Ford first to test self-driving cars in Michigan’s fake city

The University of Michigan recently built the 32-acre “Mcity” proving ground so that automakers could test autonomous vehicles with zero risk to the public. Since the faux city is in US car country (and far from Silicon Valley rivals like Google), it’s only fitting that it was broken in by a small Dearborn outfit: Ford. The automaker tackled Mcity in its latest Fusion Hybrid self-driving car, freshly equipped with four LiDAR sensors for real-time 3D mapping. While Ford has tested its vehicles extensively on public roads, “every mile driven [at Mcity] represents 10, 100 or 1,000 miles of on-road driving in terms of our ability to pack in the occurrences of difficult events,” said U of M professor Ryan Eustice.

Three UK gifts customers free Deezer music subscriptions

Deezer’s music streaming service has been around for years, but its subscriber base is small compared to Spotify and newcomer Apple Music. Now, the company hopes to grow those numbers by partnering with a UK mobile network — but this time, it’s Three rather than Orange. New and existing customers on monthly and pay-as-you-go contracts, as well as SIM-only deals can get a free six-month subscription to Deezer Premium+. Usually this would cost £9.99 per month — the industry standard for an ad-free music streaming service — and is redeemable online starting today. The registration process is a little clunky, but presumably new Three customers will be walked through the process in stores.

Source: Deezer on Three

ABC and Iliza Shlesinger are developing a comedy exclusively for Watch ABC

ABC in partnership with comedian Iliza Shlesinger has begun work on a new show that will be exclusive to the Watch ABC app. Shows designed exclusively for streaming services are becoming more common, as CBS just recently announced that a new Star Trek series will be exclusive to its All Access subscription service.

Watch ABC allows users to view new and previous episodes of content aired on ABC, as well as offering a livestream of the Disney-owned networks’ linear feed in some markets. Much of this content does require a TV subscription, which could potentially be a bad decision for ABC. While ABC isn’t offering its content as a standalone service, its competitors are. For instance, CBS recently announced that a new Star Trek series would be airing to its All Access subscribers exclusively.

Watch ABC’s requirement is rather strange, especially considering how quickly standalone streaming services are rising in popularity.

Exclusive content for Watch ABC will go beyond the stand-up comedy show being developed with Shlesinger, as ABC executives are hard at work making deals and partnerships to offer other exclusive content.

It’s also not clear yet whether this exclusive content will be under the paywall of Watch ABC yet. It’s still under consideration, as there’s some talk about offering it for free or whether it should be exclusive to its pay-TV subscribers. Another aspect under consideration is offering new episodes for free, but requiring previous episodes to be watched as a pay-TV subscriber.

Whatever ABC decides to do, at the heart of it is an initiative to make streaming services more common and easier to access, especially as consumers continue to prefer services like Netflix and Hulu over basic TV subscriptions.

via: The Verge
source: Variety

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