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.

Edge computing solutions are key tools that help companies grapple with rising data volumes across industries. These types of solutions are critical in allowing companies to gain more control over the data their IoT devices create and in reducing their reliance on (and the costs of) cloud computing.

These systems are becoming more sought-after — 40% of companies that provide IoT solutions reported that edge computing came up more in discussion with customers in 2017 than the year before, according to Business Insider Intelligence’s 2017 Global IoT Executive Survey. But companies need to know whether they should look into edge computing solutions, and what in particular they can hope to gain from shifting data processing and analysis from the cloud to the edge.

There are three particular types of problems that edge computing solutions are helping to combat across industries:

• Security issues. Edge computing can limit the exposure of critical data by minimizing how often it’s transmitted. Further, they pre-process data, so there’s less data to secure overall.
• Access issues. These systems help to provide live insights regardless of whether there’s a network connection available, greatly expanding where companies and organizations can use connected devices and the data they generate.
• Transmission efficiency. Edge computing solutions process data where it’s created so less needs to be sent to the cloud, leading to lower cloud storage requirements and reduced transmission cost.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence examines how edge computing is reducing companies' reliance on cloud computing in three key industries: healthcare, telecommunications, and the automotive space. We explore how these systems mitigate issues in each sector by helping to efficiently process growing troves of data, expanding the potential realms of IoT solutions a company can offer, and bringing enhanced computing capability to remote and mobile platforms.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• In healthcare, companies and organizations are using edge computing to improve telemedicine and remote monitoring capabilities.
• For telecommunications companies, edge computing is helping to reduce network congestion and enabling a shift toward the IoT platform market.
• And in the automotive space, edge computing systems are enabling companies to increase the capabilities of connected cars and trucks and approach autonomy.

In full, the report:

• Explores the key advantages edge computing solutions can provide.
• Highlights the circumstances when companies should look into edge systems.
• Identifies key vendors and partners in specific industries while showcasing case studies of successful edge computing programs.

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  	This report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports
  	Access to all future reports and daily newsletters
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  	And more!

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• President Donald Trump has found a strongman he does not like: Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro. 
• Trump's forceful stance against Maduro stands in contrast with his position toward other authoritarians. 
• As Trump denounces Maduro, he's simultaneously embracing another controversial leader in the region: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. 

There is a distinct contradiction between President Donald Trump's forceful repudiation of Nicolas Maduro's authoritarianism in Venezuela alongside his warm embrace of Jair Bolsonaro – the region's newest strongman in Brazil.

As Venezuela descends into further chaos as a result of Maduro's inept, callous policies that have led to economic collapse and mayhem on the country's streets, Trump has taken the opportunity to work with allies to undermine his authority.

Earlier this week, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself the country's interim president as protests occurred across the nation, and Trump made the calculated move of swiftly backing his claim. This prompted Maduro to break diplomatic relations with the US while essentially accusing it of orchestrating a coup. 

Read more:Venezuela’s uprising against Maduro may put Trump's musings about military intervention to the test

The Trump administration has been gleefully pointing to the tumultuous situation in Venezuela as a sign of the evils of socialism and it's touted its policy toward Caracas as proof of its dedication to democratic values and human rights. 

In announcing his support for Guaidó, Trump referenced the Venezuelan people's demand for "freedom and the rule of law."

But these concepts have not been the hallmark of Trump's foreign policy, as he leads an administration that has, in recent months, exhibited subservient behavior toward a government that chopped up a Washington Post journalist in an Istanbul consulate — and, last week, happily set up yet another meeting with a dubious ruler who largely maintains power through a system of concentration camps. 

Condemning one Latin American strongman while embracing another

The Trump administration's declared opposition to dictatorial behavior also does not seem to extend to other parts of Latin America. 

This month, Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have quite publicly expressed their affinity toward Bolsonaro, the recently inaugurated far-right populist president of Brazil who on his first day in office signed legislation targeting indigenous peoples, descendants of slaves, and the LGBTQ community.

After Bolsonaro's inauguration earlier this month, Trump tweeted,"Congratulations to President @JairBolsonaro who just made a great inauguration speech - the U.S.A. is with you!"

Bolsonaro replied, "Dear Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, I truly appreciate your words of encouragement. Together, under God's protection, we shall bring prosperity and progress to our people."

Pompeo, who traveled to Brazil for Bolsonaro's inauguration, earlier this month tweeted, "Great meeting President @jairbolsonaro to reinforce our shared commitment to democracy, education, prosperity, security, and #humanrights. Look forward to working together to support those suffering in #Cuba, #Nicaragua, and #Venezuela under the weight of dictatorships."

Similarly, National Security Adviser John Bolton in a November speech praised Bolsonaro as a "like-minded" partner. He said Bolsonaro's election victory showed "positive signs for the future of the region, and demonstrate a growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent and accountable governance."

Bolsonaro is unabashedly homophobic, xenophobic, and sexist

Bolsonaro, a former army captain who also served for many years in Brazil's legislature, has a well-documented history of homophobia, xenophobia, and sexism, often coming under fire for his incendiary rhetoric toward minority groups and women.

The Brazilian leader, for example, has said he'd be incapable of loving a homosexual son and once suggested a female colleague in Congress was too ugly to be raped. 

"She doesn't deserve to be raped, because she's very ugly,"Bolsonaro said in 2014."She's not my type. I would never rape her. I'm not a rapist, but if I were, I wouldn't rape her because she doesn't deserve it."

He has also expressed nostalgia for a dictatorship that ruled over Brazil from 1964 to 1985 and presided over numerous atrocities. 

In September 2018, Bolsonaro suggested his political opponents should be shot.

The far-right populist has not been in office for long, but already appears to be sparking fears among certain groups about their status under his rule. 

Read more:The 'Brazilian Donald Trump' just became president in a landslide. He got there despite saying he couldn't love a gay son and that a colleague was too 'ugly' to be raped.

Brazil's most prominent openly gay politician, Jean Wyllys, abruptly resigned this week despite recently being reelected, an alarming move that sent shockwaves through the South American country's LGBTQ community.

Wyllys, a vocal critic of Bolsonaro, has been receiving death threats and has now fled country. In an interview on Thursday, he said,"For the future of this cause, I need to be alive. I do not want to be a martyr. I want to live."

But Bolsonaro's problematic rhetoric and policies do not seem to bother the Trump administration.

Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for dictators as he's pushed away US allies

The president's budding bromance with the new Brazilian president is also part of a broader trend with Trump. 

In short, he has exhibited a remarkable level of respect for many of the world's most repressive and controversial leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The president's rhetoric toward leaders such as Putin and Xi has often stood in contrast with warnings from members of his own administration about Russia and China's nefarious activities, including election interference.

All the while, Trump has habitually insulted and pushed away traditional US allies and signaled a desire to dismantle institutions that helped establish America as a global superpower in the years that followed World War II. 

Read more:Officials keep talking about intervening in Venezuela, and it's drawing an ominous comparison

Coincidentally, many of the same leaders listed above that Trump has spoken fondly of have lined up behind Maduro. Russia and China have urged against foreign interference in Venezuela as Kremlin-linked contractors have reportedly been flown into the South American country to bolster Maduro's defenses in recent days. 

Putin, who is still facing backlash over the 2014 annexation of Crimea and continues to exhibit aggressive military behavior in Europe, this week phoned Maduro and "emphasized that destructive external interference is a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international law,"the Kremlin said in a statement.

Trump might break from his 'America First ' doctrine in Venezuela

It's unclear what happens next in Venezuela.

The military is seemingly standing by Maduro despite nationwide protests. 

Trump has suggested the US might use military force in the country. 

Read more:Trump leaves 'military option' on the table for Venezuela, which he calls as threatening as North Korea

If Trump did use military force in Venezuela, it would be consistent with the US government's long, disastrous history of interventionism in Latin America. But it would also mark a break from Trump's "America First" doctrine and his isolationist tendencies. Trump has made repeated calls for the US to stop being the world police, a philosophy that drove his recent push for US troops to be withdrawn from Syria and Afghanistan. 

The president's foreign policy has been consistently inconsistent, and his stance on the current turmoil in Venezuela does not deviate from that trend. 

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

Retailers and their logistics partners have been pushed to meet growing customer demands for increasingly speedy shipping. And the steady rise of e-commerce has caused the daily volume of parcel shipments to skyrocket — two trends that, for the foreseeable future, are only going to continue.

With fulfillment giants like Amazon constantly nipping at their heels, e-tailers have to fight to figure out a way to offer same-day shipping at low prices. To do so, they’re experimenting with nontraditional logistics strategies and startup partners to see what sticks.

Enter crowdsourced delivery — the Uber model for package fulfillment. In this article, we’ll take a look at what it is, why it’s growing, and the future of same-day shipping.

What is crowdsourced delivery?

Crowdsourced delivery, also known as crowdsourced shipping, is an emerging method of fulfillment that leverages networks of local, non-professional couriers to deliver packages to customers’ doors. While most common in meal and grocery delivery, this model seems to be springing up everywhere as traditional retailers look for ways to cut costs and maximize supply chain efficiency.

Why crowdsourced delivery?

Crowdsourced delivery is beneficial for both retailers and their customers, with the primary advantage simply being that companies can get online orders to their customers faster — sometimes in less than an hour. And with the option of on-demand or scheduled delivery, companies can meet their customers’ demands for instant gratification (which is particularly prevalent among younger, digital-first consumers), while also ensuring that packages are delivered when someone is home — eliminating the additional time and costs involved with multiple delivery attempts.

A secondary benefit of crowdsourced delivery is that it is tech-heavy and asset-light. Contracted couriers provide their own transportation to make deliveries, often from a retailer’s store location, and are typically paid per delivery or per shift. For companies, this means not worrying about warehouse operations, fleet management, or employee benefits — thereby offsetting some of the high costs and complex logistics associated with on-demand delivery.

For customers, crowdsourced delivery provides greater control over the shopping experience; it satisfies their need for speed while offering more visibility into the delivery process. Customers can select a desired time slot to ensure they won’t miss a delivery and, perhaps most importantly, they can track their packages along the way. Instead of repeatedly checking a tracking code for a status update, customers can choose to receive SMS text alerts, push notifications, or even GPS tracking on their smartphones.

Despite these benefits, the startup nature of many crowdsourced delivery services comes with inherent challenges, such as the high per-delivery costs of ad-hoc shipments, which are often absorbed by the retailer as customers become less and less willing to cover delivery fees.

As with other startups tapping into the gig economy, other major challenges of crowdsourced delivery include workforce issues — more specifically, courier shortages and retention rates. Couriers are often signed up for multiple gigs, which can make localized labor hard to come by at times. When contractors toggle among delivery, ride hailing, and other on-demand service apps looking for the next available job, they can quickly cause churn for the company from burnout, particularly when regular wages and benefits are not guaranteed.

Solving the last mile problem

In traditional shipping, the last mile problem is the inefficiency of final delivery. The “last mile” of delivery refers to the final leg of shipment, when a package arrives at the customer’s doorstep. This step of the journey is the most expensive and the most time consuming, as there are typically multiple stops along a given route — slowed down by either long distances between stops in rural areas or heavy traffic in urban settings.

Crowdsourced delivery attempts to skirt these bottlenecks by tasking someone local to both the package’s origin and customer’s door to expedite fulfillment and elevate customer satisfaction.

Future of same-day shipping

To date, crowdsourced delivery has been most commonly seen in meal delivery services in urban markets, with apps such as Postmates, Doordash, and Grubhub, but even giants like Walmart and Aldi have begun dabbling with this model for same-day grocery delivery.

Crowdsourced delivery is not limited to the food and restaurant industries either. A growing number of retailers is now experimenting with crowdsourcing as a solution to same-day shipping — an expectation of 56% of millennials, according to a survey from fraud prevention startup Trustev.

And startups like Deliv have been answering their calls. Since 2014, the crowdsourced delivery startup has been processing same-day deliveries for Macy’s, using the retail titan’s existing ship-from-store program to pick and pack orders.

These types of startups have been eliciting a response from traditional delivery providers such as DHL which launched a same-day scheduled delivery pilot for retail shipping in Germany, or FedEx, which has expanded same-day urban delivery in over 30 markets. Unlike emerging startups, these legacy providers have the advantage of leveraging their extensive logistics operations (traditionally used for non-retail deliveries), and shifting them to compete in the retail space.

And as we continue to see advancements in drone technology and artificial intelligence, it’s likely that in the future, same-day delivery will no longer depend on local couriers, but rather automation.

More to Learn

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has writtena detailed report on crowdsourced delivery that:

• Details the factors driving investment and growth in crowdsourced delivery startups.
• Examines the benefits and drawbacks of using crowdsourcing to deliver online orders.
• Explains how crowdsourced delivery startups can improve their cost efficiencies to tackle greater delivery volumes
• Explores the role that crowdsourcing will play in the future of delivery once automated delivery options, like drones and robots, arrive.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Retailers are looking for ways to deliver goods faster to consumers' doorsteps to stave off Amazon's threat and meet customer expectations.
• To accomplish that, retailers and delivery providers are zeroing in on the "last mile" of fulfillment, the most expensive and time-consuming part of the delivery process, which is when a package reaches the customer's address.
• Startups like Postmates, Instacart, and others are looking to disrupt the last mile delivery space by leveraging the "Uber model," and connecting businesses to non-professional couriers who can deliver goods instantly.
• Crowdsourcing can drastically speed up deliveries in urban areas, where there is a high density of deliveries and potential couriers to be matched.
• However, as delivery volumes increase, crowdsourced delivery startups will need to further optimize their deliveries to improve cost efficiencies.
• Many of the deliveries these startups perform today will likely be automated in the future, raising the possibility that these startups may eventually look to incorporate new technologies like delivery drones or self-driving delivery vehicles.
  Get The Crowdsourced Delivery Report
  

   

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• The payments ecosystem is undergoing a period of digital transformation, which will spur tremendous growth in money moved around the globe in the next five years.
• Consumers and businesses will make 841 billion noncash transactions worldwide in 2023, up from 577 billion in 2018.
• The next five years will mark a pivotal transformation in how companies and consumers handle payments.

The impact of payments’ digital transformation is rippling around the world, in both advanced economies and developing countries.

Across major global regions, the total volume of e-commerce transactions is expected to rise 91% over the next five years to hit $5.7 trillion by 2023.

With such impending immense growth, it’s crucial for any business that even touches the payments industry to understand what’s ahead.

Take, for example, noncash transactions, which include debit card, credit card, direct debit, and credit transfer transactions that are conducted either online or offline. Consumers and businesses will make 841 billion noncash transactions globally in 2023, a 46% surge from 577 billion in 2018. The rise in global card and terminal penetration, coupled with increasing digital payments volume, will will be the key drivers in this growth.

To successfully navigate this changing landscape, individuals and organizations must understand the full extent to which digital transformation will affect the payments industry, the key drivers of this growth, and how it all relates to the work they do every day.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has forecasted the future of the payments ecosystem in The Payments Forecast Book 2018— and the next five years will be critical for the following four areas:

• Global Payments: Asia, North America, and Europe will be the three main growth regions in the next five years, and will make up 70% of all noncash transaction growth by 2023.
• US Payments: In the US, P2P and retail payments combined will still be less than a quarter of the size of the B2B payments market by 2023 ($6.3 trillion vs. $27.3 trillion).
• US E-Commerce:Total e-commerce spending in the U.S. will surpass $1 trillion by 2023, and the average consumer will spend $2,959 online.
• US Emerging Payments: By 2023, 67% of US adults will have used BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup In Store) at least once in the last 12 months.

Want to Learn More?

People, companies, and organizations all over the world are racing to adopt the latest payments solutions and prevent growing pains amidst a technological transformation. The Payments Forecast Book 2018 from Business Insider Intelligence is a detailed four-part slide deck outlining the most important trends impacting the payments ecosystem around the world — and the key drivers propelling each segment forward.

Representing thousands of hours of exhaustive research, our multipart forecast books are considered must-reads by thousands of highly successful business professionals. These informative slide decks are packed with charts and statistics outlining the most influential trends on the leading edge of your industry. Keep them for reference or drop the most valuable data into your own presentations to share with your teams.

Whether you’re newly interested in a topic or you already consider yourself a subject matter expert, The Payments Forecast Book 2018 can provide you with the actionable insights you need to make better decisions.

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• "Orange is the New Black" is one of many shows ending in 2019.
• During an interview with INSIDER about her upcoming Netflix series "Russian Doll" Natasha Lyonne said it will be heartbreaking to see "OITNB" come to an end. 
• Her new show, a dark comedy from Lyonne, Amy Poehler, and Leslye Headland, will be streaming on Netflix February 1.
• Lyonne tells INSIDER she's excited to work with cast and crew from "OITNB" on "Russian Doll.""It just felt like this was such a personal journey and work from the heart that I just wanted to bring along as many people as I could from that," said Lyonne.

When "Orange Is the New Black" comes to an end later this year it will be a tough goodbye for the women of Litchfield Penitentiary. 

"How heartbreaking it is going to be to see it end," Lyonne told INSIDER of the seventh season of "OITNB" while discussing her new Netflix show "Russian Doll.""We're really a tight unit."

"Plus, it means that come March 1, I'm unemployed. So, it's a lot of feelings," Lyonne added.

Lyonne has played the sarcastic and quick-witted Nicky Nichols on "OITNB" since the show's premiere in 2013. In that time, we've seen Nicky grow from a heroin addict to a sober inmate who isn't as tough as her outer exterior leads you to believe.

This season, Lyonne will direct an episode of the show. What can she tease about the seventh season? Not much.

"I don't think that's legal," said Lyonne, when asked what she could share about the final season. "I do think they might actually kill people for less, but it's really meaningful to get to direct in the final season."

"If it wasn't enough to love and know everybody so intimately as an actor, to watch them be so brilliant at the monitor and from a distance and to get to work with the writers and our incredible crew behind the scenes in that way was just like a further reminder of how singular that show is," she continued, speaking of her experience directing on "OITNB."

"They've built such iconically brilliant roles within the show, and now I'm so excited to kind of stay really close to them for the rest of my life and just get to see all the incredible work that they're gonna continue to do," said Lyonne about her "OITNB" castmates.

Even though Lyonne will bid farewell to "OINTB," she did get to work with some cast and crew again on her new Netflix series "Russian Doll," which will premiere on the streaming service, Friday, February 1.

Without giving too much away, the show, with Lyonne in the lead, sees her character trying to escape a seemingly endless birthday party in eight bingeable half-hour episodes.

"It just felt like this ['Russian Doll'] was such a personal journey and work from the heart that I just wanted to bring along as many people as I could from that," Lyonne said of "OINTB" cast and crew that joined her for "Russian Doll."

Read more: Here's what the cast of 'Orange Is the New Black' looks like in real life

Among the crew members from "OITNB" who worked on "Russian Doll" are costume director Jennifer Rogien and script supervisor Melissa Yap-Stewart.

You'll also see a few familiar cast members from the show, like Charlie Barnett ("Chicago Fire"), who had a brief role on "OITNB" as an inmate from Desi Piscatella's past. 

"Barnett, I really know through Samira Wiley [Poussey Washington on 'OITNB'] because they're best friends who went to Juilliard together," said Lyonne of the other main lead of her new show. "The whole thing is kind of such a close connective tissue in this sort of ongoing, all-that-jazz extension that is 'Russian Doll.'"

All eight episodes of "Russian Doll" will premiere on Netflix Friday, February 1. There currently is no premiere date for the final season of "OITNB."

You can watch a trailer for the show below.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

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

• Some lawmakers have spoken out about Facebook's plans to partially merge WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
• The social network plans to combine the back-end systems of the three apps, so users can talk to each other across platforms.
• But the move has faced early skepticism from some politicians, with concerns raised around data privacy and anti-trust issues.

Facebook plans to partially combine its most popular messaging apps — and some lawmakers don't sound happy about it.

On Friday, The New York Times broke the news that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing his company to merge the back-end of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The change would mean that users of one app would be able to message users of another, and it would tie the currently disparate Facebook-owned products far more closely together.

The change comes as Facebook attempts to move on from months of bruising scandals and intense scrutiny over its handling of users' data, from Cambridge Analytica's misappropriation of more than 80 million users' info to Facebook's role spreading hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar.

Against that backdrop, Facebook's latest messaging plans quickly raised fears that the controversy-plagued social network could become ever more powerful, and potentially dangerous. 

California Democratic congressman Ro Khanna was one of the first to comment, suggesting on Twitter that the move raised anti-trust concerns about Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

"This is why there should have been far more scrutiny during Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp which now clearly seem like horizontal mergers that should have triggered antitrust scrutiny," he tweeted.

"Imagine how different the world would be if Facebook had to compete with Instagram and WhatsApp. That would have encouraged real competition that would have promoted privacy and benefited consumers."

In an emailed statement, Democratic senator Ron Wyden, an outspoken voice on tech policy issues, told Business Insider he had concerns about privacy and data protection issues.

"I have a lot of questions about how Facebook intends to combine these services. If it does anything to weaken the security and encryption of WhatsApp, that would represent a major blow to the security of millions of people around the world," he wrote.

"If Facebook is doing this so it can harvest even more our personal information for profit, it’s yet another reason to be concerned about how corporations are using our data. This is yet another reason to pass a strong privacy bill, like the one I’ve proposed."

These comments from Capitol Hill may be more bark than bite for now. But with a growing call for tech regulation, and with several state attorney generals currently looking into practices of social media companies, Facebook can ill afford to give lawmakers another reason to scrutinize the company.

The encryption wildcard

According to The New York Times' report, Facebook plans to use end-to-end encryption across all three apps once the merger has taken place. It's not clear how it will work in practice, and spokesperson Jennifer Hakes declined to provide any information beyond a short statement. 

"We want to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private," the statement reads. "We're working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks. As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work."

The criticisms are indicative of the immense skepticism Facebook now faces from many lawmakers and members of the general public, and the uphill struggle it will face to convince people that any changes it makes going forward have its users' best interests at heart.

That said, not everyone is as pessimistic about the potential consequences of the move. Alex Stamos, the outspoken former head of Facebook's security, hailed it as having the potential to be"the most impactful uplift of communications privacy in human history," if Facebook does implement end-to-end encryption.

"We should support the idea and demand transparency in the safety-privacy-[user experience] balancing decisions and technical details."

Do you work at Facebook? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal or WhatsApp at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg wrote 1,000 words defending Facebook, but the most interesting thing about it was where he published it

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NOW WATCH: The safest way to walk on ice is to impersonate a penguin — here's why

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 downfall of US brick-and-mortar commerce is overblown — despite sharp gains in e-commerce, which will nearly double between now and 2021, the lion’s share of purchasing continues to take place in-store. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, since the online environment can’t yet compensate for the reasons customers like brick-and-mortar shopping.

That means the point-of-sale (POS) terminal, which merchants use to accept payments of all types and to complete transactions, isn’t going anywhere. But that doesn’t mean it’s not changing. As merchants look to cut costs amidst shifts in consumer shopping habits, POS terminals, which were once predominantly hardware offerings used exclusively for payment acceptance, are evolving into full-service, comprehensive solutions. These new POS terminals are providing an array of business management solutions and connected offerings to complement payment services. 

This is where the smart terminal, a new product that’s part-tablet, part-register, comes in. Merchants are increasingly seeking out these offerings, which afford them the connectivity, mobility, and interoperability to run their entire business. And that’s shaking up the space, since it’s not just legacy firms, but also mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) players and newer upstarts, that offer these products. 

As merchants begin demanding a wide variety of payment solutions, terminal providers are scrambling to meet their needs in order to maintain existing customers and attract new ones. This is leading to rapid innovation and increased competition in both the POS terminal hardware and software spaces.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has put together a detailed report on the shifts in this landscape, how leading players can meet them, and who’s doing it most effectively.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Evolving merchant needs are impacting POS terminal players’ strategies. Merchants select terminal providers based on four key areas: payment functionality, user experience (UX), over-the-top (OTT) offerings, and distribution/customer service. Terminal firms need to innovate in these areas, or risk falling behind.
• Larger players need to double down on existing success. Smaller players can often be more nimble, which gives them the opportunity to innovate more quickly and build in-demand solutions. That’s a disadvantage to market leaders; however, they can, and should, leverage their massive distribution networks when upgrading or updating their offerings. Meanwhile, smaller players can win by focusing on niches instead.
• It’s all about the platform. No single feature is likely to make or break a merchant’s decision to pursue a specific provider. Above all, they want a robust ecosystem that can evolve over time. 

In full, the report:

• Explains the current state of in-store retail and why terminal firms need to evolve to meet it.
• Groups features that matter to merchants and explains why they’re important and what terminal providers stand to gain from focusing on them.
• Determines the leading players in the space.
• Assesses how the leading players stack up, and which offerings are the most comprehensive.
• Issues recommendations about how to develop an attractive platform that best serves merchants' needs as the market continues to shift. 

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

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

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• President Donald Trump on Friday night signed a bill to fund and reopen portions of the US government that had been shuttered for 35 days. Trump announced his support for the plan earlier Friday, which will temporarily end the shutdown.
• The plan funds affected agencies for three weeks, until February 15.
• Congress quickly passed the measure.

The longest US government shutdown in history has ended — for now.

President Donald Trump signed a bill passed by Congress on Friday night that temporarily funds and reopens government agencies until February 15. Trump announced his support for the bill earlier Friday in a speech at the White House.

Trump's support cleared the way for congressional leaders to quickly pass a short-term funding bill called a continuing resolution, setting up a high-stakes negotiating period to avoid another closure before a February 15 deadline.

The deal does not include any money for Trump's proposed wall along the US-Mexico border and would give federal workers back pay. The idea is similar to the continuing resolution advanced in the Senate before the shutdown started on December 22. Democrats have demanded that Trump first open the government and then negotiate about a wall.

Read more:Congress finally met its breaking point on the government shutdown after airport delays took a punishing toll»

In his speech, Trump advocated a border wall and threatened to shut down the government again if Democrats do not agree to give him money for it.

"We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier," the president said. "If we don't get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15 — again — or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency."

Trump also alluded to his previous threats to bypass Congress and declare a national emergency to get money for the wall.

"As everyone knows, I have a very powerful alternative, but I didn't want to use it at this time," Trump said.

Friday is the 35th day of the shutdown, and the negative effects of the closure have taken a toll. Federal workers missed their second consecutive paycheck, and staffing issues led to widespread delays at major airports across the US — a major factor in Trump's willingness to support a short-term continuing resolution, CNN reported.

Prior to the passage of the bill, the Office of Management and Budget instructed agencies"to prepare for an orderly reopening."

"As agencies identify these steps, they should be prepared to prioritize restoring pay and benefits for employees, ensuring appropriate physical and information technology systems security access, recalling employees from furlough status, and performing any other critical support function needed to carry out these activities," the memo form OMB's Deputy Director for Management, Margaret M. Weichert said.

As far as timing, a senior administration official told INSIDER "the urgency of getting Federal employees paid quickly" is clear, and said "the administration is taking steps to ensure that they receive pay as soon as possible."

"Since specific payroll issues vary by agency, employees can find more information about paycheck details by reaching out to their agency."

Read more: Hundreds of flights delayed in New York and Atlanta as the longest government shutdown in history leads to air-traffic-control staffing shortages

Reopening the government will allow for federal workers to get back pay, which would provide much-needed financial relief for those facing mounting bills.

The president expressed gratitude for the 800,000 federal workers who have gone over a month without pay.

"I want to thank all of the incredible federal workers and their amazing families who have shown such extraordinary devotion in the face of this recent hardship," Trump said. "You are fantastic people. You are incredible patriots."

The shutdown started on December 22 when Trump rejected a short-term funding extension because it did not include money for his long-promised border wall. Since then, Trump and Democratic leaders have been in a standoff over his request for $5.7 billion to fund a wall.

Democrats have repeatedly requested that the president support a short-term funding bill with no wall money, and party leaders have said that no negotiations about a wall will take place while the government is closed.

Negotiations to end the shutdown seemed stalled in recent days. On Thursday, the Senate shot down two bills that would have reopened the government — one with funding for a border wall, and one without. The bill with the wall funding was modeled on a plan announced by Trump on Saturday that would have traded his requested wall money for temporary extensions to protections for so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children.

Read more: Democrats rejected Trump's immigration deal for 3 glaring reasons

After the failure of the two bills, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met to work out a path forward, which appears to have yielded some success.

Trump has consistently resisted opening the government with a short-term bill that does not include wall funding, but recent polling has found that nearly half of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown and that most dislike the president using the shutdown as a political tool.

SEE ALSO: The government shutdown may force Trump to make a nightmare choice between his border wall and the economy

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NOW WATCH: Watch President Trump announce deal to end the government shutdown for 3 weeks

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. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Remittances, or cross-border peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfers, hit a record high of $613 billion globally in 2017, following a two-year decline.  And the remittance industry will continue to grow, driven largely by digital services.

Several factors will fuel digital growth globally, such as increased smartphone penetration, greater demand for digital transactions, and an overall need for faster cross-border transfers. And with the shift to digital comes an audience of younger, digital-savvy customers using remittances — a segment that companies are looking to target.

As a result, the global remittance industry is becoming increasingly competitive for firms to navigate, with incumbents like Western Union and MoneyGram competing for the same pool of customers as digital upstarts like WorldRemit and Remitly. And in order to win, companies across the board will need to prioritize the four areas consumers value most in remittances: cost, convenience, speed, and safety.  

In The Digital Remittances Report, Business Insider Intelligence will identify what young, digitally savvy users value in remittances. We will also detail the concrete steps that legacy and digital providers can take to effectively capture this opportunity and monetize digital offerings — the primary growth driver — to emerge at or maintain their presence at the forefront of the space. 

The companies mentioned in the report are: MoneyGram, Remitly, Ria, Western Union, WorldRemit, TransferWise, and Xoom, among others.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• The global remittance industry recovered from a two-year decline in 2017 to reach a record $613 billion in transfer volume. That growth will continue and will be fueled by digital remittances, which Business Insider Intelligence expects to grow at a 23% CAGR from $225 billion in 2018 to $387 billion in 2023.
• There’s a new segment of customers that both legacy and digital firms are competing to grab share of. Young, digital-savvy consumers are the customer segment that all firms are vying to reach, which is creating a highly competitive dynamic. The needs of those consumers will precipitate transformational change in the industry.
• We’ve identified several tangible steps firms can take to improve in four key areas — cost, convenience, speed, and security — to not only attract but also maintain this customer segment to align with their preferences and ultimately win in the space.

 In full, the report:

• Outlines the global remittance landscape and sizes the opportunity that the industry presents. 
• Identifies the new audience for remittances and future drivers of the remittance space going forward. 
• Discusses four key areas that providers can focus on — cost, convenience, speed, and security — to improve offerings and ultimately capture that shifting audience. 

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

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• Your neighborhood plays a huge role in how much you save and spend, according to two researchers who studied millionaires.
• If you live in a pricey home in an affluent neighborhood, you're more likely to mirror your neighbor's consumption habits.
• This can impact your ability to accumulate wealth over time, as can the home's price — most millionaires live in a home they can easily afford, which allows them to save more money.

There are a multitude of factors that go into building wealth, but perhaps none play as big a role as where you choose to live.

That's according to Sarah Stanley Fallaw, director of research for the Affluent Market Institute. She co-authored "The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth," in which she surveyed more than 600 millionaires in America.

"The key to wealth building is to live in a home that one can easily afford," she wrote, building upon her father, Thomas J. Stanley's, research. In his book, "Stop Acting Rich," he said that one's home or neighborhood is their greatest detriment to building wealth.

"If you live in a pricey home and neighborhood, you will act and buy like your neighbors ... the more affluent the neighborhood, the more its residents spend on almost every conceivable product and service," he wrote. "We take our consumption cues from our neighbors."

So if your high-income-producing, high-consuming neighbors roll up to the drive in a BMW or a Mercedes Benz, it's likely you'll feel the urge to do the same. This pressure to "keep up with the Joneses" can also be affected by lifestyle creep, the tendency to spend more whenever one earns more. 

But it's not just neighborly influences that can affect one's overall wealth — the home's price relative to your income also impacts your ability to accumulate wealth over time, Stanley Fallaw said.

Read more:A woman who studied 600 millionaires found how rich you can get boils down to 6 'wealth factors,' no matter your age or salary

If you want to make progress on building wealth, keep your housing costs low

Most of the millionaires she studied have never purchased a home that is more than triple the amount of their annual income. The median home value for millionaires in her latest study was $850,000 (3.4 times their current income), with a median original purchase price of $465,000.

Just consider billionaire investor Warren Buffett — he lives in a modest house worth 0.001% of his total wealth.

So what constitutes an affordable home?

That depends on your salary, your age, and what state you live in, but the standard measure of housing affordability is 30% of your pretax income.

However, if you really want to make progress on building wealth, Business Insider's Lauren Lyons Cole, a certified financial planner, suggests looking for a place that costs 25% or less of your after-tax income and funneling the cash you save toward your retirement accounts.

"Keeping housing costs low is smart, no matter how much money you have," she wrote. "The best financial move you can make is to literally move to a less expensive home."

Finding a house without breaking your budget is also dependent upon when you buy — according to Holden Lewis, a mortgage analyst at NerdWallet, timing your home purchase correctly, like during the winter or before you get married, can save you money.

But when buying a home, you should not only consider the cost of living, but how you measure your well-being within the city, community, and neighborhood, Stanley Fallaw said.

"We still argue that your more immediate community (your school district, neighborhood, and town) is more important when it comes to your personal happiness," she wrote. "When you're thinking of buying that 4,500-square-foot McMansion out in the suburbs to avoid a two-bedroom fixer-upper in the city, you're trading size of home for commute. What's more important to you?"

SEE ALSO: Home values have more than doubled in the US since 1970 — here's how much they've increased in every state

DON'T MISS: archer who studied over 600 millionaires found they do 3 things to forge a clear path to financial independence

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

• Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused Wall Street analysts of asking boring and bonehead questions.
• He later apologized — but he was actually right.
• Wall Street's inability to understand the Tesla's and the traditional auto industry business for the past five years has been staggering.

Wall Street has a Tesla problem.

America's newest publicly traded automaker has also become one of its most valuable, but its market capitalization of between $50 billion and $60 billion is unstable and based on challenging growth expectations. 

When Tesla was still a relatively small manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles, the confusion was understandable. Some analysts were placing big bets, while others were more skeptical. A large number of investors didn't care: the stock was up 1,000% from the company's 2010 IPO. Short of bankruptcy, they couldn't lose.

Everything changed early last year, as Tesla was struggling to mass-produce its Model 3 sedan. CEO Elon Musk lashed out at analysts on an earnings call, labeling some questions "boring" and "bonehead." He later apologized, saying that he'd been under a lot of pressure, but obviously, he'd made a point.

Wall Street's Tesla problem goes back a few years. When the company began to build and sell more vehicles, the argument that it was a disruptive technology company, shaking up the staid old auto industry, collapsed. Tesla was a car company, and like all car companies, it had to successfully manufacture and deliver its product, at scale. It wasn't a 21st-century Hispano-Suiza, either; it was an electric BMW or Porsche.

Read more:Everyone who's telling you that Tesla is influencing the rest of the auto industry is completely wrong

Wall Street seemed to collectively figure this out, and the strong bull case declined accordingly. Interestingly, around the same time, shares rocketed toward a 2014 high of about $300, and then later busted through that and raced to nearly $400. 

Irrational, emotional, and susceptible to huge swings

Any objective observer could see that Tesla stock was irrational, emotional, and susceptible to huge swings based on trivial news, not to mention the fairly relentless efforts of short sellers to boost negative angles. The contrast with moneymaking, established carmakers was vivid: all they did was post routine profits and sell millions of vehicles, with numbing predictability. Their stocks, with few exceptions (Ferrari, for example, rewarded for its huge margins), stayed flat. 

This fueled Tesla confusion. Was the company really worth more than General Motors? Should the stock be priced at $400? Of course not! In 2017, Tesla sold 100,000 vehicles and was doing a notably terrible job of doubling that in 2018. Shares were probably worth $100-$150.

The incentive for new investors was to catch a wave a fresh revenue and perhaps regular profits, as Tesla started to satisfy Model 3 demand. That would make up for missing out on the stock when it was cheap, or at least cheaper.

As we start 2019 and prepare for Tesla to post a less profitable fourth quarter than it did in Q3 (but first-time sequential quarterly profit, nonetheless), the familiar early-year Tesla dynamic has returned. The stock is sliding as analysts reassess and investors prepare for bad news while Tesla gears up to influence opinions by unveiling it Model Y crossover SUV, probably in March.

Been there, seen that!

The facts are clear

What's boneheaded and boring about all this is that Wall Street can clearly see the Tesla facts. The company has been tested on the manufacturing front and ... it got, like, a C-. Not an F. But far from an A or a B. 

While Tesla has been enduring assorted versions of what Musk terms "production hell," the rest of the auto industry has been racking up quarter after quarter of profits, with carmakers such as Ford and GM banking enough cash to ride out multiple recessions yet still paying generous dividends and, in GM's case, pursuing a multi-billion-dollar stock repurchase plan.

But Musk can take some solace in Wall Street's boneheadedness toward this performance, as well. After record or near-record sales in US for an unprecedented four consecutive years, some market weakness is appearing and headwinds are developing in regions such as Europe and China. Wall Street is predicting trouble — but it's been predicting trouble, inaccurately, since 2014.

Analysts said that the established automakers needed to be more like Tesla, and to a degree, the established automakers have shown that they can. GM got its long-range, low-cost Chevy Bolt electric vehicle to buyers a year ahead of the Model 3 (and beat the Model 3 on price by at least $10,000) and has turned its Cruise autonomous division into a $17-billion business. Ford has pressed on with several new-mobility efforts, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has partnered with Waymo to supply vehicles to Waymo's self-driving fleet.

Simple cowardice

Wall Street isn't buying the transformation narrative, however, that it pushed. Most of this is simple cowardice. It's too late to turn overly bullish in the auto sector; the time was five years ago. Now any enthusiasm runs the risk of being crushed in a downturn, which will come inevitably, perhaps in 2019 or 2020.

It's unlikely that share prices will surge for any reason in 2019; right now, traditional automakers are looking to see the markets set a floor. If that happens, they can begin to calculate when, if ever, they'll have to tap their cash reservoirs.

So don't look for Wall Street to change its stripes on the car business. And that now includes Tesla — Wall Street has learned how to be just as boring and boneheaded with the new things as it has been with the old.

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NOW WATCH: What would happen if Elon Musk left Tesla

• Fatima Ali, known as Chef Fati, died on January 25 following a diagnosis of bone cancer in 2017. 
• The 29-year-old chef was voted a "fan favorite" contestant on Bravo's "Top Chef" competition. 
• Ali's family shared a photo collage on her Instagram page along with a statement to her followers.
• They thanked everyone for the support over the last two years, and noted her final words.
• "Fati's final message to us, before she took her leave, was that we should only have space in our hearts for love, compassion, and forgiveness," the family wrote. "Anything else is just taking up space."
• You can read the full statement below.

"Top Chef" contestant Fatima Ali, 29, died on January 25 after she was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancers, Ewing's Sarcoma, in 2017. Ali had been documenting her experience with cancer on her Instagram account, where she had 169,000 followers. 

Late Friday evening, Ali's family shared a photo collage on her account along with a statement to all of her fans. 

"Fatima was at home with us, surrounded by her loved ones and beloved cat Mr. Meow, when she left us in the early hours of the morning," the caption began. "When someone as bright and young and vivacious as our Fati passes, the only metaphor that seems to fit is that of a star — a beacon in the darkness, a light that guides us, on which to make wishes, from which to weave dreams. For all the comfort and beauty they offer us, stars, too, are impermanent. This morning a great one was snuffed out."

The statement continued on, thanking her fans and supporters and encouraging them to "live [their] life as she did — to the fullest." 

Ali competed on Bravo's hit reality series "Top Chef" for its fifteenth season, and was voted "fan favorite." Her Pakistani-influenced style of cooking brought her far in the series, until she was eliminated on the ninth episode. Prior to her casting on "Top Chef," Ali was the first Pakistani woman to win Food Network's own reality series "Chopped."

After her initial cancer diagnosis in 2017, Ali underwent surgery to have a tumor removed from her shoulder in early 2018. Doctors declared her cancer-free shortly afterwards, but the disease returned by the end of the year.

She took a break from social media, where she had been active and sharing photos and updates about her time in and out of hospitals. On January 10, Ali updated her followers and acknowledged her absence.

"I’m sick and unfortunately I’m getting sicker," she wrote. "Right now all I need are prayers; prayers that are simple."

That was the final post shared by Ali herself on Instagram. Now her family's message has been shared to her followers through a new post, along with a final comment added below the photo.

In that comment, Ali's family shares the last thing she told them before she died.

"Fati's final message to us, before she took her leave, was that we should only have space in our hearts for love, compassion, and forgiveness — anything else is just taking up space," the statement said. "So lots of love to everyone — take care of yourselves and others around you, don't delay in expressing your love or following your dreams, you never know what tomorrow will bring."

You can read the full statement from Ali's family below:

Fatima was at home with us, surrounded by her loved ones and beloved cat Mr. Meow, when she left us in the early hours of the morning. When someone as bright and young and vivacious as our Fati passes, the only metaphor that seems to fit is that of a star — a beacon in the darkness, a light that guides us, on which to make wishes, from which to weave dreams. For all the comfort and beauty they offer us, stars, too, are impermanent. This morning a great one was snuffed out.

Though she’s no longer here with us, her spirit will continue to steer us. We hope that you, too, will listen to her lessons: Live your life as she did — to the fullest. Pursue your passion; spread love and joy; be kind and forgiving; be generous; enjoy every morsel — from humble street food to decadent fine dining; cook for the people you love. Travel the world and seek out adventure. Help others and don’t be afraid to take the road less taken. Fatima will always be a part of us, and in fact if you look deep enough, you may find your own inner Fati. If you’re lucky enough to find her there, trust her, listen to her, because she will change your life for the better.

We’ve learned a great deal over the course of her illness, not only pragmatic lessons we wish we hadn’t needed to learn about her disease and our health system, but about the immense love of which people are capable; about the power of being true to yourself; about how we can be better if we model ourselves after someone like her.

We want to thank everyone from the bottom of our now broken hearts. We’re eternally grateful for the unending support, love, and generosity shown by people along the way — from random strangers we passed on the street who would tell her how much they admire and respect her; to all her doctors and nurses who did their best; the chefs and hospitality friends who are now part of our extended family; and the big wigs that reached out to see how they can make her dreams a reality. This has been a truly humbling experience for us all and even in her last chapter as she began to leave us, Fatima showed us how we should live.

It's too soon for us to imagine what's next — without her — and frankly, planning is overrated — but we want everyone to know that we plan to keep Fatima's memory alive and do justice to the legacy she leaves behind. There's much to be done — the ripples she caused in her all-to-brief life have a momentum that we hope to keep feeding. 

Fati's final message to us, before she took her leave, was that we should only have space in our hearts for love, compassion, and forgiveness — anything else is just taking up space. So lots of love to everyone — take care of yourselves and others around you, don't delay in expressing your love or following your dreams, you never know what tomorrow will bring. With all our love. Fati's fam. #f---cancer

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NOW WATCH: Japanese lifestyle guru Marie Kondo explains how to organize your home once and never again

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. Current subscribers can read the report here. 

If we're living through a “retail apocalypse” that spells doom for brick-and-mortar retail, as many have suggested, why are e-commerce leaders like Amazon, Alibaba, and JD.com so focused on building their own brick-and-mortar networks?

It's because they want to revitalize physical stores by introducing features associated with online shopping like personalization — and a whopping 65% of consumers said personalization and promotions are most important to their shopping experiences, according to a report from Oracle cited by Chain Store Age.

Brick-and-mortar retailers have the opportunity to reap the same benefits of personalization that e-tailers do, like repeat visits and impulse purchases, but they need to invest in the right technologies and techniques to do so because they currently don’t meet shoppers’ expectations. For example, 41% of consumers expect sales associates to know about their previous purchases, but just 19% have experienced this, according to a report from Segment.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence analyzes how physical retail’s personalization is being outperformed by e-commerce’s, and examines the value personalization holds for brick-and-mortar in particular. We also look at what techniques and technologies are available to help retailers identify and track consumers in-store, and how they can be used to bolster their personalization capabilities. Finally, we examine the different channels through which retailers can reach consumers with their personalized offerings in-store.

The companies mentioned in this report are: Amazon, Alibaba, JD.com, Intel, Mastercard, Target, Velocity Worldwide, RetailMeNot, b8ta, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sitecore, Oak Labs, Calabrio, and Alegion.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Consumers say that a personalized shopping experience can inspire loyalty and increases in spending.
• But brick-and-mortar retailers aren't meeting consumers’ in-store personalization expectations.
• The nature of online shopping gives e-commerce the upper hand when it comes to personalization.
• Physical retailers can close the gap in personalization by identifying consumers when they enter, tracking them throughout their journey, and then using that information to inform individualized offerings.
• To make the most of personalized offerings, retailers must consider how content is being presented to consumers in-store, and what the strengths of each channel are.
• If physical retailers fail to improve their in-store personalization, they risk losing sales and market share to e-commerce companies, both online and in-store.

In full, the report:

• Identifies the values of personalization to physical retailers.
• Details the reasons e-tailers currently offer better personalization than brick-and-mortar stores.
• Outlines the technologies and processes that can bolster in-store personalization.
• Discusses how retailers can best present personalized offerings in-store.

Join the conversation about this story »

• I'm a tournament Scrabble player, and friends often ask me how they can improve their Scrabble skills.
• Although memorizing words is important for Scrabble, there's also an important strategic element of the game that many casual players overlook.
• Bonus squares can double or triple the amount of points you score on a turn, so you'd be wise to strategize your game around using them.

Scrabble at its highest level is very different from the board game you grew up playing around the living room table.

I would know — I've been a tournament Scrabble player for more than 10 years and I've played in competitions around the country, including two North American Scrabble Championships.

Becoming a Scrabble expert requires memorizing thousands of obscure words from the far reaches of the English dictionary, like "adz" (a cutting tool), "pahoehoe" (a type of lava), and "crwth" (a Celtic string instrument, and no, that's not a typo).

But when friends ask me what it's like to play top-level Scrabble, they're most surprised to learn how strategic the game is. Knowing words is only half the battle — you also need to know how to create high-scoring plays for yourself and limit them for your opponent.

It could take years to become a proper Scrabble master, but if all you want to do is improve your strategy for your next game night, I can give you one piece of advice that is sure to elevate your game. And by following it, I'd wager you can beat anybody, regardless of their vocabulary.

Related:I played in the biggest Scrabble tournament in the country — and it was nothing like the game you grew up playing

Always look for hotspots on the board

Top Scrabble players average more than 30 points a turn. That wouldn't be possible unless they were always looking for ways to maximize the value of their tiles.

The most obvious way to maximize your points is to take advantage of the bonus squares on the board — the double- and triple-letter scores and the double- and triple-word scores. Those squares will help you pile on the points if you can spot the best way to use them.

For example, take a look at this opening move. In this position, the word ZESTY scores 34 points (the first score of every game is doubled.)

But if you move ZESTY a couple of spaces to the right, slotting the Y on that light blue double-letter score, your score shoots up to 42 points. That's an eight-point improvement!

But even that is not the best play. If you move ZESTY over to the left a few spaces, slotting the 10-point Z on the double-letter score, now you've got yourself a 54-point move:

As you can see, bonus squares can make the difference between an average play and a great play. Yet many casual players treat using the bonus squares as an afterthought, something that comes secondary to finding a nice word. On the contrary, you should always be on the lookout for ways to capitalize on bonus squares at every stage of the game.

After the first turn, even more opportunities to use bonus squares will emerge. As the game develops, certain areas of the board will become especially prone to high-scoring plays. Let's take a look at the same game a couple of turns later:

There are hotspots all over this board just begging to be used. Here are some of the potentially lucrative areas you might try to take advantage of on this turn:

Starting from the bottom, the Z in ZESTY offers the chance for a big score going down to the pink double-letter square. If you can manage to find a word that's five letters or longer and begins with Z, you're guaranteed at least 28 points. ZENITH for 36 does the trick.

Nearby, the S in ZESTY is two squares above a juicy triple-letter square. It would be a good idea to try to find a word that places your highest-value letter — in this case, the X — on that square. SIX or SEX score 26 points each.

In the top left corner, there's a hotspot that allows you to hit two bonus squares: a double-letter and a double-word. If you can find a five-letter word that places a high-scoring tile on the double-letter and ends with E, you'll be in business. HINGE, for example, scores 26 points.

But neither of those come close to the best plays available. Over to the right of the board, there's a hotspot that would allow you to play HEXING for a whopping 55 points by hitting a double-letter and a double-word square at the same time. And there's even a way to score 50 points with just a single letter — by placing the X on the triple-letter score beside the A and O, forming the two-letter words AX and OX in the process.

By now you can see how bonus squares factor into Scrabble strategy. Next time you're playing Scrabble, take stock of every hotspot that opens up, and before you choose a word to play, consider whether it takes full advantage of the scoring opportunities available to you. 

The more you can benefit from those high-scoring areas, the more likely you are to come out on top.

• Read more Scrabble tips from a nationally ranked player:
• I'm a nationally ranked Scrabble player, and I have a simple trick that can take your game to new heights
• There's one Scrabble strategy experts use that many people are afraid to try
• Some of the most valuable words in Scrabble use a Q without a U, and there are many more than your English teacher led you to believe
• 'Bingos' are the key to monster Scrabble scores — here's what they are and how to find them

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A professional Pokémon card expert valued our childhood collections — and it's bad news for anyone who thinks they’re sitting on a fortune

• Netflix has built an impressive library of British TV shows by partnering with UK production companies and networks, and by acquiring exclusive streaming rights.
• One of its most popular British shows, "Bodyguard," won a Golden Globe this month and was viewed by 23 million households in its first four weeks.
• Its even produced its own British series, "Sex Education," which is a hit with critics and audiences.

As Netflix aims to build its global audience, it's investing in original international content. It announced 17 new Asian originals last year, including eight films from India.

But it's found early success in the United Kingdom.

The streaming giant has built an impressive library of British TV shows through partnering with UK production companies and networks, and by acquiring exclusive, worldwide distribution rights.

One of the most popular titles to come from such a deal is "Bodyguard," which was nominated for best drama series and won best actor (Richard Madden) earlier this month at the Golden Globes. Netflix said during its earnings call last week that the show was viewed by 23 million households in its first month. Netflix partnered with the BBC and distributed the show exclusively outside of the UK and Ireland.

READ MORE: Netflix's 'The Punisher' viewership is down 40%, but there's a sliver of hope for fans of the Marvel show

The strategy benefits both Netflix and British TV networks, as the shows gain a larger audience and can potentially bring in more subscribers for the streamer. "The Last Kingdom," which originally premiered on BBC networks in 2015, found worldwide success after moving to Netflix. 

The show's executive producer, Gareth Neame, told The Guardian last year that the show "didn't break through"until Netflix co-produced the second season and streamed it globally. The third season debuted on Netflix in November.

Netflix's British strategy has paid off so well that the company produced its own British series. "Sex Education," which premiered this month, is purely a Netflix original that didn't originate on a UK network, but features a primarily international cast and was filmed in South Wales.

The show is a hit with critics and audiences. It has a 90% Rotten Tomatoes critic score and Netflix said in its earnings report that it will be viewed by an estimated 40 million households in its first month.

Below are 7 Netflix original series that prove its British strategy is working:

SEE ALSO: Netflix had all 5 of the top original streaming series of 2018

"The End of the F***ing World"

Description:"A budding teen psychopath and a rebel hungry for adventure embark on a star-crossed road trip in this darkly comic series based on a graphic novel."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 98%

What critic said:"No matter how you take the ending, each interpretation carries significance, which is exactly what the creator intended."— Ben Travers, Indiewire

Season 1 premiered on Netflix in January 5, 2018. It has been renewed for a second season.

"Collateral"

Description:"Investigating the murder of a pizza delivery man, a London detective uncovers a tangled conspiracy involving drug dealers, smugglers and spies."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 72%

What critic said:"Collateral doesn't overstay its welcome and doesn't leave much unresolved, which is a relief. Mulligan's character's drive is the drive of the show."— Dan Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter

Season 1 premiered on Netflix in March. It was developed as a mini series, so a second season is likely not happening.

"Bodyguard"

Description:"After helping thwart a terrorist attack, a war veteran is assigned to protect a politician who was a main proponent of the very conflict he fought in."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94%

What critics said:"More concerned with being a good ride than exploring character or politics, the show is awash in a timely cynicism."— John Powers, NPR

Season 1 premiered on Netflix in October.

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.

In the US, the in-store mobile wallet space is becoming increasingly crowded. Most customers have an option provided by their smartphone vendor, like Apple, Android, or Samsung Pay. But those are often supplemented by a myriad of options from other players, ranging from tech firms like PayPal, to banks and card issuers, to major retailers and restaurants.

With that proliferation of options, one would expect to see a surge in adoption. But that’s not the case — though Business Insider Intelligence projects that US in-store mobile payments volume will quintuple in the next five years, usage is consistently lagging below expectations, with estimates for 2019 falling far below what we expected just two years ago. 

As such, despite promising factors driving gains, including the normalization of NFC technology and improved incentive programs to encourage adoption and engagement, it’s important for wallet providers and groups trying to break into the space to address the problems still holding mobile wallets back. These issues include customer satisfaction with current payment methods, limited repeat purchasing, and consumer confusion stemming from fragmentation. But several wallets, like Apple Pay, Starbucks’ app, and Samsung Pay, are outperforming their peers, and by delving into why, firms can begin to develop best practices and see better results.

A new report from Business Insider Intelligence addresses how in-store mobile payments volume will grow through 2021, why that’s below past expectations, and what successful cases can teach other players in the space. It also issues actionable recommendations that various providers can take to improve their performance and better compete.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• US in-store mobile payments will advance steadily at a 40% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to hit $128 billion in 2021. That’s suppressed by major headwinds, though — this is the second year running that Business Insider Intelligence has halved its projected growth rate.
• To power ahead, US wallets should look at pockets of success. Banks, merchants, and tech providers could each benefit from implementing strategies that have worked for early leaders, including eliminating fragmentation, improving the purchase journey, and building repeat purchasing.
• Building multiple layers of value is key to getting ahead. Adding value to the user experience and making wallets as simple and frictionless as possible are critical to encouraging adoption and keeping consumers engaged. 

In full, the report:

• Sizes the US in-store mobile payments market and examines growth drivers.
• Analyzes headwinds that have suppressed adoption.
• Identifies three strategic changes providers can make to improve their results.
• Evaluates pockets of success in the market.
• Provides actionable insights that providers can implement to improve results.

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• In his first public town hall since being punished by the House for racist comments, Iowa Rep. Steve King compared himself to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, noting "at least I don't have accusers."
• King, who questioned criticism of white nationalism in a New York Times interview, blamed circumstance for his past remarks. 
• He also appeared to double-down on his comments in The New York Times, and critiqued Democrats for what he perceived as the over-policing of language. 

In the first town hall in his home district since being punished in a vote by the House, Republican Rep. Steve King compared himself to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and blamed circumstance for the controversy surrounding racist remarks he made in The New York Times.

"It's stunning and astonishing to me that four words in a New York Times quote can outweigh 20 some years of public service," King said in his opening remarks to the Primghar, Iowa crowd, which were livestreamed online.

"I even think of Brett Kavanaugh, he went through that inquisition, he at least had accusers, I don't have accusers even," King continued, referencing the controversial approval of Brett Kavanaugh after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. "Not one soul has stood up and said Steve King has acted in a racist fashion."

King faced intense criticism after he was quoted asking "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?" in a New York Times interview. King would go on to be stripped of his committee assignments in the House as a result of the statements. 

Read more: Rep. Steve King says he supports the congressional resolution condemning his own words on 'white supremacy'

At the town hall, King read a quote from George Orwell's "1984," connecting the dystopic work to his own situation. "We have the left that's policing our language. They're adding definitions to this English language that aren't in Webster's dictionary, but you'll see them in the Urban Dictionary."

King blamed his predicament on circumstance, claiming he was only "half-ready" for the interview. "I’ve made more than one mistake, we all have. I should have never done an interview with the New York Times," he said. King claimed a hearing amplification device he used wasn't set up for the interview.

Despite this, King seemingly doubled down on questioning the criticism of white nationalism, saying "they are denigrating western civilization today."

King has a long history of anti-immigrant and seemingly racist comments, as well as other extreme nationalist positions. 

King has been a longtime supporter of making English the national language and has previously sued the government for posting voter information in other languages.

He has frequently connected immigration to crime, and has claimed that white people have contributed more to society than others.

King has also referenced the idea that immigration and racial intermixing will destroy American culture, tweeting, "Cultural suicide by demographic transformation must end."

King has also agreed with extreme nationalist statements on Twitter, such as Viktor Orban's idea that "Mixing cultures will not lead to a higher quality of life but a lower one."

SEE ALSO: Step aboard the little-known subway line below Capitol Hill that lawmakers use to get around

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• Using data from the US Census Bureau, we found the town in every state with the highest share of residents who identify as male, and the town with the highest share identifying as female.
• Many of the male-heavy towns are home to or near prisons or military bases, while some of the towns with a large population share of female residents are retirement communities.

The American Community Survey is an annual survey run by the Census Bureau to allow the government, corporate and academic researchers, and anyone who is curious about demographics to better understand the US population. Among many other subjects, the ACS asks the sex of each member of a given household.

Using the ACS estimates from 2013 to 2017 for places with at least a 1,000-person population, excluding college campuses and military bases, Business Insider made the above map showing the town in each state with the highest share of residents identifying as male. Below, we have a map showing the town with the highest share identifying as female.

Read more: The economy of every state and DC, ranked from worst to best

Some of the towns with a large male population share, like Rising Sun-Lebanon, Delaware, are on the outskirts of military bases, often large employers of men. Others, like Dannemora, New York, are home to male-only state or federal prisons.

This table shows the town with the highest share of residents identifying as male:

And here are the towns in each state with the highest female population share:

Many of these towns, like Leisure World, Maryland, are planned communities for retirees. As women often have longer life expectancies than men, it is not overly surprising that such communities would have relatively high female population shares.

This table shows the town with the highest share of residents identifying as female:

• Read more about demographics and economics in the US:
• The minimum wage is set to increase in 21 states and DC in 2019 — here's what it will be in every state
• The most and least expensive places to live in America
• The most disproportionately high-paying job in every state
• Here's how many people in each state were born outside the US

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• British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has agreed to pay "substantial damages" and issued a full apology after publishing a story with a number of false and misleading statements about first lady Melania Trump.
• "The Mystery of Melania" was a recent cover story that has since been removed from the Telegraph's website.
• The apology's points of correction include details on Trump's family, career and relationship with her husband, President Donald Trump, before her life in the White House.

The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, has paid damages and issued an apology for a recent cover story that made a number of false and misleading claims about first lady Melania Trump.

The paper published an apology for a cover story entitled "The Mystery of Melania," which was published last week and included several errors the paper now says should not have been published.

The story, which was written by US journalist Nina Burleigh, has since been removed from the Telegraph's website.

Among the issues with the article pointed out in the paper's statement is that of Trump's father "was not a fearsome presence and did not control the family."

The first lady's education was also apparently misstated, as the apology reads that Trump "did not leave her design and architecture course at university relating to the completion of an exam, as alleged in the article, but rather because she wanted to pursue a successful career as a professional model."

Of her career as a model before she met her husband, the apology clarified that "Trump was not struggling...and she did not advance in her career due to the assistance of Mr. Trump."

Read more: Donald and Melania Trump have been on and off for 20 years — here's a timeline of their relationship

The apology continued: "We accept that Mrs Trump was a successful professional model in her own right before she met her husband and obtained her own modeling work without his assistance."

Other factual errors described in the apology include that the first lady met her husband in 1998, not 1996, in addition to other small points about her life before the White House.

"The article also wrongly claimed that Mrs. Trump’s mother, father, and sister relocated to New York in 2005 to live in buildings owned by Mr. Trump," the apology reads. "They did not. The claim that Mrs. Trump cried on election night is also false."

The claim that the first lady cried the night her husband was elected president is not new, as she was previously reported to be visibly upset when he was announced the winner. Her staff has hit back at these reports. 

"We apologise unreservedly to the first lady and her family for any embarrassment caused by our publication of these allegations," the apology reads. "As a mark of our regret we have agreed to pay Mrs. Trump substantial damages as well as her legal costs."

The first lady has emerged as a high-profile member of her husband's administration, sparking conspiracy theories and eventually warming up to facing the press alone. 

In 2017, she sued the Daily Mail with similar success.

SEE ALSO: Ann Coulter retracts her support for Trump over bill to reopen government, says she was 'a very stupid girl'

DON'T MISS: The former CEO of Starbucks will reportedly tell '60 Minutes' he's considering a run for president as an independent

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The future of retail is looking bright.

So bright that Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, expects the industry to top $5.5 trillion by 2020!

While in-store and desktop purchases are certainly helping the retail industry boom, the biggest factor for this incredible growth is in your pocket.

Find out why the smartphone will be crucial for retailers in 2018 and beyond with the first part of a brand new slide deck from Business Insider Intelligence called The Future of Retail: Mobile Commerce.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• US retail is growing $200 billion year-over-year
• In-store retail is still dwarfing e-commerce
• But e-commerce is growing almost 4x faster than in-store
• Mobile commerce is driving most of that growth
• And much more

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

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