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• When you open a new personal Southwest credit card, you can earn the best-ever sign-up bonus offered for the cards: 30,000 points and an unlimited Companion Pass, which is valid for travel through 2019.
• The Companion Pass lets you book a free ticket for a companion whenever you travel — all you'll have to pay is taxes and fees (which are typically as low as $5.60 each way).
• The offer applies to all three of Southwest's personal cards, but it ends in a few short weeks on February 11.
• Our pick for the best Southwest card to open is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card; however, read on to see which is best for you. 

Southwest and Chase announced Thursday that, for a limited time, people who apply for any of their co-branded credit cards will be able to earn Southwest's coveted Companion Pass as a sign-up bonus.

The new sign-up bonus is effectively the best deal ever offered on any of Southwest's credit cards. In addition to the Companion Pass, which will be valid through 2019, new cardholders can also earn 30,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points. 

To earn the sign-up bonus, new cardholders must spend $4,000 on the card within the first three months of opening it. The bonus is available only until February 11.

The surprise promotion — coming just one day after a previous limited-time offer ended — represents what can arguably be described as the best-ever sign-up bonus offered by Southwest and Chase.

The Southwest Companion pass is often seen as the "holy grail" of travel for points-and-miles aficionados and self-described "travel hackers." When you earn the Companion Pass, you can select a designated friend or family member to travel with you for free, as long as the pass is valid.

Normally to earn the Companion Pass, one has to earn 110,000 qualifying points with Southwest within a calendar year. The pass will then be valid for the remainder of that calendar year, as well as the entirety of the following one.

Typically, you may be able to earn some of those qualifying points by opening a credit card and earning the normal sign-up bonus, but as Chase has added restrictions on who is eligible — for instance, you can't just open two consumer cards at once, earn the bonuses, and use those points to qualify — it's become harder to earn unless you're a very frequent business traveler.

The ability to earn the Companion Pass purely as a sign-up bonus makes it significantly easier to acquire. Should new applicants hit the minimum spend requirement quickly, signing up for one credit card can equal 11 months of buy-one-get-one flights. Coupled with competitive fares on Southwest, the pass can be used for everything from longer vacations to easy, affordable weekends away. While taxes and fees are still charged on Companion tickets, these start at $5.60 for domestic flights, and rarely exceed $20 to $25.

In order to receive the bonus, you can't currently hold a personal Southwest credit card, and you can't have earned a sign-up bonus from a Southwest card in the past 24 months. If you currently hold a card, but earned the bonus from it longer than 24 months ago (or never earned the bonus), you may be able to close that, wait a week or so, and apply for a new card.

Southwest and Chase offer three personal credit cards. The Southwest Priority Card is the best option for most people because, even though it has the highest annual fee of the three cards at $149, it offers annual credits and anniversary bonus points that are together worth at least $150, meaning the card pays for itself.

However, if you're dead set against an annual fee in the three-digit range, the other cards are compelling options — especially with the Companion Pass as a sign-up bonus.

Read on to learn more about the three personal Southwest cards.

Keep in mind that we're focusing on the rewards and perks that make these cards great options, not things like interest rates and late fees, which can far outweigh the value of any rewards.

When you're working to earn credit card rewards, it's important to practice financial discipline, like paying your balances off in full each month, making payments on time, and not spending more than you can afford to pay back. Basically, treat your credit card like a debit card.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus credit card

The Rapid Rewards Plus is the base level of the three Southwest cards. However, just because it's a bit less featured than its bigger siblings doesn't mean it's a bad option.

The card earns 2 times points per dollar spent on Southwest purchases, and one point per dollar on everything else. You'll also get 3,000 bonus points each year on your card-membership anniversary.

That's essentially the gist of this card — there's not too much to it. There are, however, a couple of things worth noting.

It has a $69 annual fee that isn't waived the first year. Of course, the sign-up bonus — the Companion Pass for 2019 and 30,000 points — goes a long way toward making up for that, while the anniversary points help each year after.

All in all, while the Plus card has the lowest annual fee, it doesn't offer a ton of value after the first year. If you want to earn Southwest points on your credit card, but absolutely want to pay the lowest possible annual fee, then this card is probably the best option. However, if you're ok with paying a higher annual fee, knowing that you'll get more value from the card than you'll pay for that fee, you're better off considering one of the other two.

Click here to learn more about the Southwest Plus card from Insider Picks' partner: The Points Guy.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier credit card

The Premier card is similar to the Plus, with a few enhancements.

The sign-up bonus is the same, but it offers 6,000 anniversary points each year instead of 3,000.

It also offers the ability to earn tier-qualifying points, which count toward the elite "A-list" status. You'll earn 1,500 tier points each time you spend $10,000 within a calendar year, up to $100,000 (or 15,000 tier points) per year.

Otherwise, the biggest appeal of the Premier over the Plus is that it doesn't have foreign-transaction fees — if you use your Plus abroad, you'll be charged an extra 3% on every purchase.

The Premier's annual fee is $99, compared with the $69 fee on the Plus, but the extra anniversary points should generally cover that increase.

Click here to learn more about the Southwest Premier card from Insider Picks' partner: The Points Guy.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority credit card

Generally, though, the Priority is the best option if you're a Southwest flyer.

That's because, even though it has the highest fee at $149, it offers at least $150 in value each year, effectively cancelling out the fee.

The Priority offers 7,500 bonus anniversary points each year, as well as an annual $75 Southwest travel credit, which can be applied to purchases like flights. Assuming that Southwest points are worth $0.01 each — although you can usually get more value than that — that means that you're getting $150 of value each year just from these two benefits, which cancels out the annual fee.

The card also has a few other benefits, including up to four Upgraded Boarding certificates each year, meaning you can board earlier and choose your seat. You'll also get 20% back on in-flight purchases, and the same ability to earn tier-qualifying points as the Premier card.

Ultimately, as long as you're willing to front the money for the annual fee, the Priority card pays for itself.

However, if you're absolutely set against the higher fee, the Plus and the Priority can be good options as well.

Click here to learn more about the Southwest Priority card from Insider Picks' partner: The Points Guy.

SEE ALSO: The best credit card rewards, bonuses, and perks of 2019

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NOW WATCH: 6 airline industry secrets that will help you fly like a pro

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

• The personal-finance startup Empower is part of new wave of online banks giving customers better banking features. With lower overhead costs, they can offer attractive cash-back rewards, higher savings interest rates, and no-fee transactions. 
• Its debit card, accepted like a Visa card and compatible with Apple Pay, gets 1% cash back on the first $1,000 spent each month. 
• Its savings-account interest rate is 2.00%. Compare that with the national-average interest rate, which ranges from 0.1% to 0.2%, with some traditional banks offering rates as low as 0.01%. 
• These features work with Empower's artificial-intelligence-powered assistant to help members earn more money with their bank and make smarter financial decisions. 

Mention thousand-people wait lists, and I would assume you're talking about the latest product launch from a millennial startup darling like Everlane. Personal-finance startups, however, can be equally skilled at generating buzz. 

As much as millennials love spending money on clothing and beauty brands that do business differently, they're also looking for new and different ways to manage that money, which is why, in late 2018, the personal-finance app Empower had more than 20,000 people put themselves on the wait list for its new mobile-banking product. 

The first product from Empower, cofounded by a former Sequoia Capital partner and backed in part by Alexis Ohanian's Initialized Capital, is a free personal-financial adviser that connects all your financial accounts, tracks your money, and helps you discover hidden savings. 

The next step for the nearly 500,000-user-strong company was to take the traditional banking industry head-on. Empower CEO Warren Hogarth told Business Insider:

Our users were so frustrated with their existing banks and wanted something more seamless, more personal, and more rewarding. For the industry, it changes the game. Consumers can now get paid to bank and have complete control of their finances from their pocket.

Empower banking consists of a debit card and savings account, both insured up to $250,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Members get 1% cash back on the first $1,000 charged to the debit card, which can be used anywhere Visa is accepted, and they have access to a network of 25,000 free ATMs, plus one out-of-network ATM reimbursement per month. The card can also be added to Apple Pay and used anywhere Apple Pay is accepted.

Rewards and a generous savings interest rate are key to hooking members. The cash-back reward is boosted to 2% when users refer their friends to Empower. The savings account has a 2.00% APY, which gets a boost to 4.00% with a friend referral. One user said he made more in interest in one month with Empower than he did in one year with Wells Fargo (with its 0.01% APY), capping off his review with: "Online banking is the future, people!" 

Empower also gets rid of some of the most inconvenient features of traditional banking: fees and minimum balances. The usual list of add-on conditions, including monthly, overdraft, insufficient fund, and international transaction fees, are notably missing from its model. 

All the while, the company's artificial-intelligence-powered assistant is there to analyze your financial decisions and help you make better ones. It takes note of your spending behavior and patterns, sends instant notifications of debit-card transactions, and is available 24/7 via chat message. 

If you're one of the many who feel held back by their banking accounts, Empower is a competitive option to consider. It's easy to set up and, with its friendly user interface, enjoyable to use. 

To get started with this new mobile bank, download the Apple or Android app from Empower's website 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.

The US smart home market has still yet to meet the expectations many observers had in the early part of this decade.

The same issues Business Insider Intelligence first identified back in 2015 still plague the space — persistently high prices, technological fragmentation, and consumers' lack of a perceived benefit from the devices.

But the newfound popularity of smart home voice control has revolutionized smart home ecosystems across the country, and convinces more consumers to equip their homes with smart devices on a daily basis. The Amazon Echo, released in 2014, has become immensely popular and capable, awakening users to the utility of both voice control and smart home devices. This has prompted companies to rush to release competing devices and integrate voice control into their smart home ecosystems.

In a new report from Business Insider Intelligence, we examine the overall state of the US smart home market — both the professionally and self-installed markets. We analyze the factors driving demand for smart home devices and smart home voice speakers, and discuss the future of voice control in the home.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Voice control is becoming a key remote interface within the home, a trend that began with the introduction of the Amazon Echo in 2014. Since then, Google, Samsung, and Apple have all integrated voice control into their smart home ecosystems.
• While progress has been made, prices are still too high and consumers still have yet to show strong demand for smart home devices.
• The US smart home market is only now entering the mass market phase of consumer adoption and overcoming the chasm that it sat in back in 2015.

In full, the report:

• Analyzes current consumer demand for smart home devices based off results from Business Insider Intelligence's proprietary survey.
• Forecasts future growth in the number of smart home devices installed in American homes.
• Analyzes the factors influencing the proliferation of voice control devices in the homes.
• Identifies and analyzes the market strategies of various companies that have integrated voice control into their smart home ecosystems.

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• Amazon's Prime membership program offers a lot of benefits, but the most important one is free two-day shipping on more than 100 million items.
• The companies that represent the other half of online sales are catching up, however.
• Companies like Deliverr are helping retailers like Walmart and Ebay to also offer Amazon-like, free two-day shipping for more items than ever.
• As two-day shipping becomes less unique, Amazon has enticed Prime customers through other benefits like same-day and one-day delivery, as well as unrelated perks like Prime Video streaming and discounts at Whole Foods.

Prime could lose a bit of its uniqueness this year. 

Customers love Amazon's Prime membership program, which offers a myriad of benefits. But the most important by far is its chief perk: unlimited, free two-day shipping.

Members still overwhelmingly cite the perk as the most important of the subscription, according to a recent survey of 1,160 Prime members by The Diffusion Group. According to the report, 79% of members say free shipping is the most important part of Prime. The second-most popular response — by far — was Prime Video, with 11% saying it's the biggest perk.

Read more: There's still only one real reason why people pay for Amazon Prime

Amazon is able to offer free two-day shipping on over 100 million items due to the company's vast network of warehouses spread all around the country. Amazon spreads its inventory around in these warehouses, which lowers the cost of speedy shipping to every address in the US.

Amazon's Prime shipping offering is currently unique due to how consistent it is and how many millions of items that it sells, either directly or through third-party sellers using the Fulfillment by Amazon or Seller Fulfilled Prime programs.

Amazon has been sitting pretty in this position for a while. But now the rest of retail is catching up.

More two-day shipping to come

Walmart, by most metrics Amazon's biggest competitor online, debuted free two-day shipping without a membership in 2017. The catch: orders must total more than $35 to qualify.

But Walmart still needs to add more selection to its free two-day shipping offering to keep up with Amazon. It does offer millions of items, but not quite the 100 million items that Amazon boasts. 

Walmart only carries a little over half — about 55% — of Amazon's one million best-selling products, Cowen said in a report to investors in October. Amazon's top one million products account for about 80% of sales on its website, Cowen said, representing a weakness for Walmart.

Read more: Walmart still has a big weakness in its battle against Amazon

Walmart management agreed that the gap of assortment between Walmart.com and Amazon.com is still too large, Cowen said, noting that Walmart called expanding assortment a "top priority."

One of the ways Walmart is doing that is allowing third-party merchants to sell on Walmart.com with a green two-day shipping badge. The initiative started in October, and the retailer said it hopes to expand it over the coming months. Previously, only items sold directly by Walmart were given the green tag.

Not all merchants are equipped to handle the grueling demands of two-day shipping, however, especially without massive warehouses spread throughout the country. But companies like Deliverr, which partners with large merchants like Walmart, are sprouting up. 

Read more: Walmart is offering free 2-day shipping on 'millions more' items — and it reveals a key advantage over Amazon

Deliverr uses a network of leased space in warehouses around the country to mimic the services of Amazon, according to cofounder Michael Krakaris.

He says that in 2019, "more parity [will] come to the space, where a retailer now can offer free two-day shipping anywhere they sell" through outside companies like Deliverr, Krakaris said.

He said his business with Walmart is "really rapidly scaling," and he estimates that 30% of Walmart's third-party sellers use Deliverr. 

The end result: millions more items listed on Walmart with a free two-day shipping option, which can help it compete with Amazon and its services that allow third parties to sell with a Prime tag. Customers purchase items that ship quickly much more often than items that ship with a standard or unknown shipping speed.

Sellers can use Deliverr to list products for two-day shipping on Walmart, Shopify, and Ebay. If the model is ultimately successful, it could lead to a proliferation of two-day shipping offerings among the merchants that account for the roughly half of online sales that aren't captured by Amazon.

Read more: A survey found that Amazon Prime membership is soaring to new heights — but one trend should worry the company

Amazon probably realizes this is a potential weakness for its Prime membership, and that its lead in offering two-day shipping won't last forever. That is likely a driver in its adding things to Prime, like original content for Prime Video and Prime discounts at Whole Foods, which have been costly to implement and maintain.

Time will tell whether Amazon will be able to convince its over 100 million US Prime customers to stay, however.

SEE ALSO: Walmart exec reveals why it canceled its Amazon Go-like cashierless program in stores — and what the company is working on instead

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• A luxurious retreat in the Maldives has once again been named the world's most romantic resort.
• Baros Maldives includes 77 ultra-luxurious villas, each with its own open-air bathroom and rain shower.  Many villas also have their own private pools.
• The resort has been dubbed the "World's Most Romantic Resort" by World Travel Awards for four years in a row, and six times total.

Baros Maldives, an ultra-luxe retreat in the Indian Ocean, has been named the world's most romantic resort for the sixth time.

The resort has garnered the title, awarded by World Travel Awards, for the past four years in a row, and it's not hard to see why. 

Read more: A resort in the middle of the jungle has the world's 'most stunning views.' Here's a look inside the 44 private villas and at its famous swimming pool

Guests at the resort can choose from 77 ultra-luxurious villas, each of which comes with a private deck, beach sun loungers, an in-villa bar, deluxe bathrobes and slippers, yoga mats, a pillow menu, an outdoor rain shower, Wi-Fi, and a TV with a surround-sound system. Many have their own private pools.

There are multiple fine dining options to indulge in, as well as adventurous boat and sea excursions, a luxurious spa, and traditional Maldivian vow renewal ceremonies.

The Maldives is home to many award-winning resorts: Reethi Faru Resort, for example, was recently named one o the world's 14 best boutique hotels, and Kudadoo, a solar-powered, adults-only resort, has been named the world's best new luxury resort in 2019.

Here's a look at the sumptuous and romantic tropical resort. 

SEE ALSO: The top 14 boutique hotels in the world that should be on every luxury traveler's list

DON'T MISS: Inside the world's largest underwater restaurant, which has a 36-foot window that looks right out into the seabed so guests can watch marine life swim by as they eat

Baros Maldives, a luxury retreat on an island in the Indian Ocean, has won "World's Most Romantic Resort" for the fourth time in a row, and the sixth time overall. It has garnered the honor from World Travel Awards almost every year since 2012, with the exception of 2014.

Source: World Travel Awards, Baros Maldives

Baros opened more than 44 years ago, making it one of the first resorts to open in the Maldives.

Source: Baros Maldives

To get there, guests take a 25-minute speedboat ride from the Maldives' international airport.

Source: Baros Maldives

• WhatsApp is limiting the number of times users can forward messages on to each other from 20 to five, Reuters reports.
• The change applies to all users.
• WhatsApp's vice president for policy and communications Victoria Grand announced the change in Jakarta on Monday.
• The messaging app has already trialled the five-forwards restriction in India, where a series of high-profile lynchings were supposedly sparked by false information going viral on the app.

WhatsApp users will now only be able to forward a message five times, the Facebook-owned messaging company has announced.

Previously users of the messaging app, which last year attained 1.5 billion monthly users, could forward any single message to up to 20 other individuals or groups. The new change applies to all users.

WhatsApp's vice president for policy and communications Victoria Grand announced the change at an event in Jakarta on Monday, saying it will be rolled out worldwide, Reuters reports.

WhatsApp has already trialled the five-forward limit in India since July 2018, following a series of lynchings which were sparked by users mass-forwarding each other false information to each other.

Read more:Zimbabwe has shut down social media for 7 days straight, prompting claims it is trying to cover up deadly protests that killed at least 12 people

The messaging app has also come under fire for its role in spreading political propaganda and misinformation. This drew particular attention in the run-up to the Brazilian presidential election last year. A BBC investigation found that political campaigners had scraped people's Facebook data to target them with messages on WhatsApp.

SEE ALSO: A decline in Facebook usage might not be the doomsday scenario for the company that many are predicting

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Drones — also commonly referred to as unmanned aircraft — are no longer a cool, new novelty that companies in only a handful of industries are testing.

Businesses across various industries and levels of government in the US are utilizing at least a handful of drones. But more importantly, drone users are now realizing a deep return on their investments from the aircraft's ability to help save hours of time and labor.

However, to successfully get a drone program up and running, businesses need to have an idea of what they want the aircraft to do, and the value they hope to create. To that end, companies need to know what their competitors are doing with the aircraft so they can plan their own projects accordingly.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence details how unmanned aircraft are disrupting a slew of different industries, including agriculture, construction and mining, insurance, media and telecommunications, and the public sector. We also size the market for global enterprise drone shipments, and pinpoint the features that make drones useful tools within different industries. Lastly, we make predictions for how drone use in these industries will evolve over the next five to 10 years and to what extent their impact will be magnified over this period.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented its Part 107 regulations for unmanned aircraft in August 2016, the commercial drone industry in the US has taken off. 
• Companies across the US have rushed to deploy drones to cut costs, boost operational efficiency, and open up new streams of revenue. Meanwhile, firms elsewhere in the world have taken notice and ramped up their own drone projects.
• Unmanned aircraft have the potential to create the greatest business value in the construction, mining, and agriculture industries. The agriculture industry was a relatively early adopter of drones, and today one-third of farmers in the US plan to use at least one drone this year. Meanwhile, drones will have a less significant, yet noticeable, impact on media, telecommunications, and insurance businesses.
• Drones will lead these industries to become highly data-driven in the coming years, making the aircraft a must-have for companies to keep pace with their competitors. They will allow businesses to synthesize and analyze trends in their workflows to bolster their operational efficiency and predict problems before they happen.

In full, the report:

• Analyzes the development of drone use across five different industries.
• Offers a look at how drone use in these industries will evolve over the coming years.
• Sizes the market for enterprise drone shipments over a seven-year period, both in the US and abroad.

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• With the swift success of "Bird Box" and "You" last month, in terms of viewership and cultural impact, Netflix showed its originals could create the type of water cooler talk that live TV was famous for.
• Netflix said "Bird Box" was watched by 80 million households in its first month, and "You" by 40 million.
• "For part of your Netflix subscription, you are in the zeitgeist," Netflix's head of content, Ted Sarandos, said recently.
• For the first time, I felt a tangible sense of FOMO before I'd watched these titles, and it wasn't because they were groundbreaking works of art, it was because of the power of Netflix's platform.

Netflix started releasing its own "original" TV series in 2013, and since the start, it's been obvious that subscribers loved its delivery method: Full-season drops of on-demand bliss. Watching was convenient — stupidly so. But the question still lingered: In the age of scattered viewing, would Netflix ever replicate the water cooler talk that live TV perfected? Could the king of streamers make you feel culturally deficient if you didn't subscribe?

There have been moments over the past few years when I thought Netflix was inching toward that, from its first splashy original "House of Cards" to the slow build of its cult hit "Stranger Things." But it was the runaway success of two originals last month, "You" and "Bird Box," that finally convinced me that Netflix had begun to define the next phase of water cooler conversation.

"You" and "Bird Box" had very different origins — one as an original movie and the other as a TV show picked up after being discarded by Lifetime — but both spread through the internet and social media thanks to Netflix's massive reach (139 million paying subscribers and counting). Engaging with the online cultural conversation feels like the 2019 equivalent of chatting at the water cooler at work, and I really felt I wouldn't understand an important chunk of the internet if I wasn't familiar with this one movie and one show. And it wasn't because they were groundbreaking pieces of art, it was because they were so easy to watch on Netflix that everybody — or what felt like everybody — did.

The avalanche of "Bird Box" jokes and memes on social media was so overwhelming that people accused Netflix of using fake accounts to help spread them, though there was no proof. And in the end, it didn't really matter. The phenomenon was real.

Both "Bird Box" and "You" became a thing and made you feel a bit left out if you hadn't consumed them. And expect that to keep happening with Netflix originals in 2019, especially since the streamer has become the top entertainment platform for teens, beating everything from cable TV to YouTube.

Netflix's head of content, Ted Sarandos, addressed this very feeling on the streamer's Q4 earnings call.

"For part of your Netflix subscription, you are in the zeitgeist," Sarandos said. "You’re watching the programming that the rest of the world is loving at the same time."

Sarandos also revealed that "Bird Box" was watched by 80 million households in its first month on the platform, and that "You" was watched by 40 million in its first.

'Kimberly like everyone in the world'

"Bird Box" did not get off to a particularly auspicious start, leaving critics unimpressed when it became available to stream on December 21. The movie currently has a 63% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.

But there was something intriguing about the movie, which follows Sandra Bullock as she tries to stay alive and avoid an evil that kills using sight — hence the blindfold.

Master of horror Stephen King tweeted that he was "absolutely riveted" by the film and urged viewers to ignore the lukewarm reviews, which he said might have been caused by "Netflix Prejudice."

Whether or not they listened to King, viewers flocked to the film. On December 28, Netflix took the unusual step of releasing a view count, saying that over 45 million accounts had watched over 70% of the movie in its first week, a record for the service.

By that time the memes were in full swing, and the movie's omnipresent blindfold had inspired the "Bird Box Challenge," which led at least one person to crash a car and may have prompted YouTube to ban dangerous pranks and challenges.

When Kim Kardashian tweeted on January 1 that she liked the movie and asked who had seen it, she was relentlessly teased.

"Kimberly like everyone in the entire world," Chrissy Teigen tweeted in reply.

Though "Bird Box" was clearly great fodder for memes, Netflix's ubiquity and ease of use allowed it to enter the cultural conversation like a tidal wave. And the ascension of "You," a Lifetime series that hit Netflix less than a week after "Bird Box," showed again how powerful the platform had become.

Sorry, Lifetime

"You," a creepy series starring Penn Badgley as an obsessive New York City bookstore clerk, debuted to rave reviews when it aired on Lifetime in September.

Writing for Time Magazine, Judy Berman called the show a "wicked satire of social media, self-proclaimed 'nice guys' and the twisted ideals of romantic fiction." It currently has a 91% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.

But even with the good critical buzz, "You" wasn't a hit on Lifetime. The show got a live viewership of 611,000 on Lifetime, and though the network had secured the option to renew it for a second before its release, it decided not to move forward. Netflix picked up the show, giving the green light to season two and branding the first season a "Netflix original."

When the first season dropped on Netflix December 26, it quickly entered the internet hive mind. Though it didn't spread as intensely as "Bird Box," its success was equally notable because the show had already been out since September and had garnered such good reviews.

Here you can see the relative search volumes on Google of "You Lifetime" and "You Netflix" over time:

On January 14, IMDb tweeted that "You" was its top-trending show.

But it's not simply that "You" became more popular when it hit Netflix, something has been dubbed the "Netflix Effect" and has happened to shows like "Breaking Bad" and "Riverdale."

The actors and characters also immediately became topics of internet chatter.

Take supporting character Peach Salinger, played by "Pretty Little Liars" star Shay Mitchell, for instance.

On January 7, Vulture published a post titled, "Now That You Is on Netflix, You Should All Worship Peach Salinger." Then on January 11, BuzzFeed followed with,"This Post Is For Anyone That Is Team Peach Salinger And Demands Justice For Her." And on January 14, TV Guide raised the stakes by declaring, "Every Character on YOU Is Trash, but I Would Still Die for Peach Salinger."

Peach Salinger had officially become a thing. Before I started watching "You," I had even wondered myself why the heck they named a character Peach Salinger.

But if you look back at when the show aired on Lifetime, there was no Peach Salinger internet buzz. Here is a chart of Google searches that illustrates that:

Similar charts show the same trend for search interest in the names two main characters, Badgley's Joe Goldberg and Elizabeth Lail's Guinevere Beck.

And like "Bird Box," the characters on "You" have inspired lots of quality memes.

But it's not just the "You" characters. Penn Badgley is enjoying a renaissance in public awareness, with Google search interest surging and his Instagram hitting over 1.2 million followers.

Badgley has also participated in some of the fun internet shenanigans around the show that have popped up as it has gone viral on Netflix, including wading into the debate over people crushing on his serial-killer character.

"The amount of people romanticizing @PennBadgley’s character in YOU scares me,"Twitter user @darrenglitz wrote.

"Ditto. It will be all the motivation I need for season 2,"Badgley replied.

Lifetime execs must be pulling their hair out watching a show they took a chance on becoming a cultural force for someone else — and Netflix of all places. It shows the sad reality of the cable TV business today.

But Netflix is uniquely positioned to launch something into the zeitgeist, and not just compared to cable.

Netflix says 40 million households watched "You" in the first month on the platform (defined by watching 70% of at least one episode). Sure, there are caveats, but that means more Netflix accounts watched "You" than the entire subscriber base of Hulu, which recently announced it had reached 25 million.

And at 80 million views and counting, over three times Hulu's entire subscriber base watched at least 70% of "Bird Box" on Netflix.

It's hard to imagine any other platform getting that kind of instantaneous reach, and cultural impact, from scratch. Welcome to the worldwide water cooler.

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• Theresa May has set out her alternative Brexit plan to the House of Commons.
• The prime minister made a statement to MPs after her deal with the EU was overwhelmingly rejected in a Commons vote last week.
• She will push ahead with a plan to once again demand concessions from the EU on the Northern Ireland backstop.
• The motion faces multiple amendments from MPs designed to allow Parliament to take control of the Brexit process.

LONDON — Theresa May has revealed her alternative Brexit plan after MPs last week voted overwhelmingly to reject her deal with the EU.

The prime minister said she had listened to the concerns of MPs and would now seek to again gain concessions from the EU on the controversial Northern Ireland backstop.

"With regard to the backstop, despite the changes we have previously agreed, there remain two core issues: the fear that we could be trapped in it permanently; and concerns over its potential impact on our Union if Northern Ireland is treated differently from the rest of the UK," May told MPs.

"So I will be talking further this week to colleagues... to consider how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support in the House."

The backstop is designed to keep the the UK tied to EU customs and trade rules and avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland if talks fail before the end of the Brexit transition period.

However, many Conservative MPs fear that it could lead the UK into being locked indefinitely into EU trade and customs rules.

The prime minister is reportedly seeking a so-called sunset-clause on the backstop after which it would cease to have any effect. 

However, the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier rejected this on Monday, telling RTE that the current deal agreed with the prime minister was "the best deal possible."

"It's now for the UK leaders to build this stable and political majority for a deal. We are waiting for the next steps, and are ready to work again on the political declaration," he said.

The opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn also accused May of a "sham" attempt to reach out to other parties on Brexit.

"The Prime Minister’s invitations to talks have been exposed as a PR sham," Corbyn said.

"Every opposition party politician came out of those meetings with the same response. Contrary to what the Prime Minister has just said, there was no flexibility; there were no negotiations; nothing had changed."

The prime minister said she would continue to meet with MPs to hear their concerns over Brexit and would be "more open" with parliament about the next stage of the process.

However, she used her statement to reject demands by oppositon MPs to extend the Article 50 process or hold a second referendum.

"The Opposition parties that have engaged so far – and some backbenchers - have expressed their support for a second referendum," May said.

"I have set out many times my deep concerns about returning to the British people for a second referendum. Our duty is to implement the decision of the first one."

She added that a  second referendum "would set a difficult precedent that could have significant implications for how we handle referendums in this country - not least, strengthening the hand of those campaigning to break up our United Kingdom."

The prime minister set out her plan in a statement and motion to the House of Commons on Monday afternoon.

The plan, which has already been rejected multiple times by the EU and Ireland, would need to be backed in principle by the House of Commons in a vote at the end of this month, before being negotiated with the EU and then voted on again by the UK Parliament next month.

May wants the EU to give the UK legally-binding guarantees that the backstop would be a temporary measure. Pro-Brexit MPs want this to come in the form a fixed end-date. 

However, MPs from across the House are poised to force May to think again, with multiple amendments planned to her motion, which are designed to take control of the process from the prime minister.

Among the amendments are plans to force the prime minister to extend the two-year Article 50 process that will take the UK out of the EU on March 29, and a push to hand control of the entire process to backbench MPs.

The amendments will be selected by the House of Commons speaker John Bercow and then put to a vote by MPs on January 29.

May has blamed Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for the breakdown in the talks with opposition parties after he refused to meet with the prime minister until she rules out the possibility of a no-deal Brexit with the EU — the preferred option of some Conservative Brexiteers.

Demands by other opposition parties for a second referendum and Brexit to be delayed, were also rejected outright by the prime minister, sources in the opposition meetings told Business Insider.

Ripping up the Good Friday Agreement?

Downing Street has reportedly considered an alternative plan to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement in order to avoid the need for a backstop with the EU.

The GFA peace deal was agreed between the UK, Northern Irish parties and the Republic of Ireland in the 1990s after decades of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland.

Ripping up the Belfast Agreement would be incredibly controversial, take months, if not years, and require a series of referendums in order to ratify it. Downing Street sources deny any plans to rip up the Good Friday Agreement.

However, Theresa May categorically denied the story on Monday.

"All of us agree that as we leave the European Union, we must fully respect the Belfast Agreement and not allow the creation of a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland – nor indeed a border down the Irish Sea," May said. 

"And I want to be absolutely clear, in the light of media stories this morning, this Government will not reopen the Belfast Agreement. I have never even considered doing so – and neither would I." 

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• This month, a report by Wealth-X intelligence confirmed golf as the No. 1 preferred sport for multi-millionaires worldwide.
• Golf Digest released their biennial ranking of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses, with Pine Valley Golf Club in NJ ranked first.
• The top 25 courses included courses as far north as Michigan and as far south as Florida.

Golf Digest recently released its 2019-2020 ranking of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses. Established in 1966, the biennial ranking by the publication is considered the "gold standard" in the sport's community.

In Wealth-X's inaugural High Net Worth Handbook, golf was ranked as the No. 1 preferred sport amongst individuals with a net worth of $1 million to $30 million.

Many of the top ranking courses are elite private clubs, where non-members can only play if invited by a current member. Other courses are public but come with high green fees as a result of their prestige. Courses in Pebble Beach, California and Augusta, Georgia are often utilized for annual professional golf tournaments such as The Masters.

Read more: The top 15 sports wealthy people around the world love, ranked

To score each prestigious course, the Golf Digest panel totals its averages in seven categories, including shot value, aesthetics, and ambience. In addition, 60 evaluations over the past 10 years are required for a course to even be considered.

Golf Digest defines shot value as the variety of risks and rewards when playing each hole. Aesthetics assess the course's scenic value, while ambience takes into account the overall feel and atmosphere.

Below are the top 25 of the 100 courses provided by Golf Digest, in descending order with scores rounded to the nearest tenth.

SEE ALSO: These eerie photos of deserted golf courses reveal a new normal in America

SEE ALSO: 32 incredible courses every golfer should play in their lifetime

25. Wade Hampton Golf Club, Cashiers, North Carolina

Instagram Embed:
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Width: 540px

Shot values: 7.9

Aesthetics: 8.3

Ambiance: 8.2

Total score: 64.5

24. The Ocean Course, Kiawah Island, South Carolina

Shot values: 8.0

Aesthetics: 8.2

Ambiance: 8.1

Total score: 64.5

23. Riviera Country Club, Pacific Palisades, California

Instagram Embed:
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Width: 540px

Shot values: 8.1

Aesthetics: 7.8

Ambiance: 8.3

Total score: 64.8

• There are many ways to build a successful career, but most people who have attained success in their fields have faced and overcome a few similar challenges. 
• We interviewed nine executives, ranging from CEOs of worldwide organizations to small business founders, to get their insights on how people can best advance in their careers.  
• Several execs said that while it's important to evolve and be on the cutting edge of your industry, you also want to ensure that you don't lose who you are in that evolution.  

Career growth can feel like a mystery when you're trying to get somewhere without a clear path to advancement or a map to tell you what to do.

Despite facing those same challenges, the nine executives Business Insider interviewed for this feature have figured out what it takes to grow a career to be proud of.

The executives we spoke to over email ranged from CEOs of worldwide organizations to small business founders.

We came away from these interviews with the following five lessons on how one can excel in a career.

SEE ALSO: 7 lessons I never forgot from the best bosses I ever had

1. Perseverance will always take you far

Almost every single interview yielded this insight: perseverance, above all else, is the number one factor in building a career to be proud of.

Sam Meenasian, director of operations at USA Business Insurance, told Business Insider he spent 12 painstaking years getting where he is today, in an industry that requires you to be tough as nails: insurance.

"I started out with small personal lines sales, writing auto insurance for local clients," Meenasian said. "I have been through the insurance transition starting from door to door sales to putting flyers on cars in the hopes of getting one call out of the hundreds of flyers passed out."

Often, those years of perseverance are anything by glamorous — but they can build grit, resilience, and yield life-changing results, according to Meenasian. "After struggling for all those years and working on minimum wage or commission basis, I now own a successful commercial based insurance agency," he said.

Surya Kant, the president of North America, UK, and Europe for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), had a similar lesson to share.

Not only has Kant experienced a similarly long career trajectory, but through it, he's been able to work in countries around the world, and in many different areas of the consultancy business:

"I started out at the bottom of the totem pole here at TCS, and stuck with the same company throughout my entire adult life," Kant said. "It may have taken a long time, but I've achieved my goal of becoming a leader in a company I love."

2. Ensure that you're on the cutting edge of your industry

If you want to grow in your career, you have to be on the cutting edge of your industry, regardless of what you do.

This was the biggest lesson I learned from Raji Arasu, SVP of platform and services at Intuit. It's also something she learned while preparing for and evolving with the changing needs of technology in her previous job as CTO of StubHub.

"To disrupt and transform, it required me to learn evolving trends and patterns by networking with other leaders in the industry, widen my perspectives, and bring my organization along on the journey," Arasu said.

3. In evolving, make sure you don't lose who you are

The key to this critical lesson is maintaining your values and remaining true to what you bring to the company and the team, Arasu said.

"Every day, I interact, learn, change … but remain true to who I am and the values that I hold," she said. "I have had the privilege to learn from many leaders who have influenced me through my professional and personal life. But I take the best parts of that fabric and stitch it my own way."

In fact, knowing who you are may be a challenge as you strive for that coveted executive position in the first place. For Felicia Mayo, VP of HR and head of diversity at Tesla, "becoming comfortable with being 'me'" was something that changed the course of her career.

"I recognized and became comfortable with my different perspective due to my unique experiences. I am now comfortable in my expertise, my background and where I am headed in my career in the future."

It seems as though, when you can combine the lessons you've learned with the unique individual that you are, you become a more powerful executive, able to make change and define it for yourself and the business.

This is especially true for those pursuing a career in leadership. After years of learning from and "copying" the leaders he admired, Jason Zintak, CEO of 6sense had an ah-ha moment that we can all learn from:

"My mistake was to 'copy' a leadership persona rather than develop my own. You can't wear someone else's jacket if it doesn't fit. Becoming a CEO is about authenticity, keeping it real and relying on who you are while borrowing from those you've admired. I work to carry this authenticity into everything I do."

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

A revolution in payments and banking is beginning as virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa gain the abilities of cashiers, personal shoppers, and bank tellers.

Already, Siri can help users make peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers with Venmo, Alexa can pay off Capital One credit card bills, and Google Assistant can let users shop with their voice from nearby stores. 

This is just the beginning. Today, 18 million US consumers have made a voice payment, and Business Insider Intelligence projects that figure will quadruple over the next five years. 

In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence explores how and why financial services providers such as PayPal and Bank of America are positioning for voice interfaces to take off. The report includes actionable recommendations that draw on interviews with executives spearheading voice initiatives, as well as exclusive survey data from our proprietary research panel. 

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Voice payments are catching on — 8% of US respondents to a 2017 Business Insider Intelligence survey said they used voice commands to buy something, send money to a friend, or pay a bill.
• Adoption is set to grow from 8% to 31% of US adults by 2022. Three factors will fuel this growth: an explosion of voice-enabled devices, generational gains in AI, and a strong consumer value proposition for voice payments.
• Payments providers are moving in: Amazon, Apple, Google, and PayPal are part of the growing list of companies making these next-generation payments possible.
• Banks are betting on AI, too. Bank of America, Capital One, USAA, and more are rolling out conversational interfaces to their customers.
• Next-generation voice assistants will blow the current generation away. Voice payments will evolve from clunky and poorly scripted sessions to interactions as natural as one might have with a personal shopper or bank employee.
• Getting to the next generation will not be easy, but the payoff will be large. Grounded in realistic expectations of adoption in the years ahead, providers of voice payments and banking experiences stand to accumulate early advantages by moving in early.

 In full, the report:

• Shares current and projected adoption of voice payments.
• Outlines voice payments and banking integrations on the market.
• Examines growth drivers and barriers to consumers' voice payments adoption.
• Provides strategies for successfully deploying voice interfaces.

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• A huge part of economic success for any nation is ensuring that the best possible talent is in place in key industries, and that it stays there.
• A survey from French business school INSEAD looked at four key categories for encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation: a nation's ability to enable, attract, grow, and retain entrepreneurship. 
• Major Western economies like the USA, Germany, and the UK are close to the top of the list, but smaller nations such as Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Singapore also feature.

A huge part of economic success for any nation is ensuring that the best possible talent is in place in key industries, and that it stays there.

But which nations are best at attracting talent in business? A new survey, conducted by French business school INSEAD and tech firms Adecco and Tata Communications, aims to find out.

The survey looked at four key categories for encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation: a nation's ability to enable, attract, grow, and retain entrepreneurship. 

These four pillars were then sub-divided into categories such as the regulatory environment, quality of educational institutions, and quality of life. Each country was then given a score out of 100.

Major Western economies like the USA, Germany, and the UK are close to the top of the list, but smaller nations such as Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Singapore also feature.

Check out all the nations with scores above 70 below.

SEE ALSO: The 31 safest countries in the world

16. Ireland — 70.15

15. Canada — 70.43

14. Germany — 70.72

• Big-name quarterbacks like Tua Tagovailoa, Trevor Lawrence, Dwayne Haskins, and Kyler Murray stole the show this season, but success at the collegiate level doesn't always translate to the NFL.
• INSIDER set out to determine which colleges produce the most Super Bowl starting quarterbacks and how many Super Bowl victories they have produced.
• The California Golden Bears lead the pack with a whopping five quarterbacks heading to the Super Bowl after their time in Berkeley came to a close, but the Alabama Crimson Tide and Purdue Boilermakers have the most Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks with three winners apiece.
• Check out the full list of college football programs that boast the most Super Bowl starting and winning quarterbacks below and read all of Business Insider's Super Bowl LIII coverage here.

With big names like Tua Tagovailoa, Trevor Lawrence, Dwayne Haskins, and Kyler Murray lighting up scoreboards across the country, this year's college football season was all about quarterbacks.

But success at the collegiate level doesn't always translate to the NFL, so INSIDER set out to determine which colleges produce quarterbacks who find success on the NFL's biggest stage: the Super Bowl.

The California Golden Bears lead the pack with a whopping five quarterbacks making appearances in Super Bowl games after their time in Berkeley came to a close, but the Alabama Crimson Tide and Purdue Boilermakers have the most Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks with three winners apiece.

This year's Super Bowl quarterbacks both enjoyed successful college football careers.

Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff will be the fifth quarterback from Cal to start in a Super Bowl. He made program history in 2013 as the first true freshman quarterback to start a season opener and went on to accrue 12,200 passing yards and 977 completions in his three years under center.

Tom Brady is the only Super Bowl quarterback to play for the Michigan Wolverines. Brady was famously a backup in his first two years in Ann Arbor before securing the starting job against fellow future NFL quarterback Drew Henson for his junior and senior seasons. In that span, Brady posted a 20-5 record and threw for 4,644 yards.

Shockingly, no quarterback who attended college in the state of Texas has ever started in the Super Bowl.

Check out the full list of college football programs that boast the most Super Bowl starting and winning quarterbacks below:

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• Teachers in LA have gone on strike for the first time in 30 years to demand salary increases, smaller class sizes, and more support staff in schools.
• The average American teacher makes $44,000 starting out and approximately $68,000 at the upper end of their earning potential.
• In comparison, teachers in Luxembourg can make up to $137,000.
• Here's a look at how teacher salaries across countries stack up at different experience levels.

Teachers in Los Angeles have gone on strike for the first time in 30 years to demand salary increases, smaller class sizes, and more support staff in schools.

The LA school district is the second biggest in the US and the strike affects nearly half a million students and their families.

For context, according to the NEA, the average teacher salary in California for the 2016-2017 school year was $78,711 — one of the highest averages in the US.

Meanwhile, according to data released by the OECD, the starting salary for a high school teacher with no experience in Luxembourg is about $79,000. The peak salary for a veteran teacher is $137,000.

The OECD's full data set reveals a yawning gap between the highest and lowest paid teachers around the world. When converted to US dollars, many of the salaries fall well short of the average American teacher, who makes $44,000 starting out and approximately $68,000 at the upper end.

Here is the full breakdown of how teacher salaries stack up across the world, sorted by school level and gender.

SEE ALSO: Teachers are making millions selling their lessons plans online

Elementary school teachers — best and worst

In Luxembourg, one of the richest countries in the world, an inexperienced teacher can expect to make more on his or her first day than teachers in nearly all other countries can hope to make in their entire careers.

The only exception is Switzerland, where elementary school teachers make $84,000 at the top range of salaries.

Meanwhile, salaries in the three-lowest-paid countries all top out below the starting salaries in the 10 best-paid countries. Korean teachers start out at $28,352, while Czech, Hungarian, and Polish teachers shouldn't expect to make more than that throughout their careers.

High school teachers — best and worst

Luxembourg's and Switzerland's dominance continues on for high school teachers. Likewise, Korean teachers still see the biggest jumps in pay over their careers.

Though a brand-new teacher in Korea makes just $27,702 in their first year, by the time they've hit the 10-year mark, their salary rises to $41,875, and at the top end, it's $77,979.

Austria is one of the only countries to jump significantly from elementary school pay to high school. High school teachers make about $9,000 more at the top of the scale.

Elementary school teachers — best and worst by gender

Luxembourg doesn't just dominate with the size of its paychecks, but their level of equality, too. Male and female elementary school teachers both make roughly $95,000 at the top end of the pay scale.

The same can't be said for the other countries in the top five, many of which see discrepancies of a few thousand dollars tilted in men's favor.

Teachers in the worst-paying countries see smaller gaps.

Note: The OECD didn't collect gender data for every country in the general list.

• NBCUniversal will launch its own ad-supported streaming service in 2020.
• NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke told The Wall Street Journal that the company could consider moving "The Office" from Netflix to the new service.
• "The Office" and NBC's "Parks and Recreation" are two of Netflix's most popular shows, according to data from analytics firm Jumpshot provided to Business Insider.
• Netflix has been investing heavily in original content as more companies enter the streaming war.

When Netflix first launched its streaming platform over a decade ago, it used a big catalog of traditional TV shows to kickstart viewership. Now, as more media giants plan to launch their own streaming competitors, Netflix is in jeopardy of losing some of its most popular shows.

NBCUniversal announced Monday that it plans to launch its own ad-supported streaming service in 2020 that would be free to users who already subscribe to traditional pay TV through companies like Comcast and Sky. The service could include popular NBC TV shows and Universal movies, as well as original content.

Users who don't already have pay TV will be able to subscribe to the service for a monthly fee around $10 a month, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited an anonymous source familiar with the matter. 

READ MORE: Hulu gained on Netflix in the US during a year of massive user growth, but there's a big challenge it will have to overcome in 2019 to keep up the pace

NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke told the Journal that the company may consider moving "The Office" from Netflix to the new streaming service once the licensing agreement expires in 2021. NBC declined to comment further to Business Insider.

That's bad news for Netflix because "The Office" is its most popular show, according to data from analytics firm Jumpshot provided to Business Insider. And NBC's "Parks and Recreation" is its third most popular show.

The chart below shows the 10 most popular shows on Netflix of 2018, courtesy of Jumpshot, which "tracks five billion actions a day across 100 million devices to deliver insights into online consumer behavior":

Netflix's second most popular show, the Warner Bros.-owned "Friends," is safe on Netflix — for now. The hit 1990s sitcom will remain on the service through 2019, but Netflix and AT&T, which bought Time Warner last year, are finalizing a deal to keep "Friends" on Netflix while also allowing AT&T the ability to put the show on its own platform that is expected to launch this year.

Netflix is paying up to $100 million for "Friends," according to The New York Times, significantly more than the $30 million it was paying per year for the rights. 

A similar scenario could happen with "The Office,""Parks and Recreation," and more NBC shows. Other NBC shows in Netflix's top 50, according to Jumpshot, included "The Good Place" and "The West Wing." Would Netflix drop so much money for multiple shows when it's already investing heavily in original content? 85% of new spending in 2018 went toward originals.

Netflix anticipated the competition, so it will likely continue to focus on original programming over licensing agreements.

"The way we look at this long term is that our competitors will want that content on their own services,” Netflix's content chief Ted Sarandos said during an earnings call in July. "That was a bet we’ve made a long time ago when we got into original programming."

SEE ALSO: Netflix has been smacked with a lawsuit over 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' that claims it 'tarnishes' the 'choose your own adventure' trademark

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• Business Insider sent me to the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 8-11.
• I spent three full days walking around the show floors, sprawling 11 venues — 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space.
• While there was a lot of cool cutting-edge tech, there were also a lot of bizarre moments, many of which I captured on camera.

CES 2019 is in the books.

I saw massive 8K displays, futuristic self-driving cars, robots, smart-home devices, and much more.

But I also saw lots of bizarre moments that didn't particularly fit into any of these categories.

I captured many of these moments on camera.

Take a look at the weirdest things I saw at CES 2019.

SEE ALSO: The best new technology we saw at CES 2019

I have celiac disease — basically an allergy to wheat and bread — so this robot could literally kill me. (Also, who would want this massive appliance for their home?)

This robot only works every 2-3 hours. Lazy!

This robot can take drink orders only; it cannot make the drinks. Yet dozens of people waited in line for coffee here. I'll always remember my coworker looking at the line of people and exclaiming, "Does no one know this robot doesn't actually make the coffee??"

• Nintendo just dropped a major re-release on the Nintendo Switch with "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe."
• The game originally launched on Nintendo's failed Wii U, but is getting new life on Nintendo's Switch as a repackaged "Deluxe" edition which includes a bunch of extra stuff.
• Having spent several hours playing "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe," I'd strongly recommend it to any classic "Super Mario" superfans.

"New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe" is Super Mario as pastiche: It's composed entirely from bits and pieces of various classic, 2D Super Mario games.

Character selection is lifted from"Super Mario Bros. 2," and the overworld map is from "Super Mario Bros. 3." Each Koopa Kid boss fight is directly reminiscent of the same boss fights in "Super Mario World." That's blended with elements of the more recent "New Super Mario Bros." series, and it produces a delightful evolution of both.

If you're looking for dozens of hours of Nintendo's smartest, toughest, most traditional "Super Mario" gaming, look no further than "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe." 

Here's what I mean:

SEE ALSO: The 7 biggest things to expect from Nintendo in 2019

"New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe" is two games in one: Both "New Super Mario Bros. U," and "New Super Luigi U."

Though "New Super Mario Bros. U" was a hit on the Wii U, it still sold under 6 million copies — a surprisingly low number for one of the world's most popular gaming franchises. It wasn't the game's fault, but a measure of the Wii U's failure.

With that in mind, Nintendo is giving the game a new chance with a major re-release on the Nintendo Switch. It's a smart move, as the game feels purpose-built for the kind of gaming that the Nintendo Switch allows — it's exactly the type of game that's easy to play on-the-go or at home.

So, what is it?

It's two games — "New Super Mario Bros. U" and "New Super Luigi U"— combined into a single, $60 package. It comes with a new playable character in "Toadette." It's a re-release that gives an already great set of games a chance to reach new players on a far, far more successful Nintendo platform.

What's the difference between the two games? Difficulty.

If "New Super Mario Bros. U" is the base game, "New Super Luigi Bros. U" is the master quest. 

It would be reductive to say that the latter game is a harder version of the former, but it's not inaccurate. You can't actually play as Mario in "New Super Luigi Bros. U," but you can play as everyone else: Luigi, Toad, Toadette, and Nabbit. 

Part of the challenge is that Luigi is a more difficult character to control than Mario, and part of the challenge is that the entire game is rebalanced around being more difficult. Enemies act differently and appear in greater numbers. Platforms are in different places, or outright removed. Levels are designed to put challenge above all else.

If you've ever played literally any 2D Super Mario game, included "Super Mario Run" on smartphones, you're familiar with the gameplay of "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe."

In "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe," you're stomping on goombas and eating power-up mushrooms and always, always seeking out the next flagpole.

It's a pixel-perfect, 2D-style, classic Mario game with a ton of polish.

It plays like the memory you have of "Super Mario Bros." on the original Nintendo Entertainment System, albeit with far prettier visuals, more complex level design, and better controls. 

Unbelievably, after 30 years of "Super Mario" games, "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe" still packs in plenty of incredibly impressive, delightful game design. Much of the game makes you feel clever, which is a testament to the subtlty of the game's developers. It's just difficult enough.

There are a few new additions you might not be ready for if you've never played the "New Super Mario Bros." series. Did you know that Mario is now regularly capable of wall jumps? Pretty much all the new gymnastics Mario learned from his 3D jaunt in "Super Mario 64" is now built into the 2D series as well, from ground pounds to wall jumps. 

• The number of Americans over the age of 60 will double by 2060 — from 46 million today to 98 million — according to a 2016 report.
• Scientists said people are living much longer than ever before, too. Some tech companies have been tackling aging and conditions like dementia that often affect the elderly.
• It's a nice change from the past, when tech products were aimed primarily at younger users and left many older users confused. 

Our elders may be wise in years but they're not always very tech savvy, as anyone who's had to provide tech support to an uncle or grandparent can attest. 

But tech products are starting to become more senior-friendly. New innovations, like voice recognition, touch screens and sensors, are making the power of digital technology more accessible to older people. The market for tech products aimed at people aged 60 and over is set to swell by $20 billion in the next two years. 

The best tech products for elders need to serve a real purpose in the lives of their users, many of whom may suffer from Alzheimer's or other forms of cognitive impairment — there's no room for superfluous gizmos or useless apps. 

This is where apps like Papa and products like Jiobit come in. They answer simple questions like "Where did Grandma wander off to?" and "Who can take Dad to the doctor?" When it comes to tech products for seniors, use will overshadow flash every time. 

Check out some the best new, as well as tried-and-true, tech products and services for older adults: 

SEE ALSO: Microsoft President Brad Smith says these are the 10 biggest challenges facing tech in 2019

ElliQ, a robot companion

After winning the Best of Innovation award for the Smart Home category at last year’s CES, Intuition Robotics, an Israeli startup and provider of digital companion technologies, announced this past week that its social robot for older adults, ElliQ, is now available for pre-order starting at $1,499. 

ElliQ, "the sidekick for happier aging" as the company calls it, is radiant and bright, like a table light, with a moving cylindrical robot head that can make animatronic movements and field vocal requests. 

It's a combination of a touch screen and a voice-enabled home assistant geared to make it easier for seniors to make video calls, set reminders for medication and arrange doctors appointments. You can even play bridge with it. 

The product has successfully been tested with beta users aged 62-97 and will ship some time in the summer of 2019. 

Noomi, a wristband combining artificial intelligence and sensors

Noomi, a Swedish startup, released its smart wristband a few years back with the goal to better care for the elderly. The wristband itself is filled with hardware sensors and artificial intelligence to monitor all kinds of behavior from sleeping and eating habits to detecting whether a trip or fall happened. Any sort of change, whether minor or major, is relayed to a caregiver.

The wristband's battery life is quite significant, too: up to 12 months. All of the data it collects is stored on its cloud platform and can be shared with a medical professional in real-time, 24 hours a day. 

Jiobit, a real-time location tracker

This small, clip-able device that tracks real-time location was originally designed for children, but can be helpful for seniors with dementia who are prone to wandering off, according to AARP.

Prices start at $99.99 for the device and $8.99 a month with a 2-year commitment. The lightweight gadget, designed so it isn't easily taken off, also has a "geo-fence" alert, which notifies a caregiver if the person goes outside of a "trusted zone." Another plus: it lasts up to one week on a single charge. 

The device is used all over the world (and in all 50 states), according to a Jiobit spokesperson, and its encryption and security technologies have even gotten the thumbs-up by law enforcement professionals. 

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. This report is exclusively available to enterprise subscribers. To learn more about getting access to this report, email Senior Account Executive Chris Roth at croth@businessinsider.com, or check to see if your company already has access. 

New data shows that mobile features have become a key factor that customers weigh when choosing a bank. 

In Business Insider Intelligence's second annual Mobile Banking Competitive Edge study, 64% of mobile banking users said that they would research a bank's mobile banking capabilities before opening an account with them. And 61% said that they would switch banks if their bank offered a poor mobile banking experience.

For channel strategists, the challenge in attracting mobile-minded customers is knowing when to bet budgets and political capital on developing emerging features. It's complicated by most flashy features — such as voice assistants, smartwatch banking, and bank-offered mobile wallets — being deemed a "must" by analysts, media, and rival banking executives. 

The Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Report uses data to inform channel investment decisions by highlighting which mobile banking features are most valuable to customers. Our study has data on consumer demand for 33 in-demand mobile capabilities across six key categories. 

Using that consumer data, the study benchmarks the largest 20 banks and credit unions in the US by whether they offer the cutting-edge mobile features that customers say they care about most. What sets our benchmark apart is that it weights every feature according to customer demand data — not subjective analyst opinion.  

Channel strategists within financial institutions use our report to see which innovative features they should prioritize in development pipelines and to find out how they compare with rival banks and credit unions in offering those features.

Business Insider Intelligence fielded the Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Study to members of its proprietary panel in August 2018, reaching over 1,200 US consumers — primarily handpicked digital professionals and early-adopters, making our sample a sensitive indicator of emerging features. 

Here are a few key takeaways from the report:

• Citi snagged first overall. The bank led the account access section, tied for first in account management, and ranked highly in all the other categories of the study. Wells Fargo took second place, leading in security and control and transfers. USAA came in third, NFCU was fourth, and Bank of America rounded out the top five.
• Demand for security features is sizzling. Following a year of huge breaches being announced at companies like Facebook and Google, consumers' security concerns jumped to become the most important category. The category included the No. 1 feature overall: the ability to turn a payment card on or off. 
• Digital money management features are also highly demanded. Chase and Wells Fargo may be onto something with their millennial-focused banking apps, Finn and Greenhouse, as the generation had sky-high demand for the six features in the category. The most popular feature in the category was the ability to separate recurring payments, such as Netflix and gym memberships.

 In full, the report:

• Shows how 33 mobile features stack up according to how valuable customers say they are.
• Ranks the top 20 US banks and credit unions on whether they offer each of those features.
• Analyzes how demographics effect demand for different mobile features.
• Provides strategies for banks to best attract and retain customers with mobile features.
• Contains 63 pages and 30 figures.

The full report is available to Business Insider Intelligence enterprise clients. To learn more about this report, email Senior Account Executive Chris Roth (croth@businessinsider.com).  

Business Insider Intelligence's Mobile Banking Competitive Edge study includes: Ally, Bank of America, BB&T, BBVA Compass, BMO Harris, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Fifth Third, HSBC, KeyBank, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC, Regions, SunTrust, TD, Union Bank, US Bank, USAA, and Wells Fargo.

SEE ALSO: These are the trends creating new winners and losers in the card-processing ecosystem

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