(Ferenstein Wire)—The technology industry is scrambling to understand how it will continue business in Europe, after the continent’s high court struck down a privacy agreement that protected U.S.-based companies operating abroad, known as Safe Harbor.
Japanese officials have greenlit an experiment to roll out driverless taxis in 2016, with the aim of commercial availability by 2020. The pilot will be offered to about 50 people in the Kanagawa region south of Tokyo.
During a townhall with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mark Zuckerberg revealed a new historical fact about one of Silicon Valley’s most valued companies.
The FTC is apparently concerned that Google may be unfairly promoting its search engine on their popular Android mobile operating system.
A technical glitch during New Year’s Eve turned out to be an information treasure trove for Uber. Last New Year’s Eve in NYC, the surge pricing algorithms failed and didn’t allow Uber to incentivize more drivers to get on the road with higher pay, just as partygoers rushed to call drivers; only 1 in 4 of users who wanted a driver actually got one.
Since Uber began getting regularly hammered in the press for its aggressive political tactics and potential legal violations, the once outspoken CEO hasn’t given the public much direction about the future of the multibillionaire transportation company.
The White House just released a controversial scorecard system for the nation’s colleges, leveraging aggregated tax income data to rank colleges by how much graduates actually earn.
California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a controversial drone privacy bill Wednesday, declaring that it would expose hobbyists to excessive litigation.
At around 10PM on Labor Day Sunday, I posted a coding problem to the popular software developer forum, Stack Exchange.
(Ferenstein Wire)—A brand new taxi design was unveiled last week to mixed fanfare, as the tech-enabled Nissan NV 200 “Taxi of Tomorrow” runs on a decidedly 19th-century technology: fossil fuel combustion.
He’s received $3M from donors who self-identify in tech industry employers, compared to Jeb Bush’s $525K. Clinton, a presumptive Silicon Valley favorite, has only managed about half of Bush, at $247K. See the full graph for the breakdown.
I may have just visited the most San Francisco-ish restaurant in the entire history of San Francisco: a tasty fast food quinoa eatery that will operated by robots.
(Ferenstein Wire)—The taxi industry has launched yet another high-profile attempt to conquer their arch nemesis Uber. The upcoming Arro, like many of its predecessors, is an app for hailing and paying for a taxi, much like other ride-hailing companies out of Silicon Valley. Every similar app, so far, has either completely shut down shortly after launch or failed to slow the rise of Uber.
(Ferenstein Wire)—Drones can now legally fight criminals in the United States with non-lethal weapons, thanks to a recently-amended bill in North Dakota. The law’s author Rep. Rick Becker originally wanted to require police to secure a warrant for drone surveillance.
(Ferenstein Wire) – A European agency has taken the “Right to Be Forgotten” to the next level: Google may be forced to remove links to news reports on why the search giant had to remove the links in the first place. Europe has pioneered a new legal concept that permits individuals to force search engines to remove links to information about themselves that they find incriminating or embarrassing.
The New York Times caused a stir in Silicon Valley with a viral article claiming that Amazon.com brutally exploits its white collar workers with unforgiving management practices. The investigation caused such an outcry that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos personally responded with an email to employees assuring them that “callous” management practices wouldn’t be tolerated.
Uber’s low-cost service, UberX, reduces drunk driving deaths all over California and may be responsible for a drop in DUIs on NYE.
Silicon Valley often gets knocked for a lack of diversity, but historically excluded groups are making an impressive showing at the top spot of the most valuable companies. Just looking at the top ten companies based in Silicon Valley by NASDAQ market cap, 40% are run by someone who is a woman, an immigrant, or non-white. By individual demographics, 20% are women, and 30% are foreign-born.
Hillary Clinton is directly courting Silicon Valley in her $350 billion plan to overhaul higher education. Clinton will reveal the full details of her plan at an upcoming talk in New Hampshire, but she has released the major tenets to news outlets.
(Ferenstein Wire) — White Americans are slowly dwindling into the minority, which poses big problems for Republicans. Democrats’ popularity with minorities has helped them snag the presidency in recent elections. By 2024, Republicans may need to blow past George Bush’s 2004 historic record with Latinos (44 percent) in order to ever have a shot again at another conservative president.
(Ferenstein Wire) — Twitter still hasn’t solved its liberal bias problem; during a Republican presidential debate Thursday night, a self-declared European-style socialist scored the most popular tweet of any candidate. Democrat Bernie Sanders snagged a whopping 29,000 retweets (and counting) for slamming Republicans for “not one word about economic inequality, climate change, Citizens United or student debt.”
(From The Ferenstein Wire) — The Republican field for president is massive, and conservative contenders are scrambling to stand out from the crowd. Polls tend to swing wildly from month-to-month, as new candidates enter the race or happen to get into a headline-making story.
(Ferenstein Wire) — Jdate, the popular dating service responsible for more Jewish hookups than a bottle of Manischewitz, is playing hardball in the dog-eat-dog world of nice Jewish matchmaking.
Uber just won a huge political battle. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has dropped a proposal to place caps on the number of Uber cars on city streets, according to a statement released by Uber’s New York general manager Josh Mohrer.
(Ferenstein Wire) — Self-driving cars will save the average driver about $1,000 annually, or cost $250 a year total, according to estimates from auto insurance startup Metromile.
