Greece wants to force Uber into hiring full-time taxi drivers

Greece, a country with a lot of debt and an angry taxi lobby, is the latest to ponder anti-ride-sharing legislation. The country reportedly plans to force ride-sharing firms like Uber and Taxibeat to ink three-year contracts with licensed drivers, effectively turning them into full-time employees. Operators would need to buy taxi licenses be subject to stricter rules than currently allowed, according to Reuters.

Greek’s taxi drivers have reportedly lobbied the government to make the changes, saying that drivers using the new services have lower barriers to entry. “You can’t have a group of professionals being normally taxed … and a few others not paying at all for the same job, because there [are no set rules],” taxi union head Thymios Lyberopoulos told Reuters.

As in France, Uber does not offer its UberPop service in Greece, but instead gives its app to professional taxi drivers and chauffeurs licensed for tourism-related activities. It’s not clear whether the new rules would affect one or both groups of drivers.

They are trying to regulate the market in a way which, essentially, makes the operation of our app in Greece unfeasible and if not unfeasible … in any case it will make it very difficult.

Uber isn’t the largest ride-sharing service in Greece, however — that honor belongs to Taxibeat. It teamed up with around 8,000 taxi drivers with an app and tracking service, and counts over a million users. “They are trying to regulate the market in a way which, essentially, makes the operation of our app in Greece unfeasible and if not unfeasible … in any case it will make it very difficult,” Taxibeat founder Nikos Drandakis said.

London is the most recent region to ban Uber, saying its service are not “fit and proper.” Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, apologized to Londoners and told employees in a company letter that “there is a high cost to a bad reputation.”

A Taxibeat petition against the new legislation has garnered around 30,000 signatures. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has promised to bolster the tech sector and innovation, so widely available ride-sharing services would presumably help.

However, in the recent past, Greek taxi licenses cost around $235,000, so it’s easy to understand why drivers might be upset. At the same time, letting Uber and other ride-sharing drivers off the hook for such fees might impact government revenue, and Greece really needs the money.

Source: Reuters

Google to stop penalizing paywalled news in search results

Google is relaxing its rules on subscription news stories in a bid to thaw increasingly frosty relationships with prominent media giants. Previously, under Google’s “first click free” policy, publishers such as The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal would have to provide users with a number of free articles every day, or be penalized in Google’s search results. Publishers argued that this affected sales and slowed the take-up of online news subscription services at a time when many relied on revenue from content hidden behind paywalls.

Now, Google is pledging to show all subscription news hits in search, allowing publishers to choose how many (if any) articles they provide for free through the search engine, without any impact on search result position. Google also plans to create software that would allow readers to pay for subscription news services with credit card information linked to their Google accounts, facilitating fast payments in a single click and helping to remove some of the barriers to subscription take-up.

This revised outlook marks something of a one-eighty for Google, which until now had news organizations largely at its mercy. But as The New York Times reports, according to Google’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler, “It’s really all an attempt to try to create a new world — a better world — for journalism.” It’s not clear exactly how this “new world” looks yet, but with Facebook also recently switching things up with its policy on news sharing, you can bet this change of direction hasn’t come from the simple goodness of their hearts. As Schindler added, “We have an inherent interest in making publishers successful”.

Via: Bloomberg

Roku made a 4K streaming stick

Fresh off a successful IPO, Roku is keen to keep the momentum going. And what better way to do that than to launch a set of new devices, packed with a bunch of free (ad-supported) channels. The company tends to refresh its line-up in the fall, and this year is no exception. As rumored, there’s a 4K streaming stick, but that’s not all. Roku is also upgrading its budget line-up, slashing the price of its top-tier device (the Roku Ultra), and giving its Roku OS a fresh coat of paint.

But, let’s start with the exciting stuff. At $70, the Roku Streaming Stick+ boasts 4K and HDR compatibility, and up to four times the wireless range of its predecessor. The device is clearly a rival to Amazon’s recently launched Fire TV dongle, which also supports 4K HDR playback at 60 frames-per-second. Naturally, Amazon’s stick comes with Alexa built-in (but, if the rumour mill is anything to go by, Roku may be working on similar tools), and will also set you back $70.

If you want the cream of the crop, the (unchanged) Roku Ultra is still your best bet. The 4K HDR player is getting a price cut, bringing it down to $100 (that’s only $10 more than the less fancy Roku Premiere+). The premium feel also extends to its voice remote (complete with gaming buttons). Plus, there’s its headphone jack, and remote finder button (for all the absent-minded folk who tend to misplace their gizmos). Roku is sticking it out with the HDR10 standard on its 4K devices (aside from select Roku TVs), with no support as of yet for its competitor Dolby Vision. On the other end of the scale, Roku’s $50 Streaming Streaming Stick now comes with a voice remote.

Those on a budget can also invest in the new Express and Express+ models. They’re still the cheapest of the lot — coming in at $30 and $40 respectively. For that price, you’ll get five times the speed of their older siblings. The affordability also means you can purchase them for the extra TVs in your pad (and Express+ even works with older sets through the composite A/V ports).

As for Roku OS 8, the software includes a Smart Guide and search feature with info about local broadcast TV programming. Voice controls and search have also received an upgrade, with enhanced natural language understanding. Additionally, a 4K spotlight digs up 4K, HDR, and Dolby Vision content.

With the exception of the Express+ (which is a Walmart exclusive), the players are now available to pre-order from Roku and other retailers. They’ll start shipping on October 8th.

Uber loses Europe chief amid London license denial

Uber’s lead for Northern Europe, Jo Bertram, is leaving the company. The move comes less than two weeks after London’s transport regulator, TfL, announced its decision to revoke Uber’s private hire operator licence in the city. If the decision is upheld, the company will be unable to operate in one of its biggest and most lucrative European markets. Uber has filed an appeal and can operate while the appeal process is ongoing. Still, it’s a setback for a company that has already changed its CEO this year and is struggling to recover from a long line of PR and corporate blunders.

In an email to colleagues, Bertram said “now is the right time” for Uber to “have a change of face” in Europe. She will remain with the company for a few weeks while upper management finds her replacement. Tom Elvidge, Uber’s London boss, will manage UK operations on a temporary basis. Bertram acknowledged Uber’s “current challenges” and said she wanted to announce her move under “smoother circumstances.” However, she hinted that it was “an exciting new opportunity” that influenced her decision, and not the current legal scrap the company now faces in London.

Bertram joined Uber four years ago as General Manager for London. She oversaw the company’s rapid expansion in the UK before becoming Regional General Manager for Northern Europe, which covers 10 markets and a team of roughly 300.

TfL decided to pull Uber’s licence over “a lack of corporate responsibility,” which included how it reported serious criminal offences, how it obtained medical certificates from drivers, and its explanation of Greyball, software Uber has used around the world to avoid the watchful eye of the law. A typical London licence lasts five years, however officials granted the company a four-month extension back in May, requiring more time to assess its business practices. Uber hit back at the final decision on September 22nd, arguing that it had “always followed TfL rules on reporting serious incidents,” and never used Greyball in London.

The company has set up a petition to protect its London business, which now has over 800,000 signatures. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s newly appointed CEO and replacement for Travis Kalanick, accepted that the company must “change” to survive. He reiterated the company’s intentions to appeal the decision, but apologised for “mistakes” made in the past. “We won’t be perfect, but we will listen to you; we will look to be long-term partners with the cities we serve; and we will run our business with humility, integrity and passion,” he said in a letter to Londoners.

London’s mayor Sadiq Khan expressed his support for TfL’s decision in a Guardian column: “All private-hire operators in London need to play by the rules. The safety and security of customers must be paramount.”

Via: Reuters

Safeway Rolling Out Apple Pay This Month in United States

Safeway has announced that it is in the process of rolling out Apple Pay throughout October in the United States.

The grocery store chain shared the news through its Twitter account in response to a customer inquiry on Sunday.

Hi, thanks for asking. We are in the process of rolling it out through the month of October. Have a great day.

— Safeway (@Safeway) October 1, 2017

Safeway has 912 grocery stores in the United States, with over 500 along the West Coast in California, Oregon, and Washington. The tweet did not specify which locations will begin accepting Apple Pay this month.

It’s important to note that customer service representatives can sometimes be misinformed, so the tweet may be inaccurate.

Yesterday, however, a Reddit user said his local Safeway had just enabled contactless payments. He tried Apple Pay and said it worked.

MacRumors has reached out to Safeway for confirmation, including participating locations, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.

Last month, grocery store chain ALDI announced it now accepts Apple Pay at all of its nearly 1,700 locations across the United States.

Some other grocery stores that accept Apple Pay in the country include select Giant Food, Wegmans, BI-LO, Food Lion, Save Mart, Shop ‘n Save, Trader Joe’s, Winn-Dixie, Whole Foods Market, and United Supermarkets locations.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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Dubai’s ‘space simulation city’ aims to pave the way for life on Mars

Why it matters to you

If we’re ever to spend any meaningful amount of time on Mars, projects like these could help make it happen.

For such a small place, Dubai sure makes a helluva lot of noise when it comes to ideas of the outlandish variety.

The latest plan is for a huge “space simulation city” to provide “a viable and realistic model to simulate living on the surface of Mars.” Yes, the UAE city is clearly thinking ahead with this latest project, though if Elon Musk gets his way, perhaps not that far ahead.

Costing around $135 million and covering a space of 1.9 million square feet, the Mars Science City hopes to attract science experts from around the world to help make the project a success. The completed design will include laboratories for food, energy, and water where scientists can research ways to improve the technology to help sustain life on the red planet.

Planners want to place a team inside the city for a year to help develop new ways of living in a harsh environment. Similar experiments have already taken place in other parts of the world, but the living space has usually been far small than what the UAE has planned.

The simulation city will also include a museum that “displays humanity’s greatest space achievements, including educational areas meant to engage young citizens with space, and inspire in them a passion for exploration and discovery,” the UAE government said in a release.

The space city — the work of internationally renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels — will be sealed inside 3D-printed walls incorporating sand from the Emirati desert.

In 2016 the UAE revealed plans to colonize the red planet in the next 100 years. For a place that has plenty of experience in transforming vast, barren lands into a bustling, thriving cityscape, maybe it will actually happen. The Middle Eastern nation plans to send its first unmanned probe to Mars in 2020.

Big ideas

Dubai is already home to the world’s largest indoor ski slope (there aren’t many skiing opportunities outside in the desert heat); uses “flying” firefighters to tackle blazes; and even has robot cops helping to keep law and order on the city streets.

It also has plans to build a rainforest inside a hotel; wants to launch a pilotless, flying-taxi service; and could be the first place in the world to set up the ultra-high-speed Hyperloop transportation system.

Here is our rundown of the 27 best iPhone 6S cases and covers

Apple makes beautiful smartphones, but durability is not a major focus. If you want to preserve that elegant design, then you really need to take some precautions. The case market has exploded in recent years, so you can get solid drop protection, find all sorts of stylish finishes, and even add some functionality very easily. To help narrow down your choices, these are the best iPhone 6S cases and covers you can buy.

Using a newer device? We’ve put together lists detailing the best iPhone 7 cases, best iPhone 7 Plus cases, and the best iPhone 8 cases.

Awesome iPhone 6S cases worth checking out

iDeal Marble Fashion Case ($30)

If you want a classic, luxurious look for your iPhone 6S, then iDeal’s new fashion cases might suit you. They come in all sorts of finishes, but the marble design is particularly eye-catching. These are slim, hard-shell cases with openings for your phone’s camera, buttons, and ports. There’s even a cut-out on the back to show off the Apple logo. If you want more protection, consider pairing the case with iDeal’s Swipe Wallet or the aptly-titled Magnet Wallet. The cases attach magnetically.

Buy one now from:

iDeal

Hansmare Calf Wallet Case ($17)

You can leave your wallet at home with this Hansmare wallet case. The navy exterior features a calf-skin texture and a magnetic closure. Inside, you’ll also find three card slots and a larger pocket that’s outfitted with a more traditional leather texture. The interior lining is soft and comes with a flexible, transparent shell that’s designed to securely hold your iPhone 6S in place. Prop the case open in landscape and you have a stand for watching movies.

Buy one now from:

Mobile Fun

Caseable Hard Case ($25)

Choose your own photo or design and have it printed on this hard case made of recycled water bottles. These cases function as slim shells, with cut-outs for accessing your phone’s many features. There’s a soft pad inside to help protect your iPhone, too, but it’s too minimal to provide rugged protection. The host of customization options are the real attraction, along with the bevy of stock options, many of which were developed in partnership with talented artists.

Buy one now from:

Caseable

Twelve South SurfacePad Case ($30+)

This stylish leather cover feels luxurious. It’s a typical folio-style with a couple of slots in the cover to hold credit cards or ID. You can also fold it back to act as a landscape stand. Your iPhone 6S is completely accessible because, unusually, there’s no shell inside. You fit the iPhone onto an adhesive backing, and there’s a cut-out corner on the back to leave the camera open. It’s a slim, light case, and it will guard against scratches, but we wouldn’t rely on it for drop protection. You can choose from six different colors.

Buy one now from:

Amazon AT&T Twelve South

Urban Armor Gear Case ($29)

Get some serious armor plating onto your iPhone 6S with one of these military grade, drop-tested, rugged cases. They’re much lighter than they look. There’s a soft impact-resistant core that absorbs shock, a hard outer shell, and then pads to prevent it from touching down on surfaces or sliding around. The chunky button covers work well and the cut-outs are accurate. You can get translucent or opaque versions in a range of different colors.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Melkco Tribe Series Wallet Book Case ($35)

Here’s an eye-catching design that’s a bit different. This is another wallet-style case which opens to reveal a couple of slots in the cover for cards and a bigger pocket behind. Your iPhone 6S snaps into the transparent shell, and you can bend the cover back to prop your phone up in landscape view. The material feels durable and has a textured design that adds grip. There’s also a leather closure with a magnet in it, and a small leather Melkco logo stitched on the front.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Melkco

Incipio Performance Series Case ($6)

One of our favorite case makers, Incipio, has taken a new approach with the Performance Series, allowing you to choose exactly the level of protection you want. There are five different levels, ranging from a slim, flexible case for basic protection to a rugged, military-grade offering with a built-in screen protector and holster. All the cases from level 2 and up feature a shock absorbent, honeycombed inner layer, with a polycarbonate shell around the outside for drop protection you can count on. They also come in a wide array of color combinations, and there’s a folio style option for the level 3 case.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Incipio

Spigen Neo Hybrid Ex Case ($16)

This popular case from Spigen combines a flexible, clear TPU shell with a hard polycarbonate bumper. All of the cut-outs are generous and there are metallic button covers that are easy to find without looking. It provides a snug fit, the raised bezels at the front help to protect the screen, and it offers reasonable drop protection considering that its slim build. Although the hard bumper comes in various different colors, we particularly like the rose gold and champagne gold options.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Rhino Shield PlayProof Case ($25)

It was the Crash Guard bumper ($25) that first brought Rhino Shield to our attention, and it’s still worth a look, but the case maker has now widened its line-up with the new PlayProof case. This is more of a traditional fitted case, blending a hard shell with a shock-absorbing hexagonal pattern on the inside that promises drop protection at up to 11.5 feet. The case is easy to fit, the cut-outs are generous for easy access to ports, and the button covers are pronounced, so you can find and use them easily without looking. It’s a lightweight, slim case, considering the level of protection, and you can get it in a wide variety of different finishes (plain color cases are $5 cheaper). The only thing we don’t like is the slippery back.

Buy one now from:

Evolutive Labs

Bumble rolls out Bumble Bizz to the U.S., Canada, and more

Why it matters to you

If you’re looking for a date or a friend, Bumble can connect you with both. With the release of Bumble Bizz, you can now also find your dream job.

You can find your best friend, your partner, and now, your next business venture, all with a single app. Bumble, the female-forward app that shook up the online dating scene when it first appeared in app stores in 2014, is now expanding its reach even further and taking on LinkedIn as it introduces Bumble Bizz. The new feature is now available in the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, and Germany.

Bumble Bizz doesn’t seek to match you with the love of your life, but rather the employer of your dreams — or perhaps a mentor — because you’re a strong, independent woman who puts her career first, right?

The setup will be much the same as the Bumble you know and love. You’ll create a profile (though it’ll be more of a résumé and completely distinct from your dating profile), and fill it in with information about your industry, your current job, your education, and other relevant details. Using this data and your location, Bumble will then try to match you with other professionals from whom you might benefit, or whom you might help as well.

You’ll be able to match up with either men or women, but staying true to form, Bumble will always have the female send the first message.

According to Whitney Wolfe, Bumble co-founder and CEO, this sort of a feature “was always part of the overall vision — to enable people to connect at the key engagement points in life. For love, for friendship, and now, for network.” After all, the whole point is to form connections, and those made in a professional capacity can be among the most important of our lives.

Sure, Bumble Bizz isn’t meant to replace a network like LinkedIn — it won’t help you curate an ongoing online network of colleagues past, present, and future. But it will help users make instantaneous discoveries (after all, you have to act fast on Bumble, given the 24-hour window of time you have to start a conversation), as well as encourage women to be a bit more proactive in having meaningful dialogues about their careers.

“I think a lot of women to this day struggle with feeling respected and feeling like an equal when it comes to business connection,” Wolfe said. “They feel that sometimes when they’re approaching something in a purely platonic or business connection, they feel like the conversation goes in a different direction.” But hopefully, Bumble Bizz can help address this issue.

Update: Bumble Bizz is now available in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, and Germany.

Download for iOS  Download for Android

Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes Apple apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers put paid apps on sale for free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest iOS app deals available from the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

Jotalicious

Jotalicious is a beautifully designed shopping assistant that turns plain text lists into awesome color-coded checklists.

Available on:

iOS

Wonder Notes

Need to make a to-do list? Capture ideas at a board meeting? Plan next week’s blog post? With Wonder Notes you can do it all quickly, easily, and powerfully. Simply create as many notes as you want by populating them with text, pictures, maps, and URLs.

Available on:

iOS

Recapify

If you’re in the sales industry, this could be the app for you. Recapify helps sales reps communicate meeting results faster through integrations with Salesforce and Evernote.

Available on:

iOS

Translator

With Translator, you can translate any text between 58 world languages. All you have to do is select your source and target languages, type your text, and click on the translation button.

Available on:

iOS

Flashlight

This app promises to give you the easiest-to-use and fastest flashlight around. Just tap on it for instant bright light.

Available on:

iOS

iSurvival

This app contains a Military Grade Wilderness Survival Manual. This is the Army Survival manual (FM 21-76) used to teach soldiers basic survival and evasion techniques.

Available on:

iOS

The Morning After: Monday, October 2nd, 2017

This Monday morning, we’re getting surprise deep-space photos, laying out the struggles in getting power back in Puerto Rico and juggling our favorite Switch games in a bid to play… more Switch games.

ESA discovered that the last few packets of data it sent make up an image.

Rosetta probe’s last surprise: a photo of its landing site

It’s been a year since Rosetta landed on the comet it orbited for a couple of years, so you’d think ESA had already decoded everything the vessel sent back before its demise. Apparently, the probe has one last surprise for all of us: a close-up photo of its final landing site. The team keeping an eye on the probe’s OSIRIS camera thought they’d already downloaded all the images Rosetta took during its descent. Turns out the last photo’s transmission got interrupted before it was done.

What happened and how it’s likely to play out.
How Puerto Rico’s power crisis ends

When Hurricane Maria crashed into Puerto Rico on September 20th, it found a vulnerable target. The country’s power plants are an average of 44 years old and rely on outdated oil-fired systems, while most plants in the United States are about 18 years old and use newer natural-gas generators. PREPA filed for bankruptcy in July, calling its own infrastructure “degraded and unsafe.”

Hurricane Maria made its way up the Caribbean on September 20th, bringing winds of 140 MPH and dumping 25 inches of rain on Puerto Rico. It devastated the island. Maria knocked out PREPA’s electrical systems, leaving 3.4 million people in the dark, with little hope of a quick recovery. Officials have suggested it will take four-to-six months for power to be restored.

And I still haven’t bought an SD card.
It took six months for my Nintendo Switch to run out of space

When Nintendo announced its next game console was going to come with just 32GB of internal storage, Sean Buckley’s hopes for an all-digital Nintendo Switch weren’t looking good. However, between the tedium of swapping game cards and my fear of losing them, he wound up going all digital anyway. And, within six months, his Nintendo Switch ran out of space.

However, he didn’t buy a microSD card. Instead, he’s spent the last few months using Nintendo’s built-in data-management tool — a pop-up menu prompt that helps you clear out space for a new game by automatically culling your unplayed library.

(You could still just buy a card, Sean.)

In which we answer your burning tech questions.
Ask Engadget returns (and you should send us your questions)!

A long time ago in a far-away land called 2013, we used to run a feature called Ask Engadget, where you — our readers, fans, followers and critics — could ask our advice, opinions and recommendations on everything from cheap laptops and starter cameras to routers and email clients. We’re bringing it back, starting this month. If you’ve got questions, send ’em along to ask@engadget.com.

But wait, there’s more…

• Smart tattoos turn your skin into a health tracker
• After Math: Fly me to the Moon (and then on to Mars)
• US pressured North Korea by overwhelming hackers with data traffic