London Black Taxis Plan Congestion Chaos to Protest Uber

As reported by BBC News: The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association complains that Uber's drivers are using a smartphone app to calculate fares despite it being illegal for private vehicles to be fitted with taximeters.

Transport for London has declined to intervene, because it disagrees that there has been a breach of the law.

LTDA now plans to force the issue by holding the action in early June.

"Transport for London not enforcing the Private Hire Vehicles Act is dangerous for Londoners," Steve McNamara, LTDA's general secretary, told the BBC.

"I anticipate that the demonstration against TfL's handling of Uber will attract many many thousands of cabs and cause severe chaos, congestion and confusion across the metropolis."
TfL told the association last month that it believed Uber's vehicles were not strictly "equipped" with taximeters since there was not "some sort of connection between the device and the vehicle".

Rather, the app was merely making use of data about the distance travelled and time taken, which was not illegal in itself.

 

The LTDA says it expects many thousand black cab drivers to take part in the protest

LTDA rejects this distinction and is now threatening to seek a judicial review.
"We have seen no evidence to suggest that Uber London Ltd are not fit and proper to hold a London private hire vehicle operator's licence, but no final decisions have been made whilst Uber's operating model is still under investigation," TfL told the BBC.

The dispute marks the latest in a series of clashes between Uber and the established taxi trade.

The firm is also facing restrictions on its operations in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Sydney and a number of US cities.

Disruptive drive San Francisco-based Uber describes itself as a "pick-up" service that connects those needing a ride with a background-checked private driver, and takes a cut - typically 20% - of the fee.
It now operates in more than 100 cities across 30 countries, including Manchester where it launched this week.

The firm markets its service as offering "cutting-edge safety measures":

• allowing customers to see the name and photo of the driver before they arrive
• letting approved friends follow the journey on a live map
• providing an email of the route the car used, so that a client can ask for a charge to be reviewed if they believe the driver took a roundabout journey

 

The Uber app allows customers to see how many available drivers are nearby

Fees are based upon data gathered by the driver's app and whether "surge pricing" is in effect because of heavy demand.

The five-year-old firm acknowledges that it can prove a disruptive force.

"Competition in my view is always good for the customer because it makes all of us up our game in terms of quality and service," Uber's general manager in London, Jo Bertram, said.
"On the driver side, we offer a much more flexible model that is very different from the old-school private hire industry, that allows them to work as independent business operators however and whenever they choose."

The LTDA said while the taximeter was the focus of its complaint, it had wider objections to the firm.

"Uber, funded by Google, Goldman Sachs and others, has a stated aim of challenging legislation that is not compatible with its business model," said Mr McNamara.

"This is not some philanthropic friendly society, it's an American monster that has no qualms about breaching any and all laws in the pursuit of profit, most of which will never see a penny of tax paid in the UK."

A spokeswoman for Uber said it rejected this characterization of its business.

European battles Other traditional taxi associations are also taking a stand against the firm in Europe:

• In Brussels a complaint resulted in a court setting a 10,000 euro ($13,920; £8,205) fine as the penalty for Uber drivers who continued to pick up customers without the necessary licences
• Berlin's taxi association has won a temporary injunction against the firm, but has chosen not to enforce the action to avoid the risk of having to cover lost fees if the ruling is later overturned
• French operators have convinced their government to propose banning the use of GPS-enabled apps by private car services including Uber. The government had previously made such companies wait 15 minutes before picking up a booking, but the country's Supreme Court ruled the move anti-competitive

 

French taxi drivers have opposed Uber's service in Paris

Uber does, however, have support from the European Commission.

Vice-president Neelie Kroes has said her staff used the service to "stay safe and save taxpayers money", adding that European authorities should help the firm comply with standards rather than trying to ban it.

"We very much welcome her support and her comments," said Ms Bertram.

BMW Unveils the Solar Charging Carport of the Future

As reported by Motor Authority: So you have a new BMW i3 or i8 in your driveway, and you’re loving the freedom the electric-drive capability gives you—but you’d like to be even greener? BMW DesignworksUSA has the answer with its stunningly simple, high-tech solar carport.

It’s still a concept design at this stage, but the bamboo and carbon fiber structure just begs to be built. Supported atop the structure is an array of solar panels that harvest the sun’s energy and store it in you BMW i-vehicle.

In addition to being greener than charging from the grid, the solar energy carport allows the BMW i owner to be more self-sufficient in their energy supply. To harness the energy from the solar panels, a BMW i Wallbox Pro is needed. Once integrated, the carport and Wallbox Pro can then directly charge either the i3 or i8. With the Wallbox Pro’s features, excess solar energy not needed to charge the car can be used by the connected house.
“With the solar carport concept we opted for a holistic approach: not only is the vehicle itself sustainable, but so is its energy supply,” explained Tom Allemann of BMW Designworks USA. “This is therefore an entirely new generation of carports that allows energy to be produced in a simple and transparent way. It renders the overarching theme of lightweight design both visible and palpable.”

BMW’s beautiful, functional solar carport certainly complements the ethos behind the company’s i brand. Here’s hoping BMW decides to offer it as an optional upgrade to i owners in the near future.
 

Should the Feds Drive Smart Cars - Making Use of Telematics?

As reported by the Washington Business Journal: Sure, it’s a little Big Brother. But with telematics, government could save a whole bunch of money — and industry could sell a lot of cool technologies.

Here's what telematics — which combines telecommunications and information processing to send, receive, and store information related to vehicle fleets — would allow agencies to do: monitor not only if its employees are speeding in government-leased cars, but whether they’re doing too many rapid starts or sudden stops, or even idling too much. They’ll be able to see if the employee is riding the brakes. They’ll be able to see whether they’re driving reckless — and even how the employee handled the car right before an accident.

Little creepy? Maybe. But the technology could save the government a lot of money, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report. Fleet managers could essentially provide tips for drivers on being more fuel-efficient, for example. They can take privileges away from those that aren't following the rules of the road and risking car crashes. They could even use data to defend employees against frivolous lawsuits by people claiming a federal worker was at fault in an accident. 

On top of that, agencies could analyze precise utilization rates of vehicles in their fleets and eliminate cars or trucks that don’t get used. They could see the remaining brake pad depth and engine diagnostics (yes, this technology gets that granular) to determine when maintenance is needed.

There are examples of savings already achieved by agencies, in fact. A fleet manager at Idaho National Laboratory reported that telematics data contributed to the decision to eliminate 65 vehicles since fiscal 2011, with an estimated average annual savings of about $390,000.

So then, with telematics offered as an option by the General Services Administration on the vehicles that it leases to agencies, why aren’t more using it? For one thing, certain costs that telematics would save are not their problem. For example, fuel costs are covered by a monthly fee, which is based primarily on miles traveled, so being more fuel-efficient isn’t really on their radar.

At the same time, telematics costs money. How much varies depending on what type of technologies are installed and how.

Some might be installed by the manufacturer, some might be add-on systems, and some might be mobile device applications and programs. Some might provide data via satellite or cellular connections, transmitting on a regular basis or when a vehicle passes a fixed-data download station. (Fixed download stations pose mostly upfront, fixed costs, whereas the cost for a satellite connection is typically levied in ongoing monthly data charges, the GAO noted.) On top of all that, fleets may rent telematic devices for a short period of time to obtain a snapshot of usage data, or may select a long-term contract for ongoing monitoring.


That brings us to the contracting community. The General Services Administration is currently engaged in efforts to secure new contracts for telematics devices for federal employees, and hopes to have them available by the end of fiscal year 2014, according to the GAO. None of the specific vendors bidding for the contracts were noted. As part of that effort, though, the agency is hoping to leverage government’s buying power, as it's been doing a lot lately through its strategic sourcing efforts. Whether there's enough demand is tough to know, given that agencies have only recently begun to pursue the technology in significant quantity.

For Tesla, Another Year Ahead Of Ramping Up Model S Production

As reported by GigaOm:While Tesla needs to look to the future to its next car the Model X, and its plans for a massive battery factory, the electric car company is still solidly concentrating on ramping up manufacturing of its current Model S electric car over the course of this year. In an earnings statement released on Wednesday Tesla said that it made 7,535 Model S cars — a record — for the first quarter of 2014, and plans to make between 8,500 and 9,000 Model S cars in the following quarter.  

In total Tesla wants to deliver 35,000 Model S cars in 2014, with an eventual production rate of 1,000 vehicles per week (it’s currently at 700 per week). While the ramp up in manufacturing might sound like a relatively minor move, the amount of lithium ion battery cells available to Tesla is actually one of the more substantial dampeners on that growth. Tesla says in its shareholder letter that “battery cell supply will constrain development in Q2 but improve in Q3.”

Tesla is looking to ramp up shipments of Model S cars to China and Europe significantly this year. Tesla says China could be one of its largest markets within a few years. Musk said on the earnings call that he was “blown away” by the interest and enthusiasm in Tesla in China, and in three to four years Tesla could manufacture cars in China for the Chinese market. Musk also said they are considering manufacturing locally in Europe, too, for European customers.

Beyond the Model S, Tesla is working on the production design  prototypes for its Model X crossover electric vehicle, and the company says those will be available in Q4 of this year. Tesla also started producing powertrains for the Mercedes B-class this quarter.

For the factory, Musk announced on the call that Tesla has a signed letter of intent with Panasonic as a partner on its battery factory. Tesla CTO JB Straubel said in the call that Tesla and Panasonic have a joint working team focused on exploring mutual topics, answering questions, and making progress on closing the deal on the battery factory. Straubel said that Tesla is heading toward a final agreement with Panasonic later this year.

Tesla could break ground on one of the potential sites for the battery factory as soon as next month. The company will break ground on another potential site shortly after that. Tesla will move the process along on two sites until it chooses one. Musk said on the call that California might be back in the running for the battery factory, but that the time to break ground on the factory in California could take too long due to regulations.

Even though Tesla beat its sales and profit estimates, the company’s shares dropped on the earnings news. Tesla’s stock fell 5.75 percent in after hours trading.

Here were the financial stats for the quarter:

• Revenue: $621 million (up from $562 million in Q1 2013)
• Net loss: $50 million or a $0.40 loss per share (Tesla made a profit of $11.25 million in Q1 2013)
• GAAP gross margin: 25.3 percent
• Tesla set aside a unplanned $2 million reserve for the under body plates it released earlier this year.
• Tesla spent $82 million in R&D expenses for the first quarter.

Google Maps Supports Offline Mobile Mapping

As reported by GigaOm: Google updated its Google Maps apps for both iOS and Android on Tuesday, and with it comes a feature some users have been wanting for a long time — a clear, simple button to save maps offline.

To find the “save map to use offline” button, simply look up a location on either iOS or Android. Scroll to the bottom of the place info sheet; if you’re looking up a restaurant, for instance, the button will be buried underneath user reviews, the user review summary, and other options. While the ability to save maps for times when you won’t have a signal would seem to be a basic feature, the iPhone didn’t get it until last July, and even then users needed to know the secret password-style command “OK maps.”

Aside from offline maps, this update seems to be a big one. On the iPhone, it’s landmark version number 3.0.0, and it comes with a number of new features.

Google Maps now can tell you the best lane to get in on the highway, so you don’t miss an exit. Google has added several filters to its business directory search, including the long-awaited “open now.” There’s also a little bit of Uber integration, and transit directions will now tell you when the last train is coming. Handy!

The update is already available for iOS and will be rolling out to Android phones over the next few days.

The First American Space Lifeboat In 40 Years Is Coming To The ISS

As reported by Electronic Products: NASA’s next generation of American spacecraft will be designed to carry people into low-Earth orbit and also function as a lifeboat for the International Space Station (ISS) for up to seven months. This service hasn't been provided by an American spacecraft since an Apollo command module remained docked to Skylab for three months from 1973 to ’74.

Similar to a lifeboat on a cruise ship, the spacecraft isn't expected to be called into service to quickly evacuate people but it certainly has to be ready to do so just in case.

Currently the lifeboat function of the space station is served by a pair of Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which are docked at all times. Each Soyuz can hold three people, so with two of them docked, there can be six people working on the station at one time.

According to NASA engineers working with companies developing spacecraft in the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), in order for a spacecraft to be considered a lifeboat, it must provide a shelter for astronauts in case of an issue aboard the station. The ship must also be able to quickly get all of its systems operating and detach from the station for a potential return to Earth.

When it comes to the lifeboat feature, two obstacles that make it difficult for spacecraft designers are power and protection from things outside the spacecraft, such as micrometeoroids. The electricity generated by the space station’s acre of solar arrays is reserved for the station’s systems and science experiments, and the amount of power available for a docked spacecraft isn't much — it's similar to the amount of electricity a refrigerator uses.

Designers also have the challenge of building a spacecraft strong enough to withstand impacts from micrometeoroids, but at the same time they cannot carry armor that’s too heavy to launch.

CCP gave aerospace companies a list of requirements their spacecraft need to meet during NASA’s certification process for use as in-orbit lifeboats. Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX are working in partnership with NASA on spacecraft designs that meet these requirements.

GPS/GNSS Backup eDLoran System Delivers 5-Meter Accuracy

As reported by GPS World: Durk van Willigen, René Kellenbach, and Cees Dekker of the Dutch consulting firm Reelektronika, and Wim van Buuren of the Dutch Pilots’ Corporation authored the ENC presentation about enhanced differential Loran (eDLoran), with results that greatly — and pleasantly — surprised many in the audience. A full technical article by these authors, describing the equipment, methodology, and test results of eDLoran, will appear in the July issue of GPS World. 

The new Loran project arose from the need of harbor pilots responsible for bringing large and super-large freight ships into dock. These pilots require GNSS-level acuracies of 5 meters for such work, and all parties concerned — pilots, captains, ship owners, harbor management — need some form of robustness, that is, back-up for the GNSS systems in case of jamming, unintentional interference, system failure, or other disruption.

As extensive research had established that 5-meter accuracy cannot be met by the currently tested DLoran system, which cannot get better than 10-meter accuracy. Reelektronika developed a new differential Loran system called enhanced differential Loran, or eDLoran. A full prototype eDLoran system was built and extensively tested in the Europort (Rotterdam) area. The tests achieved accuracies of 5 meters.

For maritime applications, eLoran is considered as the most promising backup for GNSS in case the use of satellite-based navigation signals is denied. The Dutch Pilots’ Corporation askedReelektronika to investigate whether differential Loran could meet the pilots’ 5-meter accuracy requirement for a harbor navigation. This proved to be an enormous challenge as preliminary tests showed that even 10 meters was difficult to achieve with differential Loran (DLoran) as promoted by the UK’s Trinity House/General Lighthouse Authority (see item below about Harwich UK tests by GLA and ACCESS). The challenge had led to a thorough investigation of all possible error sources of a complete differential Loran system.

Differential techniques developed and implemented for Loran are comparable with differential GPS. Although the error sources of GPS and Loran are quite different, the major common error source in both systems is the lack of accurate propagation models.

This led to a new research project to find a more accurate differential Loran technique. All possible error sources have been investigated again where possible, which resulted in some unexpected results regarding accuracies and costs.

Enhanced Differential Loran: eDLoran
The new concept of differential Loran had to fulfill two important primary improvements. The first is a significant reduction in the latency of the data in the data channel; the second is that a large number of reference stations should be capable of receiving the data channel, without saturating the data channel. The simple conclusion was that Eurofix could not meet these two improvements. However, Eurofix is still the prime GNSS backup candidate for distributing accurate UTC over very large parts of Europe. Further, Eurofix has the capability to send short messages that might be encrypted for secure communication purposes which might then form a terrestrial backup, for example, Galileo PRS.

Instead of using the Eurofix channel, eDLoran uses the public mobile GSM (Global System for Mobile) network to send the differential corrections to users. eDLoran receivers therefore contain a simple modem for connection to the GSM network. The eDLoran reference stations are also connected to the Internet which may be implemented via a cabled access or also via a GSM modem.Fortunately, today many GSM networks are robust in respect of GPS outages.

The eDLoran infrastructure is not connected with any eLoran transmitter station and operates completely autonomously. An eDLoran reference station is connected to a central eDLoran server by its connection to the network.

eDLoran Results
Both static and dynamic tests have been carried out. Here, only the final result of the dynamic test is presented. For full details on both sets of tests, see the upcoming full-length technical article in the July issue of GPS World magazine.

The results have been demonstrated to the harbor authorities in real-time on the laptop of the pilots on which the GPS-RTK and the eDLoran position were simultaneously shown. The logged GPS-RTK data is plotted on a Google Earth map shown in the accompanying figure. The track was widened to 10 meters as the accuracy requirements are 5 meters on either side of the track. The raw eLoran track is also shown, as well as the final white eDLoran track.

The red track is based on raw eLoran data without any corrections. The transparent blue line is made by GPS-RTK and is widened to 10 metres giving the required ± 5 meter limits of eDLoran. The white line is output from the eDLoran receiver which stays within the borders of the 10-meter-wide transparent blue line.

Conclusions

The outcome of the research opens some new and quite surprising possibilities for multiple applications. Only a few of the authors’ conclusions appear here:

1. eDLoran offers the best possible eLoran accuracy as it does not suffer from swaying wire antennas, sub-optimal timing control of the transmitter station and differential data latency.
2. There is no need to replace older Loran-C stations with eLoran transmitters saving large amounts of money. The existing Loran stations have a proven reliability track record. Further savings may be obtained by containerising the transmitter and operating the stations unmanned.
3. Installing eDLoran reference stations is fast, simple and very cost effective.
4. As there is no data channel bandwidth limitation, multiple reference stations can be installed which offers increased reliability and makes the system more robust against terrorism and lightning damage.
5. A single or multiple eDLoran servers can be installed in a protected area. There is hardly a practical limit in the number of differential reference stations to serve.