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Tech NewsTransportationUber, Lyft Win Court Fight Over How Long Drivers Can Cruise Without Passengers in NYC
Beleaguered taxi giants Uber and Lyft won a break on Monday, scoring victory in a New York state court dispute over a law that would have dramatically slashed the number of cars between jobs that the firms let clog up Manhattan streets, Reuters reported. Earlier this year, New York City officials imposed new regulations that … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsMan Trapped in Car in Icy River Saved By Yelling, ‘Siri, Call 911’
An Iowa man recently survived what could have easily been a fatal road accident by shouting “Siri, call 911,” CNN reported on Thursday. KIMT3 News reported that 18-year-old Charles City, Iowa man Gael Salcedo was driving to classes at North Iowa Area Community College when he slid on ice and was plunged into the Winnebago … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsTransportationMan Dies in Queens After Being Pinned Between 2 Parked Cars, One of Which Was Started Remotely
A pedestrian in New York’s Queens borough was reportedly crushed to death between two parked cars after a 2002 Lexus’s remote engine ignition system was activated, causing the vehicle to lurch forward, Streetsblog reported on Wednesday. According to Streetsblog and the New York Daily News, the accident occurred at around 10:00 p.m. on Dec. 6 … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsElon Musk Hits Traffic Pylon With New Cybertruck After Dinner in Malibu
Billionaire tech icon Elon Musk turned a lot of heads in Malibu, California on Saturday night when he showed up to a swanky restaurant in his new Tesla Cybertruck. But Musk’s night on the town included at least one embarrassing hiccup. The founder of Tesla and SpaceX hit a traffic pylon with his shiny new … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsWill Elon Musk’s Cybertruck Arrive Before the Flying Car?
Building the future is hard. And nowhere was that more evident than at Tesla’s grand unveiling of the Cybertruck in Los Angeles last night. But if anyone can do it, Elon Musk can, right? Right? Unconventional design choices aside, the Tesla presentation had some really embarrassing gaffes, like when Tesla’s lead designer, Franz von Holzhausen, … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsTransportationNTSB Finds Uber Self-Driving Car in Fatal Crash Saw Victim, But Wasn’t Programmed to Handle Jaywalkers
Federal investigators have determined an Uber self-driving car that killed 49-year-old pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona in March 2018 lacked programming to either recognize or respond to the presence of jaywalkers on the road, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released 400 pages of documents on the fatal collision … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsTransportationSurprising No One, Uber Continues to Hemorrhage Cash
Beleaguered ride-sharing giant Uber continued to torch cash like an outdated Joker reference in Q3 2019, but it claims that the news is positive because parts of its business would technically be profitable if one looked past all the ways it’s losing money. In quarterly results posted on Monday, Uber reported a net loss of … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsTransportationYou Lost How Much on Scooters?
Lime, the company whose business model is buying thousands of electric scooters and just sort of leaving them there in the hopes people will ride them, is on track to lose $300 million this year. Per a report in the Information, financial projections that are the “first detailed picture to emerge of Lime’s financial performance” … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsThe Creators of That Flying Iron Man Suit Are Subtly Hinting It’s Great For War
To date, Gravity Industries’ flying jetpack has been demonstrated as a tantalizing glimpse of the future where daily commuters take to the air instead of sitting in traffic. But the company recently called on James Bruton, a talented engineer and hacker, to upgrade the suit with a helmet-controlled shoulder-mounted toy rifle, making the future suddenly … Continued
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EartherUber and Lyft Induced Congestion Give a Preview of Driverless Car Hell
We’ve been fantasizing about self-driving cars for decades; the luxury of napping, watching TV, or reading while a robot car takes us to our destination. The first truly autonomous car debuted in the 1980s from Carnegie Mellon University’s Navlab project, and in the last four decades transportation has rapidly evolved into chauffeur-esque services like Uber … Continued
Kelly L. Fleming -
Tech NewsAustralian State to Use Smartphone Detection Cams to Catch and Fine Distracted Drivers
The government of New South Wales state in Australia is rolling out tech to automatically catch drivers who don’t put down their cell phones on the road, the Associated Press reported on Monday. According to the AP, New South Wales Roads Minister Andrew Constance described the program as the first of its kind in the … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsDelta Plane Dives Nearly 30,000 Feet in Mere Minutes Following Possible ‘Depressurization Issue’
All aboard the nightmare machine. A recent Delta Airlines flight dove nearly 30,000 feet in the span of just minutes in an incident that passengers say had them scared for their lives. Delta Flight 2353 was on its way from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday when the captain received an indicator warning of a … Continued
By Catie Keck -
EartherClimate ChangeDonald Trump Swoops in to Save Us All From the Tyranny of Cleaner Cars That Use Less Gas
Donald Trump, fresh off moving to eviscerate lightbulb efficiency standards he thinks will make him look too orange and declaring war on the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, is reportedly set to revoke California’s ability to regulate vehicle emissions. Tailpipe emissions are the single largest source of CO2 emissions in the U.S, contributing to global climate … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsThis 1930s Invention Was Supposed to Make Parallel Parking Easy
These days, some cars can help you parallel park with the touch of a button, but it wasn’t alway so easy. Back in the 1930s you had to parallel park the old fashioned way, and this short clip from a newsreel shows how one inventor in California came up with a plan to let drivers … Continued
By Matt Novak -
ReviewsOther GadgetsThe Boosted Scooter Is a Blast
Electric scooters are dangerous. It seems like you can’t go a day without seeing a scary story in the news reminding the world of this fact. People die riding these things. So it wasn’t surprising when Boosted emphasized safety in announcing its new e-scooter. The $1,600 Boosted Rev has three brakes, wide handlebars, fat tires, … Continued
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Tech NewsUnited Airlines Announces Extended Flight Cancellations Due to Grounded Boeing 737 Max
Flight cancellations continue as the Boeing 737 Max remains grounded pending an ongoing review of its software update, with United Airlines on Friday announcing yet another schedule revision. A spokesperson said the airline’s latest cancellations will extend through Nov. 3, adding that the changes will affect dozens of flights per day. The changes will impact … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsNorth Carolina Is Eyeing a Hyperloop One System for the Research Triangle
North Carolina is the latest state to throw its hat into the Hyperloop One ring. Today, Virgin Hyperloop One announced that North Carolina’s Regional Transportation Alliance (RTA) was launching a pre-feasibility study to connect the cities of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the RDU International Airport. According to initial estimates, with a Hyperloop One system … Continued
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Tech NewsDrone Captures Car Bursting Into Flames During Gender Reveal Video Shoot
It’s a boy! It’s a girl! It’s a… fire? Police in Australia have charged a 30-year-old man with reckless driving after his car caught fire during a gender reveal video. The video, which was captured by drone, shows the man doing burnouts as a thick plume of blue smoke emerges from behind his car. The … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsApple Buys Self-Driving Car Startup Drive.ai in Sign It’s Not Through With Autonomous Vehicles
Apple appeared to be pulling back from the autonomous car business when it dismissed some 200 employees from its Project Titan initiative in January 2019. But it would appear that it’s shifting gears in a big way with news on Tuesday that it has acquired startup Drive.ai “in what appears to be part of a … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsJapanese High-Speed Rail Line Was Brought to Standstill by Tiny Slug That Fried on Power Cable
Japanese rail company JR Kyushu says that one small slug was responsible for a power outage and subsequent delays for an estimated 12,000 commuters on a high-speed rail line in Kyushu on May 30, CNN reported on Monday. Some 26 separate trains were canceled at around 9:40 a.m. local time due to the power outages, … Continued
By Tom McKay