a brick-and-mortar retail location, chances are you spent a lot more than you anticipated — even after using your insurance. Fortunately, buying glasses online is now a real thing — and direct-to-consumer brand EyeBuyDirect is making it easy to buy stylish glasses without the ludicrous retail markups.

While the company has consistently better prices than traditional retailers all the time, its current sale is just sweetening the deal. Now through January 20, you can buy one pair of glasses and get the second pair half off with the promo code "BOHO" at checkout.

If you're having second thoughts about buying glasses online, you shouldn't worry. EyeBuyDirect has clear instructions on how to read your prescription, how to measure your pupillary distance, and even has a virtual EyeTry feature, which helps you see what frames look like on your face. Additionally, every purchase comes with a risk-free 14-day fitting period and a one-year product replacement guarantee.

With over 1,200 frames starting as low as $6, the options at EyeBuyDirect are seemingly endless no matter your budget. To help you get a feel for what's available on the site, we rounded up 20 of our favorite pairs of eyeglasses and sunglasses. Check them out below or shop the entire site here.

Shop all glasses at EyeBuyDirect now.

Drums eyeglasses

$4.80, available in six colors

Chilling eyeglasses

$16, available in five colors

Hepburn eyeglasses

$40, available in four colors

The healthcare industry is facing disruption due to accelerating technological innovation and growing demand for improved delivery of healthcare and lower costs. Tech startups are leading the way by seizing opportunities in the areas of the industry that are most vulnerable to disruption, including genomics, pharmaceuticals, administration, clinical operations, and insurance.

Venture funds and businesses are taking notice of these startups' potential. In the US, digital health funding reached $1.6 billion in Q1 2018, according to Rock Health — the largest first quarter on record, surpassing the $1.4 billion in venture funding seen in Q1 2016. These high-potential startups provide a glimpse into the future of the healthcare space and demonstrate how we’ll get there.

In this report, a compilation of various notes, Business Insider Intelligence will look at the top startups disrupting US healthcare in four key areas: artificial intelligence (AI), digital therapeutics, health insurance, and genomics. Startups in this report were selected based on the funding they've received over the past year, notable investors, the products they offer, and leadership in their functional area.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Tech startups are entering the market by applying the “Silicon Valley” approach. They're targeting shortcomings and legacy systems that are no longer efficient.
• AI is being applied across five areas of healthcare to improve clinical operation workflows, cut costs, and foster preventative medicine. These areas include administration, big data analysis, clinical decision support, remote patient monitoring, and care provision.
  
• Health tech startups, insurers, and drug makers are rapidly exploring new ways to apply digital therapeutics to the broader healthcare market that replace or complement the existing treatment of a disease.
• Health insurance startups are taking advantage of the consumerization of healthcare to threaten the status quo of legacy players. 
• Genomics is becoming an increasingly common tool within the healthcare system as health organizations better understand how to extract the value from patients’ genetic data. 

 In full, the report:

• Details the areas of the US health industry that show the greatest potential for disruption.
• Forecasts the industry adoption of bleeding edge technology and how it will transform how healthcare organizations operate.
• Unveils the top five startups in AI, digital therapeutics, health insurance, and genomics, and how they're positioned to solve big issues that key players in healthcare face. 
• Explores what's next for the leading startups, providing a glimpse into the future of the healthcare space and demonstrating how we’ll get there.

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to:

	This report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports
	Access to all future reports and daily newsletters
	Forecasts of new and emerging technologies in your industry
	And more!

Learn More

Purchase & download the full report from our research store

Join the conversation about this story »

• WeWork— the coworking space startup that just changed its name to The We Company — was recently informed it wouldn't receive the full $16 billion investment it was expecting from SoftBank.
• Plans for the major investment reportedly upset some of SoftBank's government-supported financial backers in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, who questioned putting so much capital into a startup that was losing money.
• It reportedly only took a day for Adam Neumann, CEO of what was then still called WeWork, to shake off the blow and resume negotiations with SoftBank to hammer out a revised deal for a $1 billion in new capital and another $1 billion that would go to shareholders.

After hearing that SoftBank could no longer invest $16 billion into his startup, We Company CEO Adam Neumann was reportedly able to salvage $1 billion in new capital by refusing to accept the deal was completely dead.

It reportedly took only "a day" for Neumann to recover from the bad news, Fast Company reports. The CEO then quickly hashed out a revised deal with the Japanese investment firm, announced Tuesday, that will provide The We Company with $1 billion in new capital, $1 billion that would go to shareholders, and the promise of an additional $1.5 billion that would arrive in 2020.

SoftBank has previously invested $8 billion into The We Company, the new name for the coworking startup WeWork. The rebranding will allow the company to expand its offerings beyond collaborative workspaces and into new ventures in co-living housing units, education, and banking services, the company said when announcing the name change.

Read more:WeWork is changing its name to 'The We Company' as SoftBank invests $2 billion

It was initially reported back in October that SoftBank planned to invest $16 billion in The We Company, which would give the Japanese firm a majority stake in the startup. However, SoftBank's backers — which notably include government-backed funders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — reportedly balked at such a hefty investment in a company that saw a net loss of more than a billion in 2018.

The last straw that broke the $16 billion deal was the poor debut for SoftBank's telecom unit when it went public on the Japanese stock market in December, Fast Company says. Neumann said that not long after the tumultuous IPO showing, he received a call from SoftBank's CEO Masayoshi Son to cancel the multi-million dollar investment.

Here's how Neumann reacted to hearing SoftBank would no longer invest $16 billion, according to Fast Company:

[Softbank CEO Masayoshi] Son “called me,” Neumann recalls, in an interview on Monday with Fast Company. “He said, ‘We’re partners. What should we do?'” Son told him that the deal SoftBank and WeWork had spent months negotiating was no longer viable.

It was a blow, but those inside WeWork who worked closely with Neumann on the deal say that, almost immediately, he returned to the negotiating table. “It took a day for Adam to recover,” says one source who was close to the negotiations.

Working around the clock, through the holidays into early January, WeWork and SoftBank hammered out a revised deal, announced this week, for $2 billion of new capital at a $47 billion valuation. WeWork now has more than $10 billion of funding from SoftBank and close to $7 billion on its balance sheet.

You can read more about SoftBank's latest investment and the thinking behind WeWork's name over at Fast Company.

SEE ALSO: WeWork is changing its name to 'The We Company' as SoftBank invests $2 billion

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I cut Google out of my life for 2 weeks, but the alternatives prove why Google is so much better

• CVS Health and Aetna have officially combined to create an entirely new kind of healthcare company.
• In a presentation Tuesday at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, CVS CEO Larry Merlo laid out the first steps the combined company is taking to change healthcare.
• CVS is opening a test store in Houston with more healthcare services, and also plans to test programs to treat chronic diseases and keep patients out of the hospital.

CVS Health and Aetna officially merged at the end of 2018.

The $70 billion merger combines a chain of nearly 10,000 pharmacies that also owns a drug benefits business with one of the biggest US health insurers. The result is an entirely new healthcare company that can wield a tremendous amount of power over how healthcare gets paid for and provided to patients.

In a presentation on Tuesday at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, CVS CEO Larry Merlo outlined for the first time how the combined company will provide healthcare differently. The main goals are: keeping patients healthier and out of the hospital, caring for patients at less-costly locations (such as CVS's clinics instead of emergency rooms), and pioneering new methods of caring for devastating chronic diseases like cancer and heart failure.

Achieving those goals will help CVS boost its profits. Since it now owns is a health insurer, the company will spend less on medical care if it can keep customers healthier, or care for them at clinics instead of hospitals. 

Read more of Business Insider's coverage from the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference here

A big component of the strategy is providing more healthcare in CVS stores, both at the pharmacy counter and via the company's MinuteClinics. To make space, CVS is removing some products from the front of the stores where it's piloting the new approach.

"We can open a new front door to health that is both easier to use and less expensive, while at the same time, providing convenient access to high-quality health care," Merlo said during the presentation.

The strategy also helps CVS find new use for the floor space in its 9,800 locations, as customers increasingly shop for everyday goods on Amazon. And providing more care in stores can help CVS counter forays by rivals like Amazon into healthcare. Amazon, for its part, acquired the pharmacy startup PillPack last year, marking its entry into the drug-delivery business. 

To start, CVS is opening up its first "health hub" in a redesigned store in Houston in February. On Tuesday, the company revealed what that store will look like. You can see that there's a lot more store space devoted to providing healthcare, including at the clinic and pharmacy.

The MinuteClinics in the pilot stores will offer more services, including disease screenings and blood draws. CVS already has about 1,100 MinuteClinics across its stores. They're usually staffed by nurse practitioners or physicians' assistants, and now provide basic checkups and care for minor illnesses and ailments.

The stores will also have a "care concierge," who might help individuals understand how their health insurance works, or help them use health and wellness devices and technology.

CVS is also testing several other initiatives to improve how its customers get healthcare, using the resources of the combined company.

In one program, CVS pharmacists will call Aetna members who the company thinks could be at high risk of a negative health event, and counsel them on how to improve their health. A second outreach program will focus specifically on Aetna members with heart disease.

Another focuses on Aetna customers who've been in the hospital. To make sure they get the care they need after leaving the hospital and prevent them from having to go back, Aetna care managers will schedule followup visits for them at MinuteClinics, if they can't get in to see their usual doctor.

At the MinuteClinic, healthcare providers can make sure the patients understand their disease and how to manage it. They'll also check that patients have the right prescription drugs and know how to take them.

"Helping people on their path to better health has been a cornerstone of our purpose at CVS," Merlo said. "As we zoom out and look at the broader health care market and the savings that can be achieved by more effectively managing chronic conditions, the opportunity here is massive"

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Mistletoe is actually a tree-killing parasite — here's how it became a Christmas icon

• The deaths of two young migrant children in Border Patrol custody last month have sparked outrage and confusion, with critics asking how children could grow so ill in government detention without immediate access to care.
• A pediatric doctor and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics says it's not uncommon for children's symptoms to go unnoticed by medical personnel who don't have specialized pediatric training.
• Dr. Colleen Kraft spoke to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan in late December, and urged him to allow trained pediatricians into the facilities to care for children and make recommendations on the conditions.
• A CBP spokesman told INSIDER the agency intends to seek AAP's input going forward.

The deaths of two young migrant children in Border Patrol custody in December have embroiled the Trump administration in controversy for weeks, raising questions over how two children could grow severely ill in detention before accessing emergency medical care.

According to Dr. Colleen Kraft, a pediatrician with 29 years of experience and the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, it's not surprising that staff at the Border Patrol facilities didn't notice the children's illnesses immediately when their symptoms developed — and she said that highlights the agency's dire lack of medical personnel with specialized pediatric training.

The two children, 7-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin and 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo, each died of what appeared to be sudden illnesses that quickly turned fatal.

Though the children's causes of death haven't yet been released, medical examiners have said Felipe tested positive for the flu.

In both Jakelin and Felipe's cases, their families have insisted they were healthy on their journeys to the US, and only grew ill while they were in custody.

Read more: 'We've seen this coming': Why migrant children are dying in Border Patrol custody

Government timelines also showed that the two children presented no urgent health concerns when they were first arrested after crossing the border, though top officials like Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have argued that migrant children often become sick during the long trek from Central America.

But Border Patrol agents conducted an "initial screening" in Jakelin's case that raised no medical problems, and more than two dozen "welfare checks" in Felipe's case determined he was safe and secure.

Felipe's father even reportedly told family members his son's sudden illness caught him off guard. Felipe's stepsister, Catarina Gomez Lucas, told the Associated Press that Felipe "was fine all day" and "playing with other children" until he suddenly got a stomach ache.

"That is very typical," Kraft said, adding that it takes special training to tell the difference between a mildly sick child and a severely sick one.

"I recall once seeing a child who was having a severe asthma attack, and he was trying to crack jokes the whole time … But if you hadn't lifted his shirt to see how hard he was breathing, you would never have known he was sick," she said. "The signs are subtle."

An expert says staff don't have the necessary training to care for the growing number of migrant children arriving in the US

Kraft said she didn't blame any of the medical personnel who treated Jakelin and Felipe — they simply don't have the pediatric training necessary to care for the growing number of migrant children arriving in the US.

In the wake of the children's deaths, the US Department of Homeland Security ordered secondary medical checks on all children in Border Patrol's custody. The agency even enlisted the US Coast Guard, Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control, and other agencies for help investigating the children's illnesses and preventing more deaths.

But Kraft was skeptical of the measures, noting that it's unclear what those secondary medical checks consist of. She said they could ultimately prove ineffective if they're being conducted by staff without pediatric training.

"When an adult gets sick, they slow down, they rest, they don't look very active, where a child might run around and play, even as he or she is getting sicker," Kraft said. "It takes a trained eye."

Kraft said she spoke with Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan in late December, and told him about the specific challenges with treating migrant children as opposed to adults. She said she views their discussion as a "positive first step."

A Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed to INSIDER that McAleenan and Kraft had discussed the matter, and that McAleenan would continue to seek her organization's input going forward.

"We have 67,000 medical experts," Kraft said. "Use our expertise. Allow us unfettered access to these facilities. Allow us to train your personnel. Allow us to monitor and make recommendations on these conditions, and we can help you out."

The partial government shutdown has reached its 18th day as President Donald Trump continues to demand Congress approve $5 billion to build his border wall. Trump is set to visit the border town of McAllen, Texas, on Thursday, the site of Border Patrol's largest processing facility that regularly holds hundreds of migrant children with their parents.

• Read more:
• As the government shutdown over Trump's border wall rages, a journey along the entire 1,933-mile US-Mexico border shows the monumental task of securing it
• Videos appear to show Arizona shelter staffers dragging, pushing, and slapping migrant children
• The 8-year-old migrant boy who died on Christmas Eve was held in US custody for nearly a week — against Border Patrol's own rules
• Trump tweeted a design for 'steel slats' along the border with spikes on top — and called it 'totally effective while at the same time beautiful'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: MSNBC host Chris Hayes thinks President Trump's stance on China is 'not at all crazy'

• A men's weekly magazine in Japan called Spa! published an article ranking five universities based on which school's female students were supposedly "easily available" for sex at "drinking parties."
• The article said the parties are popular among female students and claimed that a woman's appearance or clothing may indicate her sexual availability.
• The article faced severe backlash, with a Change.org petition garnering more than 37,000 signatures demanding an apology from the magazine.
• Spa! issued an apology for the article, saying it used "sensational language."

A Japanese tabloid magazine was forced to apologize after publishing a ranking of universities based on how "easily available" women supposedly are for sex after "drinking parties" at the schools.

The weekly men's magazine, Spa!, published the list on December 25, and featured five universities.

These so-called drinking parties, known as "gyaranomi," are events where male participants pay women to attend, according to Newsweek.

The Spa! article said the parties are popular among female students, featured an interview with an app developer creating a program intended to help people find other attendees, and claimed that a woman's appearance or clothing may indicate her sexual availability, BBC reported. It also reportedly described ways to "coax" women.

The article faced severe backlash, with a Change.org petition with more than 37,000 signatures demanding an apology from the magazine.

"I would like to fight so that, especially on public articles such as this one, sexualizing, objectifying, and disrespecting women would stop," the petition creator, Kazuna Yakomoto said on the signature page. "We demand Shuukan Spa take this article back and apologize, and promise to not use objectifying words to talk about women."

Read more:11 of the biggest moments of the #MeToo movement in 2018

Spa! issued an apology for the article, saying it used "sensational language."

"We would like to apologize for using sensational language to appeal to readers about how they can become intimate with women and for creating a ranking ... with real university names ... that resulted in a feature that may have offended readers," the magazine said in a statement BBC translated.

"On issues that involve sex, we will do what we can as a magazine to listen to various opinions," the statement added.

Japan ranks 110 out of 149 countries on the World Economic Forum's global gender equality rankings for 2018.

Last year, multiple medical universities in Japan admitted to tampering with exam scores to put female applicants at a disadvantage, according to the Japan Times.

Spa!, which launched in 1988, has a circulation of 108,000 copies, Kyodo News reported.

• Read more about Japan:
• About 5 million Americans experience sexual harassment at work every year. Nearly all of it goes unreported.
• Japan was officially the best place to travel in 2018. Here are 15 photos that will make you want to visit ASAP.
• Commercial whaling will be allowed in Japan again for the first time in 30 years
• These mysterious tree arrangements in Japan kind of look like crop circles, and they're the result of a nearly 50-year-old experiment

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Saturn is officially losing its rings — and they're disappearing much faster than scientists had anticipated

• IBM unveiled the IBM Q System One on Tuesday, billed as the world's first quantum computer that businesses will actually be able to buy and use.
• Previously, quantum computers have only been confined to research labs — Microsoft, Google, IBM, and lots of others have been racing to bring a viable quantum computer to market. 
• Now IBM will partner with commercial clients to give them access to this technology, which can allow businesses to model complicated data such as investments and risk.
• Quantum computers have the potential to perform seemingly-impossible computing tasks, but they're still in their very early stages.
• The computer itself is in a nine-by-nine glass cube that maintains it at the exactly correct temperature and other conditions it needs to do its work — a kind of fragility that means that you can't just order one and have it sent; customers will access it via the IBM Cloud. 

For many years, quantum computers have only been within the confines of the research lab.

On Tuesday, though, IBM unveiled the IBM Q System One, billed as the first-ever quantum computer designed for businesses to put to their own use — though the company is clear that this is only the first step towards a broader revolution. 

Quantum computing is considered one of the most promising early-stage technologies out there today. That's because quantum computers can process exponentially more data and have the potential to completely transform entire industries. For example, they could potentially streamline aerospace and military systems, calculate risk factors to make better investments, or, perhaps, find a cure for cancer and other diseases. 

"Data will be the world's most valuable natural resource," IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where the IBM Q System One was unveiled. 

Don’t expect to install one in your office any time soon, though. While the computer is open to paying customers, developers will access its power from the comfort of their own homes or offices via the IBM Cloud.

Computers today store data in binary, as either zeroes or ones — strings of ones and zeroes represent numbers or letters. However, quantum computers are much more powerful. That's because they store data using qubits, which have a special property that allows zeroes and ones to exist simultaneously. This seemingly-small thing gives quantum computers the ability to do exponentially more calculations at once, making them powerful enough for incredibly complicated tasks like drug discovery, intensive data analysis, and even creating unbreakable codes. 

Enclosed in a nine-foot-tall, nine-foot-wide glass case that forms an air-tight environment, this sleek computer is IBM's first effort to bring quantum computing to businesses. The casing is important: Qubits lose their quantum computing properties outside of very specific conditions. A quantum computer has to be kept well below freezing, in a mostly vibration- and electromagnetic radiation-free environment.

IBM's new system aims to address this challenge with an integrated quantum computer that solves all of that on behalf of customers — hence the casing, which keeps everything in ship-shape. However, this relative fragility is why you won't be installing an IBM Q System One in your own office — while it's definitely a major step forward, it's a far ways away from being something you can order and have delivered.

"The IBM Q System One is a major step forward in the commercialization of quantum computing," Arvind Krishna, senior vice president of Hybrid Cloud and director of IBM Research said in a statement. "This new system is critical in expanding quantum computing beyond the walls of the research lab as we work to develop practical quantum applications for business and science."

Read more:Here’s why we should be really excited about quantum computers

Later this year, IBM will also open its first IBM Q Quantum Computation Center for commercial customers in Poughkeepsie, New York. At this lab, clients can use IBM's cloud-based quantum computing systems, as well as other high performance computing systems. 

IBM isn't the only company that's been working on quantum computing, as the technology is still far from ready for mass deployment.

Google is researching how to make quantum computers more stable and better able to find and fix errors, and it has also created and tested qubit processors as it pursues the technology. Microsoft is working on creating hybrid quantum computers, which combine the new technology with more conventional processors. Intel, too has been working on making big bets on quantum computing chips. 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tried the Costco food court and it totally blew us away

• One Medical is teaming up with Providence St. Joseph Health to link its primary care clinics into a health system.
• The idea is to partner with the health system to offer services that go beyond the scope of primary care, such as visits during pregnancy. 
• The partnership will be available to One Medical members in Seattle and Los Angeles. 

One Medical, a startup medical group that aims to make it easier for patients to see their doctors, is teaming up with a big hospital system, as lines blur between tech upstarts and old-school healthcare providers.

The company is working with Providence St. Joseph Health, a West Coast-based health system with 51 hospitals that made $23 billion in revenue in 2017. The idea is to to offer services that go beyond primary care but can often be done by a primary-care doctor, as well as give One Medical users access to the larger health system.  

One Medical charges individuals a flat fee of $199 a year for unlimited same-day visits with a doctor or other care provider. Increasingly, the company is striking deals with big companies to offer the service to their workers.

One Medical got a $350 million investment from Carlyle Group last year, and now offers care in nine cities.

One Medical is increasingly partnering with established healthcare providers to help patients get more types of healthcare. In San Diego, where the company is planning to open offices, its partnering with UC San Diego Health, for instance.

Read more: Check out Business Insider's coverage of the biggest healthcare investor conference.

One example of services that could be offered in the partnership: One Medical has been working with obstetricians to manage some of the healthcare visits associated with pregnancy. Instead of having to go to the ob-gyn office for routine checkups, those visits could happen at a One Medical office that may be more convenient.

"Our partnership with Providence St. Joseph will enable us to better coordinate primary and specialty services for our patients, communicating directly with the doctors at PSJH when One Medical members require additional clinical services," One Medical CEO Amir Rubin told Business Insider in an emailed statement. 

Providence announced the collaboration on Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. The partnership is part of Providence's strategy to disrupt itself before others get the chance to.  

For instance, the health system has been turning to its high-tech neighbors for executive hires over the last five years as it works to improve its operations, bringing on executives like Martin, who comes from Amazon, as well as Microsoft veterans. The hope is to use technology to make the health system run smoother, whether that's through primary-care scheduling or making a better internal directory.

• Read more:
• One Medical, a fast-growing startup that just raised $350 million to reinvent how you visit your doctor, is betting it can 'blow this thing out nationally'
• A former Amazon executive made a big mistake when he first joined a major hospital system, and it could be a warning for tech companies trying to shake up healthcare
• The hospital in Amazon's backyard has a plan to disrupt itself before being disrupted by big tech companies
• 250 more hospitals just joined in on a plan to make their own drugs and the effort could upend the generic pharma business

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I stopped eating breakfast for 2 weeks and I'm never doing it again