Iran can weather oil at $25 per barrel, according to the man in charge of the country's precious resource. 

Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the Islamic Republic of Iran's oil minister, says "there will yet again be no threat posed to Iran’s oil industry,"even if the price falls another $20 or so, according to Bloomberg.

Zanganeh's reassurances come as prices are falling again Tuesday — though they're slightly higher than the six-year lows recorded last week, when West Texas Intermediate dropped below $45 per barrel and Brent slipped below $47.

As of 9:45 a.m. GMT, WTI was down 2.91% at $47.70, and Bren was 0.40% lower at $48.65.

Iran talks up its oil industry, but unlike the Gulf States, which genuinely can weather extremely low oil prices, Iran has a more precarious situation. The country needed oil prices to be well over $100, closer to $150, to cover its budget deficit, and Citi reported that Iranian oil revenues had already dropped by 30% at the beginning of December.

NOW WATCH: This Video Of The Largest Breakage Of Ice From A Glacier Ever Filmed Is Absolutely Frightening

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The lawyer for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden says his client never uses an iPhone because of fears about its security, Sputnik News reports.

Anatoly Kucherena spoke to the news agency RIA Novosti and explained that Snowden was wary of the iPhone because of his knowledge of the NSA's surveillance tactics. 

"Edward never uses an iPhone; he's got a simple phone," the lawyer said. "The iPhone has special software that can activate itself without the owner having to press a button and gather information about him; that's why on security grounds he refused to have this phone."

Documents leaked by Snowden reveal that iPhone security is an area of interest for the world's spy agencies. The British spy agency GCHQ was recently revealed to have used the UDID system to track iPhone users.

Edward Snowden has been living with his girlfriend in Moscow since fleeing the US following his leak of internal NSA documents. The former government contractor has made appearances at technology conferences using encrypted video streams and telepresence robots during his time in Russia. 

NOW WATCH: The Secrets Behind Getting Your Profile Viewed On LinkedIn

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Early analysis of Twitter’s $30 million to $40 million acquisition of India-based mobile marketing start-up ZipDial points to the acquisition as a way for the microblogging service to bolster its position in emerging markets by making the platform more accessible to the millions of people who don’t yet have access to smartphones and high speed mobile internet services.

While this is most certainly the primary reason for the deal, if integrated in the right way, the acquisition is likely to improve Twitter’s overall advertising offering too.

Making Money From Missed Calls

ZipDial might be unknown to most people, but it counts some of the world’s biggest brands — P&G, Cadbury. Pepsi, Disney, KFC, and many more — among its clients. The company specializes in turning the simplest features of a mobile phone — SMS, voice calls and very basic mobile internet – into lucrative marketing platforms.

ZipDial is most famous for its missed call marketing format. The missed call is a hugely popular way for people to communicate in emerging markets: It’s a way for people to let their families know they are safe; that they are at a rendezvous point; or simply to say hello. ZipDial has capitalized on this by allowing brands to advertise phone numbers for consumers to call, then quickly hang up before incurring charges. Through ZipDial, the advertiser then returns the call or can send a promotional text message. Those calls could include recorded messages from celebrities, or live updated sports scores.

But ZipDial’s value is beyond just another ad format. As Gary Bourgeault, a Seeking Alpha contributor, points out, when consumers opt-in to a dropped call service, they are giving marketers permission to contact them. That signals a level of interest in future marketing communications — a vital datapoint for marketers.

The missed call format could also extend to sponsored units — Twitter’s bread and butter when it comes to ad formats. Twitter could give brands the option to sponsor some of the news or information services signing up to use the format. Twitter already has its Amplify program, in which it partners with media and sports brands like the NBA and the NFL to showcase video and images from live events, complete with sponsorships from brands like American Express and McDonald’s. ZipDial gives Twitter the chance to extend this initiative beyond the handful of US partners that have joined it to date.

Beyond Emerging Markets

Acquiring a company like ZipDial won’t just make Twitter a better option for advertisers looking to reach consumers in emerging markets like India — it will help make the company a better mobile marketing platform overall.

When Unilever’s top executives present at major advertising and mobile conferences, they often showcase an award-winning missed call case study for its Active Wheel brand in India. The return call offered 15 minutes of free entertainment (Bollywood stars being interviewed, music, and so on,) interspersed with ads. The company claims it is now the biggest media channel in many rural villages in India, with millions of people engaging with it each month. That’s a huge achievement to create a media channel in villages that have no sanitation, no running water and no forms of entertainment.

What’s interesting when you hear those Unilever marketers speak about case studies like this is that they don’t just talk about sales or awards, but about how these kind of programs have changed their way of thinking about marketing more generally. It’s shifted them from only considering the traditional media channels — TV, internet banner ads, outdoor etc. — and into being better marketers by honing in on actual consumer behavior, not just the platforms their media agencies are pushing them towards.

Twitter’s commercial executives have spent the past 18 months positioning its platform as a complement to TV. But by bringing on a company like ZipDial, Twitter can start thinking less about the types of channel and more about the types of emerging behaviors it can monetize.

That’s not just about behavior in emerging markets. It’s about using thinking from emerging markets — where resources are scant and many people have skipped owning a computer, or a bank account, to simply owning a mobile phone — to improve its services in developed markets. The mobile phone was never developed so people could bypass charges by making dropped calls — people developed this behavior, and media companies like Twitter should be adapting to these behaviors. Users adore “hacks” and simplicity when it comes to mobile technology — just look at the flyaway success of the Yo app.

Beyond missed calls, ZipDial also specializes in allowing advertisers to offer consumers top-ups to their prepaid mobile accounts and ways to consume content while making frugal use of mobile data: Both vital currencies amongst users in India. But that application of valuable (but relatively cheap for the advertiser) currency could easily be extended into the types of content, vouchers or other “free” offers people in developed markets hold dear, with Twitter acting as the gift-giver on behalf of brand advertisers. All those formats can also play to the millions of Twitter's non-logged-in users it is desperate to find a way to monetize and prove the value of to investors as logged-in user growth slows.

And beyond new revenue streams and new ways of thinking from an advertising perspective, ZipDial also offers Twitter something meaningful it has been lacking: ZipDial founder and CEO Valerie R. Wagoner, a prominent female entrepreneur.

As Twitter’s director of corporate development and strategy Jessica Verrilli tweeted, Wagoner is a much welcome addition in many respects, but the fact that she is female is important too. When Twitter last released its diversity numbers, it revealed just 30% of its employees are female, and it is keen to start redressing that balance — particularly at the top.

Twitter Does Need An Emerging Markets Boost

Most importantly, Twitter’s latest acquisition is definitely an emerging markets play. ZipDial is an important entry point to India that Twitter is currently lacking. Just under 80% of Twitter’s monthly active users come from outside its US market and more than 80% of the social network’s revenue comes from mobile.

Over the next few years, global smartphone sales will be largely driven by new users in India. New smartphone users accounted for up to 92% of new smartphone sales in India in 2014, according to research from Mediacells.

Facebook is well ahead when it comes to the emerging markets play. Indeed, Facebook partnered with ZipDial in July last year to test the missed call ad unit.

Facebook also made its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp last year, which is the number one messaging app in many emerging mobile markets. 2014 was also the year it began its Internet.org mission to connect “the next 5 billion” to the internet. And it also acquired start-ups such as Finnish company Pryte that aims to make it easier for mobile phone users in under-developed parts of the world to use wireless apps. Twitter is playing catch-up.

ZipDial might not be the biggest acquisition Twitter will make in 2015, but it could help change its way of thinking when it comes to mobile marketing. In emerging markets and beyond.

SEE ALSO: Now Instagram Is Dominating Twitter In Another Hugely Important Way

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Apple's new headquarters, currently under construction, is going to be big. So big, in fact, that the Cupertino company has spent $161 million on the auditorium alone. It's not due to be completed until the end of 2016, but thanks to a new photo update on the City of Cupertino's website (above), we can see it's coming along well and on schedule.

As 9to5Mac notes, the 176-acre campus will accommodate 12,000 employees when finished. The futuristic circular shape has seen "Apple Campus 2" nicknamed the "spaceship."Estimates of the total cost are as high as $5 billion.

Here's an artist's rendering of how it'll look when it's complete:

If you want a closer look, check out this incredible HD drone footage of the construction site, from the start of January 2015:

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Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - Armed men kidnapped a female UN employee in the capital of the strife-torn Central African Republic on Tuesday, a day after two aid workers were seized, said a source with the UN force.

The gunmen, who appeared to be linked to the mainly Christian anti-balaka militia, seized the woman from a van taking UN staffers to work in Bangui, the source with the UN's Minusca force in the country said on condition of anonymity. 

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Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know in the world of advertising today.

1. Twitter has acquired India-based mobile marketing startup ZipDial for an estimated $30 million to $40 million. The deal will bolster Twitter's efforts to grow users and revenue in emerging markets, but ZipDial's insights on how to turn the simplest elements of mobile into strong commercial media platforms should also hope strengthen its entire advertising offer.

2. Apple has stopped developers in Crimea from creating apps for the App Store. It follows new US sanctions.

3. Facebook says it adds more than $200 billion to the global economy. Facebook is trying to dispel a myth that technology creates jobs in the tech sector but destroys jobs everywhere else, citing retailers' sales being directly attributed to the social network and the millions of dollars raised for the ALS Foundation as a result of "Ice Bucket Challenge" videos being shared on the site.

4. Omnicom has added Facebook Atlas tags to ads served via Google AdSense, Digiday reports. The agency holding company has begun adding Atlas tracking pixels to measure ads served by DoubleClick, Google’s ad serving competitor, to compare each product’s results against one another

5. A KFC Facebook post using a #Tay4Hottest100 hashtag has got Taylor Swift's songs disqualified from radio station Triple J’s Hottest 100 contest, Mumbrella reports. The radio station’s competition rules state that it reserves the right to remove artists from the list who have benefited from competitions or commercial campaigns that incentives fans to vote for them.

6.Facebook is planning a voice-to-text function for its Messenger Application, The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today reports. The company’s vice president of messaging products David Marcus also hinted that there may be some advertising opportunities such as sponsored content within Facebook’s messaging products.

7.Procter & Gamble has a new North America media chief, AdAge reports. Kristen Decker has been promoted to oversee P&G’s estimated $3 billion media outlay.

8.Adidas has launched a global football campaign that aims to douse the flames on the “haters” that have criticized the brand and its ambassadors, The Drum reports. The “#ThereWillBeHaters campaign stars Luis Suarez, Gareth Bale, James Rodriguez and Karim Benzema.

9.AOL is planning a major re-organization that will result in layoffs and site closures, TechCrunch reports. Sources say the restructure is aimed at simplifying the com pay around adtech and its stronger content and video operations.

10. Google is planning to prohibit data-management platforms (DMPs) from operating on the Google Display Network, according to Digiday. At the end of March Google will only allow DMPs to place tracking pixels on the ad network that also own the demand-side platform (DSP) carrying out the transaction, Digiday's sources suggest.

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Facebook says it added $227 billion to the world's economy and was responsible for 4.5 million jobs in 2014, according to a new report put together by Deloitte. While those figures sound impressive, The Wall Street Journal spoke to some economists who question those statistics.

Stanford economist Roger Noll argues that the report confuses cause and effect: Facebook isn't responsible for the ongoing surge of internet use, but rather, more people use Facebook as internet usage grows. 

“Facebook is an effect, not a cause, of the growth of Internet access and use,” Noll told the WSJ. 

George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen agreed. The social network "likely has significant economic impact," he told the WSJ, but that the numbers are inflated. "The value of smartphones is that they help you read Facebook — in addition to other benefits — not vice versa."

In other words, more people are buying smartphones so they gain access to all things on the internet, not just Facebook. 

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg stands by the report, which claims the tech giant's influence is responsible for 16% of smartphone sales. We "know Facebook is one of the main drivers of why people buy phones, particularly in the developing world," she said to the WSJ. "People actually confuse Facebook and the internet in some places." 

Here's an illustration of the data released by Deloitte:

The US alone saw $100 billion in economic impact, the report says. "The purchase of mobile devices and connectivity services motivated by Facebook" added $50 billion.

Some of the figures were calculated by assigning an undisclosed economic value to a Facebook "Like." These were then multiplied by the number of Likes to calculate the gross revenues from Pages. Similarly the number of Facebook events, multiplied by the average number of attendees and average spend per event, was used to calculate the revenues generated by Facebook events. (Deloitte claims 20% of that is "new" activity generated by Facebook's existence, though it's not clear how that percentage was reached.)

Meanwhile, they assert that 16% of smartphone sales are driven by Facebook  on the basis of the social network's popularity. 

Economist Roger Noll may think the results are "meaningless," but the criticism is unlikely to perturb Sandberg, who is due to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. She's expected to use the report for the basis of her remarks. “People believe that technology creates jobs in the tech sector and destroys jobs everywhere else,” she told Reuters. “This report shows that’s not true.”

Here's a breakdown of those questionable figures:

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Morgan Stanley missed fourth quarter earnings estimates. 

The bank reported earnings per share of 40 cents. Analysts were expecting the bank to report EPS of 49 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Revenue for the fourth quarter came in at $7.8 billion compared to analysts' expectations of $8.14 billion.

"We finished 2014 in substantially better shape than we entered the year. We delivered strong results across several of our businesses, although overall performance was affected by the choppy market conditions of the fourth quarter. We also addressed a number of items that, while affecting our results in the short term, position us well in the years ahead. Entering 2015, we remain confident about our business mix, market position and the opportunities ahead of us," CEO James Gorman said. 

Shares of Morgan Stanley were last down 3.2% in the pre-market.

Here's an excerpt of the release:

• Fourth Quarter Net Revenues of $7.8 Billion and Earnings per Diluted Share from Continuing Operations of $0.47
• Results for the Quarter Included the following Significant Items:
  • Discrete Tax Benefit1 of $1.4 Billion ($0.70 per Diluted Share)
    
  • Elevated Compensation Expense Due to Deferral Adjustments3 of $1.1 Billion ($0.40 per Diluted Share)
    
  • Negative Revenues from FVA4 of $468 Million ($0.17 per Diluted Share)
    
  • Legal Expenses Include $284 Million for Legacy Residential Mortgage Related Matters ($0.12 per Diluted Share)
    
• Excluding DVA,5 Net Revenues were $7.5 Billion (Inclusive of the Negative $468 Million from FVA) and Earnings per Diluted Share from Continuing Operations of $0.40 
  
• Investment Banking Ranked #1 in Global IPOs and #2 in Global Announced M&A;9 Continued Strength in Equity Sales & Trading
• Record Quarterly Wealth Management Revenues of $3.8 Billion and Record Fee-Based Asset Flows of $21 Billion
• Full Year Net Revenues of $34.3 Billion and Earnings per Diluted Share from Continuing Operations of $2.96; Excluding DVA, Net Revenues were $33.6 Billion and Earnings per Diluted Share from Continuing Operations of $2.756,7,8

Morgan Stanley (MS) today reported net revenues of $7.8 billion for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2014 compared with $7.8 billion a year ago. For the current quarter, income from continuing operations applicable to Morgan Stanley was $1.0 billion, or $0.47 per diluted share,10 compared with income of $95 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, for the same period a year ago.

Results for the current quarter included several significant items: a net discrete tax benefit of approximately $1.4 billion or $0.70 per diluted share principally related to the restructuring of a legal entity; compensation expense adjustments of approximately $1.1 billion or a loss of $0.40 per diluted share related to changes in discretionary incentive compensation deferrals;a charge of $468 million or a loss of $0.17 per diluted share related to the initial incorporation of funding valuation adjustments (FVA) into the fair value measurements for certain over-the-counter derivatives and legal expenses of $284 million or a loss of $0.12 per diluted share associated with several residential mortgage and credit crisis related matters. The prior year fourth quarter included legal expenses of $1.4 billion or a loss of $0.45 per diluted share and a discrete tax benefit of $192 million or $0.10 per diluted share.

Results for the current quarter included positive revenues related to the change in the fair value of certain of the Firm’s long-term and short-term borrowings resulting from the fluctuation in the Firm’s credit spreads and other credit factors (Debt Valuation Adjustment, DVA) of $223 million, compared with negative revenues of $368 million a year ago.

Excluding DVA, net revenues for the current quarter were $7.5 billion, which were inclusive of negative revenues from FVA of $468 million, compared with $8.2 billion a year ago. Income from continuing operations applicable to Morgan Stanley was $903 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, compared with income of $336 million, or $0.15 per diluted share, a year ago.

Compensation expense of $5.1 billion increased from $4.0 billion a year ago primarily driven by compensation expense adjustments of approximately $1.1 billion, representing approximately $756 million related to the reduction in the average deferral of discretionary incentive compensation awards for the 2014 performance year and $381 million for the acceleration of vesting for certain outstanding deferred cash-based incentive compensation awards.3 Non-compensation expenses of $2.8 billion decreased from $4.1 billion a year ago, primarily reflecting lower legal expenses.

For the current quarter, net income applicable to Morgan Stanley, including discontinued operations, was $1.0 billion or $0.47 per diluted share,10 compared with net income of $84 million or $0.02 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2013.

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After 44 years of exhibiting topless women on Page 3 of its newspapers, The Sun has finally pulled down the curtain. The Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper "quietly dropped" the feature Friday, The Guardian first reported.

Until this week, The Sun's women always appeared in either only bottom-half underwear, or nothing at all (in those cases an object would be strategically placed to hide the most private of areas.)

But Tuesday morning's edition showed two soap opera actresses in their bikinis frolicking on the beach. They remain, as some on Twitter note, "scantily clad," but are more covered than ever. They follow Monday's paper, which featured an actress and model, also wearing more clothes than normal.

It is believed Friday's print run would be the last to "carry a glamor model with bare breasts on that page," The Guardian writes. While women will no longer be fully naked, the feature remains. The online edition will stay the same. Nevertheless, it's a landmark moment for the UK's media industry. 

The Guardian suggests the decision "comes from high up in New York" and that Murdoch himself made the call. But nothing is certain. The Sun has yet to confirm the move. Only The Times, also owned by the media mogul, was given anything substantial.

"Page 3 of The Sun is where it's always been, between pages 2 and 4, and you can find Lucy from Warwick at Page3.com."

As always, The Sun's nudity is divisive. The women's blog Mumsnet, tweeted:

Another supporter wrote:

But some look sad to see the nudity go:

Campaigners have been fighting to see the tabloid's Page 3 women dropped entirely for years. Critics of the paper say photos are offensive, sexist, and demeaning to women. The most influential group is No More Page 3, whose supporters include universities, charities, and celebrities, as well as MPs and the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments.

On its Change.org petition, Lucy Holmes, who started the group, asks Sun editor David Dinsmore: "David, stop showing topless pictures of young women in Britain’s most widely read newspaper, stop conditioning your readers to view women as sex objects."

No More Page 3 has greeted the new, less revealing title with positivity. A spokeswoman has dubbed the moment "historic" and "a great day for people power."

The protest group wrote a message on its Facebook page, which read: "This could be truly historic news and a great day for people power. We don't know the details for sure and there's still lots to be done. But this could be a huge step for challenging media sexism. And we are so incredibly grateful to all of you who stood up and said 'No More Page 3.'"

One of No More Page 3's members, Angela Towers, says in The Independent: "It's a historic moment, but the devil will be in the detail, and there's still a lot to be done." 

Towers mentions the fact that The Sun will carry on showing women in their underwear. In effect, many feel there's more to be done. 

The Sun has been displaying topless women since 1970, soon after Murdoch took over the publication. Its publisher, News UK, has maintained the feature is popular with a lot of readers — and it is believed the change could even be reversed if sales decline considerably as a result.

But it has been coming for some time. Early last year, Murdoch remarked that Page 3 had become "old-fashioned," though he did criticize those he called "feminists" who "never buy the paper." In 2014, the paper introduced naked men on page 7, a move that failed to attract much interest.

NOW WATCH: Meet The New Lingerie Company Looking To Cut Into Victoria's Secret's Empire

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Over at Apple's Chinese website, there's a new video that shows a mural on the outside of the company's new store in Hangzhou. 

Mac Rumors reports that the store in West Lake, Hangzhou, is set to open on Saturday, Jan. 24. To create excitement for the store's opening, Apple commissioned famous calligrapher Wang Dongling to create artwork for the outside of the store.

It's rare for Wang to create new artworks featuring readable characters, as he prefers more abstract works, but his new creation for Apple is actually a handwritten Chinese poem.

Here's the poem that's on the outside of the store while it's being built:

The light of water sparkles on a sunny day,
and misty mountains lend excitement to the rain.
I like to compare the west lake to "Miss West".
Pretty in a gay dress, and pretty in simple again.

Reddit user Studyro spotted that the mural is the ancient Chinese poem West Lake, written by Su Shi, a Chinese poet who died in 1101. So why did Apple choose this poem? Simple, the new store in Hangzhou is in West Lake, the location that the poem was set in.

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Good morning! It's a shortened week of trading in the US, so ahead of Tuesday's opening bell, here's what you need to know.

China's Official GDP Growth For 2014 Dropped To Its Lowest Since 1990. The world's second-largest economy grew 7.4% in the whole of 2014, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, undershooting the government's 7.5% target and marking the weakest expansion in 24 years, further clouding the picture for global demand.

The IMF Slashed Its Global Outlook. Global growth is projected at 3.5% for 2015 and 3.7% for 2016, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest World Economic Outlook report, lowering its forecast by 0.3 percentage points for both years.

It Seems Falling Oil Prices Won't Stop The Fed From Hiking. According to The Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath and Brian Blackstone, Fed officials are still broadly committed to a rate hike later this year and are confident in the state of the American economy, even as oil prices drive headline inflation far below the central bank's target. 

Futures Are Higher. Stock futures in the US are higher ahead of Tuesday's open, with Dow futures up 74 points, S&P 500 futures up 10 points, and Nasdaq futures up about 26 points. The premarket gains Tuesday come after Friday marked the only day last week that saw the market finish in positive territory as stocks posed their fourth straight weekly loss. 

Here Comes European QE. On Thursday, the European Central Bank is widely expected to announce a quantitative easing program. Many in the market expect the program to be €500 billion in size, but Business Insider's Mike Bird looked at analysis from Deutsche Bank that finds the ECB's program could be a bit larger than this.

Greece's Radical Anti-Austerity Party Syriza Is Holding A Solid Lead Ahead Of Elections. The Greek leftist opposition party Syriza has widened its opinion poll lead to 4.6 points, a survey showed Monday, with less than a week of campaigning left before a snap poll due Sunday. Syriza would garner 33.1% of the vote, whereas Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' ruling conservatives would receive 28.5%.

EU Foreign Ministers Are In No Rush To 'Normalize' Relations With Russia. European Union foreign ministers said Monday there were no grounds to lift economic sanctions against Russia despite conciliatory proposals from the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini as violence intensified in Ukraine.

Brazil Hiked Its Financial Transaction And Gas Taxes. South America's largest economy raised its financial transaction tax to 3% from 1.5%, and it raised gas taxes by 0.22 reals per liter. According to the Financial Times, that equates to an 8.5% hike in gas prices in Sao Paulo. The government is trying to address a large budget deficit. 

Samsung Is Considering A Stock Split. Robert Yi, Samsung's head of investor relations, told reporters at an event in Seoul that the company had been considering a stock split for some time but added that Samsung needed to consider a variety of factors. The split would multiply the number of Samsung shares on the market. 

BlackRock Says The Australian Dollar Could Fall Another 15%. The end of the commodity boom is hitting resource-rich Australia hard, and investment management giant BlackRock believes the Australian dollar has further to fall, down another 15% to about $0.70, according to Bloomberg. 

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Jakarta (AFP) - An AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea last month with 162 people on board climbed at a speed that was "beyond normal" and then stalled, the Indonesian transport minister said Tuesday. 

"In the final minutes, the plane climbed at a speed which was beyond normal," said Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan, citing radar data.

"The plane suddenly went up at a speed above the normal limit that it was able to climb to. Then it stalled."

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Dig Inn, a 10-restaurant chain based in New York City, is already a hit with healthy eaters. You're bound to see crowds lined up to get salads, sandwiches, and market plates from here any given day of the week.

With an average check of $10 and a focus on produce sourced from local farms, the chain aims to make simple, high-quality food available at an affordable price. 

The brand has just announced a $15 million Series C funding round led by Wexford Capital. Monogram Capital Partners, Riverwood Capital founder Michael Marks, and Law360 founder Magnus Hoglund also contributed to the round.

Dig Inn had previously raised $6.5 million in earlier rounds of funding.

We caught up with Dig Inn founder and CEO Adam Eskin at the chain's newest restaurant in New York City. 

Dig Inn wasn't always known by its current name. In 2011, Eskin, a former private equity associate at Wexford Capital, officially started rebranding what was then called the Pump Energy Food, a five-store eatery that catered to a bodybuilding crowd. Eskin changed the name to Dig Inn and completely revamped the menu to focus on fresh, locally sourced produce.

We visited Dig Inn's 10th and newest location, which opened in the Nomad neighborhood of Manhattan in November. Eskin says the chain plans to use the funding to open five new restaurants and hopes to eventually expand to new markets.

Eskin says Boston will most likely be home to Dig Inn's first restaurant outside of New York City. "I think we just want to be measured and responsible with how we think about sites and locations," he said. "As we find sites that work, along with the folks trained in a position to run those restaurants, we’ll open them."

It's a Tuesday that feels like a Monday in New York, and via Dave Lutz at JonesTrading, here's a quick guide to what traders are chatting about this morning.

Good Morning! US futures are starting stronger, led by a 70bp pop in Nasdaq. This mirrors sharp strength overseas, which has seen the DAX pop 1% in the last 2 days and EU stoxx eyeballing 6Y highs. Europe has outperformed USA by nearly 7% in 2015 as we await ECB QE this week. Greece is a lone standout in the red ahead of Sunday’s elections - The latest poll last night showed anti-bailout Syriza stretching its lead to 6.5 percentage points. Over in Asia, Shanghai bounced back from yesterday’s margin-headlines 8% slaughter, adding 1.9% as headlines show China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 24 years. India’s Sensex hit all-time highs despite IMF cutting forecasts for global growth, while Korea’s KOSPI added 80bp on chatter Sammy to split. Aussie was under pressure, as the Energy companies were under sharp pressure. 

The US 10YY is slightly lower but resting over 1.8%, and the Yield Curve is flattening, a slight headwind to Financials this AM (coupled with MS #s). German Yields are slightly higher as German ZEW rose more than expected. The USD is breaking to new highs, gaining against Euro and sharply against Yen, the latter nearing Y119. Despite this headwind, Gold is ripping towards $1300 ahead of ECB QE. The Oil complex was under decent pressure yesterday, and this morning finds Bren near unchanged, but WTI is under pressure into Expiry of contracts today, losing 2%. Copper is under pressure again on China numbers. On earnings, we have BHI, HAL and DAL on falling Oil price impact this AM. Tech rules tonight with IBM, CA, AMD and NFLX. Very light catalysts scheduled today otherwise – at 10am we get the NAHB Housing Market Index, and at 2:30 WTI contracts expire at the close of floor trading. Tonight Obama delivers State of the Union address at 9, and the BoJ decision is announced.

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While you may end up being asked the standard "What is your weakness?" question at a job interview, a sneaky employer may try to slip in some questions that are illegal to ask to gain some possibly sensitive information.

Produced by Justin Gmoser. Originally published in November 2013.

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released its updated forecasts for the global economy and it makes for grim reading. Among the growth downgrades, however, is a point that most commentators are overlooking: The real dangers of the oil price shock for Western economies.

Despite oil prices having tumbled by over 50% since June last year, providing a welcome boost to consumers through lower prices of fuel and goods, the IMF has downgraded its forecast for global growth by 0.3% this year and another 0.3% in 2016. The downgrades reflect the ongoing weakness of the eurozone and Japan, as well as slowing growth in emerging markets (especially among oil exporters).

However, the report also contains a warning for advanced economies such as the US and the UK that are seeing relatively robust economic expansion. Lower oil prices are helping the drag down inflation and could mean that even faster growth economies experience a period of falling prices. If this is allowed to continue unchecked then, the IMF warns, it risks becoming a self-feeding deflationary spiral.

With central bank interest rates already around zero, the ability of monetary policy to offset these price falls and help bring inflation back towards the 2% target is limited (at least according to mainstream economic theory).

As the international funding body puts it (emphasis added):

That is, the IMF is encouraging central banks to undertake precautionary easing and, where that is unavailable due to existing low interest rates, to use government spending on infrastructure in order to increase economic activity and push up the rate of price increases. Low government borrowing costs across much of the developed world means in effect that states currently have room to do this at very limited (or even negative in the case of Germany and Switzerland) cost to taxpayers, despite heavy debt burdens following the financial crisis.

Not everyone is convinced. A number of economists argue that a temporary period of deflation due to a positive supply shock — whereby prices are falling because more goods can be made for the same amount of money — does not require any action from a central bank. Indeed it should be a cause for celebration.

Many of those that hold this position also argue that central banks can simply undertake further rounds of asset purchases under their so-called quantitative easing programmes if they were to become concerned that expectations of price falls were becoming entrenched and people were holding off purchases.

However, the IMF's intervention can be seen as a warning against the complacency of such a view. The effectiveness of QE in reversing price falls remains a matter of much debate in the economics profession and relying on unconventional central bank tools to reverse price falls after they have set in could be seen as too great a risk.

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Last week, the Swiss National Bank shocked markets by announcing that it would abandon its currency peg of 1.2 Swiss francs to 1 euro. 

Following that move, the franc rapidly appreciated in value, gaining as much as 41% against the euro at one point, and put entities ranging from currency brokers to hedge funds under major duress.  

In a weekly strategy report on Tuesday, however, Oppenheimer's John Stoltzfus writes that while the SNB's decision was a shock, it won't be the last surprise investors face in the market. 

"We believe the SNB's action last week will ultimately be seen in the rearview mirror of market history as simply part of a process that came ahead of the launch of 'QE ECB style'," Stoltzfus writes."For now, we believe investors should remain focused on their goals and objectives, not losing sight of them even as more surprises likely lie ahead." 

In the wake of the SNB's decisions, the market is still digesting both the implications of the decision and the reasoning behind it. 

On Monday, Business Insider's Tomas Hirst took a look at what may have been motivating the SNB's decision, namely that as the euro has weakened ahead of an anticipated QE program, the SNB's peg became more and more expensive to defend. 

Stoltzfus adds that the market seems to be taking the SNB's decision as "increasing the likelihood" that the ECB will announce a QE program at its policy meeting on Thursday, a program Stoltzfus writes, "could well lead to a positive outcome and a sustainable economic recovery in the eurozone parallel to that of the US's process of recovery into expansion."

And so as tends to happen in markets, the primary focus has already moved away from the SNB and towards the ECB meeting this week — or whatever surprises the future holds. 

SEE ALSO: The Politics Behind The Swiss National Bank's Decision

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Montpellier (France) (AFP) - Five Russians from the Chechen region have been detained in southern France on suspicion of preparing an attack, local prosecutors said on Tuesday. 

The five suspects were detained on Monday in the town of Beziers near the Mediterranean coast, around 70 kilometres (40 miles) from Montpellier. 

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The Apple Watch will probably launch sometime over the next few months, but it looks like at least one Apple fan was eager enough to pay $260 for a sketchy-looking "prototype."

A so-called Apple Watch prototype just sold for $260 on Tuesday morning, Cult of Mac reported. The seller of the watch claims that he or she got it from a cousin that works at Apple, saying that it's "brand new and works perfectly." 

Here's what the back of the watch that just sold on eBay looks like:

But, if there's anything we learned at this years Consumer Electronics Show, it's that its extremely easy to create a fake Apple Watch. A few companies in the Shenzen section of the showroom floor displayed their own take on the Apple Watch — one of which looks a lot like the "prototype" that just sold on eBay. 

Here's the Apple Watch knockoff Business Insider's Jay Yarow saw at CES:

We'd suggest waiting for the real thing, which is likely coming in March, according to 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman. We don't know much about how much different models will cost, but the watch will start at $350. 

SEE ALSO: The best Chromebook you can buy

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Ringly, a New York-based startup that creates an 18k-gold plated ring that connects to smartphones, has raised $5.1 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. 

Highline Ventures, Silas Capital, First Round Capital, Social+Capital, Mesa+, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, and PCH also contributed to the round.

Ringly uses Bluetooth to connect to smartphones and discreetly notify the wearer when she gets a call or text. The ring also integrates with a growing number of apps, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Uber, Tinder, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. 

The idea is to incorporate tech into women's everyday accessories so that they can enjoy the moment without missing something important — even when they're not wearing pockets or holding a bag.

"It started with me being frustrated from leaving my phone in my purse and missing a bunch of calls and texts," Ringly cofounder Christina Mercando told Business Insider before the product launched in June. "It turns out a lot of other people have a similar problem." 

Ringly offers a selection of four different stones set in gold plating, which vibrate and light up when activated. There's also a limited-edition ring made with a rhodium plated setting and a semi-precious quartz stone. Each ring costs $195.

As they were designing Ringly, Mercando and cofounder Logan Munro wanted all of the technology — accelerometer, Bluetooth LE, motor, and LEDs — to be incorporated into the ring as discreetly as possible. 

"We were going for something that was simple, classic, something that a lot of women could get behind," Mercando said. "It's so small and discreet that people wouldn't know the technology is there."

Once you connect the ring to your smartphone through the Ringly app — available for both iOS and Android — you can customize the way you want to be notified. Blinking lights and vibration patterns are adjustable, as well as which apps you want to receive notifications from.

You can even customize notifications for certain people — if you wanted, for example, to only have Ringly light up when your significant other is calling, you could do that.

To charge the ring, all you have to do is drop it back into its box.

This round of funding will help Ringly to expand the range of its offerings.

"Miniaturization for us is key, not just because it creates that 'distance' from obvious tech, but because it allows jewelry designers and artists the freedom to create on top of and around it without restrictions," Mercando wrote in a blog post announcing the funding. "So this year, we'll be expanding our collection, adding new features and introducing partnerships with fashion brands and designers to create a wider variety of new designs — all with the technology embedded and invisible."

Mercando comes from a background in computer interaction and product design. She served as head of product at machine learning startup Hunch, which was acquired by eBay in 2011, when she was introduced to Munro. 

"We were both excited about wearables and the future of the space,"Mercando said.

But it turned out that designing Ringly meant they would have to learn about a host of new techniques, including stone-cutting, sourcing, plating, and casting, among others. They've enlisted the help of jewelry designer Annie Van Harlingen to guide them through the process. 

"We didn’t begin with the idea of technology followed by fashion,"Mercando said in the blog post. "We began with fashion first, and technology at the core. This required us to concentrate heavily on the miniaturization of our electronics upfront.

"It was no easy task — and took a lot of deep technical and manufacturing expertise that is invisible to our ring wearers, but we ended up with a lot of specialized knowledge as well as a set of ecosystem relationships that made our vision real."

The project came together rather quickly — Mercando quit her job to focus on Ringly in April of 2013, and by August the team had received $1 million in funding from Mesa+, First Round Capital, PCH, and Andreessen Horowitz. They then spent four months in San Francisco working on the prototype.

Ringly started taking preorders in June 2014. It took just eight hours for the team to meet its sales goal of $60,000.

Preorders started shipping in December, just in time for the holidays. 

 Ringly is available for purchase online and will be carried by select retailers later this year.

SEE ALSO: Why New Yorkers Love Dig Inn, The Healthy Restaurant Chain That Just Raised Another $15 Million From Investors

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