For decades France has had one of the most well-organized anti-advertising movements in the world, ranging from guerrilla protests with spray-cans to high-profile court cases. But now the boom in what is artfully called "digital-out-of-home advertising" -- eye-catching video screens dotted across urban areas, from train platforms to shopping centres -- has sparked a new spate of French protests, civil disobedience and petitions. From a report: High tech video billboards are multiplying in city spaces across the world, woven into the fabric of everyday life, from ribbon videos down escalators on the London underground, to French metro corridors, New York taxis, bus-shelters, newspaper kiosks, and -- increasingly -- broadcast from shop windows onto the street. They are becoming more sophisticated and interactive, with the potential to collect data from passersby; increasingly bright and inescapable -- impossible to click off or block like you can online. But in France, there is fresh debate on how urban planners and local councils should limit them in the public space for the sake of our overloaded eyes and brains.

The trend to squeeze every bit of city downtime into an opportunity to place people in front of screen has become a political battle on the left. Francois Ruffin of the French left party, La France Insoumise, recently tabled a French parliamentary amendment to ban video ads above urinals and toilets. It was dubbed the "Pee in Peace" motion. Ruffin said he was horrified when standing at a Paris cafe urinal to be visually "assaulted" by a video advertising Uber, a bank, and the book and tech store Fnac. "Who doesn't enjoy that rare moment of calm: having a piss?" he wrote in the amendment, warning that since 2015, over 2,000 of the screens had "colonised" 1,200 urinals in 25 French towns.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Christmas season is in full swing, and if the newly-formed Christmas Tree Promotion Board is doing its job right, you'll want to buy a real tree. You'll crave the sweet aroma of sap and the soft lustre of real pine needles. You'll accept nothing less. The board is a government-backed marketing program that's devoted to protecting Christmas tree farmers against the threat posed by artificial trees, the industry's arch nemesis. The uber-seasonal industry group, based in Colorado, is focused on "increasing the value and demand for cut Christmas trees." And it has a state-mandated source of funding: by law, growers must pay $0.15 from every Christmas tree sold to the organization.

Some might describe the work of the quasi-government entity as Christmas tree propaganda, but Tim O'Connor, its executive director, doesn't see it that way. "Propaganda is often fiction. We have no fiction, just facts and the story of the Christmas tree," he said. The facts, as he likes to point out when given the chance: the Christmas tree industry's impact on local economies, and traditions surrounding the holiday plant. Among other things, the board aims to maintain profitability for the country's Christmas tree farmers, who a decade a ago confronted a serious oversupply problem as too many real trees were harvested and fake trees became more popular. Prices plummeted.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick will step down from the board, effective Dec. 31, and a spokesperson said Tuesday he has sold all of his stock in the ride-hailing company he co-founded 10 years ago. It's unclear how much Kalanick's total stake is worth, but the latest public filings show it's about $2.5 billion. In a statement Tuesday, Uber said Kalanick, 43, is leaving to "focus on his new business and philanthropic endeavors." Kalanick is launching latest venture, CloudKitchens, which rents out space to restaurateurs for delivery-based businesses. Uber did not say who will fill Kalanick's board seat. An Uber spokesperson said the ride-hailing company has "strong director candidates to put forward at the appropriate time." "Uber has been a part of my life for the past 10 years," Kalanick said in the release. "At the close of the decade, and with the company now public, it seems like the right moment for me to focus on my current business and philanthropic pursuits. I'm proud of all that Uber has achieved, and I will continue to cheer for its future from the sidelines. I want to thank the board, Dara and the entire Uber team for everything they have done to further the Uber mission."

Uber is joining forces with California-based aerospace company Joby Aviation to launch urban air-taxi services in select locations by 2023. The Verge reports: Joby is the brainchild of inventor JoeBen Bevirt, who started the company in 2009. The company operated in relative obscurity until 2018, when Joby announced it had raised a surprising $100 million from a variety of investors, including the venture capital arms of Intel, Toyota, and JetBlue. The money helped finance development of the company's air taxi prototype, which has been conducting test flights at Joby's private airfield in Northern California.

Unlike the dozens of other companies that are currently building electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, Joby has kept much of its project under wraps. The few renderings that are out there show a plane-drone hybrid with 12 rotors and room in the cabin for four passengers, though a spokesperson previously cautioned that what Joby is working on now is "entirely new." The company has yet to provide any recent photographs or images of its prototype aircraft. [...] Uber says that it has signed a multiyear commercial contract with Joby to "launch a fast, reliable, clean and affordable urban air taxi service in select markets." Neither company disclosed the terms of the deal, nor would they comment on whether there was any money exchanged. The report notes that Joby "will supply and operate the electric air taxies, and Uber will provide air traffic control help, landing pad construction, connections to ground transportation, and, of course, its ride-share network reconfigured to allow customers to hail flying cars rather than regular, terrestrial ones."

A New York judge ruled on Monday that a state law designed to control how much time ride-hailing drivers can spend looking for passengers was "arbitrary and capricious." Engadget reports: Had the law gone into effect, it would have limited the amount of time Uber and Lyft drivers could spend searching for passengers in Manhattan south of 96th Street to 31 percent of their overall drive time, down from 41 percent. When it passed the rule this summer, the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission said it was an attempt to reduce traffic congestion in New York's busiest borough where cars driven by Uber and Lyft contractors, along with yellow cabs, can make up as much of 50 percent of traffic.

When Uber challenged the law in September, it said it would threaten the livelihood and flexibility of drivers. In advance of the law going into effect in February 2020, both Uber and Lyft had limited access to their apps, locking local drivers out at certain times and areas of the city. In his ruling, New York State Supreme Court judge Lyle Frank criticized the city for its 31 percent target, saying it provided "scant rationale" for it.

Since 2003 Vox Media has been covering California's sports on its SB Nation blogs largely with independent contractors. But they're making big changes to comply with a new California law targetting companies in the gig economy, according to the Los Angeles Times: Vox Media will end contracts with about 200 people, including non-California freelancers who cover teams based in the state, and replace them with 20 new part-time and full-time staffers, according to a source familiar with the decision... In a memo to 2,000 SB Nation contractors scattered across the country -- most of whom will not be affected by the changes -- Ness explained that, under the law, California freelance writers can maintain their status as independent contractors only if they submit no more than 35 pieces per year. Given the pace of sports blogging, many of the writers producing work for SB Nation's California blogs would easily hit that benchmark, the source said. Ness wrote in the memo that California contractors were encouraged to apply for full-time or part-time positions. For those who do not snag a job but want to keep contributing, Ness wrote that "they need to understand they will not be paid for future contributions."

The changes will also affect Curbed and Eater, two other Vox Media sites that employ a handful of freelancers in the state...

AB 5 was hailed as a victory by many Uber, Lyft and DoorDash workers who have protested slashed wages and arbitrary terminations, but it has brought fear for some who worry the law means they will have less flexibility in the hours they can work and restrict their ability to work for multiple platforms... Freelancers also have voiced fears that AB 5 will discourage employers from hiring Californians to avoid additional paperwork and legal liabilities that come with the law, and smaller newspapers and websites may not have the resources to convert freelancers to staff members.

jmcbain writes: In a blog post last week, Dan Amman, the CEO of Cruise Automation (General Motors' electric self-driving car division), laments the pollution, waste of space, accidents, and cost of cars as we know them today. He says "here we are, living in a state of cognitive dissonance with exactly this — the human-driven, gasoline-powered, single-occupant car — as our primary mode of transportation." He notes that public transportation is still useful but ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft are only contributing to the problem. He says the only way moving forward is self-driving cars.
Amman argues in our current system, "Most of the time, the equipment will sit unused, occupying prime real estate and driving up housing costs." And in addition,"If you're young, old, or living with a disability, then you can't use it."

He also points out that traffic accidents are still the leading cause of death for 5- to 29-year olds, and concludes that ultimately "the status quo of transportation is broken."

The venture capital firm First Round Capital conducts an annual "State of Startups" survey that gets passed around widely in Silicon Valley. Its 2019 findings, published this week, are grim. From a report: Over two-thirds of startup founders, more than ever before, believe that we are in a tech "bubble." Sixty-five percent of founders believe that it's going to be harder for them to raise money next year, up 20 percent from last year's survey. Across the country on Wall Street, there are those who share these entrepreneurs' new pessimism. In a note, Bank of America's research division suggested that recent shifts in the market could produce a lot of pain and "volatility" in the coming year.

Let's call it the "WeWork effect." For some context, new companies, especially startups from Silicon Valley, were able to raise substantially more money from private investors in the past decade than they were in previous years. This continued to be the case even as these companies, like Uber and WeWork, got bigger and bigger, approaching the size at which they'd traditionally need make a public stock offering in order to raise the necessary cash to keep growing. As Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine frequently says, "private markets are the new public markets," meaning that these companies are able to tap the same kinds of large investors as they would if they were publicly-traded without actually going public.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: In 2017, a former Uber employee wrote a public essay describing how the ride-hailing company had permitted sexual harassment to fester at the workplace. The revelations led to an outcry over Uber's toxic culture. Federal authorities and others began investigations into the company. More than 20 employees were later fired over their part in the behavior. And the disclosures raised questions about Uber's growth-at-all-costs mentality, resulting in the ousting of Travis Kalanick, a co-founder and then the chief executive.

On Wednesday, Uber resolved one investigation into its workplace culture (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has been examining the company since 2017, said it had "found reasonable cause to believe that Uber permitted a culture of sexual harassment and retaliation against individuals who complained about such harassment." Uber said it had agreed to a settlement with the agency by establishing a $4.4 million fund to pay current and former employees who were sexually harassed at work. It also agreed to three years of monitoring by a former agency commissioner to ensure that it changes its practices. "The company remains under investigation by the Justice Department over a tool it created to help it evade scrutiny by law enforcement authorities," the report adds. "It is also the subject of a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission over its privacy practices until 2038."

"Uber's stock market value fell by $1.4 billion Friday, on the heels of the company's release of a safety report revealing that 3,000 incidents of sexual assaults took place during its U.S. rides in 2018," reports the Bay Area News Group: On Thursday evening, Uber released its long-awaited safety study, which revealed that the company received 3,045 reports of sexual assaults in its rides in 2018, and 2,936 such incidents in 2017. Those figures included 235 reports of rape in 2018, up from 229 in 2017, and thousands of other assaults ranging from unwanted touching, kissing or attempted rape. Between 2017 and 2018, the company said it averaged about 3.1 million rides in the U.S. each day.

Uber is not the only ride-hailing company grappling with safety issues, though. Earlier Thursday, its top rival, Lyft, was sued by 20 women alleging they were raped or sexually assaulted by Lyft drivers.

In a statement on Twitter following the safety report's release Thursday, Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi pledged to take further measures to protect the safety of both passengers and drivers.
The editorial boards of two Silicon Valley newspapers said the report seems to be an attempt "to confront legitimate problems head-on and transparently," asking how the figures compare to those for taxicabs and applauding Uber for instituting tighter background checks on drivers and adding more safety features to Uber's app.

"But it also must acknowledge that these safety issues should have been anticipated. Entrepreneurs aren't doing themselves -- or their industry -- any favors when they fail to anticipate problems and only act on consumer issues after the fact."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Uber faced a blow on Monday when London regulators refused to renew the ride-hailing company's operating permit because of safety concerns. The biggest issue lawmakers cited was drivers using false identities as they ferried unsuspecting passengers. At least 14,000 trips were made by unauthorized drivers, according to city regulator Transport for London. The way it worked is this: A number of drivers would share one account, and whenever one of them went out to drive, they'd upload their own photo to fool passengers. The unauthorized drivers were able to pose as vetted, licensed and insured, when often they weren't. Turns out, the issue of fraudulent Uber drivers isn't isolated to London.

Instances of unauthorized drivers, including convicted felons, being on the Uber app have surfaced in other cities, including San Francisco, Houston and Boston. Sometimes drivers reportedly used another person's license and Social Security number to sign up for the ride-hailing service. Other times they used fake names. And on some occasions they bought bogus identities on the internet. "For bad actors, it's not hard to circumvent Uber's signup process since it's designed to get drivers onboarded as quickly as possible and with as little hassle as possible," said Harry Campbell, a ride-hail driver who runs the popular Rideshare Guy blog. "From time to time, Uber uses a 'selfie check' to verify the driver, but it's not clear how accurate this method is."

Uber has lost its license to operate in London, one of its biggest markets globally, with a local transport regulator reaffirming a previous claim that Uber is not a "fit and proper" operator. From a report: The regulator also found that Uber's systems are "easily manipulated" by unauthorized drivers. The announcement follows a two-year battle with Transport for London (TfL) that kicked off back in September 2017, when the local transport regulator ruled that Uber failed to take sufficient "corporate responsibility" when it came to safety and security. Concerns included its approach to reporting crimes and its process for driver background checks. Although TfL conceded that Uber has since made some "positive changes," the regulator identified a continued "pattern of failures," including "breaches that placed passengers and their safety at risk." "As the regulator of private hire services in London, we are required to make a decision today on whether Uber is fit and proper to hold a licence," said Helen Chapman, TfL's director of licensing, regulation, and charging. "Safety is our absolute top priority. While we recognize Uber has made improvements, it is unacceptable that Uber has allowed passengers to get into minicabs with drivers who are potentially unlicensed and uninsured."

This week America's National Transportation Safety Board presented its findings on the fatal 2018 crash of a Uber test robocar with a pedestrian in Arizona. Forbes reports: The NTSB's final determination of probable cause put primary blame on the safety driver's inattention. Contributory causes were Uber's lack of safety culture, poor monitoring of safety drivers, and lack of countermeasures for automation complacency. They put tertiary blame on the pedestrian's impaired crossing of the road, and the lack of good regulations at the Arizona and Federal levels... When it comes to human fault, the report noted that [pedestrian] Herzberg had a "high concentration of methamphetamine" (more than 10 times the medicinal dose) in her blood which would alter her perception. She also had some marijuana residue. She did not look to her right at the oncoming vehicle until 1 second before the crash.

There was also confirmation that the safety driver had indeed pulled out a cell phone and was streaming a TV show on it, looking down at it 34% of the time during her driving session, with a full 5 second "glance" from 6 to 1 seconds prior to the impact. While Uber recorded videos of safety drivers, they never reviewed those of this driver to learn that she was violating the policy against cell phone use. She had received no reprimands, and driven this stretch of road 73 times before... Had the vehicle operator been attentive, she would likely have had sufficient time to detect and react to the crossing pedestrian to avoid the crash or mitigate the impact. The vehicle operator's prolonged visual distraction, a typical effect of automation complacency, led to her failure to detect the pedestrian in time to avoid the collision. The Uber Advanced Technologies Group did not adequately recognize the risk of automation complacency and develop effective countermeasures to control the risk of vehicle operator disengagement, which contributed to the crash... The detrimental effect of the company's ineffective oversight was exacerbated by its decision to remove the second vehicle operator during testing of the automated driving system...

Most notably, they do not attribute the technology failures as causes of the crash. This is a correct cause ruling -- all tested vehicles, while generally better than Uber's, have flaws which would lead to a crash with a negligent safety driver, and to blame those flaws would be to blame the idea of testing this way at all.
Forbes also notes the report criticizes Arizona's "shortcomings" in safeguarding the public because of the state's lack of a safety-focused application-approval process for automated driving system testing.

The article adds that today Uber "is only doing very limited testing -- just a one mile loop around their HQ limited to 25 miles per hour."

For several months, some Uber passengers in Texas have been recorded on video as they have been driven to their destinations. The video has been stored online and could have been reviewed by members of Uber's safety staff if the driver had reported a problem with the passenger. From a report: The video recordings are part of a broad initiative at the ride-hailing company to capture more objective data about what happens inside vehicles during Uber trips, where disputes between riders and drivers often play out without witnesses. Uber has experienced years of complaints about the safety of its riders and drivers, who are often left to sort out episodes without the help of the company, and it has settled lawsuits claiming that it does not do enough to protect passengers. But as Uber increases the practice of recording drivers and passengers, the company is facing new privacy pressures. "Uber already has this treasure trove of highly personal data about people," said Camille Fischer, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "When you pair surveillance during those trips, whether it's over the driver or over the passenger, you are getting a more fine-tuned snapshot of people's daily lives." Uber began the video recording program in Texas in July, and is conducting smaller tests of the program in Florida and Tennessee. In November, it announced a similar effort in Brazil and Mexico to allow riders and drivers to record audio during a trip.

A study published last week analyzed ridesharing's effects on binge drinking and found that it increased heavy drinking by around 20% and increased employment at bars and restaurants by an average of 2%. The Economist reports: A new study by three economists -- Jacob Burgdorf and Conor Lennon of the University of Louisville, and Keith Teltser of Georgia State University -- finds that the widespread availability of ride-sharing apps has indeed made it easier for the late-night crowd to binge. By matching data on Uber's availability with health surveys from America's Centers for Disease Control, the authors find that on average alcohol consumption rose by 3%, binge drinking -- where a person downs four or five drinks in two hours -- increased by 8%, and heavy drinking -- defined as three or more instances of binge drinking in a month -- surged by 9% within a couple of years of the ride-hailing company coming to town. Increases were even higher in cities without public transport, where the presence of Uber led average drinking to rise by 5% and instances of binge drinking to go up by around 20%. (Heavy drinking still rose by 9%.) Remarkably, excessive drinking was actually declining before Uber's appearance, giving further evidence that the firm's arrival affected behavior.

If people are likelier to drink a lot, but less likely to drive drunk, it is hard to say what the overall public-health impact of ride-hailing firms has been. That said, there is one group of individuals who clearly benefit from the presence of Uber, Lyft and others: bartenders. Messrs Burgdorf, Lennon and Teltser find that employment at bars and restaurants increases by an average of 2% whenever Uber enters the market.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Uber will allow passengers and drivers in Brazil and Mexico to record audio of their rides as it attempts to improve its safety record and image, and eventually it hopes to launch the feature into other markets including the United States. The ride-hailing company plans to pilot the feature in cities in both countries in December, although it has no timeline for possible expansion in the US and other markets.

The feature will allow customers to opt into recording all or select trips. Recordings will be stored on the rider or driver's phone and encrypted to protect privacy, and users will not be able to listen to them. They can later share a recording with Uber, which will have an encryption key, if they want to report a problem. Whether the recording feature will deter violent behavior to help riders and drivers is unknown. But Uber stands to benefit because the recordings could help the company mitigate losses and rein in liability for incidents that flare up between drivers and passengers.

New Jersey's labor department says Uber owes the state about $650 million in unemployment and disability insurance taxes because the rideshare company has been misclassifying drivers as independent contractors. Bloomberg Law News reports: Uber and subsidiary Rasier LLC were assessed $523 million in past-due taxes over the last four years, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development said in a pair of letters to the companies. The rideshare businesses also are on the hook for as much as $119 million in interest and penalties on the unpaid amounts, according to other internal department documents. The New Jersey labor department has been after Uber for unpaid employment taxes for at least four years, according to the documents, which Bloomberg Law obtained through an open public records request.

The state's determination is limited to unemployment and disability insurance, but it could also mean that Uber is required to pay drivers minimum wages and overtime under state law. Uber's costs per driver, and those of Lyft, could jump by more than 20% if they are forced to reclassify workers as employees, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. [...] New Jersey informed Uber in 2015 that it had obtained a court judgment ordering the company to pay about $54 million in overdue unemployment and temporary disability insurance contributions. It is not clear whether the company ever paid any of that bill. "We are challenging this preliminary but incorrect determination, because drivers are independent contractors in New Jersey and elsewhere," Uber spokeswoman Alix Anfang told Bloomberg Law.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told "Axios on HBO" that the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was "a mistake" by the Saudi government, and then he compared it to Uber's self driving accident in which a woman died. From a report: An hour later, Khosrowshahi called Axios to express regret for the language he used. The next day he sent the following statement: "I said something in the moment that I do not believe. When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused."

Masayoshi Son is finally disclosing the damage from SoftBank Group's bets on WeWork and Uber. From a report: The Japanese investment powerhouse on Wednesday reported its first quarterly operating loss in 14 years -- about $6.5 billion -- after writing down the value of a string of marquee investments. It swallowed a charge of 497.7 billion yen ($4.6 billion) for WeWork, whose spectacular implosion turned the once high-flying shared-office startup into a Silicon Valley punchline. The losses call into question the billionaire founder Son's deal-making approach just as he's trying to raise an even larger successor to his $100 billion Vision Fund. The investment vehicle had been a driver of profit growth at SoftBank, contributing over $14 billion in mostly paper gains over the past two years. Now, the shrinking valuation of Uber and WeWork, once among the brightest stars in the SoftBank constellation, raises the prospects of more writedowns in the Vision Fund's portfolio with its high exposure to businesses that prioritize growth over profitability.

Uber's autonomous test vehicles were involved in 37 crashes in the 18 months before a fatal March 2018 self-driving car accident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Tuesday. Reuters reports: The board said between September 2016 and March 2018, there were 37 crashes of Uber vehicles in autonomous mode at the time, including 33 that involved another vehicle striking test vehicles. In one incident, the test vehicle struck a bent bicycle lane bollard that partially occupied the test vehicle's lane of travel. In another incident, the operator took control to avoid a rapidly approaching oncoming vehicle that entered its lane of travel. The vehicle operator steered away and struck a parked car. The NTSB will hold a probable cause hearing on the crash Nov. 19. A spokeswoman for Uber's self-driving car division said the company has "adopted critical program improvements to further prioritize safety. We deeply value the thoroughness of the NTSB's investigation into the crash and look forward to reviewing their recommendations."

Bloomberg is also reporting that Uber's self-driving test car wasn't programmed to recognize and react to jawalkers. The report said "the system design did not include a consideration for jaywalking pedestrians." [Elaine Herzberg, the 49-year-old pedestrian that was struck by one of Uber's self-driving cars] was crossing the road outside of a crosswalk.