Urban Outfitters is facing a public backlash for selling a "Vintage Kent State Sweatshirt" that is spattered with red stains resembling blood. 

The $129 sweatshirt is reminiscent of the Kent State Massacre of May 1970, when four unarmed college students were killed by the Ohio National Guard during a Vietnam War protest. 

This is the latest in a long line of offensive fashion screw-ups by Urban Outfitters. 

Just within the last year, the company has had to pull three separate items from stores following a public outcry, including a "drunk Jesus" t-shirt, a "depression" shirt and "Lord Ganesh" socks.

So why does the company keep churning out problematic clothing?

Most of the blame is attributable to how rapidly Urban Outfitters produces and curates new styles, says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a retail consulting agency and investment banking firm based in New York. There are more than 2,000 products available just on the women's' sale section of the company's website.

"Given the environment of product development in this super, hyper-competitive business, crazy things are going to slip through," Davidowitz said. "This is just part of the business and it always will be."

During fashion meetings at major apparel companies like Urban Outfitters, dozens of styles could be approved in a matter of minutes, he said. The Kent State sweatshirt, like other controversial items, could easily be overlooked, he said.

Some critics have wondered, however, whether Urban's fashion mistakes could be a deliberate campaign for the attention of its core customers: Angsty teens and young adults. 

Abercrombie & Fitch's edgy and sometimes offensive styles helped the brand rise to prominence among teens in the early naughts. 

In a more recent example, Nine West offended swaths of women with a new advertising campaign that celebrates "husband hunting."

Critics blasted the campaign as outdated and misogynistic, but branding experts said it was a smart move.

"Nine West hasn't been doing well and they needed to get people's attention, to cut through the clutter at a very promotional time of year, and get people talking about the brand," said Aliza Freud, the founder and CEO of brand consulting agency SheSpeaks.

Nine West conceded the campaign was intended to generate buzz. Erika Szychowski, Nine West's senior vice president of marketing, told The New York Times she expected the campaign to "make noise and get attention."

"We have to change the way we talk about occasions because women are modern now and shop for a different reason," Szychowski told the Times.

And it worked. At least a dozen national media outlets covered the ads and backlash, including Business Insider, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Businessweek, and Time.

Another notable instance happened in 2008 when the company that makes the pain reliever Motrin began airing a commercial that likened carrying a baby to a painful fashion statement in an appeal to young mothers.

"Supposedly, it's a real bonding experience," the ad's narrator says. "But what about me?" The ad recommended Motrin to treat the pain of carrying a child.Outraged consumers vowed to boycott the brand and Motrin was forced to apologize and pull the ads.

But the campaign created widespread buzz around the pain reliever, and for that, the ad could be considered a success, Freud said. Within a matter of weeks the outrage simmered and what was left was greater brand awareness. 

Like Motrin, most brands that execute this sort of strategy — called shock advertising— tend to suffer only short-term negative consequences, Freud said.

The candy company that makes Lemonheads used a similar tactic in May when it launched a terrifying-looking new mascot in an effort to win millennial customers. The strategy worked. Hundreds of people shared images of the new mascot on Facebook and Twitter. (And who could forget the reaction to McDonald's creepy Happy Meal mascot, released this spring?)

Burger King deployed a "Subservient Chicken" character to similar effect 10 years ago. 

The character, which is making a comeback this year, is "arguably one of Burger King's most popular campaigns in the last decade," according to Ad Age. It began as a man dressed up in a chicken costume who would respond to commands from website users.

The new iteration of the campaign is "apparently a bid to simultaneously court millennials online and general market through TV," writes Ad Age. In the age of social media, where online sharing can be critical to a brand's success, such a strategy makes sense.

When it comes to getting customers' attention, some brands consider any kind of publicity — even if it's negative —  to be useful in spreading awareness. 

SEE ALSO: Nine West's New Ad Campaign For Women Backfired

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NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar listed his extravagant mansion, in Kauai, Hawaii for $5.9 million, according to Forbes. The 5,912 square-foot house is custom-built for Jabbar's 7'2" frame and sits on a three-acre property with private trail access to Secret Beach.

Jabbar's mansion features high doorways and ceilings, lava-rock fireplaces, exotic wood detailing, a mini waterfall on the pool, all with stunning views.

The custom house, built in 1986, is also close to the National Wildlife Refuge and Kilauea Lighthouse. 

The property is gated, and the main house is nicely tucked behind some lovely foliage.

There is also a carriage house and a pool pavilion situated next to the 50-foot custom pool.

A bird's eye view of Jabbar's backyard.

From spaceships to hot air balloons, billionaire entrepreneur and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson is always playing with some new toy. 

He's set world records with kite boards, planes, and even rockets through endeavors with Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Oceanic, and Virgin Galactic. He even has two islands in the Caribbean dedicated to parties and adventures.

We've rounded up some of his most outrageous toys here. 

Perhaps Branson's most famous toy, Necker Island is a 74-acre Caribbean resort that's played host to plenty of celebrity-packed parties since the 1970s. Thought it took him five years and $10 million to construct the island resort, he estimated that the island is worth at least $60 million, as of 2006.

Source: Virgin blog

Guests staying at Branson's resort can use this zip line to get down from the main house to the beach.

Source: Virgin blog

When his guests get tired of lounging by the pool or beach, they can hang out on his 105-yacht, the Necker Belle. He put the yacht up for sale in March, though he has yet to find a buyer.

Source: Yacht Charter Fleet

As Scotland prepares to vote on whether it will become an independent country on Sept. 18, the polls show the two sides, Yes and No, are evenly split.

The 58.7 million people of the United Kingdom who are not Scottish are belatedly waking up to the fact that their country could easily be torn apart, and they won't have any say in it. There was a big demonstration in London this evening by (mostly) English people trying to persuade the Scots to stay.

About 5.3 million Scots may get to vote on their future, but the remainder of the 64 million people of the UK have no say in this vote — even though it is there country, too, that will change irrevocably.

It's an astonishing idea: A country that has existed in peace, stability, and prosperity since 1707 could, by the end of the week, disappear. And the majority of people affected will have no vote. They will just have to live with it.

It's not trivial:

• The map will have to be redrawn.
• The flag may have to change.
• The currency will be re-regulated to not (officially) include use in Scotland.
• In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the government will change too.

Where once Britain alternated between Labour and Conservative governments, the UK will likely end up with a virtually permanent Conservative government. Of the 11 Labour-led administrations since the 1920s, only six would have happened even without Scottish Labour MPs, Business Insider noted recently.

In other words, there will be a huge virtual disenfranchisement of English and Welsh Labour voters (the Northern Irish have their own set of parties).

The economic effects are a whole different ball game. Very few serious economists are predicting rosy times for Scotland. It's more likely that England will end up with an economic basket case on its Northern doorstep. (Which will lead, ironically, to a flood of Scottish workers heading south through England to find work. They'll be welcome, too, even more ironically.)

And then there is simple sentiment. Humans have been living together on the islands of the UK for 30,000 years. And while there have been borders aplenty between them, and those borders have been redrawn often, the union that came out of it has actually worked well. It's a stable democracy. It's the 6th largest economy on the planet — batting far above its weight in terms of GDP than its population or size geographic would indicate.

The UK will be a smaller place without Scotland, and Scotland will too.

And that's why a lot of English, Welsh and Northern Irish are suddenly realizing that Scottish independence will feel plain wrong if it happens without the majority of those affected being given a choice about it.

SEE ALSO: Face It: The Queen Is Not Telling The Truth About Scottish Independence

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Tesla took a big hit in the markets on Monday, down over 9% to $253 a share at the close.

The collapse is largely being chalked up to a note that Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas published Monday, in which he reiterated an overweight rating on the stock but but expressed several "sobering factors" to consider about the stock.

Of these, this factor might be the most sobering:

In an autonomous world, why will people buy a Tesla? Our 15 year DCF [Discounted Cash Flow] coincides with the end of human driving and the dawn of crowd source mobility and mega fleets. Assuming people even buy cars at all, what will determine Tesla's strategic and competitive advantage as a provider of mobility? We see scope for an array of new entrants who can apply Moore's Law and comput[ing] power to move people and things around the surface of the earth. The rules are changing and at least some incumbent OEMs (i.e. BMW) are not falling asleep at the (disappearing) steering wheel.

That "disappearing" steering wheel is a reference to the a Google self-driving car concept, which lacks conventional vehicle instruments...and a steering wheel! 

In the context of what remains a fairly bullish case for Tesla — albeit a bullish case that limits Tesla to a niche market — this is a rather  radical statement to make about the future of mobility.

After all, new vehicle sales in the U.S. climbed above a 17-million annual pace in August. Doesn't that mean people are buying cars like crazy? Won't they continue to do so in the future?Not necessarily, if there's an "end to human driving," as Jonas suggests. As mobility requires less and less — and eventually perhaps zero — driver input, then what happens to the romance associated with Tesla? Although the company is certainly the most successful electric carmaker in history, a lot of its story is emotional: You buy a Tesla because you want to drive the future and feel good about saving the planet.

Jonas also astutely predicts that the entire automobile industry isn't going to sit idly by as Tesla becomes the dominant electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturer (even in a modest EV niche).Regardless of whether Tesla thrives or encounters withering competition, Jonas has articulated a fascinatingly suggestive notion about how we'll get around in decades to come. And a massive impending change to the way that we've always thought about the auto industry.

SEE ALSO: Richard Florida Slams Tesla's Nevada Battery Factory Deal

SEE ALSO: US Auto Sales Crush Expectations

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Conceptual artist Jenny Holzer offers a haunting reminder of the violence that came after 9/11 in an exhibition opening last week on Sept. 11 in New York.

"Dust Paintings" at Cheim & Read features carefully recreated and then distorted government documents, including almost wholly redacted pages made to resemble abstract expressionist art, prisoner testimony from the investigation into the death of Afghan prisoner Jamal Naseer that appears in weird shades of gray, and a version of at least one leaked image from Edward Snowden.

"After 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, I wanted to understand what happened and why,"Holzer told The Art Newspaper. “Many news outlets were cautious or consistently positive at the time, and it occurred to me that formerly secret documents could offer more complete and unmediated information.”

The exhibition runs through October 25. Here are a few highlights:

And here's Holzer's only slightly modified version of the infamous smiley face image leaked by Snowden:

SEE ALSO: This Wall Street bank has one of the largest art collections in the world

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Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff leaked on Twitter last Friday what could be a huge game changer for the business intelligence community.

Benioff simply tweeted a photo of what appears to be the agenda for next month’s Dreamforce, Salesforce's annual conference. But if you look closely, the first green box on Oct. 15 says, “Analytics Cloud Keynote.” 

Top secret v1 of the sched for Dreamforce #df14. Doesn't incl the 1,450 breakout sessions. Must bring food to attend. pic.twitter.com/J3a7jO2Qoy

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) September 12, 2014

Salesforce currently does not offer an “Analytics Cloud” solution, so this could be an indication that Salesforce is close to revealing its first business intelligence and analytics software at the Dreamforce conference. There are tons of data already sitting in all of the Salesforce products, so this could likely take all the data in the various Salesforce cloud and help predict future business trends.

In a note picked up by VentureBeat, Wells Fargo analyst Jason Maynard predicted, “We are assuming that the analytics capabilities will feature more comprehensive reporting functionality with visual analytics, and drill down features. We think that this is based on the June 2013 acquisition of EdgeSpring. We believe that the relateIQ functionality will complement this nicely."

EdgeSpring, a company that offers business analytics data on areas like sales and financials, was acquired by Salesforce in June 2013. RelateIQ, acquired just two months ago by Salesforce, also offers a big data-driven platform where it automatically analyzes data to come up with the best-possible sales strategy.

Maynard added, “This could represent a $500 million to a billion dollar opportunity over the next three to four years.”

Salesforce declined to comment on the matter, but told us to “join Dreamforce to hear more.”

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Alibaba, the enormous Chinese e-commerce company, is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange this Friday.

But one of the most crucial time periods in the company's history came in the early 2000s, when the still-new Alibaba battled out with the behemoth eBay to gain e-commerce dominance in China. 

Porter Erisman, in his incredible documentary "Crocodile in the Yangtze," captures the thrilling rise of the company through real footage and photos. Erisman worked there throughout its critical years (though he had left the company by the time he started making the documentary).

The entire film is entertaining, suspenseful, and more than worth a watch, but Erisman gave us permission to use scenes from his film to tell the story of Alibaba's rise, as he saw it through his own eyes. 

This quote, from founder Jack Ma, has become emblematic of the half-decade battle between eBay and Alibaba.

Before you can understand Alibaba's rise to greatness, it's important to understand a few things about Ma.

Every morning for nine years, a young Jack would go to a local hotel in his home of Hangzhou, China to befriend foreign tourists and learn English.

Paris (AFP) - Long-time FIFA incumbent Sepp Blatter will have at least one  rival for next year's presidential election as former senior FIFA executive Jerome Champagne confirmed on Monday he would contest it.

The 56-year-old Frenchman, who worked closely with Blatter between 2002 and 2005 when he was deputy secretary-general, said on Twitter he had sent a letter to FIFA headquarters in Switzerland that he would be a candidate confirming his initial declaration in London back in January.

Champagne had said at the time of the original declaration that he did not think he could beat 77-year-old Blatter, who has been in charge since 1998, if he ran but he had a chance if UEFA chief Michel Platini was a candidate.

Since then, though, Blatter has declared himself as a candidate despite stating beforehand he would not stand again and Platini pulled back from the brink even though he  declared in Brazil prior to the World Cup finals in June that he could no longer support Blatter.

Champagne, a former diplomat who worked on France's successful bid for the right to host the 1998 World Cup before joining FIFA as an international advisor, said he was delighted that a debate had begun about the future of FIFA and football and thought more candidates would throw their hat into the ring.

"I have the honor of informing you that I have just written to the FIFA Ad-hoc Electoral Committee and its president, Mr. Domenico Scala, to confirm my intention to run for FIFA president," said Champagne in a letter to football federations posted on his website.

"This confirmation has of course been made in accordance with the current FIFA regulations and in line with the announcement of my candidature of 20 January 2014 in London, in the same location where The Football Association was founded in 1863, the first of the 209 FIFA member associations.

"On a personal level, I am happy that the debate about the future of FIFA and football has finally begun with the prospect of various candidates.

"First and foremost, debating about issues is a normal process in an institution based on democratic principles.

"Then, this debate is particularly indispensable for football. We have to take clear and informed decisions on whether we want to continue with the current economic polarization, and the sporting imbalances it brings in its wake, or be willing to rebalance the game in our globalised twenty-first century."

Champagne, who is funding his own campaign, helped to organise Blatter's victorious election campaign in 2002 and later worked as FIFA's director of international relations before leaving the organisation in 2010.

He has since worked as an independent football consultant, helping Kosovo to gain recognition from FIFA and working on a potential rapprochement between Israel and Palestine.

The election itself takes place next May at the FIFA Congress.

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More than 800 Harvard undergraduates are enrolled in the college's introductory computer science course this semester, making it the most popular class currently offered by the Ivy League university.

Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science — better known as CS50 — has been offered at Harvard since the 1980s, but only this semester became the college's largest course, taking the title from Introduction to Economics. This is a major shift for CS50 — in 2002, the course enrollment was less than 100 students.

To learn more about CS50 and the broader trend towards computer science, Business Insider spoke with Harvard Professor Harry Lewis, a former Harvard College dean who currently serves as director of undergraduate studies for the computer science department. He told us that even though CS50 "is not an easy course" and has "a correct reputation as being a lot of work," there have been signs for a few years that it would soon become Harvard's most popular class.

"The trends have definitely been upwards in all the computer science courses for the last five years," Lewis said. "The number of students who check on their application form that they intend to be computer science majors at Harvard is still a pretty small number, but it's definitely grown."

According to Lewis, one reason for CS50's popularity boom could be the range of students who could benefit from the course.

"CS50 is an unusual course in that it serves multiple audiences — it's the introductory course for computer science concentrations and it's also a course for students who want a serious introduction but are not planning to be majors," Lewis said.

Even with the recent rise in student enrollment in the department, Lewis noted that computer science majors are still a "small fraction" of the more than 800 Harvard students in CS50. 

Another reason that Lewis gave is the influence of CS50 professor David Malan, who he described as "a fabulous teacher and is very very innovative in how he's rethinking the traditional parts of the course."

One example that Lewis described was how CS50 handles office hours, a necessary part of any college course.

The course will take over a largest open space Lewis can find, allowing students to work together and the course's teachers to handle any questions in real time. Students used to meet in dining halls, Lewis said, but the course has recently outgrown that and is now trying to find a new space for everyone to fit.

Lewis said CS50's take on office hours was one of the "cultural things that made the course very popular and very succesful."

A commonly cited explanation for the recent rise in computer science majors nationwide is the prospect of a secure job and high wages following college. Lewis said that while employment was not the main motivation for many of the course's students, "there's certainly an element, at least a vague awareness of where the jobs of the future are going to be."

However, he said, "I think it's less directly people signing up for it because they think its a secure high income, students are trying to find something exciting ... not just money making things, but socially useful things."

One word Lewis used to describe students who took the course was "empowered"— "In one semester, they've learned something they can do something with, they can apply it to their own field of study," he said.

The Harvard computer science department appears to be in the enviable position of gaining students over the course of their undergraduate careers, as Lewis said that "most of the people who are majors are converts from other fields, people who are switching over from all disciplines." It seems that CS50 is an important aspect of that growth.

"This course is really kind of a conversion experience for a lot of people," Lewis said.

SEE ALSO: Almost No One Attended Mark Zuckerberg's 2005 Lecture At Harvard's Comp Sci Class (Which Is Now Insanely Popular)

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More than 25% of Internet users download or listen to podcasts, Pew reports. Meanwhile, Apple reached its one billionth podcast subscription last year. 

Podcasts are gaining in popularity for a number of reasons: you can listen in the car or on the train to work, you can dig deep into a topic, and you don't have to burn your eyes out on a screen. 

To that end, here are nine podcasts that are sure to stimulate your brain. 

Startalk Radio will open your mind to the cosmos.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the public face of astronomy right now — and his voice is just as magnetizing. 

Dig into his podcast to learn about space tourism, comets, and the basics of astrophysics, to name a few. 

Start listening here > 

WTF offers unexpected revelations about success.

Few things can be more instructive than a life story, and comedian-turned-broadcaster Marc Maron draws the ups and downs of life out of people with a certain raucous grace. 

Some especially intellectual episodes include his interviews with comedian Wanda Sykes, actor Vince Vaughn, and the late Robin Williams. 

Start listening here >

This American Life provides a deep look into American society.

This American Life has become a byword for verbal storytelling.

Beyond being a place for moving and hilarious stories, This American Life does staggering levels of reporting; few outlets made the financial crisis as human and understandable as Ira Glass and the gang. 

It lives up to the hype. 

Start listening here >

Starting Tuesday, Netflix will roll out its video-streaming service to six more countries, including France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. It’s currently available in 40 countries already, but after this next planned expansion, Netflix will be available in the vast majority of major markets in Europe.

And that’s a big deal. Based on company data charted for us by Statista, Netflix has been steadily growing in the US each year, but since 2010, the international growth of Netflix has been big. In its first few years of existence, Netflix grew by an average of 2.4 million subscribers each year. But once it hit Canada in 2010, spreading to other countries after that initial milestone, Netflix's subscriber base has grown by an average of 7 million subscribers each year. 

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A few days before his team's Week 2 Monday Night Football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly gushed about Andrew Luck.

Kelly has a unique perspective on Luck because he coached against him in college when he was at Oregon and Luck was at Stanford. Luck has only been in the NFL for two years, but on Monday night Kelly will face him for the fourth time if you include college games (for what it's worth, Kelly was 2-1 against him).

At his press conference on Thursday Kelly delivered a solid summation of what makes Luck so good.

His basic points: He's unusually fast for his size, he's smart, and he can make every throw.

It's not like Kelly is going to rip Luck in a press conference four days before they play him. But there's a level of specificity in Kelly's praise of Luck that shows you just how good the NFL world thinks the Indianapolis QB is going to be.

Here's Kelly on Luck:

"He's 6'4, 235 pounds, he's the smartest guy you're going to go against, he can make every throw in the book and he also runs 4.65.  So what separates Andrew from a lot of other great quarterbacks is he has the ability to extend plays, not only staying in the pocket, but he can hurt you running the football.  I don't know the number, but you can look it up.  He had a lot of 50 plus runs in college, and that's kind of a rare thing for any quarterback that size.  Usually you get a smaller quarterback that can beat you with his feet and he's really nimble and can do all these other things. 

"When you look at him, the first thing that strikes you is how big he is in person, and he's one of the most intelligent guys that we've faced and certainly that we'll face in this league.  He's in that Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady [category] from a mental standpoint, he's always on.  That's why in every game they have a shot.  The comeback they had against the Chiefs when they're down.  Even last Sunday night when you fall asleep at 24-7 and say Broncos got a victory, then all of a sudden you're finding out they're onside kicking it and they have a shot at winning it.

"He can do it all.  I think the more experience he gets, I think he has the most comebacks for a quarterback in the first two years in the league in the fourth quarter. I don't think there is anything you can throw at him that is going to say he's never seen it.  So he really has the whole package.  It will be a really big challenge for us this Monday night."

Luck's running ability is probably the most overlooked thing about him. He ran for 23 1st downs in 2013, which ranked 7th among quarterbacks. He was first on the team with 14 rushes of 10 yards or more— almost twice as many as running back Trent Richardson had. His 40-yard-dash time at the NFL Combine was 4.59 seconds, which is only slightly slower than Cam Newton and slightly faster than Johnny Manziel.

Combine that athleticism with all the traditional quarterback things he does well, and you have a guy who a lot of people think will be the best QB in the league one day.

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Olive Garden is facing declining traffic and sales. 

One of the company's investors, hedge fund Starboard Value, believes the "barely edible" food is to blame.

We recently visited an Olive Garden in Manhattan to see how the real food stacks up against advertisements. 

Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks

Advertisement: 

Reality: 

Lasagna Fritta

Advertisement: 

Reality: 

Crispy Parmesan Asparagus

Advertisement: 

Reality: 

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Advertisement: 

Reality: 

Cappellini Pomodoro 

Advertisement:

Reality (with shrimp):

Five Cheese Ziti Al Forno

Advertisement: 

Reality: 

Chicken Scampi

Advertisement: 

Reality: 

SEE ALSO: We Went To Olive Garden And Saw A Lot Of Problems That Are Dragging Down The Brand

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Alibaba has raised the price range for its initial public offering. 

The Chinese e-commerce giant has raised its IPO pricing range from to $66-$68 from $60-$66, according to an amended filing with the SEC.

The IPO price range is what investors who buy shares before the stock begins trading on an exchange — usually large institutional investors like mutual funds or hedge funds — are expected to pay for the stock. Alibaba shares may still open for trade on the NYSE at a price higher than where the IPO prices.

At the midpoint of the new range, the company would raise about $21.4 billion, with the value of the company set at a bit more than $165 billion.

At the midpoint of the new range, the 121 million shares Yahoo is set to sell would be worth more about $8.1 billion. Following the offering, Yahoo is set to still hold a 16.3% stake in Alibaba; Yahoo currently holds a 22.6% stake in the company.

According to Bloomberg, Alibaba is expected to price its IPO on Thursday night trading in New York set to being Friday morning.  

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Google might delaying its rumored Android Silver program, a re-branding effort that would give high-end Android smartphones a more unified, premium brand similar to Apple's, according to Amir Efrati at The Information. 

There are a few primary reasons Google could be putting its Android Silver project on hold. As Efrati reports, the July departure of Google's chief architect Nikesh Arora likely played a role in delaying the program. Arora oversaw Google's partnerships with device manufacturers and wireless carriers, a role that would be crucial to get a program like Android Silver up and running.

Another possible reason could be that the reactions from Google's partners and people within the company have been mixed so far, according to Efrati. Phone manufacturers, carriers, and retailers would need to pay concessions to Google in order to fund the marketing necessary to fuel Android Silver sales. However, Efrati writes that there "were serious doubts in various parts of Google as to whether the program would work."

While Android Silver remains in limbo, Efrati says Google is focusing more of its efforts toward Android One: a program that helps phone manufacturers create cheap high quality handsets for emerging markets. Android One just saw its official launch in India on Monday.

News sources such as The Information and Android Police have been reporting on Android Silver for months, but we have yet to hear any official word from Google. According to these reports, Android Silver would be a new means of selling high-end Android devices. Google would set up special kiosks in brick-and-mortar carrier stores and offer around-the-clock customer service for those who buy phones under the Silver umbrella.

The devices would come with a stock version of Android, but the hardware would be built by Google's handset partners. Based on these reports, it sounds like it could be part of an effort for Google to reclaim the Android platform from Samsung, its longtime partner and now one of its biggest rivals in the smartphone space.

Some have speculated that Android Silver would mean the end of Google's Nexus line, but the company told ReadWrite in June that this isn't the case. 

SEE ALSO: 10 Beautiful Design Details In Google's New Android Software

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President Barack Obama unveiled his plan to tackle the Ebola crisis in West Africa on Tuesday, promising to do far more to tackle the deadly virus he said could result in "hundreds of thousands of people infected" without US intervention.

"More than 2,400 men, women, and children are known to have died and we strongly suspect that the actual death toll is higher than that," Obama said in a speech at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. "Hospitals, clinics, and the few treatment centers that do exist have been completely overwhelmed."

The president was particularly dire in how he described the threat Ebola poses to the entire world.

"Patients are being turned away. And people are literally dying in the streets. Here’s the hard truth: In West Africa, Ebola is now an epidemic of the likes we have not seen before. It is spiraling out of control. It is getting worse. It is spreading faster and exponentially," he said. "If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected."

Obama, who's currently facing multiple international crises, has been criticized for an allegedly lackluster response to the Ebola virus, according to Reuters. But on Tuesday he vowed a "major increase in our response"— both in speed and scope.

"We know that if we take the proper steps, we can save lives. But we have to act fast. We can’t dawdle on this one. We have to move with force and make sure that we are catching this as best we can given that it has already broken out in ways that we have not seen before," Obama said.

Among the steps Obama vowed to take: a military outpost in Liberia "to support civilian efforts across the region." According to the White House, the US may commit up to 3,000 troops to West Africa. The US also hopes to address the virus' economic and social "ripple effects," Obama said.

Obama stressed, however, that experts do not expect a major outbreak in the US.

"First and foremost, I want the American people to know that ... the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low," Obama said. "We've been taking the necessary precautions."

PREVIOUSLY: CDC Director: Ebola Outbreak 'Spiraling Out Of Control,' 'Window Of Opportunity Is Closing'

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On July 23, when Facebook reported its earnings for the second quarter, the company stunned everyone.

Revenues were $2.68 billion, up 67% from the same quarter during the year before.

Even better, 62% of those revenues came from the sale of mobile ads, a business Facebook didn't enter until 2012, after its IPO. Facebook is now a $200 billion company. That's a huge number. Facebook's market cap is now larger than Amazon's and Yahoo's combined.

All of it has Facebook investors big and small thrilled. They should be! Anyone who bought in on Facebook's IPO has doubled their money by now. 

Facebook deserves the love.

It's still growing its user base. Mark Zuckerberg has shown he's incredibly savvy about making aggressive acquisition offers. COO Sheryl Sandberg obviously knows how to generate ad revenues.

All that said, there is one way Facebook is letting down shareholders: It's withholding crucial information about its mobile advertising business. It won't say how much of its mobile advertising revenues come from a product called "Mobile App Install Ads."

To understand why Facebook should disclose that figure, you have to go back to 2000. That year, the biggest internet company was a portal based out of Sunnyvale: Yahoo. That January, Yahoo had a market cap of $128 billion.

Yahoo got so big, in part, because it had massive, fast-growing revenues. They would reach $1 billion in 2000. But there was a big flaw with Yahoo's business. Many of its of advertisers were not traditional marketers — the big brands that bought TV, magazine, and newspaper ads before the birth of the internet.

A huge percentage of Yahoo's advertisers were venture-capital-backed startups.

For a time, that was a great business to be in for Yahoo. In 1999, venture capitalists invested $56.9 billion into startups. Startups, in turn, took a lot of that money and used it to buy ads on portals like AOL.com, MSN.com, and Yahoo.com.

It was weird. A startup could almost go public, and have a huge IPO, simply based on the news it had entered into a partnership with a portal.

The problem was, those ads on portals didn't help the startups become sustaining businesses.

As many of those companies began to fail, fear supplanted greed in the public markets, and startup IPOs stopped doing so well — no matter which portals startups were partnered with. Soon, the VC money ran out.

For Yahoo, the drop-off was brutal.

In September 2000, just nine months after that $128 billion high, Yahoo's market cap sank to $5 billion. In 2001, Yahoo revenues shrank by $300 million, and profits turned to losses as pure-play dot-coms went out of business.

Today, with Mobile App Install Ads, Facebook finds itself in a somewhat similar situation to the one Yahoo was in back in 2000.

The most worrisome similarity is that, like Yahoo's ads in 2000, Facebook's Mobile App Install Ads are mostly purchased by venture-backed startups trying to acquire their first customers.

The Wall Street Journal's Mike Shields reports that generally, Facebook's app-install ads customers are startups that make mobile games.

Right now, selling ads to VC-backed games companies is a great business for Facebook. In the second quarter, VC funding grew 55% over the prior quarter and 126% from the same quarter in 2013. VC funding hasn't grown this fast since the fourth quarter of 1999, the final quarter before Yahoo reached its $128 billion market cap peak. During those three months, VC investment grew 66% over the prior quarter and 298% over the same period during the year before.

But what happens when that VC money shrinks like it did in 2001 or 2008? What will happen to Facebook? 

Right now, investors have no way of knowing — no way of guessing, even. Facebook won't tell them how much money it's taking in from VC-backed companies.

Now, let's be clear. Facebook and Facebook investors are on safer ground than Yahoo and Yahoo investors were in 2000. 

For one, Facebook sells many different types of ads besides Mobile App Install Ads, and analysts believe most of its revenues come from traditional brand advertisers. 

Also, the venture-backed startups that are fueling Facebook's Mobile App Install Ads business are different than the ones that fueled Yahoo. Unlike the dotcoms of the 1990s, the gamesmakers buying Mobile App Install Ads generate huge revenues. They are real businesses. Analytics firm Superdata estimates mobile game companies will generate revenues greater than $21 billion in $21 billion.

It is difficult to imagine that a VC funding implosion in 2015 or 2016 would damage Facebook as much as Yahoo was damaged by one in 2001.

But … Facebook would still be damaged by one. The mobile games industry is not propped up by venture capital the way dotcoms were in the 1990s, but the games industry's overall marketing budget is certainly inflated by VC.

The problem right now is: investors don't know how damaged Facebook would be overall if its Mobile App Install Ads business were wounded by another VC crunch.

The fact is, anyone owning Facebook stock right now is not only making a bet on the health of Facebook, they are making a bet on the health of the mobile games business and continued venture capital funding into it. Facebook investors are making this bet blindly, because Facebook won't tell them how dependent its overall revenues are on Mobile App Install Ads.

During Facebook's last earnings call, when it reported those amazing Q2 2014 numbers, COO Sheryl Sandberg said: 

“When you think about our mobile ads, I do sometimes think that people think our mobile app install ads are all of the revenue or a great majority of the revenue, and they are not. They are only a part of the mobile ads revenues."

“Our mobile ads revenue is broad based. We have large brands advertisers, small, direct response advertisers as well as developers using our mobile ads."

“The mobile app install ads which are run not only by developers but also by large companies that want to get people to install apps are growing. They remain a good part of our mobile ads revenue and we are excited about the opportunities there. But we see our opportunities in mobile ads as much broader than just installing apps.”

It was a step toward disclosing how much Facebook depends on its growing Mobile App Install Ads business, and how much that business depends on VC-backed startups. 

Sandberg and Facebook need to take one more step. In Facebook's next earnings report, it needs to disclose how many of its advertisers are startups using VC money to acquire new users.

The venture-backed startup industry is a scary one for even the most sophisticated investors. In the past two days, two of the most prominent VCs in the world, Bill Gurley and Fred Wilson, came out and said they were worried because startups are once again burning through cash like they did in the 1990s.

Facebook investors deserve to know how exposed they are to such a volatile industry.

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In a few years, for the first time since the Space Shuttle's retirement, the US will have a way for astronauts — and maybe even civilians — to go into space.

In a press conference, NASA announced the winners of $6.8 billion in contracts to create a spaceship to shuttle humans to outer space — essentially space taxis. In the contract, Boeing will receive a contract for $4.2 billion for development of its CST-100 capsule, and SpaceX will receive a contract for $2.6 billion for its Dragon 2 capsule.

This is the first time since the Space Shuttle was retired that NASA will have their own ride up to the International Space Station. Here's what the SpaceX Dragon 2 will look like in action:

And here's the unveiling of the Boeing CST-100:

"Thanks to the leadership of President Obama and the hard work of our NASA and industry teams, today we are one step closer to launching our astronauts from U.S. soil on American spacecraft and ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia by 2017," NASA administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a blog post following the announcement. "Turning over low-Earth orbit transportation to private industry also will allow NASA to focus on an even more ambitious mission – sending humans to Mars."

These contracts are not only lucrative but historic, as Boeing and SpaceX will play a pivotal role in the future of manned space travel, by establishing what will essentially be a taxi service to and from low-Earth orbit and eliminating America's reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets. 

This last factor is especially important in light of escalating tensions between the US and Russia over the power struggle in the Ukraine.

Boeing and SpaceX will not only provide transportation for astronauts to and from the ISS but will, in principle, be free to sell a ride to low-Earth orbit to anyone willing to pay for it. 

These awards are the culmination of a race that began in 2010, when NASA began awarding funding to private companies to develop a capsule capable of carrying astronauts into orbit and back.

Unlike previous NASA programs, in which NASA handled all of the work and the funding, the Commercial Crew program entails a partnership between government and industry in which NASA set the final safety and functionality requirements for the transportation system, but left it to the companies themselves to figure out the best way to meet those requirements.

SEE ALSO: SpaceX Just Unveiled Its Brand-New Capsule For Taking Astronauts To Space

READ MORE: Boeing's New Space Capsule Is Straight Out Of 'Star Trek'

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A video from Elite Daily chronicling the exploits of a homeless millennial who gets by on going home with women he meets in bars and on the streets of New York City is making the rounds online.

The 26-year-old Joe panhandles during the day to make money — up to $150 a day — and at night he cleans up his look and focuses on meeting women he can go home with. He says this tactic provides shelter about three to four nights out of every week.

Sometimes, Joe manages to shack up with a woman for a few days before he's back out on the streets.

Elite Daily's video team followed Joe around for about a week. They show him picking up women on the street (often crassly):

He uses drug stores to freshen up before a night out:

And he spends his panhandling money on drugs and alcohol, keeping up his appearances, and buying women drinks.

As Elite Daily describes it, "his only responsibility is to not look homeless." Joe's appearance is crucial to his survival.

When he can't find a woman who will take him home, he sleeps on cardboard on the sidewalk:

Joe says he became homeless after his mother found his drug stash and kicked him out.

"This abstract lifestyle is not for everybody," he says. "And I'm pretty sure that if you look around you ... at the homeless people in New York City, I'm the only one that can pull this s--t off."

Watch the full video below:

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