The payments industry had a huge year in 2014 and it's showing no sign of slowing down. On the one hand tech giants like Amazon and Apple released new products that affirmed their long-term payments ambitions (Apple Pay and Amazon Local Register). On the other hand startups such as Stripe and ShopKeep continued to carve out market share, challenging older players like PayPal and VeriFone. 

Understanding this complex and rapidly evolving space can be challenging. In a new explainer, BI Intelligence offers a high-level look at the payments industry — how it functions, who the key players are, and the trends shaping the industry. We start by explaining payment-card processing, since the majority of consumer payments and transaction volume flow through this system. From there we take a look at how consumers' move to mobile devices is changing the way we pay, and which players stand to benefit.

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Here are some of the key takeaways:

• The ecosystem for credit- and debit-card processing involves a complicated set of players interacting to process every transaction. Five types of players are involved: acquirers/processors, issuers, card networks, gateway providers, and independent sales organizations (ISOs). 
• To process a typical transaction, three steps must occur: authorizing, batching, and funding. Each participant in this process takes a fee off of the total volume of a transaction. The remainder is deposited in a merchant's account.
• Three trends will shape the payment-card-processing ecosystem from 2015 onward: the EMV security migration, rapid development of new payment technologies, and the massive card-fraud problem in the US. While none of these developments will completely upend the incumbent system for processing payments, each will disrupt key players. 
  
• The mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) is going to have a massive impact on the payments-hardware and payments-software industry. By 2019, we forecast that nearly 80% of US retailers will have implemented a mPOS device. The move to mPOS will continue to put pressure on hardware providers that compete directly against mPOS devices, as well as ISOs that sell legacy devices to merchants.
• While the payment-card-processing system as a whole isn't in danger, the proliferation of mobile devices will have a significant effect on the way we pay. 

In full, the report:

• Provides 9 infographics and diagrams explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step. 
• Analyzes the key trends and and forces that will shape they payments industry going forward. 
• Details how mobile is shaping 5 types of consumer payment technologies and which companies to watch for within each category. 

For full access to all BI Intelligence's charts and data on the Payments Industry, sign up for a free trial.

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The runaway success of "Dragon Blade," a Chinese film starring Adrien Brody and John Cusack, proved that two actors with middling success in their home country could find success overseas.

In fact, it feels like reaching out abroad is the best bet for many entertainers right now.

Today, studios count on a film's foreign box office even more than its domestic gross.

Stars who struggled in the United States can find a new life in unexpected places. Sometimes, they can do it by exploring a new medium, whether it be music or painting.

Here are eight American actors who have found surprising success overseas.

Nicolas Cage — China

In America, Nicolas Cage's over-the-top performances have made him both a punchline and a meme. China, however, takes the Oscar-winning actor a lot more seriously. It might have to do with the fact that many of his films, including "The Croods,""Ghost Rider," and "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" were just three of a handful of American films to make it past Chinese censors.

In fact, Cage is so well-liked in China that in 2013, he received the "Best Global Actor in Motion Pictures" Award at the Huading Awards Show.

He also stars in a car ad for Beijing Automotive.

His upcoming "Outlander," an American-Chinese-Canadian co-production, will be released in China on April 3.

Here's the trailer:

David Hasselhoff — Germany 

In America, Hasselhoff fame has gone up and down multiple times. In the 1980s and '90s, he starred in hit shows "Knight Rider" and "Baywatch." Lately, he is probably best known for an infamous YouTube video in which he drunkenly eats a cheeseburger.

But even when he was down stateside, he maintained a loyal following in Germany.  

On New Year's Eve in 1989, Hasselhoff performed a tune called "Looking for Freedom" for a newly reunited Berlin. That year, the song became Germany's top selling single, and Haselhoff proved that if its not working as an actor, you can always try and write a pop song. 

Here is Haselhoff singing at the Berlin Wall:

Halle Berry — China

Similar to Adrien Brody, an Oscar win unfortunately didn't bolster Halle Berry's career for long. While she does star in a few of the "X-Men" movies, she also won a Razzie for her performance in 2004's "Catwoman."

Berry was up for a much more prestigious award in 2014: she won a Global Icon award at China's Huading Film Awards. When she got onstage, she said she felt like "an original Beatle" in China.  

This could be perplexing to some, given that a few of her recent starring vehicles ("Catwoman," "The Call," "Perfect Stranger") didn't even play in China. Yet, "Cloud Atlas" made the bulk of its $103 million foreign box office gross in China.

John Cusack — China

As mentioned earlier, Cusack has found surprise stardom in China, thanks to his starring role in "Dragon Blade." In recent years, Cusack has starred in a wide array of projects, ranging from blockbusters to independent films, that have been met with mixed box office and critical success in America.

Part of Cusack's viability overseas may be because he is already a proven box office draw in China: "2012" was a big hit when it was released there back in 2009.

Perhaps Cusack's collaboration with Jackie Chan was inevitable. After all, Cusack has been an admirer of martial arts and has used it in his movies since the days of "Grosse Pointe Blank":

Jerry Lewis — France

France's love of Jerry Lewis is like folklore at this point, but it is no myth. Lewis has been a fixture in French culture since the 1960s, where many French critics and historians have praised his work, with some saying they prefer him over Woody Allen. His popularity hasn't wained there: an annual Jerry Lewis film festival is held every year in Paris.   

Here is Jerry entertaining paparazzi (who are clearly huge fans) in Paris:

Kevin James — Germany

Haselhoff isn't the only one who's big in Germany. Comedian Kevin James has been a fixture in Germany since "The King of Queens" became one of the few American sitcoms to truly succeed there.

His movies such as "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" (which was promoted more heavily on James than Adam Sandler) and "Zookeeper" (where it made its highest foreign gross) attract big audiences in Germany, based on his name alone. American humor tends to get lost in translation when crossing overseas, and while James is much maligned in America, his brand of slapstick doesn't require a translator.

Here is Kevin James making an appearance on the popular German TV show "Wetten, dass..?" ("Wanna Bet?") alongside Cameron Diaz:

Clint Eastwood — Italy 

Clint Eastwood is currently having a career renaissance behind the camera with "American Sniper," which recently became the 

highest-grossing film in the US in 2014. It also opened to big numbers in Italy.

It may be because Eastwood has been a huge star over there since the 1960s, when Sergio Leone's "The Dollars Trilogy" first cemented him as a movie star. Eastwood is the rare actor who went abroad in order to become a star in his home country.

Sylvester Stallone — Russia

Sure, the Soviet Union might have once been Rocky Balboa's enemy, but in recent years, Stallone's films have gained something of a following in Russia.

Outside of the "Expendables" franchise, his "Grudge Match" earned its highest overseas total there (at just $2.8 million, though) while his 2013 film "Escape Plan" trailed China for second place. Russians also saw a side of Stallone that Americans never get to witness: a 2013 exhibit in St. Petersburg displayed paintings by Stallone.

His artwork might not have received positive reviews, but Russians from all across the country still came to see it.

Check out some of Stallone's art below:

SEE ALSO: This movie starring Jackie Chan, Adrien Brody, and John Cusack is huge in China right now

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Tony Fadell is known as something of a design guru in Silicon Valley.

He led the launch of Apple's first iPod and founded the smart thermostat company, Nest, that Google bought for $3.2 billion last year. Most recently, he was tapped to oversee the second generation of the severely design-challenged wearable Google Glass.

Fadell shared his mantra for innovation at a recent TED conference.

“It’s seeing the invisible problem, not just the obvious problem, that’s important,” Fadell said onstage. “There are invisible problems all around us. First we need to see them. To feel them. Then we can solve them.”

It's too easy to internalize and ignore these "little idiotic details," he says. For example, the first time you bought an apple from the store store, it might have annoyed you that you had to remove that little sticker on it before eating. But that annoyance completely fades away once you've done it enough times — the problem becomes invisible. 

Rooting out these issues is the key to good, innovative design. Fadell offered three tips to avoid falling into the trap of internalizing the patterns that should be viewed as problematic:

Look broader

Consider an entire process — start to finish — to see the bigger picture ideas that need improving. "Using this approach, Fadell’s team at Nest improved thermostat design by incorporating an algorithm to predict user’s temperature preferences and save energy," the TED blog explains. 

Look closer

At the same time, make sure to also focus in on the tiny details. Fadell said that he spent months agonizing over which screw to use to make the Nest thermostat as easy to install as possible. 

Think younger 

Fadell says that having young team members with "young minds" who will ask big, creative questions, is an incredible asset. You need people with a childlike sense of possibility to find better ways to solve problems. 

Fadell will have to take his own advice as he tries to figure out how to make the next version of Google Glass more appealing to the average person.

Meanwhile, Nest's products have run into some issues of their own. The company had to fix some major safety issues with its smoke detectors last year and a Google employee recently posted a nightmarish video of his detectors' alarms refusing to turn off. He ultimately called it a "terrible, buggy product."

If you've ever worked with Fadell (at Apple or Google) and have a story to share, we'd love to hear it via jdonfro@businessinsider.com. 

SEE ALSO: 16 crazy-interesting facts about Google you probably didn't know

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When the investors first meet Brian Lim in the latest episode of "Shark Tank," he is wearing a giant cartoon headpiece and looks like a DJ ready to play to a bunch of ravers.

But once the mask comes off, the investors see that Lim has built two electronic music lifestyle companies with more than $7 million in annual revenue from the ground up.

Investor Robert Herjavec tells Lim that his focus, passion, and vision are exceptional. "Look, Brian, you're the real deal, man," Herjavec says. "You are probably one of the, if not the best entrepreneur we've had here."

The Sharks get into a feeding frenzy, and every investor makes an offer. Lim ends up making a $650,000 deal with Mark Cuban and Daymond John. Here's a breakdown of the pitch, including Lim's insights into the deal.

Lim, a native of Anaheim, California, enters the Tank seeking a $650,000 investment in exchange for a 5% equity stake in his businesses, the "gloving" company EmazingLights and the rave-apparel-maker iHeartRaves. The former is his flagship company, which he started in 2010 with just $100, and produces gloves with programmable LED lights built into the fingertips. He built iHeartRaves in 2013 to further tap the dance culture industry.

His girlfriend introduced him to the practice, which is essentially creating a light show with your hands, in 2010 at an electronic dance music (EDM) show, and he was hooked. Lim says he had always wanted to be an entrepreneur but didn't know what kind of company he wanted to create until he fell in love with gloving.

He saw an opportunity to take charge of this niche industry and filed for patents on premium-grade glove lighting. He left his job as an analyst at Deloitte the next year.

Some EDM concert promoters have banned gloving in the past, but Lim takes the practice very seriously and even considers it a sport.

He created the International Gloving Championship through EmazingLights, and it has helped him make his company synonymous with gloving. EmazingLights has 80% market share, and he tells the Sharks that he guarantees that his four or five competitors "do not operate on the same level."

Lim's companies have grossed over $13 million and together made $7.4 million in revenue in 2014. He tells the investors he wants to make EmazingLights a billion-dollar company.

The Sharks are intrigued. We've summarized the fight for a deal:

• Kevin O'Leary: Worried about the possibility of gloving being a fad, but very impressed with Lim's work ethic. Will loan $650,000 in exchange for 3% equity. Lim respectfully declines because he's looking for a hands-on partner.
• Daymond John: Will get high-level licensing deals, and can get into stores like Spencer's and Party City, if desired. Will give $650,000 for 20% of money made from licensing deals.
• Robert Herjavec and Lori Greiner: Are hugely impressed by his performance and drive, and want to be important members of his team. Will invest $1 million for 8% equity. 
• Mark Cuban and John: Cuban joins John's deal. Cuban will give $650,000 for 5% equity and will handle strategy and get EmazingLights performances into the Dallas Mavericks' halftime shows. John will take licensing duties and take 20% commission. "So you have the sports guy and the kinda music/fashion guy who's going to work with you, or you have the Queen of QVC and the security guy," John says, taunting Greiner and Herjavec.
• Herjavec and Greiner: Together have an international retail network and can also get EmazingLights into arenas. Offering $1 million for 5% equity.

Ultimately, Lim makes a deal with Cuban and John. 

"Although I respect and admire all of the Sharks for what they have accomplished in business, I just felt that Daymond's brand-building experience and Mark's familiarity with technology and e-commerce were a such great fit for EmazingLights that the difference on the valuation for a 5% stake was irrelevant in the long-term," Lim tells Business Insider.

"I gotta tell ya," Herjavec says in the Tank, "I hate losing that one." He tosses a glove onto the table in front of him.

In the days after the episode's premiere, Lim says traffic to his e-commerce sites surged to "record levels" and that the company has received "a huge number of wholesale and licensed store inquiries."

Lim and his team are now looking to acquire regional, national, and international business partners to make the International Gloving Competition more popular.

"Holding over 80% of the worldwide gloving market means the burden of growing the competitive gloving market is on our shoulders, but we are excited to face the challenges ahead with two new Sharks on our team," Lim says.

SEE ALSO: 10 things every entrepreneur should know before going on 'Shark Tank'

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What is power? And how do you acquire it?

Robert Greene, author of "The 48 Laws of Power," has some insight.

Power is "the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you,"Greene tells Business Insider. "It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection."

Greene gave us permission to republish his 48 laws power, which he developed from analyzing some of history's most powerful people.

This is an update of an article originally written by Aimee Groth.

Never outshine the master.

"Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite — inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power."

Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.

"Be wary of friends — they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them."

Conceal your intentions.

"Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Having the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force direct Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State group is complicating the U.S. mission against terrorism and contributing to destabilization in Iraq, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Sunday.

The comments by John Brennan on "Fox News Sunday" are among the strongest yet voiced by American officials about the involvement of shadowy Gen. Qassem Soleimani in the war against the extremist group.

Brennan described Soleimani as being "very aggressive and active" as he advises Shiite militias battling the extremists, mostly recently in the ongoing offensive targeting Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.

Brennan said he "wouldn't consider Iran an ally right now inside Iraq."

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, testifying at a congressional hearing this past week, said that the U.S. worries that Shiite militiamen eventually might turn against Sunni and Kurdish Iraqis, further destabilizing the country.

But Brennan said he didn't believe the presence of Soleimani and his advisers pointed to Iran having a larger role in Iraq and its future. However, he acknowledged it's not for lack of trying. Baghdad's Shiite-led government has forged closer ties with Iran, its adversary in a 1980s war.

"We're not letting them play that role. I think they're working with the Iraqis to play that role," the CIA head said. "We're working with the Iraqis, as well."

Brennan pointed to the Iraqis themselves for the country's instability, rather than the pullout of U.S. troops. Iraqi security forces crumbled in the Islamic State group's lightning offensive last summer. The militants now hold a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in their self-declared caliphate.

"I think the fault really lies with a number of the Iraqis who wasted and squandered the opportunity they had after the government was reconstituted not to put at rest some of these sectarian tensions and not to be more inclusive as far as bringing the Sunni community in," Brennan said.

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Bill Maris, Google Ventures' managing partner and president, recently made headlines by telling Bloomberg, "If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes."

It's a prophetic claim — not a scientific one. (We reached out to Google Ventures to ask for clarification on Maris' statement, but they declined to comment.)

In humans, aging is a long and drawn-out process. We currently spend about half of our lives getting old. Our skin sags, our muscles shrink, and we become increasingly susceptible to heart disease and cancer.

Among the few who do make it into our 90s or even reach the triple digits, most tend to have certain traits (like being more friendly and emotionally stable). Some of these traits are likely passed down through our genes.

Not all of what we know about aging is based on observations in people, of course.

Some animals don't age at all. The hydra, for example, is just as likely to die at age 10 as it is at age 1,000. It lives to be around 1,400. Others, like the desert tortoise, age only for short periods. Once they get through their aging years, they live out the remainder of their days until they reach their end.

So what does all this mean for us?

"The dream would be to stop aging earlier," Michael Rose, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine and the director of its Network for Experimental Research on Evolution told Business Insider.

If we stopped aging at, say, 40 or 50, most of us would likely be able to continue living pretty healthy, high-quality lives until we hit whatever age we can.

Still, most aging researchers doubt we'll ever live to see anything like 500 years. 

Why?

Take the oarweed, a type of algae. Like hydra, oarweed doesn't age — it's just as likely to die at age 7 as it is at 7 months. But oarweed doesn't live to be 1,400. It only makes it to around 8.

Some scientists refer to this phenomenon as a species' maximum lifespan. It's a biological ceiling that even the biggest advances in science and technology are likely incapable of carrying us beyond.

Humans probably have one too.

"We hope to reach the roof — somewhere between 100 and 120 — but in order to pass it we'd have to make changes that are simply not in our capacity," Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, told Business Insider.

While we can't know for sure that this is the case, we have one pretty solid example: Only one person, Jeanne Calment, has ever officially lived beyond 122.

"I don't think as a species we can do much better than that," says Barzilai.

UP NEXT: These charts will radically change how you think about aging

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The most important divide in America today is class, not race, and the place where it matters most is in the home.

Conservatives have been banging on about family breakdown for decades. Now one of the nation's most prominent liberal scholars has joined the chorus.

Robert Putnam is a former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the author of "Bowling Alone" (2000), an influential work that lamented the decline of social capital in America. In his new book, "Our Kids", he describes the growing gulf between how the rich and the poor raise their children.

Anyone who has read "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray will be familiar with the trend, but Mr Putnam adds striking detail and some excellent graphs (see below). This is a thoughtful and persuasive book.

Among the educated elite the traditional family is thriving: fewer than 10% of births to female college graduates are outside marriage--a figure that is barely higher than it was in 1970. In 2007 among women with just a high-school education, by contrast, 65% of births were non-marital.

Race makes a difference: only 2% of births to white college graduates are out-of-wedlock, compared with 80% among African-Americans with no more than a high-school education, but neither of these figures has changed much since the 1970s.

However, the non-marital birth proportion among high-school-educated whites has quadrupled, to 50%, and the same figure for college-educated blacks has fallen by a third, to 25%. Thus the class divide is growing even as the racial gap is shrinking.

Upbringing affects opportunity. Upper-middle-class homes are not only richer (with two professional incomes) and more stable; they are also more nurturing.

In the 1970s there were practically no class differences in the amount of time that parents spent talking, reading and playing with toddlers. Now the children of college-educated parents receive 50% more of what Mr Putnam calls "Goodnight Moon" time (after a popular book for infants).

Educated parents engage in a non-stop Socratic dialogue with their children, helping them to make up their own minds about right and wrong, true and false, wise and foolish. This is exhausting, so it helps to have a reliable spouse with whom to share the burden, not to mention cleaners, nannies and cash for trips to the theatre.

Working-class parents, who have less spare capacity, are more likely to demand that their kids simply obey them. In the short run this saves time; in the long run it prevents the kids from learning to organise their own lives or think for themselves.

Poor parenting is thus a barrier to social mobility, and is becoming more so as the world grows more complex and the rewards for superior cognitive skills increase.

Mr Putnam's research team interviewed dozens of families to illustrate his thesis. Some of their stories are heart-rending. Stephanie, a mother whose husband left her, is asked if her own parents were warm. She is "astonished at our naïveté".

"No, we don't do all that kissing and hugging," she says. "You can't be mushy in Detroit...You gotta be hard, really hard, because if you soft, people will bully you."

Just as her parents "beat the hell" out of her, so she "whups" her own children. She does her best, but her ambitions for them go little further than not skipping school, not becoming alcoholic and not ending up on the streets.

At every stage, educated families help their kids in ways that less educated ones do not or cannot. Whereas working-class families have friends who tend to know each other (because they live in the same neighbourhood), professional families have much wider circles.

If a problem needs solving or a door needs opening, there is often a friend of a friend (a lawyer, a psychiatrist, an executive) who knows how to do it or whom to ask.

Stunningly, Mr Putnam finds that family background is a better predictor of whether or not a child will graduate from university than 8th-grade test scores. Kids in the richest quarter with low test scores are as likely to make it through college as kids in the poorest quarter with high scores (see chart).

There are no obvious villains in this story. Mr Murray suggested that the educated classes preach the values they practise by urging the poor to get married before they have children.

But the record of those who tell other people how to arrange their love lives is hardly encouraging. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama preached the virtues of responsible fatherhood, to no obvious effect.

Mr Putnam sees "no clear path to reviving marriage" among the poor. Instead, he suggests a grab-bag of policies to help poor kids reach their potential, such as raising subsidies for poor families, teaching them better parenting skills, improving nursery care and making after-school baseball clubs free.

He urges all 50 states to experiment to find out what works. A problem this complex has no simple solution.

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Opening a steakhouse in Manhattan is challenging on two levels.

First because this is a restaurant town, where spaces come and an go.

Second, because this is a steak town — you're not dealing with amateurs here.

With that in mind, Business Insider wants to know which new steaks on the scene may have what it takes to overcome the odds and become a staple "power steak"— the kind of steak you think of when you want to take out clients, get together with friends, or celebrate with colleagues.

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Pretend you're a wine collector, or at least someone who buys bottles and keeps them around for a while before drinking.

How much would it cost you to drink a bottle of wine that you bought years ago for $50, but is now worth $500?

(Pause for your answer.)

This is the question economist Richard Thaler poses to New York Times Wealth Matters columnist Paul Sullivan in "The Thin Green Line: The Money Secrets of The Super Wealthy."

The answer has less to do with wine than it does with economics.

In fact, it's an illustration of how many people confuse two cognitive biases: sunk costs and opportunity costs.

A sunk cost is money that you've spent already. It's gone, and nothing you do now is going to change that. You have to write it off. In this case, the $50 you spent to buy the bottle in the first place is a sunk cost.

An opportunity cost is the price of choosing one course of action over another — in this case, choosing to drink the bottle instead of selling it for $500, or even keeping it and selling it for more money in the future.

The correct answer to the question is that it costs you $500 to drink the bottle, because you're choosing to enjoy it instead of sell it.

"Most people say it doesn't cost me anything," Thaler explains to Sullivan. "Some people who I cherish even say I actually make money drinking this wine because it only cost me $50. That's mental accounting."

Sullivan explains further:

In all likelihood, some of those collectors who opt to drink their wine would have a difficult time going out and paying $500 for that same bottle and drinking it with dinner, though that is exactly what they are doing when they drink it today. They prefer to think that drinking it is a deal because they paid $50 for it years ago.

Sullivan's point is that people aren't rational when it comes to money. We buy too much and save too little, because the average person doesn't think about money fully rationally, like an economist might.

We aren't all going to become overnight economists — or fully rational beings, for that matter — but keeping the cognitive biases that influence your financial decisions in mind could help you make better ones.

SEE ALSO: 15 Cognitive Biases That Mess With Your Money

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Frankfurt (AFP) - Fear rather than euphoria is currently driving global stock markets to new highs, Nobel Economics laureate Robert Shiller said in a German newspaper interview on Sunday.

The Yale University professor also warned of potential stock market bubbles and suggested it could be a good time to invest in oil, given the current record low prices.

"The stock market boom we're currently experiencing isn't driven by euphoria," Shiller told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"I call it the 'new normal boom'. It is an investment boom... The mechanisms are all there, but the feeling is missing," Shiller said.

"We're not seeing any optimism. This boom is driven by fear," he argued.

European and US stocks ended the week on a high Friday with London's FTSE surging past the 7,000 mark for the first time in history, and other leading European indices -- such as the DAX in Frankfurt -- also at record highs. 

Shiller said European stocks, including German stocks, were still a bargain, compared with US stocks.

"There aren't many alternatives to stocks at the moment. We're in a period of extremely low interest rates."

In a bid to kick-start the eurozone's moribund economy, the European Central Bank has slashed its interest rates to new all-time lows and pumped unprecedented amounts of liquidity into the financial system.

In face of the flood of cheap cash, some critics see a danger of asset bubbles forming, in stocks and real estate, which could burst soon.

"I believe there are bubbles," but central banks were not to blame, Shiller said.

The ECB "isn't the cause of low interest rates," but rather global pessimism, the expert argued.

Asked how he would invest his money, Shiller replied: "It's difficult. But I think now could be a good time to invest in oil or in a rise in oil prices," he said.

"Prices are very low and there are a lot of reasons to assume that they won't stay low. That's what I've bet on," Shiller said.

Shiller, 68, won the Nobel Economic Prize in 2013, sharing it with two other US academics  for research on financial markets. 

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Filmmaker Alex Gibney's upcoming Steve Jobs documentary is reportedly "a blistering takedown" that is "deeply unflattering" of the late Apple CEO. So it's no surprise that Apple wanted no part of it.

"They didn’t give us any help whatsoever,"Gibney told Variety of Apple's lack of involvement with the film. "When we reached out to them, they were somewhat hostile. They are brutal. People love their products, but they can be a ruthless company."

According to Gibney, Apple PR declined participation from the get-go, telling him, "We don't have the resources to help you on this project."

In "Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine," Gibney ("Going Clear," "Taxi to the Dark Side,""Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") takes a critical look at the personal and private life of Steve Jobs, tackling topics like his repeated denial of being the father of his daughter Lisa and the harsh way in which he treated many Apple employees. 

Former Apple engineer Bob Belleville, who had a love-hate relationship with Jobs, breaks down in the film as he reads a note he wrote after Jobs' death. Altogether, Gibney interviewed roughly 50 people who knew Jobs.

But many former and current Apple employees weren't as eager to be associated with the film.

After the doc's premiere last weekend at South by Southwest, several Apple employees in the audience reportedly walked out of the screening early.

Apple software and services chief Eddy Cue Tweeted after viewing the movie:

The film was also made without the participation of Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell. In a Q&A after the SXSW screening, Gibney said she was interested early on in engaging with the project but later declined.

Gibney's film is the first to be deeply critical of Jobs, who was also portrayed by Ashton Kutcher in "Jobs" in 2013 and by Michael Fassbender in the coming biopic "Steve Jobs," which is based on Walter Isaacson's biography. 

Gibney was not a fan of past films about Jobs, telling Variety: "After the Walter Isaacson book and so many other films, I didn’t really want to do a paint-by-the-numbers bio. I do think that Ashton Kutcher looks like a young Steve Jobs, but beyond that, I found it silly... it wasn’t interesting to me."

But Gibney's take is sure to be interesting.

"Behind the scenes, Jobs could be ruthless, deceitful, and cruel," the filmmaker says via voiceover early in the documentary. And apparently the sentiment doesn't stop there.

After the film's premiere at South by Southwest last Saturday, The Daily Beast called it "a blistering takedown" and "an all-out character assassination," while Variety wrote the film was a "coolly absorbing, deeply unflattering portrait" of Jobs.

Just one day after the premiere, Magnolia Pictures acquired the North American theatrical, video-on-demand, and home-entertainment rights to the documentary.

Gibney spent nearly three years on"Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine," which was financed by CNN Films. By the end of his experience, Gibney says he was disillusioned.

"When I went into it, I thought that Jobs was an inventor," Gibney tells Variety. "And I don’t really think he was an inventor now. I think he knew how to push people and he was a storyteller, and he became a storyteller for the computer age. But not all the stories that he told were true."

Gibney says working on the doc even affected his feelings about his once beloved iPhone: "I would say I’m no longer madly in love with my iPhone. It’s no longer blind faith."

While Gibney's Jobs film doesn't yet have a release date, "Going Clear," his explosive documentary on Scientology, premieres next weekend on HBO.

SEE ALSO: The new Steve Jobs documentary is a 'blistering takedown' that is 'deeply unflattering'

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March Madness is here, and millions of people who aren't normally college basketball fans are intently watching a cascade of games to see how their brackets are holding up.

Why is it that we care?

A 2006 Sports Illustrated article by Gary Smith includes perhaps the best answer. Smith profile Sam Kellerman, a promising boxing journalist who was murdered by a boxer whom Kellerman had taken into his home.

Kellerman was a sports writing prodigy of sorts, and his legacy is carried on by his brother and boxing analyst Max Kellerman.

As a kid, Sam provided an argument for why man invented sports that gets to the heart of why seemingly frivolous games matter: 

"Sports is man's joke on God, Max. You see, God says to man, 'I've created a universe where it seems like everything matters, where you'll have to grapple with life and death and in the end you'll die anyway, and it won't really matter.' So man says to God, 'Oh, yeah? Within your universe we're going to create a sub-universe called sports, one that absolutely doesn't matter, and we'll follow everything that happens in it as if it were life and death.'"

SEE ALSO: Coach of NCAA Tournament's biggest Cinderella gave an amazing post-game speech after crushing loss

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There is a massive credit card fraud problem in the US. Fraud cost US retailers approximately $32 billion in 2014, up from $23 billion just one year earlier. Much of the fraud problem is the result of the relatively weak security of credit and debit cards.

To solve this problem, a new type of credit card with a microchip, called EMV, is being implemented — but EMV won't be a panacea. It will cause fraud to migrate to other weaker points within the payments ecosystem.

To solve the card fraud problem across in-store, online and mobile payments, payment companies and merchants are implementing new payment protocols that could finally help mitigate fraud.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we look at how the dynamics of fraud are shifting across in-store and online channels and explain the top new types of security that are gaining traction across each of these channels, including on Apple Pay. 

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Here are some of the key takeaways:

• EMV cards are being rolled out with an embedded microchip for added security. The microchip carries out real-time risk assessments on a person's card purchase activity based on the card user's profile. The chip also generates dynamic cryptograms when the card is inserted into a payment terminal. Because these cryptograms change with every purchase, it makes it difficult for fraudsters to make counterfeit cards that can be used for in-store transactions.
• To bolster security throughout the payments chain encryption of payments data is being widely implemented. Encryption degrades valuable data by using an algorithm to translate card numbers into new values. This makes it difficult for fraudsters to harvest the payments data for use in future transactions.
  
• Point-to-point encryption is the most tightly defined form of payments encryption. In this scheme, sensitive payment data is encrypted from the point of capture at the payments terminal all the way through to the gateway or acquirer. This makes it much more difficult for fraudsters to harvest usable data from transactions in stores and online. 
  
• Tokenization increases the security of transactions made online and in stores. Tokenization schemes assign a random value to payment data, making it effectively impossible for hackers to access the sensitive data from the token itself. Tokens are often "multiuse," meaning merchants don't have to force consumers to re-enter their payment details. Apple Pay uses an emerging form of tokenization. 
• 3D Secure is an imperfect answer to user authentication online. One difficulty in fighting online fraud is that it is hard to tell whether the person using card data is actually the cardholder. 3D Secure adds a level of user authentication by requiring the customer to enter a passcode or biometric data in addition to payment data to complete a transaction online. Merchants who implement 3D Secure risk higher shopping-cart abandonment.

In full, the report:

• Assesses the fraud cost to US retailers and how that fraud is expected to shift in coming years
• Provides 5 high-level explanations of the top payment security protocols
• Includes 7 infographics illustrating what the transaction flow looks like when each type of security is implemented. 
• Analyzes the strengths and weakness of each payment security protocol and the reasons why particular protocols are being put in place at different types of merchants.

For full access to all BI Intelligence's charts and data on the Payments Industry, sign up for a risk-free trial.

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London (AFP) - Manchester United punished Steven Gerrard's moment of madness as Juan Mata's double secured a vital 2-1 win over bitter rivals Liverpool, while leaders Chelsea reestablished their stranglehold on the Premier League title race with a 3-2 victory at Hull on Sunday.

United were already leading through Mata's composed finish in the 14th minute at Anfield when Gerrard made Liverpool's task even harder as he earned a red card just 43 seconds after coming on as a half-time substitute.

Making his final appearance against United before his close-season move to LA Galaxy, Gerrard was sent off, for the eighth time in his career, for a clear stamp on Ander Herrera.

United took full advantage of their numerical superiority as Mata scored a quite brilliant second goal in the 59th minute.

Angel di Maria picked out the former Chelsea midfielder with a clipped pass that Mata converted with a stunning bicycle kick.

Daniel Sturridge got one back for Liverpool 10 minutes later, but Brendan Rodgers' side couldn't find an equaliser, leaving Gerrard to apologise for a mistake that could cost his team a place in next season's Champions League.

Fifth placed Liverpool are now five points behind fourth placed United in the race for a top four finish and Gerrard said: "I have let my team-mates and manager down today, even more importantly I let all the supporters down and I take full responsibility for my action."

United's victory would have been even bigger if Wayne Rooney's stoppage-time penalty hadn't been saved by Simon Mignolet, but boss Louis van Gaal was content with a success which keeps them one point behind third-placed Arsenal.

"It's an amazing result for the fans, because we've beaten Liverpool three times this season. We now have a gap from positions five, six and seven which is very important," he said.

"We kept the ball and created a lot of possibilities to score. I said whoever could beat the pressure shall win. Juan Mata was very good."

- Superb strike -

At the KC Stadium, Chelsea survived some self-inflicted wounds to secure a win that kept them firmly on course to win the title for the first time since 2010.

After second-placed Manchester City had closed to within three points on Saturday, the west Londoners are now six points clear again, with a game in hand making their position even stronger.

Jose Mourinho's side took just 78 seconds to go in front as Belgium midfielder Eden Hazard advanced to the edge of the penalty area, where he lashed a superb strike past Allan McGregor.

The Blues looked in complete control in the ninth minute when Spain striker Diego Costa cut in front the left to curl a fine finish into the far corner for his 19th league goal of the season.

But Hull reduced the deficit in the 26th minute thanks to Egypt international Ahmed Elmohamady, who swept home Andrew Robertson's cross from close range.

And Steve Bruce's team equalised just two minutes later after a disastrous piece of play from Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.

When Branislav Ivanovic pushed a risky backpass towards Courtois, the Belgian tried to take a touch before clearing, but he allowed the ball to trickle away from him towards Hernandez and the Uruguayan forward gratefully accepted the present as he slotted into the empty net for his first goal since October.

Courtois redeemed himself with a series of second half saves and Chelsea grabbed a priceless winner in the 77th minute when McGregor allowed a fairly tame shot from French forward Loic Remy, who had only been on for three minutes, to escape his grasp and trickle into the net.

At Loftus Road, Everton erased the frustration of their Europa League exit with a 2-1 success at lowly QPR.

Roberto Martinez's side had bowed out of Europe with a humbling 5-2 defeat at Dynamo Kiev on Thursday, but they took the lead in the 18th minute through Seamus Coleman.

QPR drew level when substitute Eduardo Vargas struck from close-range in the 65th minute.

But on-loan Tottenham winger Aaron Lennon won it for Everton in the 77th minute to move the Toffees nine points away from the relegation zone and leave second-bottom QPR four points from safety.

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The dollar is rallying faster than ever before.

US interest rates are expected to increase soon, and other central banks around the world are keeping rates low, upping demand for the dollar.

And in a note Friday, Deutsche Bank's David Bianco slashed his forecast for 2015 earnings per share because of the dollar's rally. 

The concern among investors is that the stronger dollar will reduce the value of earnings abroad. 

As a result, Bianco reduced his EPS forecast to $118, the same EPS estimate for 2014, meaning that in 2015, Bianco expects that S&P earnings growth will be approximately 0. 

"We cut 2015E S&P EPS to $118 from $120 on rapid dollar appreciation," he wrote.

Here's how the math works out:

"A third of S&P 500 sales and 40% of its profits are from abroad, but only ~25% of its profits are earned in foreign currencies. Thus, every 10% appreciation in the dollar vs. major currencies hits S&P EPS by 2.5% or $3

And here's the impact by sector:

"In 2015, we see 5% FX headwind at Tech, 4-5% at Industrials, 4% at Staples and Materials, 3.5% at Health Care, and 3% at Consumer Discretionary. Energy has low direct FX sensitivity, but dollar influences oil prices."

Bianco also changed his forecasts for the dollar and the euro:

"We assumed Euro averages $1.10-1.15 in 2015 and DXY 90-95. We now assume ~$1.05 and 100. Continued strong US job growth despite still slow GDP has put the first Fed hike credibly on the horizon, which underlies recent dollar gains."

Last week, Bianco said the S&P 500 could dip anywhere between 5% and 9% in the near term, and in his latest note says the next 5% move in the benchmark index will be lower. 

Most S&P 500 companies earn the bulk of their sales and profits are earned in the US.

And here's a big chart showing the S&P 500's performance against the US dollar. 

SEE ALSO: Goldman Sachs has a stunning new forecast for the euro

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A lot of people think Google Search is like a map: An objective guide to the best and most important material on the internet.

It's not.

Google Search is the most important product of a very wealthy and successful for-profit company. And Google will use this product to further its own commercial ends. 

This became clearer than ever this week when the Wall Street Journal uncovered an internal FTC report saying that Google was illegally using material from other web sites, like TripAdvisor and Amazon, directly in its search results.

When those companies complained, Google threatened to remove them entirely from the search listings.

The FTC report suggested suing Google for antitrust, but Google made some changes to its practices — importantly, it let companies opt out of letting Google show their content directly in search results — and the FTC commissioners voted to drop the investigation in 2013. 

But it's an interesting and rare insight into how Google actually works, versus how you might think it works.

Google's challenge with search

First of all, for all we hear about self-driving cars and Internet balloons and Android and YouTube, search is still Google's most important business today. By far.

In 2014, Google booked $45 billion in advertising revenue from its own sites, out of $66 billion total.

The company won't break out how much of that is first-party ad revenue is Google Search versus other products, but by all accounts it's the vast majority — Google's only other massively popular web site, YouTube, reportedly booked "only" $4 billion last year. This is why the people who work on search and search ads at Google are still considered rock stars at the company, according to many people who work there.

Google actually has a very tough set of technical and business challenges with search. It has to make Google Search as useful as possible, otherwise people will stop using Google and turn to alternatives – not just Microsoft's Bing, which has struggled to gain market share despite being perfectly good on most kinds of searches, but alternatives like Amazon for product search or Yelp for restaurant search. This risk is higher with smartphones, where people are increasingly using apps on their smartphones rather than a search engine in their computer's web browser.

Sometimes, Google has a legitimate case that its own products offer better answers than the web at large — there's no reason to force users to click to another web site to answer a question like "Who's the president of Albania?" 

At the same time, Google wants people to use its other products, where it also sells ads.

The end result of this difficult balancing act? In general, Google is taking more and more information that it provides itself and putting it at the top of its search results. 

This graphic shows the difference between Google search results in 2008 (left) and 2012 (right).

Google has used other tricks over the years, too, like putting Google users' reviews ahead of reviews from third-party sites like TripAdvisor (as long as the person searching was signed in to Google).

A lot of competitors, particularly Yelp, have been complaining about these kinds of tactics for a long time. While US officials have so far stopped short of formally calling Google Search a monopoly or filing formal charges in this area, it now looks like Europe will soon file charges.

Why shouldn't Google do whatever it wants with search?

Is this fair? Do we need really governments to monitor and control Google's search results?

It's sort of like when Microsoft was being investigated by the US Department of Justice for bundling its own web browser, Internet Explorer, with Windows. Steve Ballmer reportedly said during the trial that Microsoft should be allowed to bundle a ham sandwich with Windows — after all, Windows was a Microsoft product, not some kind of public utility.

That was true until the antitrust case went to trial and a judge found in 2000 that Microsoft Windows was a monopoly product, and that Microsoft had used that monopoly power to exclude competitors. The precise legal reasoning is more complicated — antitrust is complicated — but the basic takeaway here is that governments can rule that certain products are so important, and so dominant, that they're no longer exclusively under the control of the company that creates them.

The Microsoft case eventually went through appeals and the company suffered fewer restrictions than the first judge, Thomas Jackson, originally imposed. But his "findings of fact" were really important: They paved the way for dozens of antitrust lawsuits by US state attorneys general and private companies like Sun, RealNetworks, and IBM. Microsoft had to pay billions in settlements before the fallout receded.

This is what Google desperately wants to avoid. If a government body issues a formal legal ruling that Google Search is an anticompetitive monopoly that needs to be regulated, it opens the floodgates.

Just remember what Google is

Regardless of whether Google faces new charges, the thing to keep in mind is that Google is a for-profit company. Its products have to be good, otherwise nobody will use them. But they also serve the larger business goals of the company.

Android isn't just a mobile operating system that Google decided to give away to anybody who wanted to use it. It's also a way for Google to make sure that nobody else dominates mobile browsing, where they might be tempted to guide people away from Google's search engine and ads.

Chrome isn't just an attempt to build a faster, better web browser. It also gives you lots of ways to search Google, plus offers many subtle encouragements to stay signed into Google services at all time (if you want those personalized bookmarks on top of your Chrome browser, you need to be signed in), which in turn helps Google target search results and ads just for you.

Every Google product should be viewed through this lens. Last week's revelations make this clearer than ever.

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