Why wait for four wheels when you can scoot around on two?

The police report suggests the safety operator was streaming The Voice just before a fatal collision.

Uber is launching a new pilot program to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles across its US fleet, according to a recent blog post by the company. The EV Champions Initiative will provide “direct monetary incentives” to drivers willing to using EVs (electric vehicles) to carry passengers instead of petrol or diesel vehicles. Uber drivers are required to own – or at least lease – the vehicles they use for rides, so they'll have to choose to make the switch to electric themselves rather than simply receive a new company car.

Helen Ochisor drove the yellow taxi in the morning. Her husband Nicanor took it in the afternoon. They rarely saw each other during the week. She was asleep when he got home after a long night of driving. They exchanged a quick hello while handing off the taxi. Immigrants from Romania, the couple had bought their New York City taxi medallion nearly three decades ago. Lately, it had been difficult to find fares.

The cause of the fatal crash of an Uber self-driving car appears to have been at the software level, specifically a function that determines which objects to ignore and which to attend to, The Information reported.

Uber Technologies is once again partnering with NASA, and according to the agency, their project will be modelling the flight of a small passenger-carrying aircraft.

As part of Uber’s terms of service, customers were previously required to agree to resolve any legal claims in an arbitration hearing rather than in open court.

Uber has shared some numbers about driver earnings in economic papers, usually through collaborations with respected academics. But the figures it’s given out are hard to compare with one another. A January 2018 paper that Uber collaborated on used “gross earnings” ($21.07 an hour), or what the driver makes before costs such as gas and vehicle depreciation, as well as Uber’s service fee, are deducted. Earlier research from Uber’s team and Princeton economist Alan Krueger examined earnings “net of Uber’s fees,” but before driver expenses ($20.19 an hour).

A new analysis about Uber drivers’ wages finds that they take home about $9.21 an hour, or less than minimum wage in many of the biggest markets where the ride-hailing service operates. The analysis, by the pro-labor think tank Economic Policy Institute, builds on a recent MIT study that at first said that Uber drivers made an average of $3.37 an hour, then revised that figure to a median $8.55 an hour.

Congress is demanding answers from ridesharing companies about sexual violence on their platforms.

Among Uber’s many troubles, passenger safety has been a persistent concern. In a new effort to curb sexual assault and other forms of violence perpetrated by drivers, Uber is adding new safety features to every U.S. rider’s app, including an “emergency button” that will call 911. In a few test cities, the button will even share your location directly with a 911 dispatcher.

Problematic transportation outfit Uber is thinking about a way to use your phone to determine if you've been drinking. A patent application was uncovered by CNN, entitled "Predicting user state using machine learning," which outlines the general idea. Essentially, by watching how you behave day-to-day, the system can pick up when your behavior is normal (for you) or abnormal. That could be, for instance, how you use your phone, the angle at which you hold it, and even how you're walking.

As data-sharing scandals continue to mount, a new proposal in California offers a potential solution: the California Consumer Privacy Act would require companies to disclose the types of information they collect, like data used to target ads, and allow the public to opt out of having their information sold. Now, some of tech’s most prominent companies are pouring millions of dollars into an effort to to kill the proposal.

If the taxicab industry was so heavily regulated, how did Uber, with its notorious disregard for rules, break into it? The answer is different depending on the jurisdiction. But the story of how Uber emerged victorious in New York City is an interesting and mostly forgotten one — and offers a look into the mechanics of how the Internet has allowed companies to remake the way the world works while technically playing by the rules.

Uber briefly charged its users in downtown Sydney a minimum $100 to escape an armed hostage crisis, a result of automatic surge pricing meant to get more drivers online. An executive in the city's Central Business District (CBD) sent Mashable screenshots of the Uber app that showed the company was charging up to four-times the normal rate because "demand is off the charts."...

Last month, as Uber weathered a fresh storm of criticism about its attitude to critics and user privacy — following revelations that a senior Uber exec had floated the idea of spending money to dig up dirt on critical journalists’ private lives — Senator Al Franken posted a public letter to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, raising concerns about the company’s apparently systematic disregard for privacy and asking that it clarify its privacy policies.

Of the many attractions offered by my hometown, a west coast peninsula famed for its deep natural harbor, perhaps the most striking is that you never have to leave the house. With nothing more technologically advanced than a phone, you can arrange to have delivered to your doorstep, often in less than an hour, takeaway food, your weekly groceries, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs (over-the-counter, prescription, proscribed), books, newspapers...

Everyone's favorite rideshare app has decided that Christmas Eve is the perfect time to slip through a small change to its Uber Taxi service. Nothing big. Just a $2 fee every single time you want to hail a cab through Uber. Motherboard has a copy of the email that Uber (very quietly) sent to UberT users, on this, a day when everyone will totally be paying attention to their emails. UberT currently works as a hailing system for yellow or boro cabs — use the app to get a ride...

Uber has called it quits in Spain, at least for now. Uber, the ride-booking company that has been plagued by vocal opposition from taxi associations and policy makers around the world, suspended its operations in Spain late Tuesday. The decision came in response to a judge’s ruling this month that the company’s low-cost service, called UberPop, did not comply with Spanish laws and potentially amounted to unfair competition for taxi drivers.

I always thought it would be fun to drive a cab. I always talk up the person driving when I take a cab or Uber. How long have they been doing it? Do they own the car or does the company? What do they think they will make tonight? About a month ago I decided I wanted to drive for Uber on New Years Eve. It seemed like an opportunity to earn a good chunk of money and experience what it was like.

I am Uber. I can see my thousands of cars. I don’t know if I am an extension of them or they are an extension of me.

Tonight we might get a glimpse of the kinder, gentler Uber, but we won’t be able to talk about it. The startup has endured months of disastrous press coverage, including Uber exec Emil Michael saying the company should smear journalists that criticize it. Now the company has emailed reporters saying “The Uber Communications Team invites you to join us for drinks” at a San Francisco bar tonight.

Ever wonder how and why Uber drivers get banned? If it’s not for criminal behavior, the waters get murky. What do Uber and Harvard have in common? Both only use the top 10 percent or so of their rating scales. For a Harvard student, the median grade is an A- and for an Uber driver, anything below a 4.7 out of 5 average rating from passengers spells trouble. Or, as one driver memorably puts it on Uber People, a popular...

Uber has been the subject of controversy all around the globe. An Indian woman who says she was raped by an Uber driver while she was traveling in his cab in December is suing the San Francisco–based online firm in a U.S. federal court in California, claiming it failed to put in place basic safety procedures while running its car service in India.

“It’s a genius way to start a business nowadays, especially because nobody’s doing it.” The man sitting beside me is sharing the most insightful business advice I’ve heard lately. His ideas are as unconventional as the location of our conversation. We’re not in a coffee shop or a corner office. We’re in an Uber and he’s my driver.

Uber waited more than five months to notify 50,000 drivers whose names and drivers-license numbers were taken in a computer-security breach last year, much longer than allowed by many state laws.

Uber's "low-cost" UberPop service has been banned in Germany after a court decided it contravened transport laws. Judges imposed fines of €250,000 (£181,000) for each violation of the order. It followed the news that the company's Paris offices were raided by police investigating the same service. And, in South Korea, nearly 30 people linked to the company, including chief executive Travis Kalanick, were charged with running an illegal taxi firm.

Uber denies that its servers were hacked after reports that thousands of usernames and passwords for the taxi-like service are available to buy for as little as $1 online. Two sellers with outlets on the AlphaBay Market dark web marketplace, hidden from the open internet within the Tor anonymity network, claim to sell stolen, working Uber credentials allowing purchasers to login and book rides. According to the market place listing, one vendor has sold over 180 Uber logins since 18 March.

An Uber driver’s secret recording of his conversation with a passenger prompted Cook County prosecutors Monday to drop rape and kidnapping charges against him, his attorney said. Maxime Fohounhedo, 30, was charged in December in the Nov. 16 sexual assault of a female passenger. Fohounhedo was expected to be released from the Cook County Jail later on Monday. He has spent the last four months behind bars.

The on-demand industry says it’s turned our concept of work upside down. But one attorney thinks we’ve been here before — again, and again, and again.

Starting in New York and Chicago, Uber says its drivers will deliver you grub wherever you are in 10 minutes or less.

Uber appears to be on the wrong side of the law — again. Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou raided the ride-sharing firm's offices on Thursday. As part of the raid, cellphones and other gear was confiscated from the offices. In a statement to The Guangzhou Daily, officials said that the company is "suspected of organizing private cars which are not qualified to provide passenger services, and of not having registered with the commercial authorities."

So Silent

Uber could be about to become one of the most valuable venture-backed startups in history after a fresh fundraising round may bump its worth up to around $50 billion.

This January, as much of the world was getting over its post-holiday hangovers, people began disappearing from Carnegie Mellon University's robotics center. At first it was only a few individuals, mostly software developers. Then it became an entire team, and eventually the group included the center's director. They weren't going far.