GM’s car-sharing service Maven lands in San Francisco
There’s a new option to getting around the streets of San Francisco. GM has announced the immediate availability of its car-sharing platform Maven in the City by the Bay. The automaker — which has a substantial $500 million investment in Lyft — will continue to expand the service to other metropolitan areas as it dives deeper into alternatives to individual vehicle ownership.
As expected the service only rents GM vehicles. From the Chevy Volt hybrid EV to the gigantic Escalade. Prices start at $8 an hour for cars and $14 an hour for SUVs. In all, 60 cars will be available at 30 sites throughout the city with a focus on the Financial District, SOMA, Embarcadero and Mission District.
In addition to San Francisco, Maven is currently available in Ann Arbor, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington DC and New York City.
Like ZipCar, City CarShare and Enterprise CarShare, the vehicles must be rented and returned to same site. San Francisco doesn’t allow car-share full-size vehicles to be picked up and dropped off on the street. So don’t expect a Car2Go or ReachNow type service anytime soon from the automaker or any other company. Although the company does say it’s investigating that feature.
What Maven does have going for it that other car-share services are sometimes lacking is that post-signup, the acceptance process is relatively quick. “Usually within a few hours,” according to Jeff Shields, West Coast regional director of Maven. Although, it could take up to 48 hours.
But once you are a full fledged member, members use their smartphone as their key ass opposed to the NFC cards used by ZipCar and Enterprise CarShare. Couple that with the built-in OnStar feature that can help members find a destination and even extend the length of a reservation Shields boasts that it’s a “seamless experience.”
Source: Maven
Google will launch dedicated search results for mobile
In a few months’ time, you might notice getting different sets of search results on a phone and on a computer even if you use the same terms. That’s because Google has decided to start indexing mobile websites separately, according to Search Engine Land. Mountain View has been toying with the idea since last year — the continued growth in the number of mobile users might have finally convinced the tech titan to push through with it. Gary Illyes, the company’s trends analyst, has revealed the info at digital marketing conference Pubcon, where he also assured people that Google will still have a desktop index. It just won’t be as fresh and as up to date as the one for mobile.
The big G launched several other features in the past meant to encourage website owners to tweak their domains for phone users. Last year, it made sure its mobile search results prioritize websites optimized for phones. More recently, it started marking Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on the results page, so people can choose the website with the fastest loading time.
.@methode: Google creating a sep mobile index, which will be it’s primary index. Desktop will be a secondary index,less up to date #Pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Google will still have a desktop index, it just won’t be as fresh as the mobile index. #pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Via: Business Insider
Source: Search Engine Land
PS4 adds 360-degree videos and photos in time for PSVR
Now that the PSVR has finally been released to the public, Sony can now bring new PS4 features online that take advantage of the new peripheral. A few of these come in an update to the console’s Media Player, which now lets users watch 360-degree video and photos when they don the headset. They’ve also added support for audio played in the high-definition FLAC format as well as boosting the quality of lossy music.
Any content on media servers or plugged in via USB can be accessed by switching on “VR Mode” in the Media Player’s menu, but you can’t just load up any old YouTube video and see it in glorious virtual reality. Only media that was “captured in equirectangular format by a 360-degree omnidirectional camera” and saved in a supported format can be viewed in VR. (For reference, that includes video files in MKV, AVI, MP4, MPEG2 PS, MPEG2 TS or AVCHD, as well as photos saved as JPEG, BMP or PNG.)
Sony also enhanced the Media Player’s music capabilities, introducing support for FLAC audio and automatically upscaling lower-resolution files. Compressed MP3 or AAC files will get boosted to a quality approaching that of lossless FLAC or WAV formats thanks to the company’s DSEE HX tech, previously available only in a handful of Sony’s high-resolution audio products.
Source: PlayStation blog
Evernote fixes bug that could wreck your Mac’s notes
If you use Evernote for Mac to organize your life, you’ll want to update the app as soon as you can. The note-taking and sharing service is telling macOS users that it has fixed an app bug that would delete images and other attachments. In some cases, you could trigger it just by flicking through a large number of notes too quickly. Text itself should be fine, although that’s not much help if the pictures were crucial to your notes.
Evernote says it recovered what lost data it could on its end, and has been offering a year of free Premium access to users who didn’t get data back and might not have the chance to salvage their notes with Premium’s history feature. There are likely to be some bug victims who slip through the cracks, however. And however many people get their data back, the loss doesn’t help a company that has been struggling to redefine itself and assuage customers that it’s focused on its core sync service. It’s far from a deadly flaw, but it may take a while for Evernote to rebuild its reputation among affected users.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Evernote Forums
HP will cut up to 4,000 jobs over the next 3 years
HP is no stranger to large-scale job cuts, and it’s unfortunately gearing up for another round. A filing from the PC maker (not the split-off enterprise company) has revealed that it plans to cut 3,000 to 4,000 jobs over the next three years, ending sometime in fiscal 2019. HP doesn’t say what’s prompting the cuts, but it just set its profit expectations for fiscal 2017 (which ends in October) below what financial analysts had been expecting — it could be a matter of recovering some profitability. HP’s computer shipments have been largely flat lately, so it can’t count on a surge in demand to boost its bottom line.
That’s supported by the expected savings. Although HP plans to take on $350 million to $500 million in restructuring costs, it expects to save $200 million to $300 million per year from fiscal 2020 onward. No, this won’t be much consolation to those finding themselves out of work, but it could help HP stay healthy in a mostly bleak PC market.
Via: CNBC, Reuters
Source: HP (Investis)
Samsung reveals how many Note 7s have overheated since first recall
Another formal recall from the US government has revealed how many Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones overheated in the past month.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission once again officially recalled the Galaxy Note 7 on Thursday, following an alert from Samsung that asked consumers to immediately power down and stop using the device. The CPSC requested that every single unit be returned.
Just so you know… that’s 1.9 million phones in total, including 1 million original Galaxy Note 7 units and 900,000 “replacement” Galaxy Note 7 units, both of which have suffered from reported incidents of overheating. Samsung has received 96 reports of overheating phones in the US, with 23 of those occurring after 15 September, the date of the initial recall.
The CPSC is currently investigating six reports of replacement phones overheating. To date, there have been 13 reports of burns and 47 reports of property damage due to overheating Galaxy Note 7 units. Earlier this week, Samsung officially ended production of the faulty phablet, and it is now offering financial incentives to US customers in order to get all units returned (and sell more of its phones).
Samsung launched a new Galaxy Note 7 Refund and Exchange programme on 13 October at 3pm EST, which will let you get up to $100 bill credit if you exchange a Galaxy Note 7 for “any Samsung smartphone”. Alternatively, you can get $25 in credit if you exchange a Galaxy Note 7 “for a refund or other branded smartphone.” If you still own a Galaxy Note 7, you should consider exchanging it now.
It’s not clear how many Galaxy Note 7 units are still out in the marketplace.
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Mars astronauts could use VR to remind them of home
To put it mildly, Mars astronauts are likely to feel isolation on a level that even the most daring space explorers can’t understand. How do you feel connected when Earth is just a dot in the sky? NASA, Smart Information Flow Technologies and 8i might help. They’re researching the prospect of using virtual and augmented reality experiences to fight the “sensory and social monotony” of a Mars mission. The aim would be to create a library of inspirational messages that remind astronauts why they’re on the Red Planet, and connect them to family — a bit like the video messages in 2001, only more immersive.
Early recordings include Buzz Aldrin discussing his vision for Mars, and artist Reggie Watts performing some of his signature improv beatboxing. The subjects from the most recent HI-SEAS Mars simulation experiment have already received these clips, while new messages from “notable participants” should accompany the 2017 HI-SEAS run.
Crucially, you won’t have to book a trip across the Solar System to see some of these VR videos. Time has struck a deal with 8i to bring the Aldrin and Watts recordings to its Life VR platform starting in early 2017. They’ll initially require Google Cardboard, but there will be eventually be a “complete” Buzz Aldrin experience for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. It won’t be the same as watching in a Mars base camp (that might be a good thing), but you’ll at least get a hint of what future spacefarers will see.
Source: 8i (Medium), BusinessWire
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