SonicSpike quotes a report from the Foundation for Economic Education that first appeared at Forbes: Imagine traveling from Boston to Martha's Vineyard in under an hour and for less than $70. Believe it or not, this option was available from Flytenow's website or app, by looking for a general aviation pilot who was making that trip, and then splitting the cost with that pilot and whoever else was sharing the flight. Entrepreneurs were bringing private air travel to the masses until Flytenow's leadership met with members of the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure that they were complying with all laws and regulations. Instead of embracing this service, the FAA used tortuous logic to ban Flytenow and other online flight-sharing websites because it considered these to be "common carriers" (such as Delta Airlines). Private pilots cannot possibly comply with the myriad regulations that apply to the large airlines. In what follows, Flytenow founders Alan Guichard and Matt Voska explain why the federal government should make the FAA allow flight sharing to get off the ground.

An anonymous reader writes: Ride-hailing giant Uber announced Wednesday that it had closed $3.5 billion in new funding from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund in an effort to shift the country's reliance on oil revenue. Also part of the deal, Public Investment Fund managing director Yasir Al Rumayyan will join Uber's board. The funding will not affect Uber's valuation of $62.5 billion. The company has said in the past that it plans to invest $250 million in the Middle East, where it currently operates in 15 cities across nine countries. Last week, Uber formed a "strategic partnership" with Toyota to provide its drivers with more affordable car purchase and lease terms.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Toyota and Uber are forming a "strategic partnership" which will include an investment by the Japanese automaker in the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company. Under the agreement, Uber drivers can lease their vehicles from Toyota and cover their payments through earnings generated as Uber drivers. Toyota says it will invest an undisclosed sum in Uber, which is already the most valuable technology startup in the world. A partnership between Toyota and Uber could help the ride-sharing company solve a lingering question surrounding its self-driving ambitions, namely where its going to get a fleet of cars to equip with its autonomous technology. Toyota, which is the world's largest car manufacturer, is taking self-driving technology very seriously. It recently established the Toyota Research Institute to develop AI technologies in two main areas: autonomous cars and robot helpers for around the home. Last month, Google, Ford, Volvo, Lyft and Uber joined a coalition to help spur the development of self-driving cars, ultimately to make them arrive to the market faster. Meanwhile, Apple made an investment in Uber's Chinese rival Didi.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BGR: According to a new report from The Information, Apple is finally ready to let Siri grow up. Specifically, the publication relays that Apple will finally offer official Siri APIs to developers, thus paving the way for third-party integrations, the kind that Amazon Echo users can't seem to get enough of. Things like ordering an Uber or pizza are currently impossible, because Siri is locked down by Apple. What's more, Apple is also reportedly working on a standalone device meant to compete with the Amazon Echo and Google's recently unveiled Google Home. If that's true, it's huge news -- Apple has been lacking any kind of smart home hub until now, but a Siri-powered device would be a serious play to get Apple into our homes. Google is the latest tech giant to announce a virtual home assistant. It unveiled Google Home, a small round gadget with microphones and speakers that listen and respond to your questions and commands.

An anonymous reader writes: Uber has figured out exactly when you are more likely to pay double or triple the cost of your ride: when your phone battery is low. Uber's head of economic research, Keith Chen, recently told NPR on an episode of The Hidden Brain podcast that people are willing to accept up to 9.9 times surge pricing if their phones are about to go dead. Data about user batteries is collected because the app uses that information to know when to switch into low-power mode. The idea being: If you really need to get where you're going, you'll pay just about anything (or at least 9.9 times anything) to ensure you're getting a ride home and won't be stranded. A person with a more fully charged device has time to wait and see if the surge pricing goes down.The company insists that it won't use this information against you.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by Buffett, disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday that it purchased more than 9.8 million shares in Apple during the first quarter. It marks Berkshire's first investment in Apple. Berkshire acquired its position at an average price of about $109 a share. Apple's stock price has since fallen to just above $90, meaning that Berkshire's stake in Apple is now worth about $888 million. The Apple purchase is the second big tech investment by Berkshire, which has been steadily adding to its stake in IBM during the past few years. Until recently, Buffett had been famous for his lack of investments in the tech sector. But Apple fits perfectly in Buffett's wheelhouse. The company is a leader in its market and the stock is extremely cheap, trading for just 11 times this year's earnings estimates. Apple also has a pristine balance sheet, with $232.9 billion in cash. At the end of April, billionaire investor Carl Icahn sold his entire stake in Apple, citing the risk of China's influence on the stock. Last week, Didi, China's ride-sharing service and rival to Uber, announced Apple invested $1 billion in the company. There's been a lot of money shuffling taking place as of late as Apple tries to reinvigorate the market after it had its first earnings decline in more than a decade.

An anonymous reader shares a Slashgear article: Amazon has revealed a programmable Dash Button which can be assigned to any product or purpose, a customizable version of its one-touch reordering gadgets. The AWS IoT Button looks just like the existing Dash Buttons, which allow products from more than 100 brands to be ordered with a single tap -- no web browser required -- and delivered to a preset address, but is designed for developers and Internet of Things tinkerers to dig into. So, rather than having a new multipack of toilet rolls, or a fresh box of laundry detergent added to your shopping list, the AWS IoT Button could be used to trigger your lights, integrate with popular APIs from Twitter, Slack, Facebook, or others, or summon a car through Uber.It appears Amazon has already sold out its current batch.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple Inc. invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-sharing service Didi, making one of its biggest bets on software and services and dealing a blow to Uber Technologies Inc.'s ambitions in the country. The iPhone maker will help Uber's largest rival build up a ride-sharing platform that handles more than 11 million rides a day and serves about 300 million users across China, Didi said in a statement on Friday. Executive Officer Tim Cook has highlighted higher-margin services as a growth area and suggested he would use some of its $200 billion-plus cash hoard for investments. The investment in one of China's largest online companies will allow Apple to forge alliances in its single largest market outside of the United States. Didi, incorporated as Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc., is in the process of raising more than $2 billion at a valuation of about $25 billion, people familiar with the matter have said. It operates in 400 Chinese cities and works with more than 14 million Chinese car owners. The company is Uber's most potent rival and has formed an international coalition with Lyft Inc. in the U.S., India's Ola and Southeast Asia's Grab to fight the globally expanding San Francisco firm. Apple is hoping to reinvigorate lackluster iPhone sales in China with its $1 billion investment in Didi. The last big investment the company made was when it acquired Beats for $3 billion in 2014.

On Saturday voters in Austin, Texas refused to repeal a new regulation that requires fingerprinting drivers for ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft. In Austin's most expensive election ever, the ride-sharing services spent over $8.2 million pushing Proposition 1, apparently outspending their opponents by a 80:1 ratio. But on election day, the proposal to repeal ultimately received just 39,083 votes -- 44% of the total cast -- meaning the lobbyists spent $209 for each vote received. Both services have said they will cease operations in Austin rather than perform the fingerprint-based criminal background checks.

An anonymous reader writes: Surge pricing is a familiar term for any regular Uber rider -- or driver. It's when you call an Uber, and the price of a ride is two, three, or four times more as a result of greater demand brought on by a sporting event or weather event nearby. For riders, it's an annoyance, but for drivers, it's a perk as it usually results in more pocket change. Inside Uber, surge pricing is considered a market failure, and a problem to be solved. "That's where machine learning comes in. That's where the next generation comes in," says Jeff Schneider, engineering lead at Uber Advanced Technologies Center. "Because now we can look at all this data, and we can start to make predictions." Everyone knows that when a Beyonce concert ends, for example, there's going to be a lot of demand for Uber drivers. Schneider explains, "[What's harder] is to find those Tuesday nights when it's not even raining and for some reason there's demand -- and to know that's coming. That's machine learning." With enough of the right data inputs, computer algorithms can do the research that Uber drivers already do -- only better, "so the surge pricing never even has to happen," Schneider says.

Uber says it has revised some of its policies to better compensate its drivers. As part of which, the company is testing charging customers a fee if they make a driver wait for more than two minutes (current waiting time is five minutes). Furthermore, the taxi aggregator says it is changing the ride cancellation grace period from five minutes to two minutes, adding that the fees can range from $5 to $10, depending on your city. Our very own Logan Abbott aka Whipslash faced this issue today. Though he tells us that the company refunded his money after he emailed and filed a complaint. The Verge reports:The feature was built in response to drivers' complaints about waiting for passengers, Uber said. In a statement released to The Verge and TechCrunch, Uber noted that these updated terms would ensure that "the whole system runs more smoothly and the Uber experience improves for everyone." Reduced wait times and the ability to charge for idle time, as well as compensation if riders cancel after two minutes, obviously benefit drivers, earning them a few extra dollars and allowing them to move onto the next fare sooner. But how this will make the passenger experience smoother is unclear. Traffic, wrong turns, and faulty GPS all contribute to making pick-up times unreliable. This can leave passengers out in the cold, waiting for drivers to arrive. Uber explained that if a driver is more than five minutes late for an estimated arrival, users can cancel the ride with no penalty.

Google, Ford, Volvo, Uber, and Lyft are forming a coalition to help speed self-driving cars to the market. Until now, these five companies have all been working on their own driverless car initiatives. According to a statement, the new effort, dubbed the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, "will work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles." David Strickland, a former top official of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is coalition's counsel and spokesman.

An anonymous reader shares an article on The Guardian: Alphabet's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, recently joined a Department of Defense advisory panel. Facebook recently hired a former director at the U.S. military's research lab, Darpa. Uber employs Barack Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe and Amazon.com tapped his former spokesman Jay Carney. Google, Facebook, Uber and Apple collectively employ a couple of dozen former analysts for America's spy agencies, who openly list their resumes on LinkedIn.

These connections are neither new nor secret. But the fact they are so accepted illustrates how tech's leaders -- even amid current fights over encryption and surveillance -- are still seen as mostly U.S. firms that back up American values. Christopher Soghoian, a technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union, said low-level employees' government connections matter less than leading executives' ties to government. For instance, at least a dozen Google engineers have worked at the NSA, according to publicly available records on LinkedIn. And, this being Silicon Valley, not everyone who worked for a spy agency advertises that on LinkedIn. Soghoian, a vocal critic of mass surveillance, said Google hiring an ex-hacker for the NSA to work on security doesn't really bother him. "But Eric Schmidt having a close relationship with the White House does," he said.Danny Yadron, said, "What's worse for a Silicon Valley executive: ties to the Chinese military or friends in the US Defense Department?"

Rishi Alwani, reporting for Gadgets 360 (edited and condensed for clarity): At an event in Beijing this week, Chinese technology conglomerate LeEco showed off its LeSEE self-driving electric supercar. A slide noted that LeEco's car can reach 130mph which is a fair bit behind of the Tesla Model S' top speed range of 140 to 155 mph. Nonetheless, the company said the final product should beat Tesla in "all aspects of performance." The car sports a rounded design with a giant LED screen plastered on the front of the vehicle. If the car is being used for cab services, for instance, the screen can show if it's available for hire or not. There's an arched transparent roof and what seems to be generous cabin space. The interior sported a futuristic-looking steering wheel with a lit-up centre that quite possibly would replace the traditional dashboard and was complemented by a monitor next to it. It also had ridged backseats that may look uncomfortable but is actually memory foam - a polyurethane material used in mattresses that can mould to the shape of a passenger's body for maximum comfort.

Perhaps the most interesting component of its LeSEE concept has nothing to do with the technology, but rather the business models involved. For one, the company believes it has a huge role to play in LeShare - a time-sharing electric vehicle platform that's present in Beijing and Shanghai with plans to expand to five more cities in China. Electric vehicles and charging resources will be shared between LeShare and LeEco-backed Uber competitor Yidao. In addition to this, LeEco believes that the car will eventually be free, in line with the same business model it has for some of its other hardware, charging users for content, subscriptions or memberships.For a refresh, LeEco (LeTV) was founded in 2004, and has since become a major name in many technology-centric markets. It offers live-streaming, e-commerce, cloud, smartphones, TV set-top boxes, and smart TVs among many other products and services. The company has a market capitalisation of at least $12 billion.

Gizmodo, in its typical sensational voice, ran a story this week in which it argues that smartphones are in a "ridiculously boring place" right now. Alex Cranz with the publication expresses her discontent with some of the recently launched smartphones such as the iPhone SE, the LG G5, and the Galaxy S7. "These devices have not redefined the way we phone, nor have they blown us away with unprecedented speeds, or wowed us with extraordinary battery life. Each of these new phones is merely a marginal improvement over last year's model." I agree with most of what Cranz has to say. In the past one year, we've seen QHD display panel, Snapdragon 810/820 SoC, 3 to 4GB of RAM becoming a norm. Nearly every manufacturer has reached that point, and then sort of stopped there. Compared to the Nexus 4, for instance, the Nexus 6P offers a significant improvement. But when compared to anything you purchased two years ago -- in the echelon of your choice -- the latest offering isn't going to leave a big impression on you. The industry is currently making small noises about what it thinks could be the next big thing. Some players including Samsung and Lenovo believe that it could be the virtual reality addon. We will have to see how much traction that gets.

My contention with Cranz's story is that it doesn't talk about how these devices are impacting people's lives, hence missing the big picture. I believe that it doesn't necessarily matter if our smartphones aren't going to get any smarter. The first-generation Moto G, from a few years ago, can also help you quickly get information from the Web, and it can also allow you to book a cab using Uber app, and do pretty much everything that you do on a flagship smartphone. As Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson pointed out last month, the next "second smartphone revolution" could enhance the lives of millions of people in places such as Asia, where most of the population still doesn't have a smartphone. When you look at that, it becomes unnecessary to talk about the top-of-the-line specs and the rate at which these smartphones are receiving incremental improvements. The vast majority of people in the emerging world are in a desperate need of a bare-bone smartphone that allows them to make phone calls, even if it doesn't do it in a "redefined" fashion, and works with speeds that don't blow them away, a couple of things that I think we are taking for granted. Wilson wrote: The first 2.5bn smartphones brought us Instagram, Snapchat, Uber, WhatsApp, Kik, Venmo, Duolingo, and most importantly, drove the big web apps to build world class mobile apps and move their userbases from web to mobile. But, if you stare at the top 200 non-game mobile apps in the US (and most of the western hemisphere) you will see that the list doesn't look that different than the top 200 websites. The mobile revolution from 2007 to 2015 in the west was more about how we accessed the internet than what apps we used, with some notable and important exceptions. The next 2.5bn people to adopt smartphones may turn out to be a different story. They will mostly live outside the developed and wealthy parts of the world and they will look to their smartphones to deliver essential services that they have not been receiving at all -- from the web or from the offline world. I am thinking about financial services, healthcare services, educational services, transportation services, and the like. Stuff that matters a bit more than seeing where you friends had a fun time last night or what it looks like when you faceswap with your sister.At this moment, it does seem to me that over the coming months, our smartphones are unlikely to get a major hardware boost. The biggest milestone we have on the horizon is what happens when everyone has these smartphones, and how does it impact our businesses, culture, and social lives. What's your take on this? Do you think we are yet to reach the peak point in the smartphone world? What's the big picture in your opinion?Update: 04/23 18:55 GMT by M :Robotech_Master's take on this is pretty insightful.

An anonymous reader writes: Two lawsuits posing a threat to Uber's on-demand business model have been settled. Uber has agreed to pay up to $100 million to drivers who sought to be classified as employees of the company. The initial sum paid will be $84 million, which will settle cases in California and Massachusetts to some 385,000 drivers. If the company goes public or gets purchased, Uber said it will pay drivers an additional $16 million. The company is currently valued at $62.5 billion. In addition, new policy changes will force the company to no longer be able to deactivate drivers' accounts at will. They will also stop deactivating drivers who turn down rides frequently. Appeal panels will be created to help drivers form an association so they can contest terminations. The last policy change requires Uber to clearly inform riders that tips are not included in Uber's fares. Drivers will now be able to solicit tips from passengers. "If we chose not to settle this case, we faced risks," plaintiff attorney Liss-Riordan said in a prepared statement. "We faced the risk that a jury in San Francisco (where Uber is everywhere and quite popular) may not side with the drivers over Uber." The settlement still needs to be approved by Judge Edward Chen of the District Court of Northern California, which will probably be a months-long process. The company seems to be waist-deep in legal trouble lately. Two weeks ago, Uber agreed to a settlement of $10 million for misleading advertising about the quality of its background checks for drivers. One week prior, it was reported the CEO of Uber will go to court over price fixing claims in New York.

An anonymous reader shares an article on Quartz: Economist Robert Gordon has spent his career studying what makes the US labor force one of the world's most productive. And he has some bad news. American workers still produce some of most economic activity per hour of any economy in the world. But the near-miraculous productivity growth that essentially transformed the US into one of the world's most affluent societies is permanently in the country's rearview mirror. In his new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the Northwestern University professor lays out the case that the productivity miracle underlying the American way of life was largely a one-time deal. It was driven by a flurry of technologies -- electric lights, telephones, automobiles, indoor plumbing -- that fundamentally transformed millions of American lives within a matter of decades. By comparison, Gordon argues, today's technological advancements -- Uber, Facebook, Amazon.com -- will touch the productivity of the American economy lightly -- if at all. And a combination of demographic factors, such as the aging of the US population, and sociological problems such as growing inequality and educational performance that's worsened in comparison to many other rich nations, will stymie economic growth for the foreseeable future.For those not following Gordon's work, he has been expressing these views for quite some time now. Here's his TED talk from 2013 It shouldn't come as a surprise that many strongly disagree with Gordon's views. Kevin Kelly wrote in 2013: I think Robert Gordon is wrong about his conclusion: According to Gordon growth has stalled in the internet age. This question was first asked by Robert Solow in 1987 and Gordon's answer is that there are 6 'headwinds' six negative, or contrary forces which deduct growth from the growth due to technology in the US (Gordon reiterates he is only speaking of the US). The six 'headwinds' slowing down growth are the aging of the US population, stagnant levels of education, rising inequality, outsourcing and globalization, environmental constraints, and household and government debt. I agree with Gordon about these headwinds, particularly the first one, which he also sees as the most important. Where Gordon is wrong is his misunderstanding and underestimating of the power of technological growth before it meets these headwinds. First, as mentioned above, he underestimates the value of the innovations that the internet has brought us. They seem trivial compared to running water and electric lights, but in fact, as billions around the world show us, they are just as valuable. [...] So the 3rd Industrial Revolution is not really computers and the internet, it is the networking of everything. And in that regime we are just at the beginning of the beginning. We have only begun to connect everything to everything and to make little network minds everywhere. It may take another 80 years for the full effect of this revolution to be revealed. In the year 2095 when economic grad students are asked to review this paper of Robert Gordon and write about why he was wrong back in 2012, they will say things like "Gordon missed the impact from the real inventions of this revolution: big data, ubiquitous mobile, quantified self, cheap AI, and personal work robots. All of these were far more consequential than stand alone computation, and yet all of them were embryonic and visible when he wrote his paper. He was looking backwards instead of forward." You might also find Freakonomics' Stephen J. Dubner views on this interesting.

An anonymous reader writes: President Obama unveiled a commission of private, public and academic experts to bolster the US cyber security sector. The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity will be co-chaired by former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and Tom Donilon, the President's former national security adviser. Some other notable members include MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga, Microsoft Research VP Peter Lee, Uber's current (and Facebook's former) Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, Frontier Communications Executive Chairperson Maggie Wildrotter, and Annie Anton, chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. The specific goals of the commission are to: "Raise the level of cybersecurity in both the public and private sectors, deter, disrupt, and interfere with malicious cyber activity aimed at the U.S. or its allies and respond effectively to and recover from cyber incidents."

An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, Uber released its first transparency report, an overview of the information that was requested by U.S. regulators and law enforcement in the second half of 2015. The report shows that while Uber is not yet receiving the number or type of requests that non-transport companies do, the data requests affect millions of Uber customers and drivers. According to the report, Uber received 408 requests for information from law enforcement, and 415 from state and federal governments. These requests were complied with approximately 85% of cases, where after review, Uber provided at least some of the data requested. They also responded to 67 requests for information from regulatory bodies and from airports, with data provided on over 11 million riders and 600,000 drivers.

HughPickens.com writes: Scores of women have reported assaults by Uber drivers... Now Jenni Avins reports at Quartz that a ride-sharing service that only uses women as drivers, Chariot for Women, is set to launch April 19 in Boston, featuring more stringent background checks and additional steps to ensure riders correctly match with their drivers.... "[U]nlike other services, Chariot for Women features a patent-pending technology that will provide both users and drivers with a code after a request is made that will need to be verified upon starting the ride," reports Glamour. But "whether it's legal or not is a different question," says Joseph L. Sulman. Quartz reports that "According to civil rights lawyers, Chariot for Women's female-only policies could put it squarely in the crosshairs of gender discrimination lawsuits, which would be difficult to win." Founder Michael Pelletz says he welcomes the legal challenge. "We want to show there's inequality in safety in our industry," says Pelletz. "We hope to go to the US Supreme Court to say that if there's safety involved, there's nothing wrong with providing a service for women."