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You won't be getting a subsidy on your new smartphone in 2016. AT&T (NYSE:T) and Sprint (NYSE:S) are the last two of the four major wireless carriers to do away with the two-year phone contract and subsidy model. Now, any new contract requires customers to pay for their new smartphone upfront or in installments separate from their service bill. Verizon (NYSE:VZ) killed off smartphone subsidies in August, and T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS) is now three years removed from its Uncarrier initiative that kicked off this whole trend. Ultimately, wireless carriers could be better off for it, and big phone companies like Apple...

Apple (AAPL - Get Report) stock will fall to $80 or less in the next few months, according to comprehensive technical analysis. That prediction is based on the same set of analytical tools that yielded this Oct. 2 forecast that Apple shares would rise to the $120 area after hitting an August low of $92.00. The same day that forecast was published, the stock closed at $109. By the end of November, the stock reached the target level and began to roll back down. In that analysis, the decision support engine's algorithms showed that after the stock tested $120, the...

Humans may evolve bizarre features such as webbed feet and eyes like cats in response to changing environments, a scientist claims today. Experts calculated how our physical appearance could change under a number of scenarios, including a 'water world' if melting ice caps cause rising sea levels. They also considered what would happen in a second ice age which could be triggered by an asteroid strike, and if humans colonised other planets. Dr Matthew Skinner, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Kent, examined the three scenarios and worked with artist Quentin Devine to help visualise how humans could look in...

Piper Jaffrey's Gene Munster, one of the better-known analysts who covers Apple, has joined the ranks of his colleagues and competitors who are predicting a decline in iPhone sales when CEO Tim Cook reports his December quarterly earnings on January 26. Of the seven most recent analyst reports that Business Insider has viewed, all of them now predict an upcoming slump in the number of iPhone units sold. One group, Pacific Crest, all but accused Apple of shading the truth about its sales prospects in a previous earnings call, in a note that said, "Management's confidence now looks highly likely...

While the latest smartphones from Apple might have picked up critical acclaim after their launch in September, Apple is ready to cut the production on the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus lines by thirty percent, reports Nikkei. Nikkei suggests that the drop in production follows slower sales in Q4 2015. Apple's production for the iPhone 6S family matched the production numbers for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S Plus. The lower sales of the newer handsets have led to more stock in the supply chain than Apple is apparently comfortable with, so the production will be slowed down for...

Climate change could put Bermuda at risk of greater economic damage and dent its sovereign credit rating more than many countries and islands. That is the finding of a speculative report by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services. Using direct damage data from Swiss Re, the agency estimated the possible adverse effect of climate change on 38 countries. It based its measurements on the expectation of a once-in-250-year natural catastrophe event striking, and the impact being exacerbated a further 20 per cent to represent the magnified additional damage expected to be inflicted due to climate change. Projected out 35 years to...

In a study conducted by CVE Details, the most vulnerable software of the previous year has been identified as Apple’s OS X and the tech-giant is also the company with most bugs. With 2016 coming, people in all sectors have been busy summarizing 2015 with reports and lists of who have been the winners and who have been the losers. The tech experts and security personnel have been at it too, with CVE Details producing a list of most vulnerable software of the past year. Many would have expected the list to be topped by Adobe Flash, for the software...

Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research pulls no punches in his latest Apple Inc. AAPL 1.92% In a recent note, Chowdhry called for the "completely clueless" Tim Cook to be replaced. He cited a culture of "bozos" at Apple destroying $486 billion in shareholder value under Cook's management. Apple's PE multiple under Steve Jobs was consistently above the S&P 500 PE and above 20X according to Chowdhry. The S&P 500's current 20.5X PE dwarfs the 11.5X PE Apple generated under Tim Cook and Luca Maestri leadership. The lack of reward (positive yearly stock performance) is the market's way of telling...

Another year gone. Another year of the Affordable Care Act's opponents moving further from - not closer to - getting their way on health care. How so? This week's omnibus deal, which was approved Friday by the U.S. House and Senate, provided a clear view once again of the uphill climb Republicans face in repealing Obamacare. The omnibus negotiations never included talk of repeal, because that's a non-starter among Democrats and the White House. Instead, Republicans were left to chip away at the health law they hate. They did so by postponing two important Obamacare taxes - the Cadillac tax...

The end of the year does not seem to bode well for Apple, as the tech giant's shares continued to drop 0.3 percent in early Tuesday trading. The company's stocks have now dipped below $110 for the first time since October, pushing the company to new financial lows, according to USA Today. The drop in Apple's shares continued from Monday, when the company fell by as much as 3 percent, to $109.79 in early Monday trading. Though the stock recovered for a time, it nevertheless closed down 0.6 percent, to $112.48 by the day's end. With the company's high of...

DEARBORN -- As small business owners, many Arab Americans carry guns for protection. However, recent mass shootings across the country have reignited the gun control debate. Over the past few years, gun violence has claimed many lives in the community. Several suicides, homicides and a murder-suicide were all carried out by guns. It is not uncommon to see local community members with visible guns at their waists. But while a Lebanese saying claims "guns are the decoration of men", critics say too many lives have been lost to guns in our community and around the country.

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As world leaders in Paris scramble to reach a climate agreement aimed to mitigate the consequences of untamed greenhouse gas emissions, they have been dealt a rare dose of good news. Scientists writing in the journal Nature Climate Change estimate that for the first time in the last 15 years, global carbon dioxide emissions have flatlined, and possibly even declined. "It is difficult to overstate the significance of this development," said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. "What it shows is that we are indeed now turning the corner in transition from a...

Sure, it's just an iPhone battery case, but what marks this one out from the many others is the manufacturer: Apple. The US$99 iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case is the first sign that Apple is ready to acknowledge that its phones are too thin to contain adequate batteries. The case adds 80 percent to the battery life -- and about 100 percent to the thickness -- of an iPhone 6 or 6s. Unlike most third-party battery add-ons, the back of the case isn't flat, but has a bulge in the middle housing the battery.

Britain's Prince Charles has blamed climate change in part for the Syrian war and warned that global warming could exacerbate similar conflicts worldwide. Charles's comments — in an interview broadcast Monday — came exactly one week before the start of a United Nations climate change conference in Paris, where he plans to deliver a keynote address. Unless world leaders take action to slow the impact of climate change, "it’s going to get so much worse," Charles warned in the interview with Sky News, which was recorded before the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris. "Some of us were saying 20...

OWNING your own house is as much the Australian dream as the American dream, and it's one that feels increasingly out of reach for many. But when one user on Quora pondered whether it was ultimately better to rent or own your own home, blogger and investor James Altucher penned this highly controversial response: I am sick of me writing about this. Do you ever get sick of yourself? I am sick of me. But every day I see more propaganda about the American Dream of owning the home. I see codewords a $15 trillion dollar industry uses to hypnotise...

Apple CEO Tim Cook is joining the CEO Council for Sustainable Urbanization, a group formed by the Paulson Institute and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges in order to divert the environmental impact of China's urban growth. "Apple is committed to running our global operations on 100 percent renewable energy and we're working hard to reduce emissions throughout our global supply chain," Cook said in prepared statement from the Paulson Institute. "We look forward to participating in the CEO Council's effort to advance China's green transformation and hope to do our part in helping China reach its climate goals."

Apple today announced two new accessories which are blatant rip-offs from Microsoft. In addition to announcing iPad Pro to take on Surface Pro, Apple also announced Smart Cover (Touch Cover clone) and Apple Pencil (Surface Pen). Apple Smart Cover will attach to iPad Pro using Magnets. And Apple Pencil will support pressure sensitivity just like Surface Pen.

(...) Following the on-air shooting of two television reporters in Roanoke, Virginia, she declared: “I feel just great heartache at what happened. I want to reiterate how important it is [that] we not let yet another terrible instance go by without trying to do something more to prevent this terrible killing that is stalking our country.” She added: "We have got to do something about gun violence in America — and I will take it on." She said the same thing back in July, in an obvious shift away from avoiding Second Amendment issues during the presidential campaign to avoid...