The two companies said they will incentivize Uber drivers to switch to electric vehicles. Some of the incentives the companies will be offering include discounted charging, maintenance, leasing, and financing.

Multi-Year Agreement

The Uber BYD EV deal involved signing of a multi-year agreement between the two companies. The agreement provides for a phased roll-out plan of EV cars by Uber. In the first phase, Uber will focus on the European and Latin America countries.

Phase two will see the ride hailing company introduce EV taxis in the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The Chinese giant EV deal comes at a time when electric vehicle sales have dipped globally. However, a recent report showed that BYD could beat Tesla in EV battery production and sales this year.

Ownership Cost

In a statement released by the two companies, the Uber EV deal with the Chinese giant will make it easier for Uber drivers to own electric vehicles.

“The companies aim to bring down the total cost of EV ownership for Uber drivers, accelerating the uptake of EVs on the Uber platform globally, and introducing millions of riders to greener rides,” the two firms said.

Additionally, the two firms will work on integrating BYD’s self-driving technologies into Uber’s platform.

Challenge with Tariffs

Early this year, Uber announced that it was partnering with Tesla to boost EV adoption among its taxi drivers within the U.S. The taxi-hailing company also planned to partner with South Korean vehicle manufacturer Kia to develop a purpose-built electric vehicle.

The BYD Uber deal happened at a time when Chinese EV makers are facing higher import charges in the European Union and the U.S to protect their car industries. This move prompted Chinese EV manufacturers to establish production facilities outside China.

Rapid Expansion

Last month, BYD announced that it would be establishing a $1 billion manufacturing plant in Turkey. The plant will have an annual production capacity of 150,000 EV vehicles. It is expected to create 5,000 jobs with production scheduled to commence by the end of 2026. BYD also opened an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Thailand with the same production capacity.

The Thailand plant, which is the first in South-East Asia, is expected to create 10,000 jobs. Besides these plants, BYD already announced plans to set up the first passenger vehicle factory in Europe.

This factory, which will be located in Hungary will enable BYD to sell electric vehicles within the EU without paying additional tariffs. Backed by Warren Buffet, BYD is the second-largest electric vehicle in the world after Tesla.

The post BYD Set to Enter Ride-Hailing Space in New Uber Deal appeared first on Tech Research Online.

According to Electrek, the new designs were developed based on feedback from older and women riders. Lime used this feedback to make the new models inclusive and easier to operate.

“Building on Lime’s experience of designing its own hardware, the LimeGlider is a brand-new seated vehicle built without pedals for an effortless ride,” the company said.

Unique Features

The LimeGlider has a bicycle-like frame that gives it a bike look. But it’s fitted with eschews bike pedals that serve as static platforms for riders to place their feet.

This feature gives it a moped-style ride or makes it appear like a seated scooter. Without the pedals, the LimeGlider relies on throttles, such as those in Class 2 electric bicycles and electric scooters. This allows riders to glide effortlessly.

“The LimeGlider and LimeBike offer a glimpse at the future of micro-mobility, designed with a wider rider audience in mind to help us draw closer to our mission of building a future where transportation is shared, affordable and carbon-free,” Wayne Ting, Lime CEO said.

The LimeGlider comes with wider tires and a smaller diameter. This gives the ebike a lower center of gravity. It’s more comfortable for riders with a small stature. The step-through frame allows women riders to mount and ride the bike with ease when wearing a skirt.

High-Volume Bike Baskets

Lime has installed new higher-volume baskets on both LimeBike and LimeGlider ebikes. The company described the new baskets as wider, and more ideal for shopping errands.

“These improvements cater to feedback from groups traditionally underrepresented in Lime’s active riders, including women and older riders,” the company said.

The LimeBike also comes with wider wheels but adopts a more conventional bicycle frame. It features functional pedals and a height-adjusting saddle. Lime chose a deep step-through frame for this bike as well. This makes it easier to mount and ride compared to the high-top tube bike.

North American Fun

For riders in North America who prefer throttle-enabled ebikes, the LimeBike would be more ideal. Featuring both pedal assist and throttle, the bike allows lime electric bike women riders to decide whether or not to pedal.

“We’ve reimagined every touchpoint, from the tires to the phone holder, to make our riders feel comfortable and confident as they ride. We can’t wait to learn more from our pilots this summer as we continue our track-record of stellar in-house design and truly differentiated hardware,” Ting added.

Both models come with sliding phone holders and ergonomic hand grips that allow riders to keep their music or navigation apps running on their phones.

The post Leading EV Firm, Lime Unveils New eBikes for Women appeared first on Tech Research Online.

The outage persisted through the weekend, with monitors in U.S airports still displaying blue screens on Sunday morning. The New York Times reported that over 1000 flights were canceled by Delta Airlines on Sunday as the airlines struggled to recover from the global IT outage.

CrowdStrike’s Testing System

CrowdStrike said it was testing a system reboot system technique to fast-track the process.
In an update posted on X social media platform on Monday, CrowdStrike said restoration of systems was ongoing and that significant progress had been made in fixing the outage. The outage has been termed as the largest in history.

“CrowdStrike continues to focus on restoring all systems as soon as possible. Of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices that were impacted, a significant number are back online and operational. Together with customers, we tested a new technique to accelerate the impacted system remediation. We’re in the process of operationalizing an opt-in to this technique. We’re making progress by the minute,” CrowdStrike said.

The company said this amidst expert warnings by experts that full recovery from the Microsoft outage could take weeks. CrowdStike did not disclose how many Windows devices are not restored yet.

Microsoft’s Recovery Tool

On Sunday, Microsoft launched a free tool to facilitate CrowdStrike outage recovery for its customers. The tool allows administrators to recover the blue screen is amore automated way rather than turning the machines on and off multiple times where virtual machines run on Azure.

“As a follow-up to the CrowdStrike Falcon agent issue impacting Windows clients and servers, Microsoft has released an updated recovery tool with two repair options to help IT admins expedite the repair process,” Microsoft said on Sunday.

The recovery tool is available on the Microsoft Download Center. It comes with two options, including options for helping Windows servers, clients, and operating systems that are virtually hosted on Hyper-V.

Network Vulnerability

The global IT outage has brought to surface the vulnerability of global networks.

CrowdStrike’s faulty software update has shown how a one glitch can lead to global chaos.
“All too often these days, a single glitch results in a system-wide outage, affecting industries from healthcare and airlines to banks and auto dealers. These incidents reveal how concentration can create fragile systems,” US Federal Trade Commission Chair, Lina Khan said in a social media post.

CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software is used by many Fortune 500 companies to detect and block hacking threats. The multibillion-dollar company has a global footprint, serving up to 29000 clients across the world. While many businesses and governments rely on CrowdStrike’s products to protect their systems against cyberthreats, experts now warn that its dominance poses huge risks.

“We trust cybersecurity providers widely but without diversity; we’ve created fragility in our technology ecosystem. ‘Winning’ in the marketplace can aggregate risk, and then we all — consumers and companies alike — bear the costs,” Former Director of Cyber Risk at the City of New York, Munish Walther-Puri said.

As other countries focus on CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage recovery, China has not been affected by the crush. This is because CrowdStrike is not used widely in the country. Also, the Chinese don’t rely on Microsoft like other countries do. Before the global Windows crush, CrowdStrike was among the most trusted brands in the cybersecurity industry.

The post Microsoft Unveils Tool to Fast-Track Global Outage Recovery appeared first on Tech Research Online.

Following the IT outage, flights, television broadcasts, banking, and telecommunication systems were massively disrupted. According to ABC News, over 2000 flights were canceled across the U.S. while 5000 more delayed.

Not a Cyberattack

CrowdStrike ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack or security incident. According to the company, the outage was triggered by a faulty update on one of its products, causing the Microsoft Windows crash.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted,” CrowdStrike CEO, George Kurtz said earlier Friday.

However, the global computer outage persisted hours after the problem was detected and escalated.

In an X post published early Friday, CrowdStrike CEO, George Kurtz said, “We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.”

Varying Restoration Times

Speaking on CNBC during an on-air interview, Kurtz said that restoration of some systems was going to be immediate, while it could take hours or longer to get back. Some customers would have to reboot their systems to fix the problem.

“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” Kurtz said.

Widespread Impact

DownDetector, a company that monitors user-reported internet disruptions, reported that the Microsoft Windows outage affected payment platforms, airlines, and ecommerce platforms.

Long queues were witnessed in airports across Europe, the U.S, and Asia due to inaccessible booking and check-in systems.

“We’re aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers. American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” American Airlines said in a statement.

U.S largest mass transit system in New York City said train and bus operations were not affected. However, some of its information systems were temporarily affected. This wasn’t the case for the Washington D.C. metro system whose internal IT systems went down.

Media outlets in Australia went off air for hours as the tech outage affected telecommunication in the country. In New Zealand and South Africa, the outage affected payment systems, banking apps, and websites. Athletes and spectators heading to Paris for the Olympics experienced delays. Appointment systems in hospitals and doctor officers were also disrupted.

In a post published on X, Microsoft 365 said it was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and was “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

CrowdStrike’s Apology

Speaking to NBC News, Kurtz apologized for the disruptions resulting from CrowdsStrike’s faulty update that led to the Microsoft global outage.

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our company. Many of the customers are rebooting the system and it’s coming up and it’ll be operational. It could be some time for some systems that won’t automatically recover, but the company will make sure every customer is fully recovered,” Kurtz said.

Friday’s global tech failure highlights the risk posed by an interconnected world.

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Although Oxford Ionics didn’t provide the exact numbers, the University of Oxford spin-off firm said it used ten times less qubits than its competitors. The startup’s innovation set a new performance record for one and two-qubit gate operations.

Leveraging Ion-Trapped Qubits

Qubits are the basic quantum data storage units. They are made through varying systems that demonstrate quantum mechanical properties.

Oxford Ionics uses ion-trapped qubits. These are atoms that are made by removing one electron. Though ion-trapped qubits present progress towards fault-tolerant quantum computing, their scalability is limited. This is because they’re controlled through laser pulses, which increases error rates during scaling.

Oxford Ionics says it has embedded an Electronic Qubit Control (EQC) system in its quantum chip double performance power chips to fix this problem. This enables it to combine quantum performance of individual atoms with the reliability and scalability of silicon chip electronics.

Dr Chris Balance, Oxford Ionics CEO and Co-Founder said, “The industry’s biggest players have taken different paths towards the goal of making quantum computing a reality. From the outset, we have taken a ‘rocket ship’ approach — focusing on building robust technology by solving the really difficult challenges first.”

The Quantum Evolution

Quantum computing represents the next computing frontier where computers rapidly generate results by utilizing information that takes the ordinary computers years to process.

In recent years, Quantum technologies have evolved tremendously. There has been gradual accumulation of developments in these technologies from different sources. Although it’s still early to tell which advancements will be pivotal, a lot of these developments will be vital in moving quantum computing into the utility era.

Currently, private companies and research institutions are in a race to develop the first usable quantum computer. Quantum bits can only be used in highly specialized conditions. Quantum researchers must find simple ways of processing qubits to mainstream the technology.

Founded in 2019, the UK quantum chip startup says it’s on track to achieve the targets on its road map.

“We are now able to focus on the commercialisation of our technology and delivering useful quantum computing at scale,” the CEO said.

Oxford Ionics hopes that utility quantum computers will be available in three years’ time.
Recently, the deeptech startup won a $7.79 million contract to supply Quartet, a full-stack quantum computer to the National Quantum Computer Center (NQCC) in the UK. This will be the fifth quantum computer that the startup makes. The other four are physically located in its Oxford headquarters. They are accessible via the cloud.

The post UK’s Oxford Ionics Qubits Double Quantum Chip Power appeared first on Tech Research Online.

This new approach will make Google searches feel like a conversation, enabling custom responses for your specific query intent.

In a report from the Wall Street Journal, internal sources from Google said that the company would push its service further away from its conventional structure, which is also known as the ‘10 blue links’. This current search strategy is creates in such a way that the search engine will satisfactorily answer the queries within 10 search results.

In this new version, users don’t have to keep scrolling about what they need. But now it will give them a much more presentable ‘visual, snackable, personal, and human’ response. Although it appears to be a pragmatic shift away from the traditional internet way, it’ll probably appeal to younger searchers.
Also, it appears that Google has acknowledged that people are increasingly turning to other apps for information. Thanks to the overwhelmingly increasing number of pages and content on the internet.

Conclusion

As Google continues to invest in cutting-edge technologies, users can look forward to a future where their search queries are met with dynamic conversations and enriched visual content. The integration of AI chat and video clips signifies another step towards a more intuitive and personalized search experience, solidifying Google’s position as a frontrunner in the digital landscape.

The post Google Moves Towards more Personalized Search Results with The Help of AI appeared first on Tech Research Online.

The Samsung Balance Mouse

At this instant, Samsung clearly does not want people to work a lot. The South Korean smartphone giant has innovated a new computer mouse that is unlike the typical mouse. This is because it is exclusively designed to stop people from overworking. Debuted as the Samsung Balance Mouse, it runs away from the desk the moment you start working a lot. To add to our imagination, Samsung’s mouse not only works like a ‘real mouse’ but also looks like one. However, it is unavailable in the market yet as currently, as the mouse is still a concept. The company created it in collaboration with an ad agency.

The Samsung Balance Mouse was first spotted in a video posted on Samsung’s Korean YouTube channel. If you are wondering the motive behind ideating this mouse, it is simple and plain. The main motto behind the mouse is to improve the work-life balance in Korea. In its video, Samsung stated that a majority of office workers are hesitant to get off work on time. In fact, people are always under extreme pressure to finish their pending work before calling it off. Moreover, they are loaded with extra work at frequent times.

Can Samsung Actually Solve the Issue of Overworking?

Samsung further stated in its video that its Balance Mouse will solve this very problem of overworking. According to the company, it is not a typical mouse. In fact, it has the ability to stop people from overworking. It added: “When working overtime, this innovative product reveals its genuine features. It detects hand movements, and when the chance comes, the wheels come out of the house and run away.”

In addition to the above, the video mentions that if you think you can simply grab the mouse when it tries to escape, you are wrong! This is because the Samsung Balance Mouse moves swiftly. Thus, even if you do manage to get hold of it, its core part ejects. To conclude, Samsung indeed wants people to relive their lives beyond their office spaces and after work with its (conceptualized) Balance Mouse.

The post Why does the Samsung Balance Mouse run away if you try to overwork? appeared first on Tech Research Online.

New updates of Google Maps

On 27 July, Google announced three new features for its navigation app. These are aerial and more immersive views of 100 landmarks, detailed cycling routes, and improved location sharing with notifications for the arrival and departure of your friends.

For the past few years, Google Maps has been adding enhanced features to give users a detailed ability to plan their navigation. In fact, some of its features are currently interim steps in longer upgrade strategies. In fact, in May 2022, Google first announced the idea of immersive views at its developer conference Google IO. The company aimed to create 3D models of landmarks by using a combination of Street View, satellite, and aerial images. Currently, it is releasing immersive views of 100+ places located in various cities. However, the first iteration of the feature is incomplete. But it still supports more than 100 locations across major cities like London, New York, Barcelona, etc.

How is Google competing with TikTok and Instagram?

The new immersive view feature will eventually go beyond traditional landmarks. In the future, it will be used to bring to life local hotspots like restaurants, theatres, and many more. As a result, it will give potential tourists a better feel of the places they are looking to visit. Google’s announcement dwells on the increasing competition from Instagram and Twitter. More users are locating popular places and discovering new areas from these platforms. However, Google strives to be the primary tool where people find immersive views including other future features.

Immersive Views for Better Navigation

Google Maps is rolling better navigation tools for cyclists. Although Maps has offered bike navigation for a long time, the new update will enhance navigation to provide cyclists with more information about their routes.

With the new feature, cyclists will be able to check for traffic, including bike lanes, how steep or windy the route is as well as the condition of the roads. They can use this information to choose alternative paths, as (in some cases) Google will also offer possible and faster routes with more bike lanes and fewer turns.

Additionally, Google is also upgrading location sharing. Along with sharing your location, you can ping notifications to a friend to inform them about your arrival and departure. It will also warn you when you’ve left the feature turned on if you didn’t set a time limit when you started sharing your location.

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