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Lyft drivers don't have to worry about being fully replaced by the company's autonomous vehicles just yet. Company president John Zimmer told CNBC that Lyft intends to operate a hybrid network at first, with a fleet that's largely comprised of non-autonomous cars. "[J]ust like what happened with phones, you didn't have 3G go to 4G go to 5G on separate networks," Zimmer explained."You still needed to be able to make a 3G call when 4G wasn't available." And similar to when LTE was new and mobile users mostly had to connect to the internet via 3G, Lyft passengers will also largely have to rely on rideshare drivers.

Zimmer envisions a network wherein autonomous vehicles will only be taking five percent of all trips at first, with rideshare drivers taking the lion's share of the rides booked through the platform. Lyft plans to scale up its autonomous rides with its partners, though, so those percentages will keep shifting in the future. The company has been testing self-driving rides in Las Vegas since at least 2018 with its partner Motional, which is a joint venture between Aptiv and Hyundai. In 2020, Lyft announced that it intends to bring fully driverless cars to multiple US cities by 2023.

Lyft also has an existing partnership with Ford, and they're currently testing the latter's Argo-AI powered cars — with no human safety driver behind the wheel — on Miami and Austin roads. In addition, the company teamed up with Waymo to pick up customers in the metro Phoenix area back in 2019.

In a month's time, we'll finally get to meet Nothing's first handset. The company has announced that its unveiling its second device, the Nothing phone (1), at an event on July 12th at 4PM BST/11AM EST. "It's our first smartphone, and our most important product," Nothing said in its announcement. "The real start of Nothing's journey. To make tech fun again. And an invitation to unlearn everything the industry has taught us." 

Nothing was formed by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei who departed his original company before it merged with Oppo. Given Pei's background, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise for Nothing to release a phone. However, it wasn't until reports came out that Pei was showing off a smartphone to industry executives at Mobile World Congress this year that the idea of Nothing launching its own phone became something real and not just something we'd expect the company to do in the future. 

Nothing eventually confirmed that it's unveiling its own handset this summer and that it will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It will run on Nothing OS, a modified version of Android that the company says "captures the best features" of the OS and distills it "to just the essentials." The platform's interface will feature "bespoke" fonts, colors, design elements and sounds, as well. 

Nothing will introduce Phone (1) to the public at a live event in London, which will be livestreamed on its website. You can RSVP for the online stream right here.

In protest of France's content streaming rules, Disney has announced that its animated holiday film Strange World (aka Avalonia) will go straight to Disney+ and not appear in theaters in the country. It also gave a strong statement to Deadline decrying France's so-called chronologie des medias rules. 

"Strange World will be available to all Disney+ subscribers in France, foregoing a French cinematic release. While we support French cinema — and have for decades — the new, cumbersome media chronology is anti-consumer, ignoring how behavior has evolved over the last several years and puts us at increased risk for piracy. We will continue to make decisions on a film-by-film basis and according to each market’s unique conditions," a company spokesperson said. 

France's laws force studios like Disney to wait 17 months before they can release movies to Disney+ after a theatrical release, following a four month purchase and exclusive six-month Canal+ window. Disney+ can then only keep it for five months, as it goes to free-to-air channels like TF1 and France 2 for a 14-month period. Once that window ends (36 months after the theatrical release), it reverts back to Disney+. 

Minister of Culture

Prior to a new law implemented earlier this year, the situation actually used to be worse for streaming channels, with release windows much longer. Disney has protested because the new rules favor Netflix, giving it a shorter 15-month window before films can revert to its streaming service. It has also said that the laws don't take into account the new reality of how content is consumed in the COVID-19 era. 

"We believe that the media chronology is not consumer friendly, nor does it establish a balanced or proportionate framework between the various players in the French audiovisual ecosystem. This is especially frustrating as we have been increasing our investment in the creation of original French content while also supporting French cinema through our theatrical releases," Disney said at the time. (Engadget has reached out to France's media regulator for comment.)

France's Ministry of Culture and regulatory body CNC juggle the needs of theater chains, studios, streaming services and consumers. At the same time, they're trying to encourage local production and original French content in general. That has been effective of late, with numerous productions like Emily in France shot in the country. At the same time, original French series like Netflix's Lupin and Call My Agent have become hits in the US and elsewhere around the world. 

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Alex Kipman, the lead developer of Microsoft HoloLens, is leaving the company, according to Insider. His departure comes after the same publication reported allegations that he engaged in inappropriate touching and comments towards female employees. He also reportedly fostered a culture that diminished women's contributions. After Kipman told his team about his resignation, Microsoft cloud and AI VP Scott Guthrie announced a reorganization that would split the HoloLens group. In an email that's also viewed by GeekWire, Guthrie said that the HoloLens hardware teams are joining joining the Windows + Devices group under Panos Panay. Meanwhile, the software teams are joining the Experiences + Devices division under Jeff Teper.

Guthrie also wrote that he and Kipman have been talking about the team's path going forward over the past few months and that they had "mutually decided that this is the right time for him to leave the company to pursue other opportunities." Kipman will apparently help with the team transitions over the next two months before leaving Microsoft entirely. 

In the previous Insider piece that reported on allegations against Kipman, a source said he watched what was essentially VR porn in the office in front of his employees. A former executive also told the publication that they had witnessed him behave inappropriately towards women more than once. He recalled an incident wherein Kipman allegedly kept massaging a female employee's shoulders even after she kept shrugging her shoulders to get him to stop. Managers were reportedly telling employees not to leave women alone around him. Eventually, 25 people got together to compile a report about the bad experiences they had with the executive. 

Microsoft didn't confirm or deny the allegations to Insider, but the company told the publication that "every reported claim [it] receive[s] is investigated, and for every claim found substantiated there is clear action taken."

Amazon made an appeal to its third-party sellers to oppose a Senate antitrust reform bill aimed at helping their businesses. In a post on Amazon’s internal forum for third-party merchants, the company’s vice president of worldwide selling partner services Dharmesh Mehta urged sellers to oppose The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S.2992), and asked them to contact their senators.

"As we have noted in previous communications to you throughout the past year, Congress is considering legislation, including S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, that could jeopardize Amazon’s ability to operate a marketplace service and, as a result, your business’s ability to sell in our store," wrote Mehta. 

Just under 500 sellers have responded to Mehta’s post since Thursday, many of them unconvinced by Amazon’s claim that the Senate bill will harm their businesses. “The bill jeopardizes the way Amazon wants to operate. It would not jeopardize marketplaces. Amazon, get your own house in order before asking us as sellers to defend you,” wrote one seller.

“I am personally sick of the condescending posts by Amazon management directed at us. We are not morons and know how to read and think for ourselves,” wrote another seller.

Mehta’s attempt to recruit Amazon’s third-party sellers into unpaid lobbyists follows a wider push by the company against The American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Last week, a public-facing post by Amazon’s VP of Public Policy Brian Huseman warned of potentially degraded Prime membership benefits for customers if the bill passes into law; similar to Mehta, Huseman also suggested anti-trust action might "make it difficult to justify the risk of Amazon offering a marketplace in which selling partners can participate."

The Senate bill contains provisions intended to prevent tech giants like Amazon and Google from giving their own services preferential treatment, thus putting other businesses at a disadvantage. Amazon over the years has been accused of using a number of tactics to put third-party merchants at a disadvantage, including using sales data on third-party products to develop its own competing products and prioritizing products that use Prime shipping in search results.

Trade groups funded by Big Tech have spent millions in ads that frame the bill as an “innovation killer” and harmful to small businesses, reported the Washington Post. The ads run primarily in states represented by vulnerable Senate Democrats, in an effort to amp up pressure from their own constituents. The Senate is expected to vote on the S.2992 sometime this summer. The House Judiciary Committee passed a similar bill last year, but it has yet to be scheduled for a floor vote.

IBM will begin an “orderly” wind-down of its operations in Russia, according to a memo from CEO Arvind Krishna that was released publicly today. The company suspended business operations in the country back in March, joining a wave of other Western companies that chose to either halt sales or pull out of Russia completely following its invasion of Ukraine. Despite no longer doing business in Russia, IBM kept paying its Russia-based employees. But US sanctions on Russian banks have made it harder for the company to pay its Russia-based workforce, Reutersreported last month.

The wind-down means that IBM will also terminate the employment of its Russia-based workforce. “This process will commence today and result in the separation of our local workforce. Our colleagues in Russia have, through no fault of their own, endured months of stress and uncertainty. We recognize that this news is difficult, and I want to assure them that IBM will continue to stand by them and take all reasonable steps to provide support and make their transition as orderly as possible,” wrote Krishna in the memo.

The company told investors that no longer doing business with Russia will have very little impact on its bottom line. “Russia is a very de minimis part of IBM,” the company’s finance head Jim Kavanaugh said during a first-quarter earnings call in April. Russia accounted for roughly 0.5 percent of IBM’s total revenue last year, or $300 million out of its total revenue of $57.4 billion. 

IBM has a number of high-profile customers in Russia, including federal banks, energy companies and Russian Railways. The company even held its Think Summit in Moscow back in 2019, where it highlighted its many Russian clients. But since March, the company has stopped providing “goods, parts, software, services, consulting and technology” to Russian companies, according to Reuters.

MacOS Ventura could prove reassuring if you're worried about compromised peripherals ruining your computer. As The Vergenotes, Apple has revealed that Ventura will require user permission before USB-C and Thunderbolt accessories can transfer data on M1- and M2-based Macs. You won't have to fear that someone could deliver malware simply by plugging in a thumb drive, or that a poorly-designed product might wreck your machine by sending bad info.

The policy is enabled by default, but won't affect accessories plugged into your Mac during the OS upgrade process. It also won't block external monitors, power adapters or products attached to already-approved hubs. Devices will also continue to charge even if they're blocked, so you can still use your computer to top up a friend's phone.

This won't thwart devices that could fry ports through electrical surges. However, this could add a meaningful layer of security on top of USB-C's requirement for encrypted authentication certificates. You'll have the final say on data access, and might just stop a malicious device before it has a chance to do any damage.

Follow all of the news from WWDC right here! 

The Winklevoss twins might soon head to court. The Vergenotes retirement savings firm IRA Financial Trust has sued the twins' crypto exchange Gemini over allegations the business didn't adequately protect customers against a February 8th breach where intruders stole $36 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum assets. The company didn't have "proper safeguards" to prevent the theft, according to IRA, and didn't freeze accounts quickly enough to block the thieves from transferring money.

The trust firm specifically rejected claims that Gemini's protections prevented a "single point of failure." Gemini made IRA the parent account for its customers (who use sub-accounts), and gave it a "master key" that was reportedly exchanged in numerous insecure emails. Combine that with security flaws in Gemini's system and you probably know what happened next — hackers got control of IRA's key, moved the crypto into a single user's retirement account, and withdrew the digital cash. The perpetrators also appear to have swatted Gemini during the February incident, making a fake kidnapping call to police. 

Gemini's other security measures didn't hold up, the IRA added. It supposedly shouldn't have been possible to transfer money between accounts if the exchange had either properly implemented two-factor authentication or prohibited transfers between retirement funds. The trust noted that it didn't have the power to freeze accounts itself, and that it took six emails to lock down all affected users. We've asked Gemini for comment.

This adds to mounting problems for the Winkelvoss' outfit. It recently laid off 10 percent of staff to deal with a plunge in the cryptocurrency market, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Gemini for purportedly misleading customers in parts of its exchange and futures contract. While none of these problems may necessarily be fatal, they suggest the Winklevii could face financial trouble for a while to come.