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• Amazon has plans to open even more Whole Foods stores to make its two-hour delivery service more accessible to customers, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
• A source familiar with the matter told The Journal that Whole Foods may be expanding into parts of the Rocky Mountain region where it does not currently have stores. 
• The Whole Foods expansion is in large part to help Amazon expand its Prime Now service and grocery delivery.
• Amazon's plans to further expand Whole Foods shows the retailer has no plans of slowing down with its brick-and-mortar expansion.

Amazon has plans to open even more Whole Foods stores to make its two-hour delivery service more accessible to customers, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The expansion will bring Whole Foods to suburban and rural areas that it's been adding customers in since it was acquired by Amazon in 2017. In the Rocky Mountain region, one person familiar with the plans told The Wall Street Journal, Whole Foods employees have visited potential retail spaces in parts of Idaho, southern Utah, and Wyoming, where the grocer doesn’t have stores now.

Amazon offers Prime Now, a two-hour delivery service to Prime members that serves more than 60 cities, and online grocery pickup from Whole Foods in nearly 30 cities. Amazon plans on expanding these services to nearly all of its 475 Whole Foods stores, according to The Journal. Amazon also wants to use benefits for Prime members to attract new customers to Whole Foods and draw them back more often.

Read more:Amazon dominated retail in 2018 — and no one else even came close to touching it

Amazon's planned expansion of Whole Foods shows the e-commerce giant has no plans to slow down its push into physical retail.

The company is increasingly moving into the physical world, opening spaces in malls, shopping districts, and even local strip malls. Its latest move is the Amazon 4-star store, which now has locations in New York City; Berkeley, California; and Lone Tree, Colorado. 

In addition to 4-Star, it has been expanding its Amazon Books and Amazon Go stores.

One reason that may be, an anonymous source told CNBC last year, is that the company is seeing online sales go up in areas that have physical Amazon stores. Brick-and-mortar stores increase customer awareness of the brand, and it's extra fuel for the Amazon engine.

SEE ALSO: Amazon reveals the top-selling items of the season as it announces record-breaking holiday sales

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

The voice app ecosystem is booming. In the US, the number of Alexa skills alone surpassed 25,000 in January 2018, up from just 7,000 the previous January, in categories ranging from music streaming services, to games, to connected home tools.

As voice platforms continue to gain footing in homes via smart speakers — connected devices powered primarily by artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled voice assistants — the opportunity for voice apps is becoming more profound. However, as observed with the rise of mobile apps in the late 2000s, any new digital ecosystem will face significant growing pains, and voice apps are no exception. Thanks to the visual-free format of voice apps, discoverability, monetization, and retention are proving particularly problematic in this nascent space. This is creating a problem in the voice assistant market that could hinder greater uptake if not addressed.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, explores the two major viable voice app stores. It identifies the three big issues voice apps are facing — discoverability, monetization, and retention — and presents possible short-term solutions ahead of industry-wide fixes.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• The market for smart speakers and voice platforms is expanding rapidly. The installed base of smart speakers and the volume of voice apps that can be accessed on them each saw significant gains in 2017. But the new format and the emerging voice ecosystems that are making their way into smart speaker-equipped homes is so far failing to align with consumer needs. 
• Voice app development is a virtuous cycle with several broken components. The addressable consumer market is expanding, which is prompting more brands and developers to developer voice apps, but the ability to monetize and iterate those voice apps is limited, which could inhibit voice app growth. 
• Monetization is only one broken component of the voice app ecosystem. Discoverability and user retention are equally problematic for voice app development. 
• While the two major voice app ecosystems — Amazon's and Google's — have some Band-Aid solutions and workarounds, their options for improving monetization, discoverability, and retention for voice apps are currently limited.
• There are some strategies that developers and brands can employ in the near term ahead of more robust tools and solutions.

In full, the report:

• Sizes the current voice app ecosystem. 
• Outlines the most pressing problems in voice app development and evolution in the space by examining the three most damning shortcoming: monetization, discoverability, and retention. 
• Discusses the solutions being offered up by today's biggest voice platforms. 
• Presents workaround solutions and alternative approaches that could catalyze development and evolution ahead of wider industry-wide fixes from the platforms.

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• Last year, Apple instituted a program to replace out-of-warranty batteries for the iPhone 6 or later for just $29 — a $50 price drop from the usual $79 cost.
• If you own an iPhone 6 or later and have battery issues, you have until December 31 to take advantage of the lower price to replace your battery.

If you own an iPhone 6 or later and have issues with your phone's battery life, now's the time to visit an Apple Store and get your battery replaced.

Last December, Apple acknowledged something that iPhone owners had suspected for some time: It had been quietly "throttling," or lowering, the performance of older iPhones.

It said the goal was to preserve battery life on those older phones and prevent them from shutting down unexpectedly, but customers felt as if Apple communicated this message too late, as many had come to believe that iPhones purposefully got slower to compel people to upgrade to newer models.

After a good deal of consumer outrage, Apple addressed iPhone battery and performance in an open letter to customers later that month.

The most important part of Apple's informational letter was an offer toward the end: Apple said it would reduce the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement to $29 from $79 "for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, available worldwide through December 2018."

And so if you own an iPhone 6, an iPhone 6s, an iPhone 7, or any other phones made after that and are experiencing battery issues — maybe it's draining faster than it used to — head to an Apple Store before December 31.

A small anecdote: My wife owns an iPhone 6s and had been experiencing battery issues for months. She'd constantly need to recharge her phone at work and at home, and she felt as if it hadn't always been this bad. So a couple of months ago, we visited an Apple Store, where an employee measured her phone's battery life and found the degradation to be at about 83%.

Apple says it will offer to replace batteries when battery degradation reaches 80%, but the employee gave my wife the option to replace it right then and there for $29. So we did that and walked around the mall for a few hours while we waited.

It was worth the wait: Since that visit, she's noticed improvement in her phone's battery life and no longer needs to charge it throughout the day.

So if you're experiencing anything similar, go visit an Apple Store or mail your device before December 31 and pay the $30 to get your battery replaced. You'll be paying more if you choose to wait.

SEE ALSO: If the rumors are true, Apple's next iPhone will be called 'XS' — and people are already making fun of the name, calling it 'extra small' and 'iPhone Excess'

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• California prosecutors are poised to charge the state's largest utility company with an array of crimes, including murder and manslaughter if it is found responsible for starting two recent deadly wildfires.
• The state attorney general said in a new court filing that if Pacific Gas & Electric Co. was found to have mismanaged or failed to maintain power lines, it would face a wide range of charges.
• Prosecutors wrote they were prepared to pursue charges including minor offenses, felonies or misdemeanors, and implied-malice murder and involuntary manslaughter.

California prosecutors are poised to charge the state's largest utility company with an array of crimes, including murder and manslaughter if it is found responsible for starting two recent deadly wildfires.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a new filing that if Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which provides electricity to about 16 million customers, was found to have mismanaged or failed to maintain power lines, it would face a wide range of charges.

Prosecutors wrote they were prepared to pursue a wide range of charges, including minor offenses, felonies or misdemeanors, and implied-malice murder and involuntary manslaughter.

In a statement responding to the filing, the company said it was dedicated to assessing its systems and looks forward to recovery from the deadly wildfires.

"PG&E's most important responsibility is public and workforce safety. Our focus continues to be on assessing our infrastructure to further enhance safety and helping our customers continue to recover and rebuild," a spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The filing is the latest in a long legal battle concerning the company that has been overseen by US District Judge William Alsup who asked last month that the utility company explain whether "reckless operation or maintenance of PG&E power lines" sparked any wildfires.

The company was found responsible for 17 fires last year, and in 11 instances investigators found agents had failed to comply with guidelines for installing power lines around vegetation, one of the charges mentioned in the new filing. 

The company has until December 31 to submit its written answers to Alsup's questions.

The cause of the Camp Fire, which broke out November 8 and killed at least 85 people, is still under investigation.

Read more: 10 photos show the grim reality for evacuees of California's wildfires

The Camp Fire ravaged Northern California for over two weeks, initially growing at a speed of 80 football fields a minute and leveling the 27,000-person town of Paradise, California.

The flames from the other deadly fire, the Woolsey fire, burned 96,949 acres and killed three people.

• Read more:

• Wildfire evacuees are returning to the destroyed California town that's "like moving back into a funeral home." See the wreckage in a 360-degree video.
• A day in Chico, California: Photos show how survivors are helping each other cope and keep warm after their harrowing escapes from the Camp Fire
• 14 ways to help those affected by the California wildfires and the heroes fighting them

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• Healthy eating often falls by the wayside when you lead a busy lifestyle. 
• Veestro is a meal delivery service that makes it easy to get more plant-based foods into your diet without sacrificing taste or convenience. 
• If your New Year's resolution is to eat better or lose weight, and you've realized that it's difficult to fit it into your packed schedule, give Veestro a try. 

Eating a healthy, balanced diet seems fairly straightforward. Years of health research and doctors everywhere tell us we should eat more vegetables and fruits, try to get our daily recommended vitamins, and limit our sugar and fat intake. If my life revolved purely around feeding myself, I'm sure I could become a glowing, nutritionally sound health goddess because I'd actually have the time to carefully grocery shop and cook healthy meals. But like most people, I'm otherwise occupied with work, hobbies, and social obligations, and eating healthy really isn't that easy. 

When I think about eating healthy or "clean," my mind automatically jumps to salads and raw foods. Don't get me wrong, I love a good salad, but the thought of eating salads all the time makes my heart sink a little. It turns out this approach is pretty narrow-minded and uncreative of me because there are tons of tasty meals that can be made with real, unprocessed ingredients.

As I discovered while trying Veestro, a plant-based meal delivery service, they don't even have to include meat or dairy to be delicious, either. 

Veestro sends fully prepared 100% plant-based meals to your door, virtually knocking out all your previous excuses not to eat healthier. All the meals are preservative-free and organic (96% of all ingredients used), and the recipes are conceived by a vegan chef with 30 years of experience. There's no prepping of ingredients and cooking involved — all the meals can be microwaved, reheated on the stove, or baked in the oven, so you can eat a hot meal within half an hour. 

Veestro offers a variety of options to choose from and incorporate into your busy lifestyle: 

• A la carte meals: Pick and choose from 50 meals, like baked mac and "cheese," Tuscan calzone, portobello steak, and quinoa soup. Available for one-time delivery, start at $10/meal.
• Meal packs:Options include an introductory starter pack, protein pack, and gluten-free. Available for one-time delivery or subscription, start at $8/meal.
• Weight loss plans:3, 5, or 7-day plans that ship every two weeks and help take the guesswork out of weight loss. Start at $8/meal.
• Juice cleanses:3 or 5-day plans of half pressed, half blended juices. Available for one-time delivery or subscription, start at $6/juice. 

I was sent the $99 Starter Pack, which comprises 12 meals and one juice, to try. Everything arrives in a box packed with dry ice. Make sure your fridge has enough room because everything needs to go in the fridge or freezer. 

I ate the meals throughout the week, weaving them into my regular diet. The menu included veggie empanadas, country fried chick'n (seitan), three layer scramble, soba noodles, mushroom risotto, and a green juice. In general, I found the thawing and cooking times to be longer than suggested, though they were never grossly off. Because I was usually either impatient or low on time, I tended to microwave or reheat the meals on the stove instead of baking them. 

While there were a couple misses, overall I really liked the taste and variety of the pack. I'll admit, I was surprised. Usually for frozen food to taste good, it contains artificial ingredients or preservatives, but I didn't see any of those while scanning the nutritional labels. My personal favorites were the red curry, Thai chick'n stew, and mushroom risotto.

The week I tried Veestro was particularly busy for me, so I truly appreciated not having to think about preparing food or give in to greasy takeout. I saw Veestro as a convenient way to incorporate plant-based meals into my diet so I could make a smoother transition into a healthy lifestyle, rather than forcing an unrealistic, abrupt change. Research has shown that a plant-based diet leads to lower rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. A longer life free of these complications sounds pretty great to me. 

At $8 to $10 per meal, is it cheaper than making your own food? No, but what you're paying for is the convenience and freedom to concentrate on other parts of your life while still enjoying healthy, tasty food.

Browse all of Veestro's meal options and try the plant-based meal delivery service here.

SEE ALSO: 15 kitchen gadgets for terrible home cooks that make life easier

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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.

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As streaming becomes an increasingly mainstream behavior among consumers, the video industry has produced new combinations of streaming video programming services to prepare for the progressive overhaul in how media is distributed.

These streaming bundles have emerged in response to the problems of media fragmentation, cord-cutting, and high consumer costs. Declining usage of traditional TV across every demographic, particularly among young viewers, has also demanded new solutions to the traditional distribution model that is pay-TV.

Although streaming media bundles are still evolving, four distinct models have emerged:

• Skinny bundles — Cheaper, streaming versions of the traditional pay-TV bundle, but with fewer channels.
• SVOD aggregators — Facilitate a la carte sign-ups to third-party streaming services through a central user portal. The primary example so far is Amazon Channels, Amazon's SVOD partner program. 
• SVOD integrations — SVOD services like Netflix that bring their offerings to a traditional operator's service.
• Streaming service partnerships — Combine one or more streaming services under a single offering, at a lower cost than the total price separately.

In the SVOD Bundling Report, Business Insider Intelligence examines the state of the US video ecosystem and how media companies are refining their distribution strategies to meet the changing needs of consumers. The report situates each of the four bundle model types within the overall SVOD market, and investigates the overarching advantages and challenges each faces. Finally, we predict how player dynamics might transform and adapt, outlining best practices for providers to succeed within the new TV landscape.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• SVOD bundles partake in a growing SVOD market in the US. Business Insider Intelligence estimates that the SVOD market totals $13.6 billion in 2018, primarily driven by uptake on services from SVOD giants Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video. 
• Streaming video accessed on over-the-top (OTT) platforms is going mainstream, while consumers — particularly younger viewers — are reducing usage on live, linear TV. Traditional TV usage among viewers ages 18-24 has dropped 48% since 2011, 35% among 25-34 year olds, and 18% in the 35-49 demographic. 
• Skinny bundle services are growing in popularity, with 7.2 million subscribers in the US, but they suffer fundamental financial sustainability problems. 
• Distributors with at-scale platforms and powerful back-end tech can capitalize on the growing consumer demand for content consolidation among consumers. Faced with a fragmented and expanding universe of content options, more than two-thirds of consumers say they would prefer to get all their services from a single source, per Hub Entertainment Research. 
• Winners in the bundling shakeout will have prioritized internet-connected tech, an effective user experience, reasonable pricing, and content diversity. 

In full, the report:

• Identifies the four SVOD model types that have emerged as alternatives or supplements to traditional distribution.
• Investigates the top advantages and challenges of each model type.
• Outlines strategies that players across media and distribution companies can use to address business or market challenges.
• Explores how the dynamics of each model type will evolve as services converge under new bundled offerings.

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• President Donald Trump, Republicans, and administration officials have responded to a second December death of a migrant child in US custody. 

• In an interview, outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly said Trump's "Wall" won't actually be a wall.

• Business Insider spoke to truck drivers pointedly blocking Tesla Superchargers as multiple reports of the trend have surfaced online. 

It was the weekend before New Year's Day 2019, but 2018's news didn't stop. 

Following the death of a second migrant child in US custody on Christmas Eve, Trump and other officials have given varied responses. 

Another trying weekend for Tesla, capping off a tumultuous 2018.

The outgoing White House chief of staff had some new and confusing things to say about the US-Mexico border obstacle formerly known as the "wall."

And the US military has some difficult numbers to share in its ongoing fight against ISIS.

And now we know the identity of the former Russian spy who acted as Paul Manafort's go-between with a Russian oligarch who supposedly exchanged his debts for access.

The deaths of two migrant children in US custody at the southern US border prompted renewed tensions over Trump's immigration policies, while the president again sought to blame Democrats.

• Tensions over the management of US border agencies reached a fever pitch after two migrant children died in US custody in just over two weeks.

• There are now rising doubts about the US Customs and Border Patrol agency's ability to care for the surge of migrant kids and families seeking refuge in the US.

• Trump responded to the migrant child deaths by blaming Democrats and immigration policies: 'If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try!'

• Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina promised hearings on the children's deaths and then White House aide Kellyanne Conway doubled down on Trump's tweet, deepening a scrambled response from the administration

In a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly said there is no actual wall, and the administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy was all Jeff Sessions and a surprise to officials.

• Outgoing chief of staff John Kelly says Trump's 'wall' won't actually be a wall: 'To be honest, it's not a wall.'  
• Kelly's comments echo the president's recent change of tune, saying it would be more like "fencing," that was an "artistically designed" set of "steel slats," and not concrete.
• Kelly also pointed the finger of blame at former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the administration's policy that resulted in the separation of hundreds of migrant children from their families, saying, "he surprised us."

Lady Gaga kicked off her Vegas residency "Enigma" at the Park MGM Resort in Las Vegas.

• There were keytars, Spongebob comparisons, and multiple flying moments. Check out the photos from opening night.

• Lady Gaga broke down in tears as she performed 'Shallow' for the first time live at the residency. See the video.

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

The gig economy is becoming a core element of the labor market, pushed to the fore by platforms like Uber and Airbnb. Gig economy workers are freelancers, such as journalists who don’t work for one publication directly, freelance developers, drivers on platforms like Uber and Grab, and consumers who rent out their apartments via Airbnb or other home-sharing sites.

Gig economy workers are not employed by these platforms, and therefore typically don't receive conventional employee perks, such as insurance or retirement options. This has created a lucrative opportunity to provide tailored insurance policies for the gig economy. 

A number of insurtech startups — including UK-based Dinghy, which focuses on liability insurance, and US-based Slice, which provides on-demand insurance for a range of areas — have moved to capitalize on this new segment of the labor market. These companies have been busy finding new ways to personalize insurance products by incorporating emerging technologies, including AI and chatbots, to target the gig economy.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence examines how insurtechs have begun addressing the gig economy, the kinds of policies they are offering, and how incumbents can tap the market themselves. We have opted to focus on three areas of insurance particularly relevant to the gig economy: vehicle insurance, home insurance, and equipment and liability insurance.

While every consumer needs health insurance, there are already a number of insurtechs and incumbent insurers that offer policies for individuals. However, when it comes to insuring work equipment or other utilities for freelancers, it's much more difficult to find suitable coverage. As such, this is the gap in the market where we see the most opportunity to deploy new products.

The companies mentioned in this report are: Airbnb, Deliveroo, Dinghy, Grab, Progressive, Slice, Uber, Urban Jungle, and Zego.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• By 2027, the majority of the US workforce will work as freelancers, per Upwork and Freelancer Union, though not all of these workers will take part in the gig economy full time.
• By personalizing policies for gig economy workers, insurtechs have been able to tap this opportunity early. 
• A number of other insurtechs, including Slice and UK-based Zego, offer temporary vehicle insurance, which users can switch on and off, depending on when they are working.
• Slice has also developed a new insurance model that combines traditional home insurance with business coverage for temporary use.
• Other freelancers like photojournalists need insurance for their camera, for example, a coverage area that Dinghy has tackled.
• Incumbent insurers have a huge opportunity to leverage their reach and well-known brands to pull in the gig economy and secure a share of this growing segment — and partnering with startups might be the best approach.

 In full, the report:

• Details what the gig economy landscape looks like in different markets.
• Explains how different insurtechs are tackling the gig economy with new personalized policies.
• Highlights possible pain points for incumbents when trying to enter this market.
• Discusses how incumbents can get a piece of the pie by partnering with startups.

SEE ALSO: These were the biggest developments in the global fintech ecosystem over the last 12 months

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Over the past five years, the world has seen a seemingly unending series of high-profile data breaches, defined as incidents in which unauthorized parties access and retrieve sensitive, secure, or private data.

Major incidents, like the 2013 Yahoo breach, which impacted all 3 million of the tech giant’s customers, and the more recent Equifax breach, which exposed the information of at least 143 million US adults, has kept this risk, and these threats, at the forefront for both businesses and consumers. And businesses have good reason to be concerned — of organizations breached, 22% lost customers, 29% lost revenue, and 23% lost business opportunities.

This threat isn’t going anywhere. Each of the past five years has seen, on average, 1,704 security incidents, impacting nearly 2 billion records. And hackers could be getting more efficient, using new technological tools to extract more data in fewer breach attempts. That’s making the security threat an industry-agnostic for any business holding sensitive data — at this point, virtually all companies — and therefore a necessity for firms to address proactively and prepare to react to.

The majority of breaches come from the outside, when a malicious actor is usually seeking access to records for financial gain, and tend to leverage malware or other software and hardware-related tools to access records. But they can come internally, as well as from accidents perpetrated by employees, like lost or stolen records or devices.

That means that firms need to have a broad-ranging plan in place, focusing on preventing breaches, detecting them quickly, and resolving and responding to them in the best possible way. That involves understanding protectable assets, ensuring compliance, and training employees, but also protecting data, investing in software to understand what normal and abnormal performance looks like, training employees, and building a response plan to mitigate as much damage as possible when the inevitable does occur.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has put together a detailed report on the data breach threat, who and what companies need to protect themselves from, and how they can most effectively do so from a technological and organizational perspective.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• The breach threat isn’t going anywhere. The number of overall breaches isn’t consistent — it soared from 2013 to 2016, but ticked down slightly last year — but hackers might be becoming better at obtaining more records with less work, which magnifies risk.
• The majority of breaches come from the outside, and leverage software and hardware attacks, like malware, web app attacks, point-of-service (POS) intrusion, and card skimmers.
• Firms need to build a strong front door to prevent as many breaches as possible, but they also need to develop institutional knowledge to detect a breach quickly, and plan for how to resolve and respond to it in order to limit damage — both financial and subjective — as effectively as possible.

In full, the report:

• Explains the scope of the breach threat, by industry and year, and identifies the top attacks.
• Identifies leading perpetrators and causes of breaches.
• Addresses strategies to cope with the threat in three key areas: prevention, detection, and resolution and response.
• Issues recommendations from both a technological and organizational perspective in each of these categories so that companies can avoid the fallout that a data breach can bring.

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• After a year of using plastic, single-use K-cups, I bought an $8 reusable filter. It's saved me more than $1,000 on coffee.
• It can be used with all Keurig-brand coffee makers, so you literally don't have to think about whether it fits with your own machine.
• You can use any ground coffee you'd like instead of being forced to choose from Keurig's offerings.
• It's also so small and inexpensive that you can buy a second to keep at your office desk.

Coffee is life. But when you start adding up those morning and mid-afternoon coffee runs, it can cost a lot — like more than $1,000 a year. And that's only if you get basic hot black coffee; iced coffee can set you back more than $1,500.

So after years of waiting in line for my misspelled cup of coffee, I finally decided to get an at-home machine. My Keurig was great— it made OK-ish coffee (I'm not picky, I just need caffeine) whenever I wanted and the cost of the pods were really cheap compared to how much money I'd spend on coffee every year.

But once I realized just how many cups I was drinking now that I could make unlimited amounts of coffee at home and actually added up how much the pods were costing me (not to mention how much space they took on my counter), the savings weren't that much. The effect that plastic single-use pods have on the environment was also a huge problem for me. Then I found the My K-Cup Universal Reusable Ground Coffee Filter.

It's a reusable coffee filter that fits any Keurig-brand at-home coffee machine, so you can use it however many times you want without guilt or coughing up more money. You just fill the gray filter up to one of two fill lines with whatever ground coffee you want, pop it into the plastic black canister, lock the lid, and brew. There's an adapter attachment that latches onto the side of the canister depending if your machine is part of the Classic or Plus series, but it comes with the filter so you don't need to hunt down the extra piece.

Did I mention the filter costs $8?

Compared to the $1,000 spent on coffee a year, this is a serious life-changing, budget-saving item. If you feel like splurging, get a second one to keep at the office for a mid-afternoon cup, as long as it's an at-home style and not an industrial one.

I've had mine for a year now and it's still going strong — the filter hasn't broken, leaked, or gotten misshaped even after several hundred uses. I also keep the empty filter in my Keurig machine when I'm not using it so I haven't lost any of the pieces either. There's no real con to the filter; if anything, having to fill up the filter myself is a tiny annoyance but one that stems from years of paying money for something I could've made — and made better — at home.

Buy My K-Cup Universal Reusable Ground Coffee Filters on Amazon for $8

SEE ALSO: All of Insider Picks' holiday gift guides, in one place

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• Digital trust is the confidence people have in a platform to protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content.
• Business Insider Intelligence surveyed over 1,300 global consumers to evaluate their perception of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
• Consumers’ Digital Trust rankings differ across security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance for the six major social networks.

If you feel like “fake news” and spammy social media feeds dominate your Internet experience, you’re not alone. Digital trust, the confidence people have in platforms to protect their information and provide a safe environment to create and engage with content, is in jeopardy.

In fact, in a new Business Insider Intelligence survey of more than 1,300 global consumers, over half (54%) said that fake news and scams were "extremely impactful” or “very impactful” on their decision to engage with ads and sponsored content.

For businesses, this distrust has financial ramifications. It’s no longer enough to craft a strong message; brands, marketers, and social platforms need to focus their energy on getting it to consumers in an environment where they are most receptive. When brands reach consumers on platforms that they trust, they enhance their credibility and increase the likelihood of receiving positive audience engagement.

The Digital Trust Report 2018, the latest Enterprise Edge Report from Business Insider Intelligence, compiles this exclusive survey data to analyze consumer perceptions of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

The survey breaks down consumers’ perceptions of social media across six pillars of trust: security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance. The results? LinkedIn ran away with it.

As the most trusted platform for the second year in a row – and an outlier in the overall survey results – LinkedIn took the top spot for nearly every pillar of trust — and there are a few reasons why:

• LinkedIn continues to benefit from the professional nature of its community — users on the platform tend to be well behaved and have less personal information at risk, which makes for a more trusting environment.
• LinkedIn users are likely more selective and mindful about engagement when interacting within their professional network, which may increase trust in its content.
• Content on LinkedIn is typically published by career-minded individuals and organizations seeking to promote professional interests, and is therefore seen as higher quality than other platforms’. This bodes well for advertisers and publishers to be viewed as forthright, honest, persuasive, and trustworthy.

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Enterprise Edge Reports are the very best research Business Insider Intelligence has to offer in terms of actionable recommendations and proprietary data, and they are only available to Enterprise clients.

The Digital Trust Report 2018 illustrates how social platforms have been on a roller coaster ride of data, user privacy, and brand safety scandals since our first installment of the report in 2017.

In full, the report analyzes key changes in rankings from 2017, identifies trends in millennials' behavior on social media, and highlights where these platforms (as well as advertisers) have opportunities to capture their attention.

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• China's official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), released on Monday (AEDT) shows one of its key economic pillars falling back into contraction for the first time in two years, Bloomberg reported late Sunday night.
• As a receding stimulus and an ongoing trade war headline a collection of challenges for the world’s second-largest economy, the official PMI dropped to 49.4, officially moving back into contraction territory.
• Macquarie Securities told Bloomberg the slide looks likely to continue into 2019.
• But the recent disappearance of manufacturing powerhouse province Guangdong's official PMI reporting shows, the worsening state of China's economy may be better explained by what we are not seeing.

By its heady and often creative standards, Chinese economic data of late has offered little for economists to cheer about for Christmas and the New Year.

Now with the latest gauge of Chinese factory activity falling once again, the only thing in the stocking coming out of the Middle Kingdom this year is an official contraction for December, Bloomberg reported late Sunday night.

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, released on Monday (AEDT) dropped to 49.4, striking deep into two-year lows as the ongoing trade war headlines a collection of challenges for the world’s second-largest economy. The lead-up to Christmas has been a complete mess for China's massive economy, which grew at its slowest pace since the GFC over the last quarter, giving rise to what looks like a further deceleration in activity.

The official manufacturing PMI released by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was pushed right to the edge at 50.0 last month, but now that December has fallen through the 50.0 mark, indicating contraction, the result signals the lowest mark since February 2016.

A reading above 50 indicates an expansion in manufacturing activity, while a reading below 50 shows a contraction.

A subindex for total new orders fell into a contractionary territory of 49.7 in December, the lowest level since February 2016, while the production sub index dropped sharply to 50.8 from 51.9 in November.

In the year to November, retail sales grew by 8.1%, the weakest increase since 2003. Industrial output didn't fare much better, expanding by 5.4% from 12 months earlier, the slowest pace in three years.

These are all data points released by the Chinese government, and all point to what looks like a grinding of gears in the nation's once unflappable economic momentum.

Separate PMI data on China's manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors also offered little to cheer about.

The new export subindex, which works as an indicator of external demand for Chinese products also contracted down to 46.6 from 47.0.

However, Bloomberg reports, China's non-manufacturing PMI rose to 53.8 from 53.4, some upbeat numbers amid the gloom, suggesting that perhaps President Xi Jinping's latest stimulus is making some waves.

Unless the weak PMI numbers spark the central government into more sharp doses of stimulus or subsidies, 2019 is looking like a bad year to be a factory in China.

"The slowdown will continue into the next year," Larry Hu, a Hong Kong-based economist at Macquarie Securities told Bloomberg.

The case of the disappearing PMI

SEE ALSO: There were more disappointments in China's latest round of economic data

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NOW WATCH: The legendary economist who predicted the housing crisis says the US will win the trade war

• The NFL playoff bracket and TV schedule for the first two rounds are now set.
• The Philadelphia Eagles claimed the final spot in the NFC while the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Tennessee Titans in a winner-take-all game for the final berth in the AFC.
• The New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs are the top seeds.

The NFL regular season is now over and the playoff bracket is set.

In the NFC, the Philadelphia Eagles claimed the final spot with a win over the Washington Redskins along with the Minnesota Vikings' loss to the Chicago Bears.

In the AFC, the final spot came down to the "Sunday Night Football" matchup between the Indianapolis Colts and the Tennessee Titans. The Colts won and are the sixth seed and the Titans were eliminated. The game also technically eliminated the Pittsburgh Steelers who would have claimed the sixth seed if somehow the Titans and Colts ended in a tie.

The NFL also announced the TV schedule for the first two rounds.

Here is the TV schedule for Wild Card Weekend:

• Saturday
  • 4:35 ET — Indianapolis Colts at Houston Texans (ESPN)
  • 8:15 ET — Seattle Seahawks at Dallas Cowboys (Fox)
• Sunday
  • 1:05 ET — Los Angeles Chargers at Baltimore Ravens (CBS)
  • 4:40 ET — Philadelphia Eagles at Chicago Bears (NBC)

Here is the TV schedule for Divisional Weekend:

• Saturday
  • 4:35 ET — Lowest AFC seed remaining at Kansas City Chiefs (NBC)
  • 8:15 ET — Highest NFC seed remaining at Los Angeles Rams (Fox)
• Sunday
  • 1:05 ET — Highest AFC seed remaining at New England Patriots (CBS)
  • 4:40 ET — Lowest NFC seed remaining at New Orleans Saints (Fox)

SEE ALSO: The 40 most dominant athletes of 2018

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• The former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn is expected to spend New Year's Day in a Tokyo jail, after a court chose to extend his stay until January 11, in the wake of new allegations of financial misconduct, The Asian Nikkei Review reports.
• Ghosn has been behind bars since November and was served a fresh arrest warrant on Dec. 21 for allegedly transferring personal investment losses to Nissan ten years ago in 2008, the publication said.
• Ghosn has denied the allegations.

A Tokyo court on Monday backed Japanese prosecutors' request to keep the disgraced former Nissan Motor Company chairman Carlos Ghosn behind bars until January 11, due to the latest allegation of financial misconduct.

His previous release date had been set for January 1.

Ghosn, initially charged over underreporting his income, has been under lock and key since November.

His stay in detention has been extended once again, after another arrest warrant served last week, alleged that Ghosn transferred massive personal investment losses of up to 1.85 billion yen ($17 million) to the Japanese automaker in 2008, The Asian Nikkei Review reported, on Monday.

Ghosn has denied all the allegations.

Ghosn, a legend in his field, was arrested in Japan last month on allegations of massive financial misconduct when his private jet landed at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The former chairman of Nissan was detained alongside a Nissan director, American Greg Kelly, who is accused of having enabled Ghosn.

Ghosn was long credited for helping to save Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy in the late 1990s, and as the architect of an alliance between Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi. The alliance became the world's largest automotive conglomerate by sales volume last year.

Now he has been rearrested three times as Japanese prosecutors search for what they allege might be hidden millions in compensation and perhaps even financial engineering to conceal more personal losses.

Kelly was released on bail on Tuesday, but Ghosn's fall from grace to a cell in Tokyo has been extended again after further suspicion of aggravated breach of trust against Nissan was cast on December 21.

SEE ALSO: 'We hope the board will listen to our explanation': Nissan's CEO calls on Renault to heed the allegations against Carlos Ghosn

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NOW WATCH: The legendary economist who predicted the housing crisis says the US will win the trade war

Hello! Here's everything you need to know on Monday, December 31, 2018.

1. Here's what you missed this weekend:US President Donald Trump and others have tried to respond to news of two children having died in a US Customs and Border Patrol custody, Kelly says Trump's proposed US-Mexico border "wall" is actually not a wall, and truck drivers are intentionally blocking Tesla Superchargers.

2. Now Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is dropping hints that Trump may change course on pulling US troops out of Syria."I think the president's going to finish the job when it comes to ISIS," Graham offered on Sunday.

3. Amazon is going hard with plans for more Whole Foods stores.CEO Jeff Bezos' e-commerce giant looks like it won't be easing off on its radical push into old-school retail.

4. Yet another four-star US general has called out the behavior of the President of the United States. Retired four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal put it this way: "I don't think he tells the truth."

5. A Portland hotel has fired two employees who called the police on a black guest who took a phone call in the lobby.The DoubleTree by Hilton hotel tweeted on Saturday it had "zero tolerance for racism," and apologized to the guest.

6. China's PMI has contracted for the first time in more than two years. The manufacturing giant is stuttering as stimulus recedes and trade wars linger.

7. Brexit may only have a "50-50" chance of actually happening: If MPs come out against British Prime Minister Theresa May's deal, then it's anyone's guess, senior politician Liam Fox has warned.

8. Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn will be detained at least through Jan. 11. The once-revered auto industry figure faces fresh allegations of financial misconduct.

9. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, donned a pair of gloves and played in a traditional ice-hockey match in Moscow. Putin scored and led his team to a win.

10. DC Comics' "Aquaman" is an unlikely hit, already making more money worldwide than DC's previous two titles "Justice League" and "Suicide Squad."Less is more then add water, apparently.

And finally ...

Sears chairman Eddie Lampert submitted a last-minute bid to save the company. We visited the day Sears filed for bankruptcy and we got a very close look at how this iconic brand is really going.

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Digital has transformed retail possibilities.

And with e-commerce sales growing at nearly five times the rate of brick-and-mortar sales, retailers need to find cheaper and more efficient ways to deliver e-commerce orders.

But different age groups have different preferences for which delivery and fulfilment options are most important to them.

Find out which delivery features are most important to consumers as well as what fulfillment options retailers should be using to meet consumer demands in this new FREE slide deck from Business Insider Intelligence’s three-part Future of Retail 2018 series.

In this first installment of the series, Business Insider Intelligence explores delivery and fulfillment, including consumers’ delivery preferences, the challenges those demands pose to retailers, and the strategies retailers can use to meet consumers’ expectations of fulfillment without tanking their profitability.

As an added bonus, you will also gain immediate access to our exclusive Business Insider Intelligence Daily newsletter.

To get your copy of the first part of this FREE slide deck, simply click here.

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Drone technologies continue to improve at a rapid pace and are slowly pushing the unmanned aircraft toward the mainstream. Companies in a variety of industries are now looking to use drones to cut costs, boost efficiencies, and create new revenue streams and business values, such as last-mile retail deliveries.

But regulatory roadblocks are still holding back widespread commercial drone use in most large, developed markets. Many countries still have laws on the books that regulate drones as other aircraft, such as planes or helicopters, and prevent unmanned aircraft from flying beyond a few miles from the operator. That makes laws and regulations arguably the chief determining factor in the development of the commercial drone industry worldwide. 

This new report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, will give a high-level overview of commercial drone regulations around the world. We detail the major changes in global drone regulations over the past year, and show how regulators are working to stay ahead of the nascent, yet valuable devices. In addition, we show how regulatory changes will impact the industry and allow for new enterprise use cases in the next few years.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Regulations have helped the US, Europe, and China become the three largest potential markets in the world for commercial drone use.
• In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) governs all commercial and consumer drone use. Meanwhile, a slew of states have their own regulations that companies deploying drones have to navigate through.
• In Europe, the lack of EU-wide drone regulations creates a patchwork of national regulations that resembles the state-level rules in the US.
• In China, the military controls over half of the airspace, confining drones to a small area of the country relative to the US and other nations.
• While on paper several of the regulations in Europe are the same as in the US, many European countries have been far more lenient in granting exemptions to their requirements.
• Commercial drone laws in most of these countries are set to change to allow for more widespread use in the next couple years, helping operators fly their aircraft in new locations and for new use cases.

In full, the report:

• Offers an in-depth overview of the current regulatory landscapes at the national, transnational, and local levels, and discusses how they're shaping the development of the drone industry in several large markets.
• Gives examples of how companies are working with and around these regulations to deploy drones in a manner that government officials find permissible.
• Provides a look at what regulations will change in the coming years, and explains how that will impact companies operating drones.

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• Big fund managers tend to blame algorithmic trading when things go haywire in the stock market. 
• But there are other factors adding complexity to this argument: A boom in disparate trading platforms makes price discovery difficult, and low trading volume.
• "The electronification era remains one of the lowest-volatility periods on record despite the rise of high-frequency trading," according to trading news site Curatia.
• No, machines aren't causing all these wild stock market swings.

The wild swings and see-sawing of markets these last few days was unprecedented in many ways. But one aspect of the week ended up being very predictable: Like clockwork after any sudden jolt and market event, big investors come out and point the finger at algorithms.

The argument goes something like this: Electronic trading programs feed off each other to cause an "invisible herding effect"  that amplifies price moves, capable of turning a minor downward market trajectory into a full-blown bloodbath, all in a matter of milliseconds. Now that electronic trading makes up huge swathes of the market, a sea change from only a few decades ago, it's obvious that robot traders are causing the plunges and rallies like those of this week.

"Electronic traders are wreaking havoc in the markets," Leon Cooperman, the billionaire stock picker who founded hedge fund Omega Advisors, told the Wall Street Journal. 

JPMorgan Asset Management's chief global strategist, David Kelly, also chimed in this week, blaming algorithm-led passive investment vehicles for the Christmas week volatility. And next year might be worse: Star economist Torsten Slok at Deutsche Bank said an "algo-driven fire sale" might be one of the big risks of 2019. 

Again and again, market structure experts have pushed back against this oversimplified narrative. But much of the counterbalance is seldom noticed. (Perhaps jargon like "latency arbitrage" in 30-plus page reports from institutions with unsexy names like the Bank for International Settlements are less than headline grabbing.) 

Read more: Barclays just hired two Wall Street veterans in its chief investment office

But there are plenty of holes to poke in this theory: For one, as trading news site Curatia notes, linking the increase of the machines to the rise in volatility doesn't even work from a timing standpoint. 

"Huge, rapid stock swings occurred well before the advent of algorithmic trading," it said. "On the whole, the electronification era remains one of the lowest-volatility periods on record despite the rise of high-frequency trading. And the recent surge in volatility doesn’t correlate with any specific increase in market automation."

Adding to the complexity — besides the boom in algos, the market has changed in so many other ways, too. 

There's been an explosion in different types of trading venues, both inside and outside of big banks, that has created more tectonic plate-like platforms in the market. That can make "price discovery" trickier. This is especially true in periods of low liquidity, or thinned out buying and selling, which tends to happen over the holiday period.

And there was plenty of human-led activity going on in the world this year that was arguably scarier to investors than any Skynet-style cyborg speed trader: Federal Reserve policy, the US-China trade war, the "leveraged loan" boom, eurozone drama, emerging-market turmoil, volatile oil prices, and Brexit, to list just a few. 

"We often talk about volatility in financial markets, but we must recognize that we now live in a volatile political climate," the European Principal Traders Association has said in one analysis of "flash crashes." Knee-jerk blame of robots, it says, "is irresponsible."

Curatia sums it up well: "For all the good things about machines, arguably the best is that when you point a finger at them, they don’t point back."

SEE ALSO: Asian and European stocks rally to track dramatic late-day rebound in US markets

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