Microsoft's Mixer Could Shake Up the Streaming Game

Microsoft on Thursday announced Mixer, a rebranded version of its game-streaming service previously known as "Beam." In addition to the name change, the service will include a number of new features designed to attract more gamers.

The added features will unlock new possibilities for social streaming, while also helping viewers find specific content across the service, according to Microsoft. New co-streaming functionality will allow four PC streamers to combine their respective broadcasts into a single split-screen stream. This feature soon will roll out to Xbox gamers as well.

In addition, Microsoft announced that it has launched new Mixer Create mobile apps for Android and iOS devices. They are currently in beta, but both will support self-broadcasting and the ability to stream mobile games soon.
There also will be a Mixer page on the Xbox One Dashboard, which will feature some of the most unique and popular streams curated by a dedicated support team. This will further showcase the variety of diverse, creative content from the streaming community. Moreover, Microsoft's Mixer will feature the always-on, moderated Channel One that allows users to see the breadth of content available across the platform.
Further, Mixer will serve as a gamer's eye to Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference on June 11.

Beam It Up

Microsoft acquired Beam last August, only some eight months after its launch, to compete against game streaming on Amazon's Twitch and YouTube.
When it launched, Beam attempted to differentiate itself from the competition by providing online competitions that could be streamed in real time. That helped it attract an audience, not to mention interest from Microsoft.
Now the newly branded Mixer could allow Microsoft to capture a segment of the gaming audience that likes to watch rather than actually play today's most popular titles.
"Microsoft necessarily has to compete but has been on the back foot in the live-streaming space," said Joost van Dreunen, principal analyst at SuperData Research.
"With the rebranding and hopefully a continued development effort, Microsoft has created an opportunity for itself, albeit it slim," he told TechNewsWorld.
"Historically, network-based strategies such as these are challenging, because neither content creators nor viewers are keen on switching platforms," added van Dreunen. "So Microsoft will have to come up with something unique that will draw people to its service."

Mixing It Up With the In-Crowd

Microsoft's efforts suggest that it may be aiming for a virtual mixer-style gaming party. However, gamers already have numerous options to meet up and engage, and co-op gameplay may not be enough to draw in new users.
"Crowd play is interesting, but the application has to be engaging in order to found a long-term role," cautioned Steve Bailey, senior analyst for games at IHS Markit.
"A handful of PS4 games employed a similar idea a few years back, but it didn't seem to gain much traction, and we're only just beginning to explore the potential of games with meaningful crowd-voting systems," he told TechNewsWorld.
"Novelty alone won't be enough to carry this idea, so Mixer and developers will have to continue working closely to realize its potential," Bailey added. "Mixer will also have to show that it can grow its audience, to make this effort ultimately worthwhile for developers."

Taking On the Established Players

A name change from the generic "Beam" to the equally generic "Mixer" may do little to get gamers off Twitch and YouTube, but the fact that the platform will offer live functionality to the PC and console could help set it apart.
"From the console perspective, various streaming facilities have been available on PS4 and Xbox One for quite some time now, so the question Mixer has to answer is, why should people use it over, say, Twitch?" pondered Bailey.
"Features and superior integration are the first hurdles. ... Co-streaming and crowd play are both interesting ideas, but that brings us to the next set of hurdles -- content that leverages these features in compelling ways," Bailey added.
"Team-based combat games are perfect for co-streaming, and so could fit well with many e-sports titles, as well as a number of key shooter properties on Xbox One," he pointed out.
Superior functionality could be the winning mix for Microsoft, however.
"Its key differentiators -- interactivity and low-latency -- are strong, and arguably elevate Mixer above rivals like Twitch and YouTube in terms of performance," suggested SuperData Research's van Dreunen.
"We've seen in the past that a higher-quality standard is no match for a platform or format that is more popular," he added.
"Another thing Mixer needs to implement is the ability for players to buy games directly through the service -- via Microsoft's stores -- and for the streamers to take a percentage of any purchases that they trigger," said IHS Markit's Bailey. "Twitch currently offers this, but for PC games only. Mixer could open up that opportunity for Xbox One games."

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Getting Serious About Teen Smartphone Addiction

Parents don't need a poll to tell them their teenagers are addicted to smartphones. After all, smartphones are a permanent fixture rather than accessories on the visages of kids of all ages these days.

Even so, polls move these everyday observances from anecdotal to official problem when the numbers tilt in that direction -- and a Common Sense Media poll hit full tilt.

The fact that 59 percent of parents said their teens were addicted to mobile devices was not surprising. However, the fact that 50 percent of teens admitted they were addicted was shocking.

While parents feel uneasy about their kids constantly being tethered to a device, most are not sure what real harm tech addiction does to teens. It turns out that it has multiple ill effects.

Loss of Empathy

Empathy, the ability to understand and appreciate the feelings of other people, is a trait that is essential to the well being of society. Empathy is the reason people are kind to each other, donate to helpful causes, and avoid harming other people and their possessions. When empathy is diminished or absent, the opposite often occurs -- and criminal behavior can spike.

Preteens who were deprived of screened devices for five days dramatically improved at reading people's emotions (nonverbal skills) compared to children who continued using screens, according to a UCLA study. Reading someone else's emotions correctly is a function of empathy.

Without empathy and human connection, young people can become cold and cruel to others. Then, when they encounter cold and cruel responses from other young people, the cycle perpetuates itself and grows.

"Lack of empathy seems to be a forerunner among cellphone users," suggestedChantale Denis, a clinical social worker and sociologist.

"Whether users are addicted or not, cellphone use can perpetuate a lack of accountability, breed irresponsible behavior, feed malevolence, and retard the ability to effectively nurture social skills inherent in our civility to be kind, thoughtful, caring, loving and understanding," she told TechNewsWorld.

Limited Career Success

Smartphones summon information and entertainment on demand. Thus, instant gratification becomes a constant expectation on and offline.

"Smartphones and computers socialize us into a pattern of communication that then carries over to our everyday non-tech communication lives," observed Psychsoftpc CEO Tim Lynch, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology of computers and intelligent machines.

"We expect answers right away, become impatient, use shorter sentences, get right to the point instead of engaging in small talk, and can ignore feelings of others in expressing ourselves," he told TechNewsWorld.

This lack of soft skills, which include people skills and critical-thinking skills, can interfere with getting a job and with getting promotions.

"Socializing and building authentic relationships in real life with others is a muscle," said psychologist Wyatt Fisher.

"The more we use it, the better we get at it," he told TechNewsWorld. "The reverse is also true. Therefore, as teens interact primarily with people through a screen, they often lose the skills needed to connect in person."

Emotional Disabilities

Smartphones offer young people more access to the world, but they also give more of the world access to young people. Without buffers and filters, teens and preteens can be influenced in all the worse ways.

Researchers reported a strong association between heavy Internet use and depression in a National Institute of Mental Health study.

They also observed a link between heavy Facebook use and depressive symptoms, including low self-esteem.

It's not just the constant barrage of posts, texts, and messaging from peers and bullies on smartphones that can have a negative effect on the mental health of young people.

"Social media is now a space for advertisement and influencing the masses, and teenagers are the most susceptible and vulnerable to these marketing campaigns," said clinical psychologist David Mitroff, founder of Piedmont Avenue Consulting,

"Teens are in the stage of development where they still do not have a strong sense of identity, so by constantly being on social media, they are effectively exposed to ads and models that promote unrealistic bodies or body weight," he told TechNewsWorld. "Ultimately, these ads negatively affect younger people's mental health due to the skewed representation of beauty or lifestyles that align with the products and services of many companies."

Breaking Smartphone Addiction

Most experts advise parents to encourage their children to limit the time they spend online. "Put down the phone" has become the new "go play outside." The key is to help kids find balance in their activities.

There are specific steps parents can take to achieve that balance, said Lynette Owens, global director of Internet Safety for Kids & Families.

• Talk about it. Don't just lay down rules -- discuss smartphone use with kids and explain why they need to seek balance and do other things. "Help your child understand technology isn't bad," Owens said, "but ask them, 'do you control it or does it control you?'"
• Set boundaries. Be smart and practical about it. "Not all online time is equal," Owens said. "Sometimes kids simply have to be online for schoolwork, and other times, it's for fun. It's the latter that needs some boundaries." Consider forbidding devices at the dinner table and leaving them outside bedrooms after bedtime.
• Set a good example. Put your own devices down. Model what you preach -- it could be good for you. After all, many parents also are addicted and need to regain their life balance. Twenty-eight percent of teens think their parents are addicted to their mobile devices, and 69 percent of parents admit to checking their devices, at minimum, every hour, according to the aforementioned Common Sense Media poll.
• Help them find balance. Offer alternatives or suggest other activities. Find some activities that they can do alone, some they can do with friends, and others they can do with parents. Again, the keyword is "balance."

Technology is not going away. If anything, it will become more pervasive. The key is to ensure that tech remains a tool -- a servant and not a master. By staying aware of your and your kids' use patterns, you can keep tech tools in their rightful place.

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Data Watchdog Cautions Google and UK Health Partner

A British data watchdog has raised questions about whether it was appropriate for a healthcare trust to share data on 1.6 million patients with DeepMind Health, an artificial intelligence company owned by Google.

The trust shared the data in connection with the test phase of Streams, an app designed to diagnose acute kidney injuries. However, the sharing wasperformed without an appropriate legal basis, Sky News reported earlier this week, based on a letter it obtained.
The National Data Guardian at the Department of Health earlier this year sent the letter to Stephen Powis, the medical director of the Royal Free Hospital in London, which provided the patients' records to DeepMind. The National Data Guardian safeguards the use of healthcare information in the UK.
The UK's Information Commissioner's Office also has been probing the matter, and is expected to complete its investigation soon.
One of the concerns since the launch of the Streams project has been whether the data shared with Google would be used appropriately.
"The data used to provide the app has always been strictly controlled by the Royal Free and has never been used for commercial purposes or combined with Google products, services or ads -- and never will be," DeepMind said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by spokesperson Ruth Barnett.
DeepMind also said that it recognizes that there needs to be much more public engagement and discussion about new technology in the National Health System, and that it wants to be one of the most transparent companies working in NHS IT.

Safety-First Approach

Royal Free takes seriously the conclusions of the NDG, the hospital said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by spokesperson Ian Lloyd. It is pleased that the NDG asked the Department of Health to look closely at the regulatory framework and guidance provided to organizations engaging in innovation.
Streams is a new technology, and there are always lessons that can be learned from pioneering work, Royal Free noted.
However, the hospital took a safety-first approach in testing Streams with real data, in order to check that the app was presenting patient information accurately and safely before being deployed in a live patient setting, it maintained.
Real patient data is routinely used in the NHS to check new systems are working properly before turning them fully live, Royal Free explained, adding that no responsible hospital would deploy a system that hadn't been thoroughly tested.

Google's Reputation

The controversy over Streams may have less to do with patient privacy and more to do with Google.
"If this hadn't involved a GoFA (Google Facebook Amazon), I wonder if this would have evoked such an outcry," observed Jessica Groopman, a principal analyst at Tractica.
"In this case, DeepMind's affiliation with Google may have hurt it," she told TechNewsWorld.
Although there's no evidence of data abuse by DeepMind, the future fate of personal healthcare information is an issue that has raised concerns, Groopman noted.
"There's a concern that once these sorts of applications -- and use of these sets of big, personal data -- become more commonplace, it will lead to commercial use of the data," she said. "I'm sure that Google and DeepMind understand that anything they do is going to be hyperscrutinized through this lens of advertising revenue."

Too Much Privacy

Health apps can have real benefits for individuals, as Streams illustrates, but they need data to do it, which can raise privacy questions.
"When you're looking at deep learning applications, the amount of data that is required to train these models is huge," Groopman explained. "That's why these kinds of tensions will continue to occur."
Patient information must be given the highest level of protection within an organization, argued Lee Kim, privacy and security director at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
"But there must be a balance between restrictions and availability of the data," she told TechNewsWorld.
"An immense amount of progress can be made in healthcare and self-care through the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to deliver more accessible, affordable and effective care solutions to the market," noted Jeff Dachis, CEO of One Drop, a platform for the personal management of diabetes.
"We must always respect data privacy and the individual's right to that privacy," he told TechNewsWorld, "but not halt all the much needed progress in this area under the guise of data privacy."

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Main Surface Pro Improvements Are Beneath the Surface

Microsoft on Tuesday announced a refresh of its Surface Pro tablet-laptop computer.

Although Microsoft said the fifth generation of the unit has been redesigned from the inside out with more than 800 new custom parts, the Surface Pro looks similar to its predecessor.
"If you were looking for a major redesign of Surface, this isn't it," said Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research.
Nevertheless, Microsoft has made some significant improvements in the tablet cum laptop.
"Overall, the new Microsoft Surface Pro is a significant, even substantial, improvement over the Surface 4," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

Better Battery Life

Battery life has been boosted to 13.5 hours, which is 50 percent greater than the new Surface Pro's predecessor, and 35 percent greater than its Apple rival, the iPad Pro.
Microsoft has upgraded the processors in the line, too, giving the new unit 2.5 times more computational performance than the Surface Pro 3, and 1.7 times the performance of the iPad Pro.
The Surface Pro models that use Intel's 7th-generation Core m3 and i5 chips are fanless, so they're quiet as well as powerful. The i7 model of the unit with a fan is relatively quiet, too, with a noise level of 18db.
"The fanless 7th-gen Core i5 capabilities are unique in a tablet, and it's apparent Microsoft did some serious thermal work," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy.
The new Surface Pro also has a high-resolution screen -- 2736 x 1824 -- with 267 pixels per inch, which is 50 percent more than a 12-inch MacBook.
The display is enhanced by Microsoft's PixelSense Accelerator technology, which is designed to make colors vibrant and precise.

More Sensitive Pen

Improvements also have been made to the Surface Pen, which is sold separately and is offered in four colors -- platinum, burgundy, cobalt blue and black. With 4,096 pressure points, the pen is four times more sensitive than the original Surface Pen, Microsoft said, and with a latency of 21 milliseconds, it's close to capturing the experience of an analog pen to paper.
"The long battery life and the fanless design will be the greatest draws for this Surface Pro," Reticle's Rubin told TechNewsWorld.
Meanwhile, "the new pen technology should resonate with those using their Surface for nuanced drawings," he added.
Drawing on the new Surface Pro is easier, too, thanks to an improved hinge that gives the unit 165 degrees of motion.
Microsoft also has spruced up the keyboards for the new Surface Pro. They're covered with Alcantara fabric, which is treated with a high-performance polyurethane coating to resist spills. Keyboard colors match those of the Surface Pen.

Future LTE Support

The new Surface Pro remains light and thin at 1.7 pounds and 8.5mm, and it's going to support LTE later this year, Microsoft said.
"If you preorder a unit, you will not have the option to use 4G connections," explained Jeff Orr, senior practice director for mobile devices at ABI Research. "You can only use WiFi or Bluetooth connections."
The addition of cellular connectivity rounds out the capabilities of the Surface Pro.
"If you're talking about a truly mobile product, you should be able to connect anywhere," Orr told TechNewsWorld.
Despite its many improvements, the new Surface Pro still doesn't support USB-C connections.
"It would have been nice to have at least one USB-C port," Pund-IT's King told TechNewsWorld.
Microsoft also has dropped numbering with this latest model, which may confuse the market in the long run.
"It's more difficult for buyers to know what is new and what is old in the channel," Moorhead told TechNewsWorld.
"Buying peripherals are more difficult, too," he continued. "We have seen these issues with the Apple iPad, and we will see them with Surface Pro."

Refresh Needed Badly

A new version of the Surface Pro was overdue.
"The product line definitely needed a refresh. This brings the Surface Pro products up to spec with other Surface products," ABI's Orr said.
"This will help Microsoft continue the momentum it's had with Surface and help establish it in more organizations," he added.
Before the refresh, that momentum might have begun to stall.
"The current Surface Pro has been around for a year and half now, so its sales began to slip because it's old technology," said Jack E. Gold, principal analyst at J.Gold Associates.
"They really needed to update it," he told TechNewsWorld.
Microsoft began taking advance orders for the new Surface Pro Tuesday, and will start shipping units June 15. Base price is US$799 for a model with an Intel Core m3 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 128-GB solid state drive. Keyboards are $159.99. Pricing for the Surface Pen was not announced.

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Watch Google’s I/O keynote live right here

Are you ready for some major news on all things Google? Google is kicking off its annual I/O developer conference today. The conference starts at 10 AM Pacific Time (1 PM on the East Cost, 6 PM in London, 7 PM Central European Time) and you can watch the live stream right here on this page.

We have a team on the ground ready to cover the event, so don’t forget to read our live blog to get our take on today’s news. Rumor has it that Google is about to share more details about Android O, the next major release of its Android platform. But you can also expect some Google Assistant news and maybe some virtual reality news.

Google Assistant could be coming to iOS, Google Photos might get a few new tricks and Android updates should roll out much faster thanks to a new modular design.

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Toyota, Suzuki begin partnership talks

Toyota Motor Corp. and Suzuki Motor Corp. on Monday said they have commenced formal talks aimed at forging a partnership in shared procurement, green vehicles, IT and safety technologies.

In a joint statement in Tokyo, they agreed to work toward the early realisation of a business partnership.

The agreement takes the two Japanese automakers a step closer to a tie-up that could give Suzuki, a maker of affordable mini-vehicles and compact cars, access to Toyota’s technology.

The world’s second-biggest car maker in return would benefit from Suzuki’s strong market position in India.

The companies in October said they were exploring a partnership, citing technological challenges facing automakers and the need to keep up with consolidation in the global auto industry.

Suzuki, Japan’s fourth-largest automaker, has said it has been struggling to keep pace with the speed of research and development (R&D) in the industry, a technology race that Toyota, with its greater financial clout, is better able to cope with.

Toyota invests heavily in R&D in areas, including automated driving, artificial intelligence and lower-emission cars.

Suzuki has long sought a bigger partner.

A tie-up with Volkswagen AG ended on a sour note in 2015, after the German car maker accused Suzuki of violating their pact by agreeing a diesel engine deal with Fiat.

For Toyota, access to Suzuki’s tightly knit supply chain network in India, which the automaker has cultivated since the 1980s, could help it develop and sell more mainstream cars tailored for the local market.

Suzuki dominates the Indian market through its majority stake in Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MRTI.NS), which sells roughly half of all cars sold in the country.

Toyota, despite years of trying, is still struggling to gain significant share in India, a country expected to be the world’s third-largest car market by 2020.

As a result of the talks, shares in Toyota closed up 0.7 percent in Tokyo while Suzuki stock ended up 0.4 per cent.

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Uber removes self-driving cars from San Francisco roads

Uber self-driving cars

Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] has removed its self-driving cars from San Francisco streets, halting the autonomous program one week after its launch as the company faced a regulatory crackdown, media reports on Thursday.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles said on Wednesday it revoked the registration of 16 Uber self-driving cars because they had not been properly permitted.

For the last week, the agency demanded that Uber shut down its program and comply with regulations requiring a permit to
test self-driving cars on public roads.

Uber said it was not obligated to have a permit because its vehicles require continuous monitoring by a person in the car.

San Francisco was supposed to be Uber’s second testing ground for its self-driving cars.

The company unveiled its self-driving cars in September in Pittsburgh.

“We’re now looking at where we can redeploy these cars but remain 100 per cent committed to California and will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide rules,” an Uber spokeswoman said .

California defines autonomous vehicles as having the capability to drive “without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person.”

Uber has argued that the law does not apply to its cars, which cannot stay in autonomous mode continuously.

A driver and an engineer are in the front seats to take over frequently in sticky traffic situations such as construction zones or pedestrian crossings.

Uber’s defiance was met with threats of legal action from the DMV and the state Attorney General.

The DMV told Uber that if it had obtained a permit, the regulator would have given the green light to the self-driving pilot.

DMV director Jean Shiomoto said in a letter sent to Uber on Wednesday that she would “personally help to ensure an expedited
review and approval process,” which she said can take less than three days.

The permit process is largely seen as a public safety measure, as regulations also require that companies provide the DMV with accident reports.

Uber, however, has complained that its home state has favored complex rules over technological innovation.

It is not yet clear whether Uber will apply for the permit or simply bring the self-driving cars to another state.

Another 20 companies exploring self-driving cars, including Alphabet’s (GOOG.O) Google, Tesla Motors (TSLA.O) and Ford Motor Co ( F.N), have obtained California DMV permits for 130 cars.

Uber opened up the self-driving car program to San Francisco passengers on Dec. 14, but has been testing the cars on city roadways for more than a month.

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Samsung Galaxy Note7 not officially introduced in Nigeria

An official of Samsung Electronic West Africa, Mr. Zain Mamudu, says the Samsung Galaxy Note7 has not been officially introduced into the Nigerian market.

Mamudu, who is Manager, Samsung Customer Service Centre in Abuja told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was slated to be introduced in the country in October.

NAN recalls that the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) issued a directive that the company should recall the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 within seven days.

This development followed worldwide reports of dozens of the phone exploding while being charged due to fault in the battery.

However, a statement from the Samsung Electronics West Africa Ltd., which earlier announced the postponement of the launch said that the device was isolated due to battery cell problems.

“Although the Galaxy Note7 has not been released in Nigeria, the current Galaxy Note7 users are kindly advised to visit the nearest Samsung Authorized Service Centre for immediate assistance about replacement programme.

“We acknowledge the inconvenience this may have caused in the market, but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the highest quality products to Samsung customers.

“Samsung is completely committed to fixing this problem and ensuring the highest level of safety and satisfaction for its customers,” Samsung said.

A Samsung distributor of Mehdi Global Ltd, who requested not to be named, told NAN that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was not supplied to the company or any of the company’s dealers.

He, however, said that even if the phone got into the country, it was probably bought in Dubai or elsewhere because not all the units manufactured had the problem.

Another phone dealer, Miss Joan Okechukwu also told NAN that her company never sold the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

“We never sold the said phone but heard of the directive by Consumer Protection Commission asking Samsung West Africa to withdraw the phones from the country,” she said.

NAN reports many shops visited also said that they did not sell the phone.

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Uber launches first self-driving taxi fleet

Uber on Wednesday launched a groundbreaking driver-less car service, jumping ahead of Detroit auto giants and Silicon Valley rivals with technology that could revolutionize transportation.

In an ambitious experiment, a fleet of cars laden with lasers, cameras and other sensors, but with no one’s hands on the wheel were to be deployed by the web-based ride service on the challenging roads of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, steering themselves to pick up regular Uber passengers who are used to being fetched by cars driven by humans.

Four of the Ford Fusion hybrids with their ungainly rooftop load of technology will be deployed to a select customers on Wednesday, with the company showing at least a dozen more ready to put on the streets.

And Uber is well-advanced in developing a self-drive car with Sweden’s Volvo, expected to become the mainstay of the program in the near future.

The cars and their backing technology have been trained on the city’s complicated grid for less than two years, but demonstration rides ahead of the launch showed them very able to handle most situations as able as many drivers.

Still, just to be sure, the Pittsburgh Uber regulars who summon a driver-less car will also get two company technicians with them to make sure everything goes right.

One will sit behind the wheel, with hands at the ready to take over in sticky spots, while the other monitors the car’s behaviour.

Uber will not give a timeline, but it aims to reduce that to one technician, still behind the wheel, to intervene and to satisfy existing state policies that require a driver in a car.

The goal, Uber officials say, is to get to zero interventions, and no technician along for the ride.

The move has put Uber ahead of the rest of the auto industry in getting such cars out for the general public. The major automakers all have driver-less car development programs, as do tech giants Google and Apple. And many automakers already have cars on the road with advanced driver assist technology, most notably Tesla.

Indeed, Uber itself was beaten to the punch at launching the first driver-less call service by the Singapore startup nuTonomy, which put six cars on the road at the end of August.

But the Singapore experiment is so far limited to a smallish area on the very flat, well-planned Southeast Asia island. Uber’s landscape is the whole of Pittsburgh, a major US city with very steep hills, old narrow streets and multiple bridges and highways built through the middle.

What allowed Uber to get to the front of the pack was not auto engineering but rather its ability to accumulate and crunch massive amounts of data on road and driving conditions collected from the billions of miles driven by Uber drivers.

“We have one of the strongest self-driving engineering groups in the world, as well as the experience that comes from running a ride-sharing and delivery network in hundreds of cities,” said Uber founder and chief executive Travis Kalanick in a blog post on Wednesday.

The introduction of driverless cars challenges the image of what Uber has become: an app-based service of the “gig economy” that gave millions of car owners around the world the chance to make money ferrying passengers without taxicab licenses or other permissions.

But Uber’s vision suggests a world of taxis on call by app with no drivers at all.

“Self-driving is core to Uber’s mission,” Anthony Levandowski, Uber’s vice president of engineering.

That would be far away, Uber officials stress. They still expect over the long time, a mix of cars with and without drivers on the road.

Levandowski came to Uber when it took over his own startup Otto, which was developing self-driving technology for commercial trucks. The company now has six driver-less trucks being tested on California roads.

Kalanick says the main aim is to create safer roads.

“Self-driving Ubers have enormous potential to further our mission and improve society: reducing the number of traffic accidents, which today kill 1.3 million people a year; freeing up the 20 percent of space in cities currently used to park the world’s billion plus cars; and cutting congestion, which wastes trillions of hours every year,” he said.

So far, company officials say, they have not experienced any accidents. But they have trained the cars’ minders on how to respond if it happens, which they say is inevitable.

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Watch Google’s I/O keynote live right here

Are you ready for some major news on all things Google? Google is kicking off its annual I/O developer conference today. The conference starts at 10 AM Pacific Time (1 PM on the East Cost, 6 PM in London, 7 PM Central European Time) and you can watch the live stream right here on this page.

We have a team on the ground ready to cover the event, so don’t forget to read our live blog to get our take on today’s news. Rumor has it that Google is about to share more details about Android O, the next major release of its Android platform. But you can also expect some Google Assistant news and maybe some virtual reality news.

Google Assistant could be coming to iOS, Google Photos might get a few new tricks and Android updates should roll out much faster thanks to a new modular design.

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Phone dealers ready to embrace rebranded Nokia 3310

Mobile phone dealers in the FCT on Friday expressed their readiness to embrace the rebranded Nokia 3310 when re-introduced to the Nigerian market.

The post Phone dealers ready to embrace rebranded Nokia 3310 appeared first on PM NEWS Nigeria.

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