Category: News and Views

Ola fails to get ride-hailing license renewed in London, says it will appeal and continues to operate | TechCrunch

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Just six days after Uber won its appeal against London transportation regulators to continue operating in London for another 18 months, one of its bigger rivals has found itself in the hot seat. Ola, the India-based ride-hailing startup, is not getting its Transport for London ride-hailing license renewed, after failing to meet some of TfL’s public safety requirements specifically around licensing for drivers and vehicles.

Ola told TechCrunch it plans to appeal the decision, and as was the case with Uber, under TfL’s rules, a company is allowed to continue operating while appealing a decision.

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Trump says the economy is booming. He’s right — but you don’t feel it | CNN

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President Donald Trump touts the economy’s quick recovery as evidence of his administration’s success. He’s not wrong, but it’s not the full picture.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spent all last week testifying about the recovery on Capital Hill. His message: This is a tale of two economies, and one looks much stronger than the other.

On paper, the economy is roaring back even stronger than Powell and many economists expected.: More than 22 million jobs vanished in the spring lockdown, but 10.6 million jobs have since been added back.

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Divers discover lost WWII submarine wreck off Southeast Asia | Live Science

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Divers in Southeast Asia have located the lost wreck of what’s thought to be a U.S. Navy submarine that sank in 1943 after it was attacked by Japanese aircraft.

The submarine wreck — almost certainly that of USS Grenadier — was found in a search of the northern end of the Straits of Malacca, between the Malay peninsula and Sumatra.

The divers cross-referenced military records of three submarines sunk in the area during World War II with the possible locations of wrecks reported by fishermen who had snagged nets on submerged obstacles, said team member Lance Horowitz, an Australian based on Thailand’s southern island of Phuket.

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U.K. Plans for Aerial Drone Zone to Contain UAV Traffic | Digital Trends

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The technology needed to drive delivery drones is already in existence, but laws have yet to catch up. To help take drone technology to the next step of mainstream adoption, the U.K. is currently in the process of establishing what could be the world’s first commercial drone corridor. This airspace will be available to any fully automated drones flying beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS), so long as it doesn’t require specialist hardware and conforms to basic technical regulations.

The unrestricted airspace — called the “Arrow Drone Zone” — will be located in the town of Reading, to the west of London, in the Thames Valley. The Drone Zone will be approximately 8 kilometers (5 miles) long and 500 meters (1,640 feet) wide. While it is referred to as a, well, zone for drones, it is technically unrestricted open airspace, meaning that drones and general aviation vehicles (read: airplanes and helicopters) will share the same space.

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Daily Crunch: This TikTok deal is pretty confusing | TechCrunch

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Companies send out conflicting messages about the TikTok deal, Microsoft acquires a gaming giant and the WeChat ban is temporarily blocked. This is your Daily Crunch for September 21, 2020.

The big story: This TikTok deal is pretty confusing

This keeps getting more confusing. Apparently TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has reached a deal with Walmart and Oracle that will allow the Chinese social media app to continue operating in the United States, and the deal has been approved by Donald Trump. But it’s hard to tell exactly what this agreement entails.

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Colds Nearly Vanished Under Lockdown. Now They’re Coming Back | WIRED

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THE QUESTION MAY seem odd in the midst of a global pandemic, but among people in places with serious mask-wearing and social-distancing measures, and with the luxury to hunker down, it is forgivable to wonder: Will I ever get sick again? In the southern hemisphere, in places like Australia and South Africa, winter flu season came and went without a trace. The western United States is coughing through clouds of smoke, and people everywhere have endured wet-eyed allergy seasons. But over the past 6 months, people were far less likely to get sick sick—at least from respiratory viruses that aren’t called SARS-CoV-2.

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Does sugar make kids hyper? | Live Science

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If a child eats cotton candy, a chocolate bar or any other kind of sugary treat, will a hyperactive frenzy follow? While some parents may swear that the answer is “yes,” research shows that it’s just not true.

Yes, that’s right. “Sugar does not appear to affect behavior in children,” said Dr. Mark Wolraich, chief of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center, who researched sugar’s effect on children in the 1990s.

Instead, parent’s expectations of so-called “sugar highs” appear to color the way they view their children’s behavior, Wolraich said. It’s easy to see why parents make the link: Sugar is often the main attraction at birthday parties, on Halloween and other occasions when children are likely to bounce off the walls. But all that energy is due to kids being excited, not from the sugar in their systems, he said. [Is Sugar Bad for You?]

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‘No One Knows What’s Going On’: Unease Lingers Over TikTokers After Oracle Claims Victory In Acquisition Race

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The past few weeks have been one of the more stressful periods in 16-year-old Parker Pannell’s life. His comedy vlogs had amassed sizable fanbase on TikTok, some 2.2 million followers, and he was earning thousands of dollars from creating sponsored content for businesses like Cash App and House Party. Much of that work evaporated over the last month. “Super discouraging,” says Pannell. “But who wants to put money into a brand that could potentially be on the decline?” Companies were shying away from advertising on TikTok as the Chinese-owned app raced to appease President Trump’s demand for it to sell itself or face a ban in America.

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39 PPP Fraud Prosecutions So Far, and Counting | Small Business Trends

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Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans have aided more than 5 million small business owners, providing a much-needed lifeline during the Coronavirus outbreak crisis. The overwhelming majority of business owners are legitimate and will use the money as intended to retain employees and stay operational.

But the PPP program has attracted a few rotten apples. And you won’t believe how rotten they are.

To date, the Justice Department has filed 39 PPP fraud cases, charging about 56 defendants. Defendants are charged with bilking taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars. Luckily, the Feds have recovered a large part of the loan proceeds already.

And what’s been recovered tells a wild tale.

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If You Have AT&T, Alexa Is Now a Giant Speakerphone | Digital Trends

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Amazon Alexa can now make and receive calls if you’re an AT&T customer, essentially turning your smart home device into a giant speakerphone.

The tech giant announced the new feature called “AT&T calling with Alexa.” Starting Wednesday, September 9, AT&T customers can use Alexa-enabled devices to answer incoming calls or start a new call, even if their phone is far away or turned off.

The new feature only works for AT&T customers in the U.S. that have a compatible HD-voice mobile phone like an iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy.

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