Monthly Archives: April 2017

New York Times

Uber Denies It Is Using Stolen Waymo Technology New York Times SAN FRANCISCO Uber denied claims from Waymo, the self-driving car company spun out of Google's parent company last year, that it is using driverless car technology stolen by a former Google employee. In a federal court filing on Friday, Uber said it ... Uber says its self-driving technology differs from Waymo'sReuters Uber calls claims it stole self-driving technology 'demonstrably false'The Guardian Uber rejects claims it stole Waymo driverless technologyTelegraph.co.uk Business Insider -Financial Times all 98 news articles »

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Uber Denies It Is Using Stolen Waymo Technology - New York Times

This is the second in a series of posts about how different demographic groups in the U.S. have fared in the digital age.

More than 56 million people in the United States are living with a disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But even as a growing share of these Americans report going online or owning a smartphone, the digital divide between those who have a disability and those who dont remains large.

Disabled Americans are about three times as likely as those without a disability to say they never go online (23% vs. 8%), according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in the fall of 2016. When compared with those who do not have a disability, disabled adults are roughly 20 percentage points less likely to say they subscribe to home broadband and own a traditional computer, a smartphone or a tablet.

Adults who report having a disability are also less likely to have multiple devices that enable them to go online. One-in-four disabled adults say they have high-speed internet at home, a smartphone, a desktop or laptop computer and a tablet, compared with 42% of those who report not having a disability.

The amount of time people spend online and their comfort level with technology also varies by disability status. Disabled Americans are less likely than those who dont have a disability to report using the internet on a daily basis (50% vs. 79%). They are also less likely to say that having a high level of confidence in their ability to use the internet and other communication devices to keep up with information describes them very well (39% vs. 65%), according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in spring 2016.

These findings are based on a pair of surveys conducted by the Center last year, when roughly one-in-six U.S. adults (16%) reported that they lived with a disability (defined here as a health problem, disability or handicap currently keeping you from participating fully in work, school, housework or other activities). The latest figures from the Census Bureau estimate that 19% of the U.S. population has some form of disability a similar share to what the Center found. It is important to note that there are various forms of disabilities, often ranging in severity, so this question is meant to be a broad look at disabled Americans.

Due to the nature of the surveys associated with this data, certain Americans with disabilities are likely undercounted. The figures reported on adoption and internet use are from phone surveys that were conducted via landlines and cellphones and likely under-covered adults who are deaf or have difficulty speaking. The data on the sharing economy are from a survey by Pew Research Centers American Trends Panel. Initial recruitment surveys for the panel were conductedon landlines and cellphones, so adults who are deaf or have difficulty speaking were likely under-covered. The estimates reported here are from panel surveys conducted via the web and mail, which may underrepresent blind people. In addition, our surveysdo not coverthose living in institutionalized group quarters, which may include some severely disabled individuals.

The disabled population is disproportionally comprised of seniors, and this is an age group that generally has lower levels of digital adoption than the nation as a whole.

Indeed, disabled Americans younger than 65 have much higher rates of having home broadband services and owning digital devices than those ages 65 and up. Still, even among younger adults, people with a disability are less likely to report using digital technology. For example, 67% of disabled Americans ages 18 to 64 say they own a desktop or laptop computer, compared with 84% of those in the same group who dont have a disability.

There are tools on the market aimed at making the digital experience more accessible to disabled Americans. Social media companies, for example, have experimented with artificial intelligence to help the visually impaired use their platforms, while other tech companies are expanding their screen-reading software and mobile apps. But there have also been dozens of lawsuits in recent years, claiming some websites are not accessible to those with disabilities. The Department of Justice is currently seeking public comments on how to ensure that the internet adheres to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

Some experts have suggested the sharing economy may bring about a more inclusive digital experience. Data from a 2015 Pew Research Center survey show that disabled Americans have the same or less experience with the sharing economy when compared with those who report having no disabilities. For example, only 7% of adults with a disability say they have ever used a ride-hailing app, compared with 18% of adults who dont have a disability. But disabled Americans are also just as likely as those without a disability to say they have ever ordered groceries online or hired someone to do a task or run an errand via an online platform (only around 5% of both groups say they have done either of these online activities).

Topics: Digital Divide, Health, Mobile, Technology Adoption

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Disabled Americans less likely to use technology | Pew Research ... - Pew Research Center

Forget ordering pizza. Soon youll also be able to consult Alexa aboutyournext period.

Last weekend, digital agency Rain hosted a two-day hackathon for staffers and local developers at its Nicaragua office to play around withvoice-driven experiences, and one of the Alexa skills that came of the exercise was a menstrual calendar for women planning to get pregnant. Rain isnt alone.As services like Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Watson increasingly become embedded in consumers daily lives, agencies are doubling down on their efforts and looking to provide actual utility through these platforms on behalf of their clients.

Agencies including Rain, Maxus, Huge, We Are Social and CP+B are betting on the future of voice technology, doing everything from encouraging internal demos and hosting hackathons to get employees better acquainted with the technology in-house. An its not just chasing the shiny, new object, they say.

Its still in the early adopter curiosity stage, but a huge shift is underway as far as clients are concerned, said Corey Szopinski, executive creative technology director at CP+B Los Angeles.

Tom Kelshaw, director of innovation at Maxus, agreed that clients are very interested, particularly those with close integration with Amazon as it reduces friction for sales. But budgets are small right now, because experimentation is very cheap and easy, he said.

Voice has been a big focus area for Rain ever since the agency debuted its recipe library for Campbells on Amazon Echo in 2015. The agency has designed Echo skills for a variety of clients and built a smartphone app called Reverb, which lets anyone interact with Alexa even if they dont have an Echo device. Most recently, it hosted the hackathon event for voice-driven experiences, out of which four projects are being submitted to Amazon, including themenstrual calendar above as wellas a skill allowing people to check their balance for public transportation.

The idea of learn-then-teach and repeat is part of the culture at Rain, said Andrew Howlett, founding partner at Rain. When you train others, you actually improve your own skills and expertise.

At Maxus, Kelshaw has an Echo Dot set up at his desk that staffers are encouraged to come and try out. The agency also regularly demos skills at internal events and brings in specialist developers for staffers to school its employees further.

Hugehosts regular hackathons to encourage applied learning for emerging tech across the board and had one focused on conversational user experience or voice interfaces. Among the projects was, for example, a voice-activated Alexa skill designed formarketers to useto get relevant marketing stats and figures. Wondersauce, on the other hand, has a small team dedicated to developing relationships with technology partners, diving into APIs, and attending hackathons and meet-ups. This group is then responsible for educating the agencys staffers on practical use cases that they can help their clients with.

Others, including We Are Social and CP+B, are also investing significantly in voice technology, hosting frequent meetups to school current employees as well hiring new talent, especially UX designers with experience working with voice. We Are Social launched its own daily news broadcast on Amazon Echo last December, giving consumers briefs on the latest news in marketing.

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Most branded voice activations including CP+B and Dominos pizza-ordering skill and VaynerMedia and Johnnie Walkers cocktail recipe skill seem gimmicky so far. But according to Rains Howlett, as the technology matures and developers start to grasp its true potential, real utility will emerge.

Look back at the early app store days for the iPhone the large majority of apps were gimmicky and silly, he said. But voice technology will continue to improve in its accuracy and efficiency, and this will allow more opportunities for brands to create useful interactions for consumers and revenue opportunities will too follow.

The technology will particularly have implications for the automobile sector, as well as in third-party app integrations such as geo-location, maps and payment. We are already working on some of these and are excited about what consumers will be able to do without ever taking their eyes off the road, he said.

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How agencies are pushing voice technology - Digiday

Theres a problem with the sharing economy, says Julian Agyeman, an urban studies and environmental policy scholar at Tufts University. While useful in some ways, he says, the concept of a sharing economy limits this very human value sharing to an economic transaction.

Thats the thesis of Agyemans most recent book, Sharing Cities, cowritten with environmental scholar Duncan McLaren. In the book, the two authors make the case for technology as a tool to transform cities into more equitable and more sustainable places if applied correctly. But when smart-city programs arent designed to correct social inequality, Agyeman says, they end up furthering it. Take San Francisco, the de facto sharing-economy headquarters, where skyrocketing rents have made the city unaffordable for all but the wealthiest.

Agyeman wasnt always focused on issues of justice. As an undergraduate, he studied botany and geography. But his interests shifted when he moved to London in the mid 80s. I realized that environment even landscape is not apolitical, he says. Landscapes are both real and socially constructed.

So Agyeman turned to urban policy how cities are formed, who has the power to shape them, and how they make up a greater human landscape. At the bottom of it all lies a question of human agency: Its one thing to discuss ideologies and policies that guide growth, but how do the changes that transform a city actually take place?

The sharing-cities concept offers a radically different vision of what the city can be, says Agyeman. He holds up Medellin, Colombia, and Seoul, South Korea, as examples of what happens when public officials make a true commitment to a sharing vision, from more accessible urban spaces to smart, tech-informed public transit that serves all its citizens.

In a conversation with Grist, he explained how that concept could redefine our idea of what makes a city truly smart. (This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

Q.In the introduction to this book, you write that sharing is an inherent human trait but isnt there evidence that suggests humans are naturally selfish?

A.When we evolved as a species on the savannas of Africa, you couldnt survive unless you cooperated and shared resources with bands of other pre-humans, and then humans. There has been a lot of study of peoples level of satisfaction with sharing it makes people feel good. Whats probably happened is that, as societies became more complex, some of the more basic traits were overtaken by others, like selfishness and competition.

Q.How do most of us imagine sharing in cities today, and how is the Sharing Cities vision different?

A.We need to reinvent and recreate the urban commons as a place where humans interact in a much more relational way, not just in a transactional way. In a sense, what were saying is we want to move from the sharing economy to understanding whole cities as shared spaces. Modern technology gives us a kind of intersection of urban spaces and cyberspace, which we think could be a platform for a much more inclusive and efficient society.

Q.What are the opportunities and pitfalls to look out for as technology revolutionizes the way cities work?

A.A lot of people see this idea of the smart city as just the city that is wired for automation and efficiency. But were saying its only smart if it harnesses the capabilities and aspirations of the citizens. Its not smart if it just sits there controlling traffic lights and streetcars. Theres a very great need to see technology as something in the service of solidarity and social justice.

Q.How can we direct technological innovation to be more people-focused?

A.If you dont build a scheme from the get-go with equity and social justice in mind, it wont simply happen. Let me give you an example. I was called up by people who run a bike-share scheme about a year ago. They said, its wildly successful, but heres the problem: Very few low-income or minority people are riding our bikes.

My reaction was: On what basis is your scheme successful, if thats the case? Did you involve any person from a low-income or minority group in the envisioning of your scheme? Because if it is envisioned by people like you, then it probably didnt fit into what low-income and minority groups might want.

Q.Why has there been so much conflict around integrating sharing economy models, like Uber and Airbnb, into cities?

A.Theres nothing wrong with the concept of ride-sharing or sharing an apartment. Butreally they have ended up exacerbating problems. For instance, Airbnb is exacerbating housing crises in various cities. I think we want to see much more municipal regulation, in terms of making the sharing economy more equitable. Were not anti-disruption but I do think we have to have standards that can apply to worker hours, worker rights.

Q.You write in the book that there is no one path to a shared city but there are common elements. What are the pillars of a truly shared city?

A.The fundamental principle is what we call the sharing paradigm the understanding that human well-being depends on building, developing, and nurturing capabilities for all. The resources that we have to do that from breathable air to education, energy, health care are better understood as shared commons than private goods. We might decide, collectively, that the best way to manage and allocate resources is through market economies or public management, but the starting point is the recognition of the collective and shared nature of these resources.

For one thing, a sharing city would actively invest in public services and enable whats called coproduction. The idea of coproduction is that you blur the boundary between producer and consumer. A good example: If you are discharged from Lehigh Regional Medical Center, in Pennsylvania, after having certain procedures, you will not be seen by a doctor or a nurse practitioner. You will be seen by a recently discharged patient who has had a similar procedure to you. And the recovery rate has been staggering - far better than if you were seen by a doctor or a nurse. Why? Because this person can empathize with you.

Q.Can cities who arent yet thinking about the sharing paradigm on a large scale circumvent their own bureaucracy and political inertia to implement some of these kinds of changes?

A. One easy way that cities can get into this like my own city, Cambridge, Massachusetts is by engaging with participatory budgeting. Participatory budgeting is a way to get people into the functioning of the city through a very small keyhole, by giving residents the power to set budget priorities. At the moment, Cambridge is making $750,000 available for its participatory budget decisions. Its about making the city more transparent, and its about giving people real choices.

Q.How would you advise someone who wants to get more involved intheir own city?

A.This is about the right to the city. This idea fits in with seeing the whole city as this shared entity, with shared public services shared health care, child pre-education, libraries, etc. City dwellers are already reimagining and redefining their environments and these environments are, by their nature, collective urban commons, theyre shared spaces. So for people who want to get into this: Dont accept your place as it is. Think about what it could become. In many ways, the sharing-city concept is a vision and a product the sharing city but its also a process, of remaking the city.

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The technology that brought us Airbnb and Uber can do so much more - Grist