The safety driver in Uber's autonomous car that killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona earlier this year was watching Hulu on her phone right up to the crash, local police claim. The incident - which grounded Uber's self-driving car fleet as the company began an investigation into the safety of its vehicles - was "entirely avoidable" law enforcement have suggested.
An aftermarket gadget promising to bypass Tesla's Autopilot safety features and allow owners of the EVs to keep their hands off the wheel is being barred from sale in the US by regulators. Autopilot Buddy offered a workaround to the steering wheel sensors that Tesla uses to ensure that drivers are still paying attention and ready to take over, should the adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance need to disengage unexpectedly.
If the iPhone's CarPlay had one infuriating limitation, it's been Apple's lock-down on third-party apps, but some of the most frequently-requested are finally making an appearance. Announced at the WWDC 2018 keynote today, the good news is that apps like Google Maps and Waze are coming to the dashboard.
Microsoft has announced a new product and updates to existing products that ultimately benefit kids and families. Chief among the new offerings is MSN Kids, a news website based on the existing MSN site, but one created specifically for children. As well, Microsoft has updated its Launcher app with new parental controls, added site blocking to Edge for Android, and more.
Tesla's software update for the Model 3, pushed out to address criticisms of the electric car's braking performance, seems to have done the trick. The most affordable car in Tesla's line-up met with unexpectedly negative feedback from Consumer Reports, which initially failed to recommend the Model 3 after voicing concerns about how well its brakes worked.
It seems that the evidence against self-driving technology are slowly piling up. Coincidentally, the biggest number of them are coming from the car company that isn't actually pushing for self-driving cars that much. Tesla's cars have recently been involved in a few crashes, including a fatal one, that have been attributed to its Autopilot mode. And it seems it's not yet over as another incident has been blamed on the car's Autopilot mode. Almost ironically, the car in question crashed into a police cruiser but, fortunately, the story doesn't have a tragic ending.
Uber has added a panic button to its mobile app for US customers. We've known since the company's April announcement that it was planning to add a new safety feature to the app this summer, one that directly dials emergency services for drivers who fear for their safety. This is one of multiple safety measures the company is taking to address criticism.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is warning owners of 4.8 million vehicles in the US not to use cruise control, after discovering a flaw that could leave drivers unable to deactivate it. A recall is underway for all of the vehicles, which span FCA's Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, and Ram lines, and include sedans, SUVs, and pickups.
Trust in autonomous vehicles has faded among American drivers, new research suggests, with recent crashes and other incidents blamed for souring potential riders on the developing technology. While a number of companies have closed trials underway involving driverless cars, the general expectation among automakers and others is that it won't be until 2020 or later before services begin to take off in earnest.
The initial report on the Uber self-driving car crash that saw a pedestrian killed in Arizona has been released, with the NTSB putting the spotlight on the vehicle's emergency braking system. While the preliminary report does not go into analysis of the crash, nor reach any conclusion about who - or what - was at fault, it does reveal more of the circumstances of the incident in March.
Late last year, we learned of Facebook's plan to combat the spread of revenge porn through its services. The plan was admittedly a little weird, as it involved sending your own naked photos to yourself through Messenger and having a Facebook engineers create a unique hash for those images that would prevent them from being shared across the whole of Facebook. The company has fine-tuned its approach to revenge porn prevention in the months since we first heard about this initiative, and today it's launching this new program in a few regions around the world.
Autonomous cars are the future and promise safer roads and fewer accidents, but they are far from perfect right now. Uber's autonomous car killed a pedestrian recently and now an autonomous ride from Mobileye, a company owned by Intel, has run a red light and the driver failed to stop the car. The incident happened while testing in Jerusalem in a Mobileye car that lacks radars and lasers used by other companies.