Rihanna found herself the biggest meme star of the Grammy Awards on Sunday night (28Jan18), thanks to the raunchy dance moves during her performance of Wild Thoughts. The 29-year-old star looked stunning in a flowing pink dress as she took to the stage inside New York's Madison Square Garden to perform the tune alongside DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller. During the routine, Rihanna narrowly avoided a wardrobe malfunction as she performed the Gwara Gwara, a South African dance made popular by DJ Bongz, alongside around 50 dancers. As she gyrated and moved to the music, the Barbadian star stuck her tongue out and pulled some hilarious facial expressions - which led to fans using the images to create memes. Among the themes were many food-related jokes, with captions including "When she hungry and finally get some food" accompanying a clip of Rihanna sexily dancing. DJ Bongz told local outlet TshisaLIVE that he is thrilled Rihanna's performance drew more attention to the Gwara Gwara, explaining: "I created the dance from scratch and it feels so special to have it shown on an international stage like the Grammys. It shows that Africa can make a big impact on international dance. "I don't know what the next step is but I know it will be become bigger. This is a great moment for both me and South Africa." Not everybody was impressed with Rihanna's performance, however, as some commented on the singer's apparently curvier than usual figure - body shaming her in the process. Many speculated she might be pregnant, with one writing: "Rihanna looking a little pregnant up on that stage #Grammys2018." Another added: "I don’t think Rihanna is pregnant I just don’t think she’s missing no meals."

We may have promised staff picks but we thought we would put the spotlight over to our great internals for the chance to provide their choices of what you should all be watching. So without any further ado censored wrote: Requiem for a Dream [2000] Afronosky showcases his talent for filmaking with bleak imagery, excellent preformances and a uncomfortable, daring, and depressing story, that is too much for some. censored wrote: Dou fo sin (AKA: Flashpoint) [2007] You like ass-kicking? You like Donnie Yen? Then you're in for a treat. censored wrote: Monsieur Lazhar [2011] Not very popular, but a well balanced and touching film. censored wrote: Carol [2015] One of my favorite films from the recent years. It was shot on 16 mm film and has a wonderful grain structure and look that fits perfectly for the film that's set in the 50s. And the soundtrack by Carter Burwell is really beautiful. censored wrote: Yi dai zong shi (AKA: The Grandmaster) [2013] If life had no regrets, it would be really boring. censored wrote: Schindler's List [1993] A great film to remind you there is good in the heart of evil. censored wrote: Madame de... (AKA: The Earrings of Madame de...) [1953] Elegant, fascinating, and superb acting. censored wrote: Pafekuto Buru (AKA: Perfect Blue) [1997] One of Satoshi Kon's many greats before his unfortunate death. Said by some to have influenced Aronofsky's future work on Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan. censored wrote: Clerks II [2006] Funny as fuck or at least my opinion censored wrote: Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate (AKA: Bloodstained Butterfly) [1971] One of my favourite gialli and a good place to start if you're new the genre. censored wrote: The Next Three Days [2010] Russell Crowe plays a very believable average guy doing very believable above average things to keep his family together. censored wrote: The Birdcage [1996] Probably the best script to a comedy ever the Pirin lines are genius. censored wrote: Yi yi (AKA: Yi Yi) [2000] Take three hours to feel about life. censored wrote: The Wolf of Wall Street [2013] good mix of "humor" and realism. DiCaprio actin is top notch censored wrote: Mai wei (AKA: My Way) [2011] This is the life - yesterday friends, today enemies, tomorrow... censored wrote: The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014] Really enjoyed the multiple layers to the story and the whole world that was built censored wrote: Chi Ming yi Chun Kiu (AKA: Love in a Puff) [2010] "We don't need to do everything in one night. We're in no hurry." censored wrote: See No Evil, Hear No Evil [1989] Classic comedy with great comedian duo. Speaking of censored he has just uploaded his 300th encode so join us in saying well done and go grab it here censored

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A variety of products could soon be marked using a new sand and chemical mix that is claimed to be “the world’s most secure marking system for combatting pirated goods”. Developed by Denmark’s University of Copenhagen, the system essentially applies a random pattern onto the product, which cannot be duplicated. The markings, which could be applied to pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, passports, electronics, designer merchandise and artwork, could hit the market within a year, said the researchers, who have published their findings in the scientific journal Science Advances. “The system is based on randomness, which makes it unable to be hacked or tampered with,” said associate professor Thomas Just Sorensen, head of research at the University of Copenhagen’s department of chemistry. “As soon as a customer asks that an authorised dealer checks up on a piece of merchandise that was meant to be marked using the system, an expensive wrist watch for example, the dealer can access a manufacturer database to check its authenticity.” The marking system is based on sand mixed with three rare earth metallic elements. Firstly, a large bucket of sand is divided into three smaller tubs, with one of three different elements – europium, terbium and dysprosium – added to each tub. The elements, which light up when exposed to a specific wavelength of light, get absorbed into the surface of each grain of sand. The three tubs are then mixed together. The random product markings are made when a piece of tape pulls thousands of coloured grains of sand out of the bucket, with the resulting pattern, measuring only a few millimetres, attached to the product by impregnating it into leather, embedding it into glass or milling it into metal. Because the grains of sand are so small, they cannot be removed individually and rearranged into another puzzle, the researchers said. Once attached, the marking is photographed at individual wavelengths, each of which gets the europium, terbium and dysprosium to light up. The three pictures are then combined into a single image, which is stored in a database. Products can be authenticated by scanning the product’s fingerprint and comparing it with the database. The probability of two products having the same fingerprints was “minuscule”, Sorensen said. “It can only be described as non-existent. It corresponds to a one out of an enormous number composed of a 6 followed by 104 zeros.” The system is not only unclonable, but the researchers said counterfeiting could be prevented if products are tagged. “We have developed an authentication system that comprises a hardware reader, image analysis, and authentication software and physical keys that we demonstrate as an anticounterfeiting system,” the researchers wrote in Science Advances. “Using physical unclonable functions (PUFs) in an anticounterfeiting system will address the billion-dollar economic losses imposed by counterfeiting and can potentially save lives if used to guarantee the authenticity of medicine,” the researchers added. The University of Copenhagen has taken out a patent on the system – which is described as an optical authentication system – and it is expected to be on the market in roughly a year after the researchers fine-tune scanning solutions. The researchers estimate that the cost of marking products will be modest, probably not much more than one Danish krone. Additional expenses from the data systems have yet to be fully estimated.

Dutch cybersecurity company Irdeto has released an updated version of its Piracy Control software solution that could help digital steaming companies protect their product. Online piracy remains a major problem: an estimated three million people illegally watched the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight last August, and a BBC survey found that 36 percent of Premier League fans watched pirated livestreams. More than half — 54 percent — of millennials reported in a Sport Industry Group survey that they watched illegally streamed sports. Irdeto’s new platform offers rapid detection capabilities and includes artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to detect logos, text and faces, in addition to video fingerprinting for metadata. “What the team did was set out to create a large data set of all possible channel logos,” Irdeto vice president of technology Peter Oggel told the UK-based tech site Alphr. “I think we got dozens of channels with hundreds of thousands of samples, that led to a complete training data set of more than three million samples.” Irdeto counts the Premier League among its clients, as well as content providers such as Comcast, beIN SPORTS, Rogers and Twentieth Century Fox; it was also the first digital rights management tool approved for use by the Chinese government. These logo detection methods have caught the attention of pirates, an Irdeto executive told Alphr, which has led to blanking or swapping of logos to thwart the AI. “That’s where the next phase of the machine learning project comes in,” Rory O’Connor, senior vice president of cybersecurity services for Irdeto, said. “We’re actually trying to teach [the system] to recognise things like football strips so it can actually determine which game is on from seeing Barcelona’s colours, or whomever else’s.” “It’s a continuous battle,” he added with a laugh. “Today the analysts are quite often hired on their knowledge of football leagues rather than specialist anti-piracy skills.”

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In a shocking development - shocking because as everyone obviously knows market are never rigged or manipulated - late on Friday Reuters reported that the CFTC was set to announce it has fined European lenders UBS, HSBC and Deutsche Bank millions of dollars each for "spoofing" and manipulation in the U.S. futures market. The enforcement action by the U.S. derivatives regulator was said to be the result of a multi-agency investigation that also involved the Department of Justice and the FBI - the first of its kind for the CFTC. Reuters also reported that the fines for UBS and Deutsche Bank would be north of ten million, while the fine for HSBC will be slightly less than that. Spoofing, as a reminder, involves placing bids to buy or offers to sell futures contracts with the intent to cancel them before execution. By creating an illusion of demand, spoofers can influence prices to benefit their market positions. Spoofing is what Navinder Sarao was criminally accused of doing when he singlehandedly launched the May 2010 flash crash, for which he is now imprisoned. And yes, spoofing is a criminal offense under a provision implemented as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform. * * * Following the Reuters report, many asked why Sarao was arrested and jailed, while major banks caught spoofing and manipulating futures will get away with paying a fine that is a tiny fraction of how much they made from rigging markets in the first place. Well, it appears that someone else is going to jail after all, because as Reuters followed up this morning, US authorities were set to arrest several people on Monday as part of the spoofing and manipulation probe. The individuals who are set to be perp walked, were previously employed as traders by UBS, Deutsche Bank and HSBC, and will be charged as part of the multi-agency probe, Last August, a U.S. appeals court upheld the conviction of former New Jersey-based high-speed trader Michael Coscia who was the first individual to be criminally prosecuted for spoofing in the US, aside from Sarao of course. This is the first time the CFTC, DOJ and FBI have worked together to bring both criminal and civil charges against multiple companies and individuals, sources said. As Reuters adds, "the bank investigations have been going on for more than a year, but the CFTC has pursued the charges against the traders as part of a more recent effort led by the agency's head of enforcement, James McDonald, to hold individual employees accountable for corporate wrongdoing, two of the sources said." McDonald, a former prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who was appointed to the CFTC role in March, has said he aims to achieve that by encouraging companies and staff to report their own wrongdoing and cooperate with investigators in return for more lenient penalties. Once the names of market riggers are revealed we will promptly follow up, although we are sad to advise readers that the biggest manipulator of all will sadly be spared.

Last week, JPMorgan surprised Wall Street when its tech/semi analyst Narci Chang slashed his outlook on iPhone X demand, forecasting production of Apple's flagship phone would plunge of 50% Q/Q, "even larger than the decline of the iPhone 8/8+" and noted that the "weakness will continue in 1H18 as high-end smartphones are clearly hitting a plateau this year." Following JPM's downgrade the Apple Supply Chain in mid-September given that: 1) iPhone X expectations are largely priced in, and 2) sustained growth into the 2018 iPhone cycle is unlikely, given limited design changes in the next cycle, Chang warned that "now we believe the peak has arrived even earlier than our expectations." One week later it appears he was right because as the Nikkei reports this morning, JPM's worst case outlook has now been confirmed, and Apple will halve its production target for the iPhone X in the three-month period from January from the figure of over 40 million units envisaged at the time of its release in November. The Japanese news website writes that Apple notified suppliers that it had decided to cut the target for the period to around 20 million units, in light of slower-than-expected sales in the year-end holiday shopping season in key markets such as Europe, the U.S. and China. According to Nikkei, "the iPhone X, Apple's first smartphone equipped with an organic light-emitting diode display, has failed to catch on globally -- something many put down to a price tag starting at $999." Looking forward, the lackluster sales could result in a delay to the company's plans to introduce OLED screens in other models. For a period after its launch, production of the model faced a supply shortage due to delays in component delivery. With the inventory now starting to rise, Apple can slow down production. The high price tag is largely the result of the cost of OLED panels made by Samsung Electronics, the sole supplier of the component. The South Korean giant is currently the only company that can guarantee a steady supply of the screens. In response, Apple is believed to have started considering an increase to proportion of liquid crystal display iPhone models by reducing production of the OLED screen models scheduled for release this year. The company is expected to maintain a total production target of 30 million units for lower priced models such as the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and the 7. Aside from impacting Apple's own top line and guidance, the production cuts for the X will have a domino effect on manufacturers that have supplied high-performance components for the handset, with the combined impact expected to run into billions of dollars. It could also slow down the shift at display manufacturers from LCD to OLED technology. It is unclear how much of the news is priced in: last week, Morgan Stanley lowered Apple's price target on slower iPhone demand, although Wall Street is still expecting a blockbuster quarter and forecast when the company reports its earnings on February 1.

MBAMService.exe suffering from CPU spike after latest update A bad Malwarebytes updates released the last weekend caused the main process of the security product, mbamservice.exe, to experience high CPU usage on Windows systems, up to the point where computers were nearly impossible to use. Company officials quickly responded to the complaints posted online, and a fix is already available to address the bug. Users are recommended to install the most recent update and reboot computers – two system restarts might be required, Malwarebytes says, because stabilizing the system doesn’t always take place after the first one. Fix already available for consumers and endpoints As far as the cause of the bug is concerned, Malwarebytes says it was all because of a protection update shipped on Saturday morning. “As a side effect of the web protection blocks, the product also spiked memory usage and possibly caused a crash. We have triaged this issue and pushed a protection update that resolves it,” the company says. “The root cause of the issue was a malformed protection update that the client couldn't process correctly. We have pushed upwards of 20,000 of these protection updates routinely.” The company recommends users to update Malwarebytes and to restart computers, but in case this doesn’t address the high CPU usage bug, they should download and run MB-CLEAN. If this second workaround doesn’t make any difference either, getting in touch with the company via its forums is the only option. The company has also posted guidance for endpoints, and you can check all the steps that IT admins need to follow in order to recover systems in the box after the jump. Malwarebytes, however, notes that these systems were not affected if they weren’t running between Friday and Saturday at 11am Pacific Time. As a temporary workaround before deploying the latest update, users can also disable Web Protection from Settings > Protection or to attempt to update the application from Safe Mode.

Drones belonging to a local courier company have taken part in People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills, providing logistics support for the Chinese military “for the first time,” according to state-run Xinhua news agency. The PLA used drones from SF Express, the country’s second-largest courier, for drills in the southwestern province of Yunnan and in northwestern Shaanxi province, Xinhua reported on Sunday. The exact timing of the exercises has not been provided by the report. The first exercise simulated radar damage amid an ongoing battle in a rugged mountainous area, requiring delivery of spare parts. It took a mid-sized drone around an hour to deliver the package and drop it some 50 meters from the destination. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) showed a more-than-90-minute advantage over usual land transportation. The second drills were held in Shaanxi, aimed at assessing aid delivery by the drones. An SF Express vehicle was to deliver medicine for a soldier bitten by a poisonous snake in the mountainous area. The drone delivered the antivenin in 22 minutes, six times faster than the traditional transport. A logistics command center was overseeing the maneuvers in Beijing in real time and could reportedly change the drone’s route if necessary. The data from the drills will be further analyzed to promote joint UAV security, according to Xinhua. The military signed agreements with five logistics companies, SF Express, e-commerce giant JD.com, China Railway Express, China Postal Express and Logistics and Deppon Logistics, the South China Morning Post reports. The implementation of drones to the armed forces is the latest step in modernization of the Chinese military. Speaking at the Communist Party gathering in October 2017, President Xi Jinping vowed to fully modernize the PLA by 2035, adding that will become “world-class armed forces” by 2050.

A French vessel carrying Russian liquefied natural gas docked in Boston on Sunday. Another tanker is reportedly on its way, despite Washington’s sanctions against Moscow and amid grand plans of conquering Europe’s gas market. The tanker named Gaselys, owned by French energy company Engie, arrived in Boston on Sunday morning, the US Coast Guard confirmed to Sputnik. “As far as I know, there are no problems,” a spokesman said. The vessel is loaded with gas originating from Russia’s Yamal LNG plant at the British port of Isle of Grain from which it headed to Everett, an American terminal near Boston. The US sanctions, imposed in particular against Russia’s largest non-state gas producer Novatek – which happens to be Yamal LNG’s main shareholder – does not seem to hinder business this time. France’s Total, China National Petroleum Corporation and the Silk Road Fund hold the remaining 49.9 percent of shares in the project, located in the Russian Arctic. Technically, the cargo is not subject to sanctions imposed by the US on key stakeholders in the Russian energy sector since the gas was bought by the French company and delivered on a French vessel. The delivery was however bogged down with delays, arriving eight days past the original schedule due to unfavorable sailing conditions. A day before its scheduled arrival on January 20, the tanker briefly turned east towards the Spanish port of Algeciras, sparking speculations of a last-minute route change. However, the spokesman for Engie explained the deviation from the original route was caused by bad weather, noting that the delivery time will be adjusted. Meanwhile, it was reported that a second tanker named Provalys will deliver another shipment of Russian gas from the French port of Dunkirk to New England. The tanker is due to arrive on February, 15, according to Bloomberg. Washington has long been eyeing the lucrative European energy market, offering its shale LNG as an alternative to Russian natural gas supplies through pipelines, and persuading its allies that Europe’s future depends on it. Moscow in turn has been accusing Washington of stamping out competition by strangling major Russian energy projects with sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in January that the US “clearly forced Europeans to abandon Nord Stream 2” pipeline that would provide Germany with cheaper Russian gas. “The United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We see it as undermining Europe’s overall energy security and stability,” US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reiterated on a visit to Poland on Saturday. Tillerson’s statement reflects President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy and makes perfect sense “in the context of the US sanctions against Russia,” Matthias Dornfeldt, a German expert on energy issues, told RT. “The pure interest of the US is to sell their gas in order to bring up its own gas industry with a lot of employment,” Dornfeldt said. “That is why they try to play it in some kind of political way, but it is in the economic interests of the US.” “We already reached energy security,” the German energy expert said, arguing that Europeans have many options for where to buy their gas, including Norway, Algeria and other OPEC and Central Asian countries. “It is only the question: Who has the biggest share in the market?” In the meantime the US doesn’t mind undermining its own energy security, since business is business, and the severe cold snap that hit the US East Coast caused demand to soar and drove gas prices to a staggering $6,300 per a thousand cubic meters, making foreign gas deliveries a feasible option.

With smartphones being a large portion of consumer electronics that will eventually feature 5G modems, other applications like self-driving vehicles and IoT products are also expected to take advantage of this breakthrough. The only trouble that the U.S. government currently foresees is that if the 5G networks are not nationalized, it could open up multiple doors to foreign bodies like China to compromise the multitude of products that will eventually be taking advantage of 5G networks. Documents State the U.S. Needs a Centralized 5G Network Within Three Years – Outcry From the Industry and Upcoming Debates Will Be Expected Thanks to This Proposition Axios got its hands on the documents and the memo which highlights two key points: The U.S. government will be in charge of paying and building the single 5G network If the above plan does not go to fruition, there is an alternate. 5G service providers could build their networks that will obviously be competing with one another. Unfortunately, the document says that this approach could take longer than three years and cost more in the end. The advantage is that the government will not be subjected to an outcry by the industry. While a secondary plan is available, a source that is familiar with the matter states that there is a huge possibility that the second option is removed from the table altogether. The reason for this is quite simple; the U.S. government does not want foreign countries to compromise the security of these networks, which at this point is China. A decision is yet to be made and we are certain that there is going to be a heated discussion in the White House. According to the document, it will be decided if the government is going to be owning and building the network or if the service providers can come forth to build the network on their own. Unfortunately, this will mean that these companies will have to set aside their monetary interests and act in the best interest and security of the nation. A strong 5G network is necessary for a secure pathway for things like VR and self-driving vehicles. Since it has already been demonstrated on numerous occasions that self-driving vehicles and IoT as a whole is vulnerable to a series of cyber attacks, the U.S. will be attempting to keep China and other countries at bay. Major U.S. wireless carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile have yet to comment on the latest documents but we are certain that the executives from the aforementioned companies will be providing their thoughts real soon.

It's no surprise that leading Chinese tech companies have close associations with the Chinese Government and the PLA. Intel has waded into controversial waters as reports point to the chipmaker sharing information about its products' vulnerability to Meltdown and Spectre with Chinese tech companies before warning the United States Government, potentially giving the Chinese government either a head-start into securing its IT infrastructure, or exploiting that of a foreign government. Lenovo and Alibaba were among the first big tech companies to be informed about Meltdown and Spectre; Lenovo is Intel's biggest PC OEM customer, while Alibaba is the world's largest e-commerce platform and cloud-computing service provider. Both companies are known to have close associations with the Chinese government. The United States Government was not part of the first group of companies informed about the deadly vulnerabilities.

On target for 2019 5G adoption Deutsche Telekom (DT), Intel and Huawei have been working on what they have been calling the world's first 5G interoperability and development testing (IODT) based on the 3GPP R15 Standard with a commercial base station. This successful test, based on Huawei's 5G commercial base station and Intel's third generation 5G NR Mobile Trial Platform (MTP), is a critical step towards the full commercial launch of Huawei and Intel solutions supporting millions of devices in 2019. Deutsche Telekom and Huawei began cooperation on 5G-network research in 2015 and committed to accelerating the development of the ecosystem. With the benefit of Intel's 5G NR platforms, the group realised successful IODT tests were taking crucial joint steps towards 5G industry maturity. Using Huawei's commercial NR base station and the Intel 5G NR Mobile Trial Platform, the three parties have jointly verified the fundamentals of the new 5G 3GPP NR standard, including new synchronisation, coding, frame structure, and numerology components underlying the interconnection of the NR-compliant terminal and network. The test configuration used by Deutsche Telekom, Huawei and Intel is based on the largest C-band cell bandwidth defined by the 5G NR standard. It also incorporates the latest Massive MIMO multi-antenna and beamforming technology enabled by the standard framework. World's first 5G NR Interoperability test based on 3GPP R15 commercial system release Arash Ashouriha, Senior Vice President Technology Innovation of Deutsche Telekom said: ”After delivering leading contributions to the 3GPP’s work on 5G standards, Deutsche Telekom, Huawei and Intel moved swiftly to jointly verify implementation progress through standards-based interoperability testing. The success of our test is a significant step on the path to 5G ecosystem maturity and early 5G commercialisation.” Yang Chaobin, President of Huawei’s 5G product line, said, "The success of this testing shows that Huawei and all parties have devoted themselves deeply to the new NR standard. As the standard continues to be updated, Huawei will continue to work with all parties to step up interoperability test and promote the 5G industry maturity process, and to welcome the arrival of the entire industry digitisation.” Asha Keddy, Vice President Client, and General Manager Next Generation Standards, Intel Corporation, said, "Intel has been actively working with leading 5G companies to take advantage of Intel's unique end-to-end 5G NR technology and to accelerate 5G testing and commercialisation based on the latest 5G NR technology. The Intel XMM 8000 modem family maturity and time to launch will significantly benefit from this early multi-vendor interoperability progress and the realization of a global 5G NR industry ecosystem, with initial launches in mid-2019 and large-scale scaling in 2020.” The maturity of the 5G industry is the foundation of 5G NR commercialisation. Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Huawei will continue to deepen their cooperation and develop standardised products for the upcoming 5G era. The first 5G NR standard was completed on December 21, 2017, at the 3GPP TSG RAN meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. All industry partners including operators, equipment vendors and terminal chipset vendors reached an agreement to work together to accelerate the 5G NR standard process and to facilitate the 5G global industrialisation process.

People now prioritise security over convenience when logging into applications and devices, according to a new IBM Security. Big Blue has released a global study examining consumer perspectives around digital identity and authentication, which found that people put less care into traditional password hygiene, yet are more likely to use biometrics, multifactor authentication and password managers to improve their personal security. With millennials quickly becoming the most significant generation in today's workforce, these trends may impact how employers and technology companies provide access to devices and applications in the near future. Overall, respondents recognised the benefits of biometric technologies like fingerprint readers, facial scans and voice recognition, as threats to their digital identity continue to mount. The IBM Security: Future of Identity Study surveyed nearly 4,000 adults from across the U.S., Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe to gain insight into consumer viewpoints around authentication. Some key findings from consumers include: 1. Security outweighs convenience: People ranked security as the highest priority for logging in to the majority of applications, particularly when it came to money-related apps. 2. Biometrics becoming mainstream: 67 percent are comfortable using biometric authentication today, while 87 percent say they'll be comfortable with these technologies in the future. 3.Millennials moving beyond passwords: While 75 percent of millennials4 are comfortable using biometrics today, less than half are using complex passwords and 41 percent reuse passwords. Older generations showed more care with password creation but were less inclined to adopt biometrics and multi-factor authentication. 4. APAC leading charge on biometrics: Respondents in APAC were the most knowledgeable and comfortable with biometric authentication, while the U.S. lagged furthest behind in these categories. The evolving threat and technology landscape has created widely-known challenges with traditional log-in methods that rely heavily on passwords and personal information to authenticate our identities online. In 2017, data breaches exposed personal information, passwords, and even social security numbers for millions of consumers. Additionally, the average internet user in America is managing over 150 online accounts that require a password, which is expected to rise to over 300 accounts in coming years. IBM Security Executive Security AdvisorLimor Kessem said: "In the wake of many data breaches of highly sensitive personal data, there's no longer any doubt that the very information we've used to prove our identities online in the past is now a shared secret in the hands of hackers. As consumers are acknowledging the inadequacy of passwords and placing increased priority on security, the time is ripe to adopt more advanced methods that prove identity on multiple levels and can be adapted based on behaviour and risk." The survey results around security, convenience, and privacy contradict the long-held wisdom that "convenience is king." While consumers have long been thought to prefer a fast sign-in experience with minimal friction, the survey results show that people rank security as a higher preference than privacy or convenience for the majority of applications – particularly for money-related applications. Security was vastly ranked as the top priority for banking, investing, and budgeting apps – for these categories on average, 70 percent selected security as the top priority, with 16 percent selecting privacy, and 14 percent selecting convenience. Security also ranked as the top priority for online marketplaces, workplace apps, and email. For social media apps, priorities became less clear – with convenience taking a slight lead (36 percent), followed by security (34 percent) and privacy (30 percent). The survey also examined consumers' opinions around the security of various login methods and found that certain types of biometrics were viewed as more secure than passwords, yet security and privacy remain top concerns when it comes to adopting biometrics. More than 44 percent ranked fingerprint biometrics as one of the most secure methods of authentication; passwords and PINs were seen as less secure (27 percent and 12 percent respectively) People's biggest concerns with biometric authentication were privacy (how the data is collected and used – 55 percent), and security (others using fake biometric data to access their accounts – 50 percent).6 Older adults displayed better habits when it came to password creation, yet younger generations were more inclined to adopt password managers, biometrics and multifactor authentication as a way to secure their online accounts. This could be an indication that younger generations have less confidence in passwords and are instead looking to alternative methods to secure their accounts. Only 42 percent of millennials use complex passwords that combine special characters, numbers and letters (versus 49 percent of those 55 years of age and older), and 41 percent reuse the same password multiple times (versus 31 percent of 55+). On average, people 55+ use 12 passwords, while Gen Z (ages 18 – 20) averages only five passwords, which could indicate a heavier re-use rate. Millennials are 2x more likely to use a password manager (34 percent) than people over the age of 55 (17 percent). Millennials were more likely to enable two-factor authentication in the wake of a breach (32 percent versus 28 percent general population). Young adults also showed the strongest preference for convenience, with almost half (47 percent) of adults under 24 preferring a faster sign-in experience to a more secure form of authentication. This may be one reason that young people are more likely to adopt biometric authentication, with 75 percent of millennials comfortable using biometrics today compared to 58 percent of those over age 55. The survey found that geographic location had a strong influence on perception and familiarity with emergent authentication techniques, with the Asia Pacific region being the most knowledgeable and comfortable with tactics like multifactor authentication and biometrics. The U.S. lagged furthest behind in awareness and comfort for most categories. Specifically: APAC was also the most comfortable using biometrics today (78 percent comfortable vs. 65 percent EU, 57 percent U.S.). Europe had the strongest password practices, with 52 percent of respondents using complex passwords (vs. 46 percent in APAC and 41 percent in the U.S.). 23 percent of respondents in the U.S. said they are not interested in using biometrics now or shortly - nearly double the global average.

Western Digital has provided strong profit forecasts for the current quarter and the full year and said the flash memory market would grow faster this year. There had been some fears that the surging demand for memory chips was fading, but Western Digital's results say otherwise. Western Digital’s chief financial officer, Mark Long, said any easing in price would, in fact, help the industry. “The normalisation in flash market is about expected and beneficial for the industry, creating new opportunities for flash", Long said during a conference call with analysts. “We view this normalisation as part of our business.” Western Digital forecast current-quarter adjusted earnings of $3.20 to $3.30 per share, beating Wall Street's estimate of $3.04. Its full-year adjusted earnings forecast of $13.50 to $14.00 per share was also above market estimates of $13.42. The forecast helped ease the data-storage device maker’s share drop to one percent in extended trading, from a decline of as much as 5.5 percent earlier despite Western Digital topping market estimates for second-quarter profit and revenue. Benchmark analyst Mark Miller said fears over falling prices might have weighed on the stock, but the worries were overdone. It is now expected that the flash industry’s growth this year would be near the high end of the long-term range of 35 percent to 45 percent, due to better manufacturing yields and continued adoption of 3D flash, with Western Digital matching the growth. He said the industry’s growth was at the low end of the long-term range in 2017, with the company’s growth somewhat higher. That helped Western Digital’s revenue increase 9.2 percent to $5.34 billion in its second quarter. Analysts on average had expected revenue of $5.30 billion. Western Digital posted a net loss of $823 million, compared with a profit of $235 million last year, due to a $1.6 billion charge related to new US tax laws.

Before we get into the speculation, let's start with the facts – bitcoin has been declared dead more than 200 times. Despite the fact that the world's first cryptocurrency has operated with near-100 percent uptime (for almost 10 years), it's still fashionable to predict its demise. Even supposedly smart people are known for propagating something I'll call "bitcoin derangement syndrome." They keep predicting bitcoin's demise even though they are daily proven wrong. But if we assume that these individuals possess a level of intelligence, the only explanation for the failed predictions and emotional arguments is that they never take the time to study and understand how the system works. In this way, I'd like to help by listing all the possible ways bitcoin could be destroyed. Technically speaking, bitcoin will live as long as a handful of computers run the bitcoin software on a network. Only one extreme scenario would lead to annihilation. It is likely then that it will still be the top cryptocurrency in the coming years, unless the community destroys itself due to greed or carelessness. Scenario 1: Armageddon Likelihood (next 5 years): Close to zero Impact: Sudden death If all sources of electricity, internet and data communications were shut down across the planet, bitcoin nodes would not be able to contact each other. The system would be useless. A temporary worldwide internet shutdown would certainly create confusion among the bitcoin community, but it's important to note that the system would (theoretically) just start again from the longest chain. Even if hardcore fans or museums continue to run its software forever, bitcoin will never technically be extinct. Scenario 2: Critical bug Likelihood (next 5 years): Low Potential impact: Sudden irrelevance In this scenario, a bitcoin update could contain a bug on the level of the infamous DAO project (built on the ethereum blockchain), one that puts the integrity of the system at risk. Even if the community agreed (which is not guaranteed) to fix the code, to install the new version and to restart the system, it would certainly lead to a crash of the price and a fork. The bitcoin community is aware of the risk: any modification to the code is peer-reviewed and tested, in accordance to the contribution guidelines. That being said, only the NASA is able to produce software code with zero defect. Scenario 3: Forked to irrelevance Likelihood (next 5 years): Low Potential impact: Slow irrelevance Bitcoin can be forked multiples times if the community disagrees on the path forward, for technical reasons (or "because money"). The Bitcoin Cash split, which occurred last summer, was not that harmful for bitcoin because it saw the network's nodes and hash power decline. Theoretically, several splits could happen in which this network was further fragmented and its power reduced. Should this occur, I believe bitcoin would lose its dominance, slowly sinking into irrelevance. Again, it is the interest of the community to not let this happen. Scenario 4: Joint government crackdown Likelihood (next 5 years): Medium-to-low Potential impact: Sudden irrelevance Governments cannot destroy bitcoin itself because of its decentralized nature. However, they can control and restrict its use in their jurisdiction. For instance, they can have the bank accounts of crypto companies closed, and they can forbid the creation of any and all related businesses. If only a handful of countries ban cryptocurrencies, the impact will be limited because businesses will simply move to friendlier jurisdictions. This is exactly what happened after China banned its domestic order-book exchanges last year. And while the likelihood that one or more governments will go after bitcoin in the same way is almost assured, I think a global ban is almost impossible (imagine the United Nations reaching such a consensus). Besides, bitcoin is already legal in Japan. If the US, EU, UK and China jointly banned cryptocurrencies, that would be very damaging. However, it is more likely that they will regulate the cryptocurrency market to collect tax revenues while protecting individual investors. Scenario 5: Major hack Likelihood (next 5 years): Medium-to-high Potential impact: Temporary crash This scenario could occur in a few different ways. In the first, called a 51 percent attack, a malicious network actor could attempt to hack the protocol itself. This is theoretically possible, but its likelihood is very low. From the inside, the 51 percent attackers would destroy their own source of profit. From the outside, it would require enormous investment in mining equipment and energy, and again the attacker’s source of profit would crash. More likely is a hack then on an application built on top of the protocol. When Mt. Gox was hacked back in 2014 (an example of this attack), it was handling 70 percent of all bitcoin transactions. Today, there are many more exchanges around the world. If one of them was hacked and a large amount of bitcoin stolen, the price would likely crash, but bitcoin would probably recover. Recently, for example, $400 million worth of NEM was stolen from the exchange Coincheck: the price of NEM only went down by 15 to 20 percent and recovered in one day. Scenario 6: "Better" cryptocurrency Likelihood (next 5 years): Medium-to-low Potential impact: Slow irrelevance Is it possible for a "better" currency to replace bitcoin? (By "better," I mean more profitable to mine and with lower transaction costs for users, everything else being equal.) Let's face it: this is more about economics and less about convenience. That cryptocurrency would have to be much "better" to overcome the network effect and brand capital from which bitcoin benefits today. The fact that it has not happened yet is telling. Besides, for governance and economic reasons (not a technical problem), a "universal" UN-backed cryptocurrency isn't likely to happen within five years. There is another way economics could play out: if the price of electricity went up very significantly, mining could become unprofitable. Only large pools where electricity is relatively cheaper would remain. This is a tough cost-security trade-off. Bitcoin would have to find a way to lower the cost of security while maintaining the integrity of the ledger. Scenario 7: Market fatigue Likelihood (next 5 years): Low Potential impact: Slow irrelevance If crypto startups fail to deliver any tangible value in the real world, people could slowly start to lose faith in cryptocurrencies and tokens. (Something that arguably happened during the bear market of 2015 and 2016). In this case, the growth of the market could slow down and its value eventually stabilize. The crypto market would lose its attractiveness from an investment point of view, leading to further decline and so forth… Personally, I do believe that some crypto startups will eventually create value in the real world. In any case, the crypto market is still nascent and we still have time until it gets boring. As history has shown also, the market is always capable of bouncing back.

RUSSIAN opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been arrested in Moscow as protest demonstrations called by him took place across the country. Mr Navalny called on supporters to continue the demonstrations despite his arrest overnight. He said on Twitter “they have detained me. This doesn’t mean anything ... you didn’t come out for me, but for your future.” Protests ranging from a few dozen to several hundred people were reported throughout the country. Mr Navalny called for a boycott of the March 18 presidential election in which President Vladimir Putin is seeking a fourth term. Police earlier raided Mr Navalny’s Moscow office. A video stream on Sunday morning from the opposition leader’s headquarters showed police entering the office. One broadcaster on the stream said police apparently were using a grinder to try to get access to the broadcast studio. The anchors said police said they had come because of a bomb threat. One anchor, Dmitri Nizovtsev, was detained by police during the raid, according to video broadcast by the headquarters. Mr Navalny’s Moscow co-ordinator, Nikolai Lyaskin, also was detained on Sunday, the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. Mr Navalny, who has been blocked from running in Russia’s March 18 presidential election, called for nationwide protests on Sunday. Aside from Moscow and St Petersburg, sizeable gatherings were also reported on Sunday in the Far East and Siberia, including one in remote Yakutsk where the temperature reportedly was minus -45C.

A research organisation funded by German carmakers sponsored scientific experiments testing nitrogen dioxide, a gas found in exhaust fumes, on people, German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung said. The European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector, EUGT, commissioned the study, the paper said. Reuters could not immediately confirm the details of the study and a representative for EUGT, which was dissolved last year, could not be reached for comment. The research organisation received its funding from German carmakers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. The purpose and outcome of the study remain unclear but revelations about experiments involving people come as the auto industry faces bans of toxic diesel vehicles from inner cities following revelations in 2015 that Volkswagen manipulated emissions on diesel-engined cars. Stuttgarter Zeitung said around 25 healthy young people inhaled nitrogen dioxide in varying doses over a period of hours at an institute belonging to Aachen University in Germany. The impact of the gas on people could not be determined when the study was published in 2016, Stuttgarter Zeitung said. Daimler on Sunday condemned the studies, done by the same research body which sponsored another experiment forcing monkeys to inhale toxic exhaust fumes from a polluting diesel Volkswagen equipped with illegal software. “We are appalled by the extent of the studies and their implementation. We condemn the experiments in the strongest terms. Even though Daimler did not have influence on the study’s design, we have launched a comprehensive investigation into the matter,” Daimler said in a statement on Sunday. The New York Times on Friday said the scientific study involving monkeys was conducted in 2014. BMW, Daimler and VW have condemned the emissions experiments involving monkeys. The New York Times said EUGT had commissioned a study to defend the use of diesel after the World Health Organisation said the fuel’s exhaust fumes were carcinogenic.

President Donald Trump’s national security team is looking at options to counter the threat of China spying on U.S. phone calls that include the government building a super-fast 5G wireless network, a senior administration official said on Sunday. The official, confirming the gist of a report from Axios.com, said the option was being debated at a low level in the administration and was six to eight months away from being considered by the president himself. The 5G network concept is aimed at addressing what officials see as China’s threat to U.S. cyber security and economic security. The Trump administration has taken a harder line on policies initiated by predecessor Barack Obama on issues ranging from Beijing’s role in restraining North Korea to Chinese efforts to acquire U.S. strategic industries. Earlier this month, AT&T was forced to scrap a plan to offer its customers handsets built by China’s Huawei after some members of Congress lobbied against the idea with federal regulators, sources said. In 2012, Huawei and ZTE Corp were the subject of a U.S. investigation into whether their equipment provided an opportunity for foreign espionage and threatened critical U.S. infrastructure. Some members of the House intelligence committee remain troubled by security threats posed by Huawei and ZTE, according to a congressional aide. Issues raised in a 2012 committee report about the Chinese firms have “never subsided,” the aide said, adding that there was newer classified intelligence that recently resurfaced those concerns. “We want to build a network so the Chinese can’t listen to your calls,” the senior official said. “We have to have a secure network that doesn’t allow bad actors to get in. We also have to ensure the Chinese don’t take over the market and put every non-5G network out of business.” Major wireless carriers have spent billions of dollars buying spectrum to launch 5G networks, and it is unclear if the U.S. government would have enough spectrum to build its own 5G network. Furthermore, Accenture has estimated that wireless operators will invest as much as $275 billion in the United States over seven years as they build out 5G. Last year, T-Mobile US Inc spent $8 billion and Dish Network Corp $6.2 billion to win the bulk of broadcast airwaves spectrum for sale in a government auction. An AT&T spokesman said they could not comment on something they have not seen, and added: “Thanks to multi-billion dollar investments made by American companies, the work to launch 5G service in the United States is already well down the road.” Later this year, AT&T is set to be the first to launch mobile 5G service in 12 U.S. locations, the spokesman said. A Verizon spokesman declined to comment. Representatives for Sprint and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Another option includes having a 5G network built by a consortium of wireless carriers, the U.S. official said. “We want to build a secure 5G network and we have to work with industry to figure out the best way to do it,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Axios published documents it said were from a presentation from a National Security Council official. If the government built the network, it would rent access to carriers, Axios said. A looming concern laid out in the presentation was China’s growing presence in the manufacture and operation of wireless networks. A concerted government push could help the U.S. compete on that front, according to the presentation. A 5G network is expected to offer significantly faster speeds, more capacity and shorter response times, which could be utilized for new technologies ranging from self-driving cars to remote surgeries. Telecom companies and their suppliers consider it to be a multibillion-dollar revenue opportunity.

AMANDA Knox is reportedly charging up to $12,000 per gig as she tours the US to give speeches on the Meredith Kercher murder case. According to The Sun, the 30-year-old, who has finally been cleared of the 2007 crime, says she was depicted as a “she-devil” during the protracted legal battle. British exchange student Meredith Kercher, 21, was murdered at the apartment she shared with Ms Knox in the Italian city of Perugia. Speaking on Wednesday night, Ms Knox said she had believed there was “light at the end of the tunnel,” she told an audience at Roanoke College in Virginia. “The nonsense spattered about me didn’t matter. I thought it just showed that it was a weak case. “I still believed there was a light at the end of the tunnel because the truth mattered,” The Roanoke Times reports her saying. Ms Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito faced charges of sexually assaulting, beating and slitting the throat of Ms Kercher. Ms Knox spent four years in jail, was twice convicted and twice exonerated of involvement in the killing, with the case thrown out for good by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015. Speaking candidly to the crowd on Wednesday night, she also addressed the notorious incident when she and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were captured kissing on camera. “I didn’t think ultimately that this would matter in a courtroom,” she said. “I didn’t see that train coming my way, because it never in my wildest nightmares occurred to me that I could be wrongfully convicted. “When the prosecution and media crafted their story, they created this doppelganger version of me to fit that story,” she said. This is not the first time Ms Knox has given the account of her journey, after publishing her biographical Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir in 2013. She now advertises her services as a speaker through the All American Speakers agency, where her fees are said to range between $6,000 and $12,000. One reviewer, Dina Finkelshtein from Windsor Law praised a “wonderful talk”, noting that “Amanda was not afraid or ashamed of being emotional during the keynote”. Speaking in Virginia, Ms Knox said: “Foxy Knoxy, she was the blank slate to which everyone could project their fears, their judgment and their uncertainties. “People really liked those stories: the ‘man eater,’ the ‘she-devil.’ And they convicted her. “If I’ve learned anything, you can’t uncover the truth by ignoring the messy reality, and the messy reality of our justice system is that it was filled by and implemented by flawed but mostly well-intentioned people.” Ms Knox, who now advocates for the wrongly convicted, added: “I want to do better. I want to acknowledge the truth. Because the question isn’t whether something bad is ever going to happen to you, it’s what you’re going to do with it.”

A WOMAN who rescued pets but left three adopted siblings to starve has been sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without parole. One of the children, 16-year-old Natalie Fiunn was so emaciated that she collapsed and died of a heart attack on the bathroom floor. The tragic teen, who was covered in bed sores, was wearing an adult nappy when she was found dead, officials told the court. Nicole Finn, 43, locked the siblings in a filthy single bedroom in her Iowa home before boarding up the windows when she caught them sneaking out to beg strangers for food. Finn adopted the children from foster care, removing them from public schools and locking them away as she starvd them, the Des Moines Register reports. In sentencing, Judge Karen Romano called Finn’s actions inexcusable and ordered her not to have any contact with the survunving children. “The court cannot imagine what kind of mental trauma these children have suffered,” Romano said. When Natalie became so malnourished she couldn’t stand, the monster stood above her and screamed “since you’re not going to get up, I’m not going to feed you”. The 16-year-old died in October 2016 from a cardiac arrest brought on by starvation. Horrified cops in Des Moines, Iowa, found the teen dead on the bathroom floor wearing just a soiled adult nappy. An autopsy revealed that she weighed just 38 kilograms at the time of death, and had no remaining body fat. Finn, 43, did not comment before her sentencing but said she would appeal the judge’s decision. She was convicted in December of first-degree murder and kidnapping in Natalie’s death and two counts of kidnapping for confining siblings Jaden, 15, and Mikayla, 14. Jaden told police how Nicole Finn forced them to drink from the toilet bowl — and only let them leave their filthy room twice in the summer before Natalie died. Police said the home reeked of human and animal waste and the furniture-less bedroom was soaked in urine. Detective Chris Morgan, from the West Des Moines police department, wrote in a report: “Many animals roamed freely, including well over a dozen kittens and cats. “There were numerous kennels with dogs scattered inside the residence.” When a social worker and police obtained a court order and finally entered the home in August 2016, Nicole was prepared and instructed the teens to shower and clean up. But the abuse continued after the authorities left. Nicole Finn’s ex-husband Joseph Finn, who helped her confine the children, faces multiple felony counts, including kidnapping and child endangerment, at a trial in April.

TOKYO-BASED cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc says it will return about 46.3 billion yen ($524 million) of the virtual money it lost to hackers two days ago in one of the biggest-ever thefts of digital money. That amounts to nearly 90 per cent of the 58 billion yen worth of NEM coins the company lost in an attack that forced it to suspend on Friday withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin. Coincheck said in a statement it would repay about 260,000 owners of NEM coins in Japanese yen, though it was still working on timing and method. The theft underscores security and regulatory concerns about bitcoin and other virtual currencies even as a global boom in them shows little signs of fizzling. Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Japan’s Financial Services Agency sent a notice to the country’s roughly 30 firms that operate virtual currency exchanges to warn of further possible cyber-attacks, urging them to step up security. The financial watchdog was also considering administrative punishment for Coincheck under the financial settlements law, one of the sources said. Japan started to require cryptocurrency exchange operators to register with the government only in April 2017. Pre-existing operators such as Coincheck have been allowed to continue offering services while awaiting approval. Coincheck’s application, submitted in September, is still pending. Coincheck told a late-Friday news conference that its NEM coins were stored in a “hot wallet” instead of the more secure “cold wallet”, outside the internet. Asked why, company President Koichiro Wada cited technical difficulties and a shortage of staff capable of dealing with them. World leaders meeting in Davos last week issued fresh warnings about the dangers of cryptocurrencies, with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin relating Washington’s concern about the money being used for illicit activity.

ACTRESS Nicole Eggert took to Twitter to allege that Scott Baio molested her when she was his 14-year-old co-star on Charles in Charge — sparking a heated online war of accusations and denials. “Ask @Scottbaio what happened in his garage at his house when I was a minor. Creep,” Eggert tweeted in the morning, starting their angry back-and-forth. The “Baywatch” star’s tweet came in response to Baio tweeting about supporting Donald Trump, The New York Post reports. “It started when I was 14,” Eggert tweeted. “Wasn’t a one-time deal.” Baio — who played college student Charles, caretaker to Eggert’s young character Jamie, eldest of the three Powell siblings in the 1980s sitcom — fired back, as did his wife, Renee. “Scott’s legal team has served u more than 2 cease & desist letters,” Renee wrote, tweeting as @MrSScottBaio. “I’m about to do a Facebook live,” Baio himself chimed in from @ScottBaio, “to prove her claims are 100% lies!” He then posted a 16-minute rebuttal. “The reason I’m doing Facebook Live is because no one can edit me … This is the truth.” He then complained that Eggert first made false molestation claims against him in 2012 — when she was promoting reality shows in which she was appearing — and he opted at the time to keep his “mouth shut,” assuming she’d stop on her own. Instead, he complained, she “just won’t let them go.” Eggert began teaming up against him last year with Charles in Charge co-star Alexander Polinsky, Baio complained. But Eggert has never taken her claims to the cops, he noted. “I don’t know what else to put out there,” Baio tells the camera at the end of the clip. “She’s my best friend in the world, then all of a sudden I’m the bogeyman,” Baio said of Eggert, apparently referencing her warm remarks about him during a 2012 interview with Yahoo. “I would love to work with him” again, Eggert told Yahoo of Baio. “There are a lot of weird, strange rumours about things that went on between us, but we became really good friends and everything is way more innocent than it was made out to be,” she said. “I would love to work with him again and I’m friends with his wife,” she added. Baio ended his video by calling Eggert’s accusations a matter of he said/she said. “The problem with almost all he said/she said cases is they’re he said/she said,” Baio told the camera. “Now go prove it or disprove it … the real problem with this is people with legitimate claims aren’t taken seriously, and that’s too bad.” Eggert has also claimed she lost her virginity to Baio at age 17.

IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, a farmer’s son turned multi-billionaire who revolutionised kit furniture, has died aged 91, leaving behind a global empire under investigation over its tax practices, the firm said overnight. Kamprad “passed away peacefully surrounded by his loved ones” at his home in the southern Swedish region of Smaland on Saturday “following a brief illness”, IKEA said in a statement. “The founder of IKEA and Ikano, and one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 20th century, Ingvar Kamprad, has peacefully passed away, at his home in Smaland, Sweden, on the 27th of January,” the company statement read. “(He) was a great entrepreneur of the typical southern Swedish kind — hardworking and stubborn, with a lot of warmth and a playful twinkle in his eye. Ingvar will be very missed and warmly remembered by his family and IKEA colleagues around the world.” “We are deeply saddened by Ingvar’s passing. We will remember his dedication and commitment to ordinary people,” Torbjorn Loof, CEO and president of Inter IKEA Group, continued. “Ingvar Kamprad was a unique entrepreneur who has meant a lot for Swedish business and who has made home furnishing available for many people, not just the few,” Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told TT news agency. The company has long been the world’s largest furniture retailer with 412 stores across 49 countries. EARLY LIFE Born in 1926 to a farming family in Smaland, Kamprad, whose 2017 fortune was estimated at A$60 billion according to the Swiss economic magazine Bilan, founded the company in 1943 at the age of 17 and sold replicas of his uncle Ernst’s kitchen table. The name came from his initials, IK, with an E for Elmtaryd, the family farm where he grew up, and an A for Agunnaryd, his home village. He came up with the idea of flat-packed furniture when he was trying to fit a table into the boot of his car. In 1947 the young Kamprad started selling furniture made by local artisans, and four years later he began putting out the first of his mail order catalogues — which now have an annual print run of 200 million copies in 33 languages. IKEA’s revolutionary self-assembly model — which would cut transport and storage costs — was conceived in 1956 after an employee suggested table legs be removed so the package would fit into a car. His early success came from squeezing prices to undercut established competitors. Two years later Kamprad opened IKEA’s first store in Almhult, south of his hometown. From 1970, IKEA conquered major markets in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, thriving on the spending power of the emerging middle class in countries like post-Cold War Russia. The IKEA group now has 403 stores across every continent, employs 190,000 people worldwide and generates annual sales of A$60 billion. CAREER MARKED BY CONTROVERSY Kamprad faced harsh criticism in the past for his ties to the Nazi youth movement during World War II. Sweden was neutral during the war, but its Nazi party remained active after 1945. But Kamprad said he stopped attending its meetings in 1948, later attributing the period to the “folly of youth”, calling it “the greatest mistake of my life”. In 1994, Swedish newspaper Expressen reported that Mr Kamprad had contacts with Swedish fascist leader Per Engdahl in the 1940s and 1950s. In a letter to employees, he admitted that he once had sympathies for the far-right leader and called it “a part of my life which I bitterly regret”. He also faced questions about his past again in 2011 after author Elisabeth Asbrink said he had been an active recruiter for a Swedish Nazi group. She also claimed he remained close to sympathisers well after the Second World War. In 1973 he fled Sweden’s higher tax structure for Denmark before seeking even lower taxes in Switzerland. Kamprad announced in 2013 that he would be stepping down from the board of Inter IKEA, owner of the furniture giant’s concept and brand, and his youngest son became chairman. The IKEA founder returned to Sweden the following year. The European Commission announced last year that it had launched an investigation into IKEA’s tax deals in the Netherlands. The Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2014 cited leaked tax files from Luxembourg when it identified Ikea as one of the giant multinationals fingered for corporate tax avoidance by shuffling money to tax havens. The group insists that it complies fully with national and international tax regulations. LEGENDARY FRUGALITY Kamprad, who was once listed as the world’s fourth richest man, is renowned for his frugality. He once admitted to purchasing his clothes from flea markets and thrift shops, driving an aging Volvo, and bringing a lunch box to work. “If you look at me, I think I do not wear anything that was not bought at a flea market, I want to set a good example,” Kamprad told Swedish broadcaster TV4 in 2016. The billionaire also took discount flights and furnished his modest house almost entirely with Ikea items — which he assembled himself. His eagerness to save money extended to his visits to London, where he shunned taxis and preferred to use the Tube or buses. He once took a bus to a gala evening to collect a businessman of the year award — prompting security to refuse to let him in. THE IKEA LEGACY News of Kamprad’s death was shared on Twitter with many users celebrating his global empire, but expressing humour about its ultimate legacy: flat-packed, self-assembled furniture, that while sometimes frustrating to put together, did yield some classic designs. “His legacy will be admired for many years to come and his vision — to create a better everyday life for the many people — will continue to guide and inspire us,” Jesper Brodin, CEO and president of the IKEA Group, said in the statement.