Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 05/29 - Riders Can Now Get Banned From Uber

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Amazon has a new Echo Show to go after the Google Nest Home Hub, the NYC subway is entering the mobile era, Uber says it will now ban RIDERS who get bad Uber ratings, and Microsoft outlines its vision for a modern operating system. Sponsors: Lightstream.com/ride Mealime Links: The Amazon Echo Show 5 puts Alexa on a smaller screen, shipping in June for $89.99 (The Verge) NYC subway riders will be able to swipe in with Apple Pay starting Friday (TechCrunch) Uber is now kicking low-rated passengers out of its cars (CNET) Huawei Revs Up Its U.S. Lawsuit, With the Media in Mind (NYTimes) Inside the Apple Team That Decides Which Apps Get on iPhones (Bloomberg) The Decrypted Podcast Microsoft hints at new modern Windows OS with ‘invisible’ background updates (The Verge) Enabling innovation and opportunity on the Intelligent Edge (Official Microsoft Blog) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Techmeme ride home for Wednesday, May 29th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. Amazon announced a new Echo show to go after the Google Nest Home Hub. The New York City subway is entering the mobile era finally. Uber says it will now ban writers who get bad Uber ratings, and Microsoft outlines its vision for a modern operating system. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Going directly after the Google Nest Home Hub, Amazon this morning announced a 5.5 inch Echo Show 5. That's shipping in July for $89.99.99. Super competitive pricing. Quoting Deeter Bone and the Verge. It will come in two colors, charcoal and sandstone, and Amazon will also

sell a $19.99 magnetic stand that will allow you to tilt the device, which will make it easier to show kids things in the kitchen who can't quite reach the counter. But it's more likely you'll use it as an alarm clock or desk accessory. I got the check. chance to briefly listen to a song on the device, and while it seemed good for its size, it confirmed for me that you're more likely to want this in your office or bedroom than your kitchen. Then again, people get justifiably nervous about putting anything with a camera in their bedroom to assuage those concerns. Amazon put a physical visible shutter switch on the device. The visible part really does matter. You can just see that the camera is covered and off directly.

Other devices may physically disable the camera with a switch, but you have to look at the screen to know whether it's been disabled, end quote. But that's not all on the privacy front, because Amazon also announced new Alexa commands that will allow you to delete anything you just said to an echo device. You can now tell, she who shall not be named, to delete everything I said today, and it will erase anything that happened just that day. or you can say delete what I just said, and it will do just that. There's also a new Alexa Privacy Hub, which is on the web and inside the Alexa app that will give users more guidance on privacy controls. I managed to miss covering this last week, but the New York City subway will finally be getting contactless mobile pay abilities to pay subway fares with your phone or your watch. Last week, Google announced that Google Pay would be coming to the subways this week. That's the news that I missed.

And now New York City Subway writers can pay with Apple Pay as well, beginning Friday, May 31st. One small catch, New Yorkers, these new mobile pay enabled turnstiles are currently only on the four, five, and six lines, and only at some stations, roughly 16 of them. Quoting TechCrunch, the system works as you'd expect. hold the phone or watch up to the display, and it beeps you in with a big go on the screen and a done registering on the device. As long as your credit card is up to date, you should be good to go. How quickly this all works when thousands of New Yorkers are all using the system is another question entirely, of course. There tends to be a kind of learning curve with these sorts of things, and no doubt there will be a bit of a logjam at the turnstiles before the novelty of the system wears off, end quote. Also notable, the system only works right now with single ride passes.

So it's pay as you go. Daily, weekly, or monthly passes do not yet work with the system. Though the MTA has said more fair options are coming by 2020, at which point the contactless turnstiles should be rolled out to all subway lines and buses. Uber has long had a policy of banning drivers from working on their system. if those drivers get too many bad ratings from riders. But guess what, Uber riders? If you get too many significantly below average ratings from your driver,

you too could be banned from using Uber. But don't worry, this won't just be a summary judgment sort of thing, quoting CNET. If a passenger's rating starts to slip, the company will send tips on how to get it back up, such as being polite, not asking drivers to speed and not leaving trash in the car. Uber will give writers several opportunities to improve their ratings before kicking them off the app. Respect is a two-way street, and so is accountability. Drivers have long been expected to meet a minimum rating threshold. Kate Parker, Uber's Head of Safety Brand and Initiatives, wrote in a blog post.

While we expect only a small number of writers to ultimately be impacted by ratings-based deactivations, it's the right thing to do, end quote. Huawei wants its run-in with the U.S. government settled quickly one way or another. The Chinese company has filed a motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the U.S. in a bid to expedite any outcome without the costs and time of a full trial. And also, it would allow the company to avoid handing over sensitive corporate information to the government. Quote, legal scholars said the Huawei push could help the company avoid discovery, which would allow the United States government to demand evidence from Huawei about its technology and business practices.

As a part of the lawsuit, Huawei filed in March. The United States government would be given the chance to demand evidence from Huawei about its technology and business practices. The motion for summary judgment announced Tuesday could bring the suit to a conclusion before the discovery process would happen. Avoiding discovery is really important for Huawei. It is both time-consuming and invasive, said Julian Koo, a professor of law at Hofstra University. He added that the problem with Huawei's move is that the United States government can easily make the case that it needs discovery in order to get more facts and make its case, end quote. It's a Mark German Scoop Wednesday, but not of the usual variety. Instead of a new gadget or feature rumor, Mark sat down with Apple's former head of App Store approvals, Philip Shoemaker.

And in an overall discussion of the app review process, app rejections, and the like, Shoemaker had some interesting things to say about the app. App Store, especially interesting in light of that antitrust complaint by Spotify. Quote, Apple made sure that Shoemaker's review team treated all third-party developers equally, even if they were giant technology companies supplying important apps for iPhones and iPads. I was calling out Facebook all the time on Twitter, Shoemaker said. Even though they were one of those privileged developers, they had some of the worst code at the time, end quote. Shoemaker also spoke about Apple not approving the Google voice calling service in the early days of the iPhone.

He said there was concern inside Apple that companies like Google or Facebook could create a slew of apps that would replace core iPhone functions. That was a real thing. I mean the fear that somebody would come along, a Facebook, a Google, whomever, and wipe off or remove all of our items, he said. Once they started using these other apps, they'd be thinking more about Google now, end quote. Ultimately, Google Voice and similar third-party calling services were approved for Apple's App Store. Shoemaker also discussed Apple's own applications competing more with apps from outside developers. This wasn't a problem in the early days of the iPhone because many of the things Apple did were so new. Nowadays, the company sometimes adds in-house software to the iPhone that is similar to existing offerings from other providers, end quote.

And here's the quote that I'm sure Apple Legal is not exactly super thrilled about. quote, I'm really worried about the competition piece. You see Spotify going to the EU regulators, and you have Elizabeth Warren talking about breaking Facebook and Apple, etc. I believe that there is now a conflict as Apple goes into these spaces that are ripe with competition, end quote. You can listen to the whole interview because it's an episode of the Decrypted podcast from Bloomberg. Some other quotes I found interesting. Shoemaker took his job as the app store gatekeeper very, very much. very, very personally.

Quote, you are what's stopping an app from getting on the store and potentially making money for this developer to put food on the table and send their kids to school, Shoemaker said. It broke my heart every time I had to make those calls, end quote. He also had one of those typical Steve Jobs anecdotes to share. You might remember that early on in the app store, there was this controversial baby shaking app that actually got approved. That mistake earned Shoemaker a call from Jobs himself, quote. quote, Steve just had simple words for me. You're stupid and you hire stupid people, he says. This was one of the best conversations I had with Steve.

It was so succinct and to the point. He hung up the phone, end quote. And what if the future of Windows ends up looking more like Chrome OS than anything Windows has been before? We know that Microsoft has been working on a rumored Windows light version, but what if a more fundamental rethinking of the platform is in store for us? Nick Parker, Microsoft's corporate vice president of consumer and device sales, gave a keynote at Computex today, and Microsoft followed up with a blog post summarizing his speech, outlining essentially what Microsoft might be looking at in terms of what a modern OS should look like. Let me read the key paragraph.

These new modern PCs and innovative devices, the ecosystem will be able to be. continue to build and bring to market in the future require a modern operating system. An OS that provides a set of enablers that deliver the foundational experiences customers expect from their devices and includes a set of delighters that deliver innovative human-centric experiences. Enablers include seamless updates with a modern OS updates are invisibly done in the background. The update experience is deterministic, reliable, and instant with no interruptions. A modern OS is also secure by default. The state is separated from the operating system.

Compute is separated from applications. This protects the user from malicious attacks throughout the device lifecycle. Always connected with a modern OS Wi-Fi, LTE, 5G will just work. And users never have to worry about a dead spot. All of a user's devices are aware and connected to each other. A modern OS provides sustained performance from the moment a user picks up their device. everything is ready to go without having to worry about the next time the PC needs to be charged. These enablers will satisfy customers' basic needs, but to truly differentiate, we must also delight them.

A modern OS does this by enabling cloud-connected experiences that use the compute power of the cloud to enhance users' experiences on their devices. These experiences are powered by AI, so a modern OS is aware of what a user is doing tomorrow and helps them get it done, and it enhances applications making them more intelligent. A modern OS is also multi-sense. People can use pen, voice, touch, even gaze. Whatever input method a user wants to use works just as well as the keyboard and mouse. Finally, a modern OS has the right sensor support and posture awareness to enable the breadth of innovative form factors and applications that our partner ecosystem will deliver, end quote. So let me quote from Tom Warren's

take on the speech in The Verge. Perhaps the most telling part of Microsoft's Computex blog post is that the entire paragraph describing this modern OS never mentions Windows. Some of these hints at a modern OS could already apply to Windows as it exists today, but Microsoft also describes its focus on enabling cloud-connected experiences that use the compute power of the cloud to enhance users' experiences on their devices for this modern OS. It's clear that whatever Microsoft is working on for Windows Light and beyond, it will involve seamless updates, security improvements, 5G connectivity, cloud-powered apps, new form factors, and AI support.

Microsoft chose to bold all of these important parts in this paragraph detailing its modern OS future. Microsoft was rumored to be discussing plans for dual-screen devices and Windows Light at the company's Build Conference earlier this month. Those plans never materialized, and it did feel like there was a lack of future Windows information at the developer event. Even the next major Windows 10 update, codenamed 19H2, is shrouded in secrecy. Although it's expected to arrive in October, Microsoft has already publicly started testing a version of Windows 10, it won't deliver until 2020. We still don't know what's coming in the October 2019 update, and it could be a very minor update this time around. Microsoft's Windows Light plans may have been delayed somewhat by the company's surprise decision to switch to Chromium for the

edge browser. If Windows Light is more cloud-powered and relies on the browser for a lot more experiences, then a shift to chromium will have impacted this more modern operating system. For now, Microsoft is only willing to drop hints about what we can expect for the immediate future of Windows, end quote. Hey, everybody, another heads up that we are once again switching podcast hosts. Between today and tomorrow, we'll be flipping the switch to the new host, and hopefully you shouldn't notice a single thing. You'll just get tomorrow's episode in your feed like normal, and actually, hopefully, you'll get it quicker because we'll have fixed.

all of those problems that we've had recently with the show not posting immediately. But if for some reason you don't get tomorrow's episode, try searching for and resubscribing to the show. And if you discover any issues, any hiccups, anything, any error reporting would be greatly appreciated. So don't be shy about tweeting at me directly if you have any problems at Brian MCC or posting any issues that should arise on the subreddit are slash ride home. Again, we tried hard to fail-safe this time, so you shouldn't notice anything and you shouldn't have to lift a finger.

But you know how these things go, so get in touch with any problems. Thanks in advance.