Two London startups are set to play a crucial role in both the Apple Watch and iOS 8, the company's newest version of its operating system for iPhone and iPad, with Apple showcasing one British app in its crucial Apple Watch announcement.

Citymapper

Citymapper was launched in 2011 as an app designed to help Londoners navigate the city's bus network. The app previously known as Busmapper has since expanded to New York and Berlin, as well as a host of other cities.

When Apple unveiled the Apple Watch, it also revealed a selection of apps from major developers: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest... and Citymapper. The small London startup was showcased by CEO Tim Cook in his presentation as one of the apps that will be launching with the Apple Watch, a major achievement for the small London company. (It was almost a perfect moment for Citymapper, tarnished only by the fact that Apple accidentally included a space in its name. The company's brand is composed of just one word, not two.)

So how did Citymapper make it big? The app walks users through their commute using precise, step-by-step directions. Once users have entered their home address, they can simply tap "Get me home" to receive instant directions.

According to Citymapper founder Azmat Yusuf (a former Google employee), the app is "probably" installed on half of the iPhones in London. Now that Citymapper has integrated with the Apple Watch, it could soon be found on watches across the city too.

SwiftKey

The British keyboard app that dominates Android will soon be coming to iOS 8. After Apple announced at its WWDC event earlier this year that third-party keyboards would be allowed on its new mobile operation system, SwiftKey was one of the big names touted as a competitor to Apple's in-built keyboard.

Swiftkey works by allowing users to swipe across the keyboard, and automatically suggests words using both their touchscreen input, and by analyzing their social media posts and emails for commonly used phrases. The app was founded by Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock in 2008 when Reynolds was working for the British government.

To help launch SwiftKey on iOS, SwiftKey enlisted the help of the well-known British comedian (and Apple fan) Stephen Fry.

SEE ALSO: An Angry Mob Of Cab Drivers Vandalized Car Startup Hailo's Office In London

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CYNK Technology — the (sort of) social media company that earlier this summer saw its market cap rocket up to more than $6 billion in just a few days despite having no revenue, no assets, and one employee — may be a tied to a $500 million money-laundering and stock-manipulation scheme, according to a report on Thursday by Bloomberg's Zeke Faux. 

Faux reports that this week, U.S. prosecutors brought charges against a group of men that worked on the same floor, of the same office building in Belize that Cynk listed as its address in regulatory filings. 

Faux reports: 

"U.S. prosecutors chasing an alleged $500 million money-laundering and penny-stock manipulation scheme brought charges this week in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, against a group of men who worked on the same floor of a Belize office building that Cynk listed as its address.

While the U.S. case, stemming from a two-year undercover operation, doesn’t mention Cynk, documents obtained by Bloomberg News show that some of the defendants held millions of Cynk shares for clients in shell companies they helped create."

Reporting by Business Insider back in July tied CYNK to a number of individuals over a number of years, including Javier Romero, who was most recently listed as CYNK's CEO and lone employee. 

However, Romero told Business Insider at the time: "According to records, one Javier Romero on June 18, 2014 resigned as President and Secretary and Director of CYNK Technologies, whereupon on Mr. Howard Berkowitz filled these vacancies. At this time, the stock was around $2 per share."

Trading in shares of CYNK was halted by the SEC after the bizarre rise in CYNK shares was widely reported, and through the summer the company lost nearly all of its value. 

As of Thursday, shares appeared to be trading hands just a few times per day and were valued at around $0.25. 

Here's a chart of the 2014 rise and fall of CYNK shares.

Read Faux's whole report over at Bloomberg.

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The Scottish independence referendum is one of the more puzzling political episodes of recent decades. As the Financial Times noted in an editorial opposing Scottish secession, "there is little precedent for a hitherto stable modern democracy splitting apart in peacetime, in the middle of an economic recovery."

The vote creates issues were none existed before: there'd be no question of where the British nuclear arsenal would be located past 2016 if Scotland weren't voting on Independence on September 18th. Neither would there be the specter of a deep Scottish recession, the looming possibility of economic crisis in another peripheral and economically vulnerable European country.

The EU wouldn't be faced with the question of admitting a separatist entity to its ranks — if this vote weren't taking place, no one would have to wonder whether Spain and Belgium, EU members with their deep regional and national fissures of their own, would allow an independent Scotland into the club.

Even if the Scottish electorate delivers a "No" on September 19th — a likelihood, based on the latest polls— the United Kingdom is risking the loss of nearly a third of its territory, while raising economic and national security-related quandaries that are largely the creation of the Independence vote.

So why did the United Kingdom's political leadership, and in particular Conservative party Prime Minister David Cameron, allow the vote to happen in the first place?

As Patrick Wintour explained in a September 9th column in The Guardian, Cameron let the referendum to proceed in order to both acknowledge and circumvent an increase in Scottish nationalism after the country got its own parliament in 1998.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has been the major political beneficiary of this "devolution" of power from London to the UK's constituent entities: when the SNP won a stunning parliamentary majority in 2011, "Cameron felt he had to respect that result and give the Scots a chance to vote on their future."

The SNP's victory was overwhelming enough, British journalist Liam Hoare told Business Insider, "to shock Westminster and in effect place the question of a referendum on independence on the table."

In signing the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement allowing for an Independence vote, Cameron was "responsible for the referendum's date and terms," Wintour writes, including "the lack of a turnout threshold, 16-year-olds being allowed to vote – and Scots living outside Scotland not getting a vote." He also opted against presenting other possibilities on the ballot, including "devo-max," a framework for increased autonomy whose inclusion on the ballot some in the SNP actually supported.

Cameron's stance was a "calculated gamble," writes Wintour, an attempt to permanently settle the Independence question at a time when nationalist sentiments appeared to be at their height. In Wintour's view, Cameron made "a firm commitment not to discuss any further constitutional change ahead of the referendum, because that would only cloud the issue of separation."

Cameron was confident that any burgeoning Scottish desire for Independence would wilt in the face of an actual choice: "It was all or nothing." But framing the vote solely around Independence, and not around other, non-Independence possibilities, is proving to be a fateful miscalculation.

There are numerous historical precedents for failed secession efforts permanently settling similarly long-standing political and national disputes. The closely-fought Quebec Independence referendum of 1995 helped settle one of Canada's defining political issues by precluding its most extreme possible solution. Independence racked up slightly more than 5% in a 2012 vote in Puerto Rico, ensuring the Caribbean island would remain a part of the U.S. Even Staten Island's failed attempt to leave New York City in 1993 forced the Five Boroughs to come to grips with life together (Staten Island actaully voted to secede that year, but the State Assembly determined the vote was nonbinding. Separatist sentiments dissipated over the next decade, and the Island has made no other serious subsequent attempt to leave New York City).

Cameron thought something similar would happen in Scotland. "Westminster believed that a strong 'no' vote would take the question of independence off the table for a generation and undercut the authority of the SNP in Scotland," Hoare told Business Insider. Cameron figured that the UK and Scotland were better off figuring out a constitutional fix to their relationship after independence had been dismissed as a possibility.

This blunder, a product of the vagaries of British politics and the hubris of the country's top leadership, has created needless uncertainty on matters ranging from the nuclear arms to the future of the British pound to the integrity of several countries in mainland Europe.

Even with a "no" vote, Europe and the broader world are now dealing with the consequences of a small and essentially local political mistake.

SEE ALSO: George Soros nails it on why the Scotish referrendum is coming at the worst possible time

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Silicon Valley is gunning for the market controlled by traditional payment terminals, the clunky countertop systems still in use at retailers everywhere. 

Startups and tech companies like Amazon and PayPal are creating a new crop of solutions, including mobile payment hardware, credit card readers that attach to smartphones and tablets, as well as merchant-side payment apps. 

In a second quarter 2014 payments market report, BI Intelligence takes an in-depth look at the global payment terminal market. We examine which regions are driving growth and how market share is shaping up in different regions. We also take a look at the three ways mobile technology could eventually kill the legacy business for "countertop checkout terminals," and assess the threat from mobile and software-based solutions. 

Access the Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Low or negative countertop terminal shipments growth in Europe and the U.S. are an early sign of payments industry disruption from mobile-based solutions. 
• The two dominant countertop terminal vendors, Ingenico and VeriFone, face increasingly intense competition in Asia-Pacific. The region will account for over half of terminal shipments by 2015, and the big players could see their market power wane.
• The greatest disintermediation threat to the overall terminal business, including mobile terminals, is not from mobile terminals themselves, but from apps. Software-based tools like OpenTable that now allow users to conduct physical world transactions entirely within their phones, without the need for scanning at a terminal.
• We forecast global terminal shipments will still grow 73% in three years, increasing to 35 million in 2015, up from 20 million in 2012. The report includes detailed growth charts and growth rates. 
• But growth varies sharply between geographic regions. The U.S. market will only grow 3% in the same period (2012-2015), Europe 9%. 

In full, the report:

• Forecasts global terminal shipments with breakdowns of how growth will shape up in each region.
• Explains how two players emerged as a quasi-duopoly in the payment terminal business and why breaking up the two companies' dominance won't be as easy as some think.
• Gives a snapshot of the market share of the key players in each region and finds that Asia-Pacific is the region with  most opportunity for growth as well as the stiffest competition.
• Examines why growth has stagnated in the U.S. and Europe and what this means for the top payments companies.
• Concludes that while mobile card readers have caused some disruption and mobile payments are likely to take off, it will be mobile commerce that could inevitably kill the legacy payment terminal.
• Takes a granular look at the markets that will drive growth.

For full access to all our charts, data, and analysis on the payments industry — including downloadable Excel files — sign up for a free trial.

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President Barack Obama on Thursday announced the U.S. would join the European Union in intensifying sanctions on Russia's finance, energy, and defense sectors.

"We will deepen and broaden sanctions in Russia’s financial, energy, and defense sectors," Obama said in a statement. "These measures will increase Russia’s political isolation as well as the economic costs to Russia, especially in areas of importance to President Putin and those close to him."

Obama declined to offer specifics on the new measures, saying the White House would outline them in more detail on Friday. 

Obama said the new sanctions were being imposed in response to Russia's "actions to further destabilize Ukraine over the last month," including an incursion of at least 1,000 Russian forces into eastern Ukraine to fight with pro-Russian separatists in eastern regions of the country. The president also said a ceasefire reached last week has not produced "conclusive evidence" Russia has worked to de-escalate the crisis.

The new E.U. sanctions impose travel bans on 24 Russian officials, and further cut off European exports to Russia of certain high-technology products. According to The New York Times and other reports, the new sanctions are expected to take aim at Russia's energy industry — in particular its oil exploration. The sanctions will take effect Friday when they are published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This is the fourth round of escalatory Western sanctions against Russia for its involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.

Russia wasted no time in previewing its retailiatory response, saying it would ban certain imports of used cars and other consumer goods from the West, according to Reuters.

"I encourage President Putin to work with Ukraine and other international partners, within the context of the Minsk agreement and without setting unreasonable conditions, to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict," Obama said in his statement.

"As I said last week, if Russia fully implements its commitments, these sanctions can be rolled back. If, instead, Russia continues its aggressive actions and violations of international law, the costs will continue to rise."

SEE ALSO: Why Sanctions Don't Deter Putin

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Burger King has gone to the dark side.

The fast food chain just announced the launch of two all black whoppers in Japan, according to Rocket News 24.

Their Kuro Diamond and Kuro Pearl ('kuro' is 'black' in Japanese) burgers will each feature black buns, black slices of cheese, and a black sauce.

The Kuro Diamond Burger is a little more colorful with onions, tomato, lettuce, mayonnaise, and a customized squid ink sauce. The Kuro Pearl (translated to The Black Pearl, aka the ship from Pirates of the Caribbean) burger, however, lacks the veggies, and could potentially pass as an edible black hole or a shadowy flying saucer.

In order to create their ninja-like facade, Burger King darkened the buns and cheese with bamboo charcoal and mixed the meat with scores of black pepper.

The peculiar patties will sell for approximately 690 yen ($6.40) and 480 yen ($450), and will be hitting Japanese stores on September 19th for limited time only.

SEE ALSO: Why McDonald's Cant Serve Brunch Right Now

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As the civil war engulfing Syria and its region moves toward its fifth year of vicious conflict, the United Nations is struggling to support more than 9 million displaced people, a third of whom have fled the country.

António Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the Syrian crisis "has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them."

Business Insider's analysis, based on numbers provided by a recent report by the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, shows neighboring countries support 90% of refugees fleeing the crisis. 

Lebanon — which is less than half the size of New Jersey — is taking significantly more Syrian refugees than any other country. More than 1.1 million refugees live in Lebanon, where almost one in four people are now refugees from Syria.

Unlike other neighboring countries, Lebanon has no refugee camps. Syrians are hosted by local communities or rent accommodation within the country. 

"It's putting an enormous strain on the country – its economy, infrastructure, society, and resources," Ariane Rummery, a senior communications officer with the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, told Business Insider. 

"Still, the generosity of the government and people of Lebanon remains and the country deserves all the help it can get from the international community."

The Migration Policy Center at the European University Institute notes that, "Lebanon’s situation has becoming increasingly more volatile as the Syrian civil war unfolds." 

Oxford Univesity reports some experts fear the refugee crisis could further exacerbate problematic relations in the region, "creating serious tensions among refugees and host populations, and potentially precipitating an explosion that could engulf the entire Middle East."

Israeli Intransigence 

Israel, which shares its northern border with Syria, has steadfastly refused to receive refugees.

Yuval Ben-Ami, an Israeli journalist and author based in Jaffa, told Business Insider, "at this point in its history, Israel seems determined to barricade itself, primarily of its immediate neighborhood."

Ben-Ami says the idea of Israel accepting Syrian refugees is "extremely foreign" to Israelis, and that even refugee advocates speak little about the Syrian issue because it seems fruitless.

"Refugees who do arrive in Israel, mostly from conflict zones in East Africa, are treated as infiltrators. Thousands of them are currently detained without trial in a large scale desert facility designed for this very purpose," he said.

While not granting long-term protection, Israeli hospitals on the border have given treatment to several hundred Syrians in need. Some reports also indicate that as a result of pressure from communities along the occupied northern border, Israel may begin accepting a relatively small number of refugees soon.

By comparison, Palestine’s Gaza Strip — covering an area of just 139 square miles — has received 1,500 Syrian refugees.  

Farther Afield

Business Insider’s analysis shows that outside of the region, most countries have been reluctant to formally resettle any significant number of Syrian refugees.

The striking exception is Germany. 

Germany has already accepted 6,000 Syrian refugees and has so far pledged to take up to 20,000.

The number marks an increase from an initial pledge of 5,000 in 2013, making Germany the highest contributor to refugee relocation outside of the region by a wide margin. 

11,800 Syrians arrived in Germany seeking asylum in the first half of 2014, according to the U.S.

"Germany has really led the way, being very generous taking 20,000 Syrians through humanitarian admission and another 7,500 Syrians through individual sponsorship arrangements," Rummery said.

The country has stated that it is grossly unfair for countries neighboring Syria to bear the overwhelming burden of the conflicts 3 million refugees. 

In June this year, German President Joachim Gauck said, “We, in Germany and Europe, do much, but not as much as it itself sometimes seems … if we do not do all we can, we not only fail in front of our neighbors, we fail ourselves and lose respect.” 

German magazine Der Spiegel reports that in contrast to the 1990s, there is now greater consensus among Germans that refugees should be protected by their country. 

"Empathy for stranded people — who have made the voyage from Africa, often having given their entire sayings to human-traffickers in the hope of getting to Europe — has replaced old fears of foreigners," the magazine notes.

Open Wallets, Closed Doors

Apart from Germany and some countries with higher per-capita intakes, the Oxford study concludes there appears to be a clear pattern to responses from Western countries. 

The report says such countries combine "generous humanitarian and development aid in the Syrian region, political pressure on the actors of the conflict, and a minimal response in terms of resettlement and humanitarian admission of refugees."

Despite pledging to take 500 refugees, the U.K. took only 24 refugees through its special Syrian intake program in the first six months of this year.

While the United States is the largest donor to Syrian relief efforts, it has accepted only 63 Syrian refugees this year.

However, the UNHCR told Business Insider it expects the U.S. to rank up with Germany as one of the top two receivers of Syrians in 2015.

The U.N. said the U.S. accepted a request to load its resettlement intake toward the end of this year, with the organization already submitting 2,500 applications for consideration over the coming months.

SEE ALSO: Hundreds Of Westerners Have Joined ISIS — Here's Where They Came From

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The Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent research institute, has shown that the Scottish government has been spending less on the National Health Service than its English counterpart. The results clash with the pro-independence campaign's claims that they would "protect our public services like the NHS" from privatization and budget cuts.

Firstly, there is no need to vote for independence in order to protect the Scottish NHS from privatization or cuts — because it's already the Scottish Government's responsibility. As the IFS paper says:

Health is already a devolved matter – that is health policy and funding is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. This means the Scottish NHS does not have to make more use of private sector providers just because the English NHS is (and indeed, it hasn't’t been).

Secondly, the figures suggest that if Scottish people want more money spent on the NHS they should vote for closer union with England rather than a break-up. Despite the Coalition government's austerity policies, which have meant that overall spending on the public sector has fallen by 13% in England, spending on the NHS has risen by 4% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2015-16.

Scotland, by contrast, chose to spend 1% less on the NHS.

Thirdly, if you were thinking the figures from the last few years were an aberration, think again! The IFS looked back to the period between 2002-3 and 2009-10 and found that "health spending per person grew by 29% in Scotland compared with a 43% increase across the UK as a whole."

What does this mean for the prospects of health spending in Scotland? Well, given planned spending cuts by the U.K. government over the next few years it is likely to become harder and harder to protect NHS spending in Scotland if it votes to stay in the union. However, the IFS also has a warning for the implications of a Yes vote (emphasis mine):

In the short term, then, it is hard to see how independence could allow Scotland to spend more on the NHS than would be possible within a Union where it will have significant tax raising powers and considerable say over spending priorities.

SEE ALSO: Why Scotland Wants To Ditch England And Go It Alone

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John Travolta is a certified private pilot who owns five aircraft, so it's only fitting that the 60-year-old actor's Florida home has two runways that lead directly to his front door.

“We designed the house for the jets and to have at our access the world at a moment’s notice and we succeeded at that,” a bearded Travolta said during an interview Thursday on Australia’s "Today.""For the last 11 years, we’ve been able to globe trot for Qantas and movies … I’ve been really able to operate out of this house for business and personal reasons.”

Travolta has been a Qantas "Ambassador-at-Large" since 2002 and keeps his personal Qantas Boeing 707 in the yard of his Florida home, which is just a 10 minute flight from Orlando.

Travolta also keeps a challenger jet parked in his backyard.

"Now I've made a profession out of flying in addition to acting, and at my age I'm glad I did because it's something to do when you're not working," Travolta told "Today."

But the actor also flies his own planes for work, this afternoon taking the Challenger to the Toronto Film Festival to promote his new movie "The Forger." 

Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, previously gave a tour of their unique, aviation-inspired home to Architectural Digest.

“It was always John’s dream to have planes in his front yard — to practically be able to pull up to the house — so that when you wanted to go to dinner, all you’d have to do was step out the door, get on the plane and whisk off,” Kelly told the magazine of why they purchased the estate.

Travolta added: "You can be the ultimate eccentric, like I am, and bring in a 707, but you can also bring in any corporate jet or airliner.”

Although the property came equipped with a 7,500-foot runway, Travolta extended the taxiway to reach the house.

Check out a few of Architectural Digest's pictures below:

More Architectural Digest photos here.

Check out an awesome aerial shot of the home here.

Travolta's property, located in the Jumbolair Aviation Estates in Ocala, Florida, is situated on Greystone Airport. The actor was reportedly the first resident of the 550-acre community that caters to people who want fly-in, fly-out access. 

The aviation community allows homeowners to land their planes, including Travolta's Boeing 707 airliner, and taxi up to their homes. 

There is a private control center:

And bed and breakfast where pilots and prospective homeowners can stay overnight:

Watch Travolta's full interview about his airport-home with Australia's "Today" below:

Travolta waves from the cockpit of an Airbus A380 in 2005 in Brisbane, Australia.

The Qantas Airlines Global Goodwill Ambassador poses near two Qantas planes during a press conference in 2006 at San Francisco International Airport. Travolta was on hand to welcome the first direct Qantas flight from Sydney, Australia.

SEE ALSO: NBC Is Paying For Matt Lauer's Helicopter Rides To Work From The Hamptons

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The Dodo, a media company that's devoted to content about animals, announced today it has raised a $4.68 million Series A funding round led by Discovery, with participation from existing investors SoftBank Capital, Greycroft Partners and RRE Ventures.

"In the past, caring about animals has been dismissed as radical, or overly sentimental, but now it’s really becoming an accepted movement," said Izzie Lerer, cofounder of The Dodo and the daughter of Buzzfeed chairman and Huffington Post cofounder Kenneth Lerer. "We couldn't be more thrilled and excited to be working with Discovery. There is no company that has done more to put animals front and center—they've made animals the focus as opposed to a fringe topic."

The startup, which was launched in January 2014 by a team including Lerer, raised a $1 million seed round in September 2013, led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures, with participation from SoftBank Capital, Greycroft Partners, RRE Ventures and others. 

The Dodo is the first media company built entirely on RebelMouse — another Lerer ventures startup. As Business Insider's Alyson Shontell reported in January, "This makes it easy for The Dodo to pull in cute animal posts from social media and takes pressure off The Dodo to produce original content, which is more expensive." Partnering with The Dodo is also ideal for Discovery — it gives Discovery and its affiliates access to a new target audience online.

Here's a sampling of the stories The Dodo posts:

SEE ALSO: The Lerer Family Launches The Dodo, Which Is Arguably The Smartest Idea For A Media Company In The World

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Uber and Lyft are battling it out across the country to be the app for replacing the taxi industry. Unfortunately for Lyft, it seems like Uber has the upper hand at the moment.

According to a report from FutureAdvisor, Uber is dominating in terms of revenue, riders, revenue per rider, and absolute growth rates.

The report analyzed data tracking 3.8 million active credit card users in the U.S., 96,000 of which are using one of the two car services. The data tracks the users from June 2013 to May 2014.

FutureAdvisor found that Uber was seeing revenues 12 times that of Lyft's, with $26.4 million going to Uber and $2.2 million going to Lyft. They also provided more than 7 times the rides that Lyft does, with Uber providing 1.23 million rides, compared to Lyft's 170,000.

And all of that stands despite the fact that Uber seems to be charging more per ride. According to FutureAdvisor, the average Uber ride costs $21, while the average Lyft ride costs $13.

From the growth Uber is making, it doesn't look like the gap will be narrowing anytime soon.

From June to May, Uber added new customers about 5 times faster, provided rides more than 6 times faster, and grew revenue more than 10 times faster than Lyft. And Uber added between 6,200 and 7,300 new riders per month during 2014, while Lyft added between 1,100 and 1,500.

Another interesting fact from the report says only 2.5% of all riders used both services, showing that there are few who aren't loyal to one over another. So these guys are going to have to continue fighting it out.

SEE ALSO: Uber's Biggest Rival Is Having A Rough Time With Its New York Launch

SEE ALSO: Uber Will Continue Running In Germany, Even Though The Country Just Banned The Service

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It's time to switch your flip-flops out for something a little more fresh, gentlemen. Fall is here.

And while it's totally fine to recycle the classics you've kept over the years (as long as you've taken them to the cobblers — we implore you), you may want to kick your wardrobe up a notch with some of the new gorgeous footwear you'll be seeing around this season.

"It's all about the boots," said Evan Fript, co-founder of shoe retailer  Paul Evans. "Lots of Chelsea and Chukka boots. Wear them to work with a suit and out at night with some slacks. Gotta have a pair in black and brown."

Consider them the "next level up in shoe game," as Fript put it.

Check out this pair of Chukka's from Paul Evan's for $449.

Also remember that you can get a little funky with color, this season you'll see a lot of green.

Check out, for example, this green Oxford boot from Esquivel. They'll cost you $975.

Now, if you're a true creative, or simply too fresh to wear what everyone else is wearing, we suggest you check out Awl & Sundry. It's a new direct-to-consumer luxury shoe band that lets you design your own shoe.

The company was founded by a former banker named Nikunj Marvania. He was frustrated that he couldn't find the right shoe, well made, and at the right price point, so he decided to start his own brand.

"Customization was pretty much not existent in the online world prior to Awl & Sundry," Marvania told Business Insider. "We are the first brand in the world to offer this level of customization to our customers."

Start off by choosing a style — Oxford, Derby, Monk or Loafer — then choose the "Last" (that's shoe guy for shape). After that things get really interesting. Choose colors, materials, even monogram your shoes. Prices start at $350. Your shoes will be at your house in about 30 days, and they'll be exceptional.

"The quality of our product is outstanding," said Marvania. "We use the same construction process as Saint Crispins, John Lobb, Gaziano and Girling and many other prestigious brands. Also, our leathers are sourced from tanneries in Europe."

For fall Marvania suggests designing a pair in suede.

Like these:

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We've recently been looking at towns and places that are demographic extremes: places with very high median incomes, and places with very high levels of education. Now, we look at places with very young populations.

The American Community Survey is run annually by the Census Bureau, as an effort to better understand the American population. One of the many demographic measures in the survey is the median age of the population. Using estimates from the 2008-2012 ACS for all places with more than 10,000 people, we found the place with the lowest median age in every state:

Unsurprisingly, many of the youngest places are either large colleges and universities, or towns and cities associated with one or more institutions of higher learning. Having a lot of college students around naturally brings down the median age.

Similarly, a few military bases, like the sprawling Fort Hood, TX, appear on the list. Many soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are in their late teens or twenties, and as with college students, their presence will lower the median age of a place.

By far the youngest place on our list is the village of Kiryas Joel, NY. This is a community of strict Hasidic Jews, and they tend to marry very young and have large families. The sheer number of children in the village leads to a very low median age.

Here's a table of the youngest place in each state:

SEE ALSO: RANKED: The 50 US State Economies From Worst To Best

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The New York Times profiled five tech companies this morning who make workers go through temporary trial periods of varying length before they agree to hire them.

While the internship has for decades given companies an opportunity to evaluate people (mostly) fresh out of school before signing them up full time, companies like WordPress creator Automattic are expanding the try-before-you-hire process to workers of all experience levels.

The Times reports that the web tools company puts every single potential new hire through a contract period that can last from two weeks to a month and a half, during which the employees are paid $25 an hour for their work.

For smaller companies like Joor, a tech platform for wholesale retailers with 50 employees, one or two bad hires can cause significant setbacks due to turnover.

Its founder and chief executive Mona Bijoor tells The Times that the company's use of a 30-day contract work period, which in its first run yielded three new employees out of seven participants, has made it easier for the company to avoid hiring people who are a bad fit.

"They are willing to take the risk because they believe in what we are doing or see themselves working for a start-up," Bijoor says of the people who brave the company's temporary employment experience.

Noticeably absent from the Times' story were the voices of employees who had gone through these so-called test drives, both those who succeeded in getting jobs and those were turned aside.

While a trial period could benefit workers by preventing them from stepping into a job that is a bad fit for them, it does serve as an impediment to applicants who cannot afford to quit their job or halt their employment search for a position that could be gone within a month or two.

If the trend continues, it will be interesting to see whether companies begin holding tryouts instead of offering internships, which are generally framed as learning experiences but in many cases serve only to provide companies with temporary, usually low-cost labor, and the opportunity to evaluate someone for a full-time gig

Have you had experience trying out for a full-time job? We'd love to hear from you. Contact me at ataube@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: Q&A: OkCupid Cofounder Christian Rudder Explains Why 'Influencers' Is Such A Sleazy Word

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Despite recent struggles on the football field and the basketball court, the University of Texas remains the biggest money-maker in college sports.

In 2013, the Texas Longhorns athletic department generated $165.7 million in revenue according to data collected by the USA Today. Texas is one of only 13 schools with at least $100 million in athletics revenue.

Of revenue generated by Texas, a whopping $58.8 million comes from the rights and licensing. That number has skyrocketed in recent years thanks in part to the introduction of the Longhorn Network. That partnership with ESPN is worth $300 million over 20 years for the school.

The other big sources of revenue for the school are ticket sales ($60.9 million) and contributions to the department ($37.4 million). The latter was down from 2012 ($40.7 million).

As a result, the growth of the school's revenue has slowed in recent years. While revenue is up 84.8% since 2005 ($89.7 million) it is up only 1.5% from 2012 ($163.3 million).

#2 Wisconsin — $149.1 Million

Ticket Sales: $27.7 million

Donations: $58.9 million

Media Rights and Merchandising: $48.4 million

2012 Revenue and rank: $101.5 million (11)

#3 Alabama — $143.8 Million

Ticket Sales: $38.9 million

Donations: $34.2 million

Media Rights and Merchandising: $46.0 million

2012 Revenue and rank: $124.1 million (4)

#4 Michigan — $143.5 Million

Ticket Sales: $43.1 million

Donations: $31.3 million

Media Rights and Merchandising: $54.0 million

2012 Revenue and rank: $128.8 million (3)

Starboard Value, a hedge fund that owns about 8.8% of the Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants, just published a massive 294-slide presentation outlining ways the company can make more money. 

Starboard's argument walks through an array of financial and restaurant-level suggestions that Starboard has for Darden. 

For example, Starboard notes that Olive Garden's takeout containers are dishwasher safe, which Starboard says requires Olive Garden to "over-engineer package and drive up costs significantly without necessarily driving any benefit associated with more foot traffic of increased pricing power on customers."

Olive Garden's signature unlimited salad and breadsticks offering has been executed inefficiently, and Starboard thinks the company could save up to $5 million by changing its procedures. 

Starboard also critiques Olive Garden's food preparation, writing: "According to Darden management, Darden decided to stop salting the water to get an extended warranty on their pots. Pasta is Olive Garden's core dish and must be prepared properly." 

Through its company-wide margin improvement proposal, Starboard believes Darden can earn up to $326 million in additional operating earnings. But financial benefits are just a sliver of the overhauls Starboard thinks can greatly help Darden's restaurants. 

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is withdrawing from his re-election race, The Toronto Star reported Friday.

Ford, who was campaigning for re-election despite his infamous crack video scandal, was hospitalized earlier this month for a suspected abdominal tumor.

The mayor set to be replaced on the ballot by his brother, Doug Ford, a Toronto city councilor, according to CP24.

"The campaign will be making a statement later in the day," Ford's campaign spokesperson reportedly said while submitting the paperwork for the withdrawal.

Polls have showed Doug Ford has a lower approval rating than his brother and would perform worse in the mayoral race. Citing Doug Ford's low numbers, John Corbett, the vice president of Canadian polling firm Forum Research Inc., said the mayor's withdrawal boded well for the other conservative candidate in the race, John Tory.

The election will be held Oct. 27.

Both Rob and Doug Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Update (1:36 p.m.): Rob Ford's campaign has issued a statement explaining that he is now running for his brother's city council seat:

STATEMENT from Rob Ford, part 1: pic.twitter.com/k1cer7N0LW

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 12, 2014

STATEMENT from Rob Ford, part 2: pic.twitter.com/9RtSb8IiZq

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 12, 2014

Additional reporting by Hunter Walker.

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Apple received a record number of preorders for the new iPhone 6, the company told Ina Fried of Re/code in a statement.

But Apple did not report specific numbers. It usually announces initial iPhone sales after the first full weekend of availability for a new model. The iPhone 6 goes on sale Sept. 19.

Preorders began Friday at midnight Pacific time, but there were a lot of problems. Apple's site was down for a bit. Other carrier partners' websites, including T-Mobile and Sprint, were having problems too.

The iPhone 6 Plus, the larger of the two new iPhone models, is sold out for preorders, but you can probably still get it if you go to the store on launch day. If you want to order the Plus online, you might have to wait until October or later for it to ship.

SEE ALSO: Photos of the new iPhone 6

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New U.S. sanctions handed down on Friday are designed to effectively "shut off" Russian oil conglomerates from oil exploration projects, U.S. officials said, in a move aimed squarely at Russia's $425 billion-a-year petroleum industry.

The measures are "designed to effectively shut down this type of oil exploration and production activity by depriving these Russian companies of the goods, technology, and services that they need to do this work," a senior Obama administration official said Friday. 

The official added the intention of the new sanctions was to ensure that "we have effectively shut off the capacity" of Russian oil companies to draw on U.S. expertise for deepwater, Arctic offshore, and/or shale oil exploration projects. The official stressed this was an important step because Russia's companies did not possess the kind of technology needed to undertake the operations.

The new sanctions prohibit U.S. companies from exporting goods, services, or technology to support five Russian energy companies in exploration or production for Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil. The U.S. Treasury Department said companies have until Sept. 26 to wind down existing transactions affected by the new sanctions.

The Russian energy companies hit by the sanctions include Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Rosneft. European companies will have similar prohibitions, under mirroring sanctions handed down by the European Union. 

Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an expert on previous sanctions leveled against countries like Iran, told Business Insider it was a smart escalation in sanctions. 

"The new sanctions are smart and targeted and will impact Russia's access to Western technology and services that are needed to develop Moscow's medium to long-term oil exploration and production capacity," Dubowitz said.

"There will be winners and losers, including companies like Exxon and BP, but Western companies will adjust as they have to past energy sanctions against countries like Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and others. The real pain will be borne by Moscow, for whom energy is their economic lifeblood."

Indeed, Exxon could be set to take a hit from the sanctions. In 2011, it agreed to a $500 billion joint venture to explore for oil in the Russian portion of the Arctic Ocean. And the new sanctions come just weeks after Exxon and Rosneft began drilling in Russia’s Kara Sea.

"We are assessing the sanctions. It is our policy to comply with all laws," Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon, told Business Insider in an email. 

London-based BP, meanwhile, holds a near-20% stake in Rosneft, which is the largest direct foreign investment in Russia. 

The new sanctions are designed to further punish the Russian economy in an attempt to change the calculus of Russian President Vladimir Putin with respect to the situation in Ukraine. U.S. officials painted the targeting of Russia's oil industry as a significant escalatory step, because each of the companies has either direct or close ties to the Kremlin.

For the West — and Europe especially — the move is risky, because it could ignite retaliatory measures from a government that provides a steady stream of natural gas across the continent.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the sanctions were being imposed in response to Russia's "actions to further destabilize Ukraine over the last month," including an incursion of at least 1,000 Russian forces into eastern Ukraine to fight with pro-Russian separatists in eastern regions of the country. Obama also said a cease-fire reached last week has not produced "conclusive evidence" Russia has worked to de-escalate the crisis.

Here's a map of the oil and gas fields in the Arctic Ocean on which Russia has its eyes:

SEE ALSO: US Slams Russia With Punishing New Sanctions

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Marc Andreessen thinks Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) is an "odious hack" for a speech he gave Wednesday on the Senate floor criticizing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's push for immigration reform.

Andreessen, who was an early Facebook investor and sits on the company's board, posted a series of scathing tweets Thursday evening in which he dismissed Sessions' argument — that Zuckerberg's immigration activism as an effort to "double the supply of low-wage foreign workers brought into the United States for companies such as Facebook"— as "clinically insane."

Andreessen's main point was that Zuckerberg has created jobs.

Outright slander from an odious hack. Mark has directly&indirectly created 10s, maybe 100s, of thousands of US jobs. http://t.co/1XlSs519A2

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) September 12, 2014

@ericmbudd Jobs don't materialize out of thin air.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) September 12, 2014

@Tomstartsthings He is commenting directly on Facebook, which to me seems clinically insane.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) September 12, 2014

Andreessen also described Sessions' attack on Zuckerberg as the "kind of thing that will guarantee that the Republican Party never wins a national election ever again." 

Sessions' office did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about Andreessen's remarks. 

NOW WATCH: How Apple Makes Its Geniuses Seem So Happy And Helpful

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