As Scoot has grown, so has the size of its rental bikes

Scoot’s red scooters, frequently seen weaving in and out of San Francisco traffic like tiny army ants, are getting an upgrade. Not only are the rental scooters getting bigger, but they thankfully will look a lot better than the current crop of bikes that the company offers.

Scoot announced today that it’s teaming up with Mahindra to bring the GenZe 2.0 electric scooter to the streets of San Francisco. The larger bike will become the default model in the fleet alongside the current “Cargo” bikes, which will remain in use. “For us, they [the Classic bikes] have been working very well for a long time,” Scoot’s vice president of fleet Mike Waltman told Engadget. “Our members love them. We don’t need to get rid of them.”

Going forward, they’ll just be referred to as “Classic” in the lineup. Like Coke Classic, but not a cheap ploy to get you to buy more sugary brown water. And in this case, you’ll probably actually enjoy the replacement.

The new scooters are part of the company’s continued expansion. Waltman said that Scoot would be adding 100 new GenZe bikes to its fleet every month. Its goal right now is to fill the demand of the areas in the city it’s already currently serving.

Waltman notes that Mahindra’s Ann Arbor, Michigan factory and willingness to work with Scoot to modify the bikes at the factory to Scoot’s specifications was key in the company’s decision to switch from Chinese scooter makers it had been using. “They show up. We screw on the mirrors and we test ride them,” he said.

Those changes are more than just a coat of red paint. The Scoot version of the GenZe has been modified since Engadget took a test ride earlier this year at CES. The handlebars have been lowered. The underseat storage isn’t accessible to riders (it houses electronics) and the touchscreen display has been replaced with a smartphone dock. The new bikes are also keyless — a first for Scoot. Moreover, the bikes are turned on and off via the app. And to keep them from being whisked away by thieves, the bikes have an innovative locking stand.

I took one of the Genze bikes for a quick jaunt around San Francisco, and I noticed right away that it has a more comfortable ride and higher sitting position than the old “Classic” scooters. The latter is helpful to see over vehicles in traffic. The “pickup bed” of the stock Mahindra has also been replaced with a top case that in addition to storing helmets, doubles as storage. As it happens, the bin has also been shaped to caress your spine when you lean back.

The new scooter is being adding to the fleet today. On Monday it’ll be part of the morning and evening commute and even more red blurs will zip by cars stuck in San Francisco traffic. But at least once they come to a stop, they’ll actually look nice.

Mercedes Benz’s E300 is a luxury car that happens to be high-tech

The Mercedes Benz E-Class has always been fancy. Wood, leather and a sense that you’ve made some pretty solid life choices are all part of the package. But the automaker has also been on the cutting edge of tech. For example, it added radar-aided adaptive cruise control to its vehicles back in 1998. So it’s no surprise that the 2017 E300 is filled to its German gills with the latest and greatest in car technology. The car is indeed impressive, but not without a few hiccups.

It’s easy to get caught up in the luxury of the E300. It’s luxurious and swift (thanks to 241 horsepower and 273 pounds of torque), with features you didn’t think you needed until you actually experience them. For instance, when you take a corner, the sides of the chair expand to keep you from sliding in your seat. It’s like a side hug for g-forces.

Keeping your butt in the seat (which isn’t novel, but still pretty necessary) is one of those instances where Mercedes takes an idea and gives it a bit more oomph — maybe more than the average driver even needs. For example, its cruise control car-tracking feature, Distronic, can follow a vehicle ahead of an E-Class at a predetermined distance. That’s not that special; but it can do it at speeds up to 130 miles per hour.

Steering Pilot, the feature that keeps the car in its lane, is also rated at speeds up to 130MPH. Sadly, in the short time I was in the vehicle, I was unable to get up to that speed to test the automaker’s claims. Darn these US laws and our lack of an Autobahn.

I was able to try semi-autonomous features out at a more reasonable 70MPH, and they worked as advertised. But I’m still a ways off from completely trusting a car from hiccuping and putting me in danger. While I was sitting in the passenger seat, there was a moment when the driver and I were concerned that the car wouldn’t stop when it was encountering gridlock, but after a few nervous seconds, it stopped and began idling behind a van.

Once traffic had dispersed, the lane-change assistant worked about as well it does in all other cars that have this feature. If you have an open lane, it’s happy to oblige. If there’s a vehicle parallel to the E300 or quickly approaching, it stays put. Like its competitors, Mercedes is quick to point out that you should keep your hands on the wheel during all of these maneuvers. That’s good advice, because ultimately, you’re still in control.

But if things ever should get out of control, Mercedes is there to at least alleviate the damage caused by an impact. The Pre-Safe Impulse Side system detects lateral collisions and moves the driver and passenger 2.75 inches away from the car’s body. It’s using the same side bolsters that keep you in your seat when going around corners, only now it’s pushing you away from an impact.

There’s also a new Pre-Safe Sound. When an imminent impact is detected, the car plays a “pink noise” that readies your ears for the sound of a collision. According to Mercedes, this will reduce hearing damage. If you’ve ever been in an accident, you may have experienced a ringing in your ears afterwards; this is supposed to prevent that.

While the car keeps you safe from dangers on the outside, the interior of the new E300 features an optional dash-wide display with two monitors. One replaces the dash cluster; the other, the infotainment system. My first concern about these displays is glare. While sitting in the passenger seat, I did have some difficulty seeing the screens in the afternoon daylight. But once I was behind the wheel, I didn’t have a problem with distracting reflections.

Both displays can be controlled with the new touch-based controllers on either side of the steering wheel, and that’s where things get a bit wonky. For starters, I had difficulty mastering the controls. Maybe after a few hours in the car I would have had more success selecting items, but during my brief demo, at least, I couldn’t quite get the system to land on the options I wanted most of the time. The E-Class vehicles also have a touchpad in the center console to control the dash, which I ended up using heavily. It’s not a bad solution, but I still hope a bit more fine-tuning will go into the pads on the wheel before the car eventually hits showrooms.

But that’s really my biggest complaint about the car. If you demand luxury and can afford the starting price of $52,150 (the all-wheel-drive 4MATIC starts at $54,650), the E300 is a solid car with tons of tech that doesn’t get in the way. Though Mercedes is looking to the future, it hasn’t diluted the experience with bells and whistles. You still feel like you’re driving the New England manor of cars. Except now the wood and leather are complemented with technology.

Source: Mercedes Benz

Batman: Arkham VR preview: Find out why the PS VR game was best of E3 2016

We’ll come out with a bold claim right from the off, not only was Batman: Arkham VR the last game we saw at this year’s E3 before its doors were shut, it was also the best. Of the whole show.

That’s a personal opinion, of course, and it doesn’t mean we didn’t like other stuff at the event; Battlefield 1 and Zelda impressed greatly, for example. It just means that nothing quite blew us away as much as Warner and Rocksteady’s first dalliance with virtual reality.

Here’s why…

This being E3, there wasn’t much of a game on show and the two distinct segments of Batman: Arkham VR we played were more like proof of game concepts than the game itself. They were more than enough though to convince us to give the main game a try when it arrives in October as one of the first wave of PlayStation VR titles.

It also reaffirmed our hope in VR as a gaming technology. A couple of other experiences of late had made us feel queasy or uncomfortable, throwing doubt on the medium. But it was clearly the software at fault and when a VR game is good, you get a sense of immersion no other format can offer.

There were two different sections in the demo. The first starts in Wayne Manor, with butler Alfred informing you that you’ll need to step out of the clothes of Bruce Wayne and into the cowl of the Bat.

The game uses the PlayStation Move motion controllers rather than a joypad, so you have complete control over floating hands that appear in front of you in the game. Using these you unlock a piano, press a few keys randomly and the process of donning the costume begins.

You descend on an elevator pad down through the bowels of the Batcave, which is magnificent and awe-inspiring in scale. You’ll look around as much here than in any other game we’ve seen to date, to take in every visual cue.

Pocket-lint

When you finally arrive at the bottom, the process of becoming Batman begins, from putting on the gloves, the cowl and testing every one of the gadgets that you store on your utility belt. It’s an experience rather than a game at this stage, but is still completely immersive, especially for Batman and comic book fans.

The next section takes you to a grim alley, where ex-partner and friend Nightwing lies dead. Yep, we just said that Nightwing has been murdered. We were just as shocked.

It is up to you to piece together some of the clues at the scene of the crime in order to advance the investigation.

Regular players of Arkham games will recognise the drill: scan the body, then fast forward or rewind through a re-enactment of what took place in order to find out why Dick Grayson lies in a bloody heap. The one major difference is that you are right in the middle of the action. Literally.

As you spin through the events, looking for key moments in the fight with an unknown assailant, Nightwing and an avatar go to it around you. And considering they are your height, it’s a surreal and exciting moment for sure.

Once you’ve found the relevant clues, which ultimately lead to the possibility of a witness, the demo essentially ends. However, you do get to use your grappling hook on a hovering aircraft first.

First Impressions

Unlike some VR games that we’ve tried in the past, which we can’t wait to finish, the Batman: Arkham VR experience for E3 was too short – in that we didn’t want it to end. We were about 15-20 minutes in the headset, we feel, although we can’t be 100 per cent sure.

There are some things that will take further investigation when we review the game fully. For example, the movement mechanics are based on blink hotspots, in that you look at a target on screen, press the button and instantly move to that position. That removes the fun of swinging around the rooftops, but also prevents motion sickness.

We’d also like to see if there will be more to it than basic investigation, CSI stuff.

For now though, it made us leave E3 for the last time this year with a beaming smile on our faces. And that’s got to be a good thing.

IBM and Gogo join forces to dodge in-flight turbulence

In what might seem like an unlikely partnership, IBM’s Watson division and Gogo Inc. (the people who bring you in-flight WiFi) have joined up to make flying a little bit smoother for everyone. As the Wall Street Journal reports, IBM is leveraging its $2 billion purchase of The Weather Company and Gogo’s internet connection to give airline pilots a heads up on turbulence.

According to The Weather Company CEO and General Manager Cameron Clayton, the concept is fairly simple: “What Waze does for cars, we do for airlines,” Clayton told the Journal. Or, more technically speaking: when a plane’s instruments record bumpy skies, that information will be uploaded to IBM and Watson through Gogo’s connection. Watson will then cross-check that turbulence with The Weather Company’s meteorological data and then alert other aircraft if they need to adjust their routes. Compare that to the current system, which requires a pilot to alert air traffic controllers on the ground, who then have to manually send out the heads-up to other pilots in the area.

According to IBM and Weather, turbulence costs airlines around $100 million per year “due to crew and passenger injuries, unscheduled maintenance, operational inefficiencies, and revenue lost while planes are out of service.” And, if nothing else, Watson can at least tell everyone to buckle up a little earlier.

Pro-Uber Austin politician sues to abolish fingerprint rule

Uber and Lyft have found a friend in Austin City Council Member Donald Zimmerman. The pro-ridesharing politician has filed a lawsuit against the mayor in an effort to overturn the rule requiring drivers to undergo fingerprint background checks. If you’ll recall, ridesharing companies lost a special election in Austin held on May 7th, wherein 56 percent of voters were in favor of doing stricter background checks on drivers. According to Reuters, his lawsuit argues that the requirement’s language was confusing, unlawful and did not provide enough information about the process.

Uber campaigned widely against the requirement to the point that it’s now facing a class-action lawsuit for spamming people with text messages asking them to vote in its favor. After losing the election, both Uber and Lyft pulled out of the city, leaving thousands of drivers without work. Some of those drivers filed lawsuits of their own, accusing the ride-sharing companies of breaking federal law by shutting down their operations in Austin.

Reuters notes that Zimmerman’s argument is similar to another complaint filed back in March. It sought to stop the elections, because the ballot language was confusing. The Texas Supreme Court, however, denied the plaintiff’s request.

Source: Reuters