You've probably noticed a steep increase in the ridesharing fares you pay, but your drivers haven't necessarily received the benefits. UCLA Labor Center researchers have published a study indicating that median Uber and Lyft fares increased by 50 percent between February 2019 and April 2022, but media driver pay only climbed 31 percent. The companies' profits reportedly jumped from nine percent to 20.7 percent over the three-year span.

The authors recommended that authorities cap the amount companies can take from passenger fare, with proportionate increases in pay and enforced minimum rates. They also call for increased transparency around both the rideshare commission and drivers' trip data. The study team further called for more detailed data, such as different ride types and surge pricing.

The companies object to the study's conclusions. In a statement to Engadget, Uber claims the researchers made errors and that its April 2022 take was 16.4 percent. Government fees are 18 percent, the company adds. Lyft, meanwhile, tells Engadget pay has been "consistently above" $1,100 per week since the start of 2021, and that commission caps would "dramatically" increase fares and hurt lower-income communities.

Study co-author Vivek Ramakrishnan tellsMotherboard the group purposefully excluded government fees, however. The project is meant to show the growing profits, not the overall price increases. One study at Cornell University claimed drivers in Seattle made healthy wages of $23 per hour in 2019, but earlier Berkeley and Economic Policy Institute studies determined that workers made roughly $9 per hour after expenses.

The findings come just as the fight heats up over wages. A judge recently blocked a pay increase for New York City ridesharing drivers in January after Uber sued the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) over an allegedly flawed methodology for calculating raises. That raise may still kick in following a March 1st hearing, but it's evident the companies aren't eager to adjust pay on authorities' terms.

The marquee show on Apple TV+ is coming back after a year and a half. Apple has revealed that the third season of Ted Lasso will premiere March 15th, with a new episode (12 total) arriving every week. The teaser trailer below doesn't shed much light on the story, but those who've followed so far know there's a lot to resolve after the end of season two.

Season three has AFC Richmond fighting not just to prove itself after promotion to the Premier League, but against one of its former allies — Nate is now working for Rebecca's ex Rupert at West Ham United. Roy Kent has to fill Nate's shoes, while Ted, Rebecca and Keeley have to grapple with both personal and professional challenges. It's safe to presume the series' optimistic-but-not-naive tone will carry forward.

Much is riding on this new chapter. Ted Lasso remains Apple's best-known production, having earned multiple awards. It's potential proof the company can produce a quality show with a substantial run. With that said, Apple isn't quite so dependent on the comedy as it once was. Apple TV+ is gathering momentum with a number of well-received titles that include Severance, Slow Horses and the Oscar-winning CODA. The service is still small compared to streaming heavyweights like Amazon and Netflix, but it's no longer an untested rookie.

The European Union is one step closer to banning sales of new gas-powered cars. The European Parliament has voted in favor of a Council agreement requiring that all new passenger cars and vans produce zero emissions by 2035. The move also revises some 2030 targets. Officials will now require that at least 25 percent of car sales (and 17 percent of vans) are zero-emissions models if a company wants to qualify for incentives between 2025 and 2029. The incentive will go away in 2030.

The new rules task the European Commission with keeping an eye on real-world achievements. It will have until 2025 to develop a way to report data on the emissions of the "full life-cycle" of cars sold in the EU, and will track the gap between emission limits and real consumption data starting in 2026. From the end of 2025, the Commission will publish updates every two years to gauge progress toward zero-emissions transportation.

The Council still has to endorse the text before it can be published in the EU Official Journal and take effect. The measure loosens the pre-2035 transition rules for niche automakers that produce fewer than 10,000 new cars or 22,000 new vans per year, and those making fewer than 1,000 cars per year will still be exempt.

That final approval is largely a formality, however, and the EU's years-long move toward a gas car sales ban has already had its intended effect. Manufacturers like GM, Stellantis, Volvo and VW already plan to stop all combustion engine car sales in the region (and sometimes worldwide) by 2035 or earlier, while marques like Renault have committed to electrifying most of their lineup as soon as 2025. The shift is well underway — it's just a question of which companies finish first.

TikTok might use a simple strategy to keep growing: help creators make extra money. The Informationsources claim TikTok is developing a paywall feature that would let producers charge $1 (or a price of their choice) to access a given video. While it's not clear exactly how the system would work, this would help influencers profit directly from their hottest clips.

The social network is also considering a revamp of its Creator Fund amid complaints about low payouts, according to the sources. TikTok would require a much larger follower count (100,000 versus 10,000), but could pay eligible creators more as a result. The fund might also reward users who produce longer videos that make good use of the recently raised 10-minute limit.

In a statement to Engadget, TikTok didn't directly comment on the supposed plans but said it was "committed" to devising new ways to make the service "valuable and rewarding" for creators. It's not clear when the paywall would be available, but the revised Creator Fund could launch as soon as March. The company is reportedly testing the new funding system in Brazil and France.

The additional rewards might be necessary. While TikTok's American user base surged during the pandemic, that audience levelled off in 2022. Paywalls and a new Creator Fund could keep social media stars posting videos on TikTok where they'd otherwise drift toward Instagram or Snapchat. The firm already has a YouTube-style program that shares ad revenue, but it's only available to a handful of top-tier users.

Any boost is contingent on TikTok surviving allegations that it's a national security threat, mind you. Federal and state politicians are pushing to ban TikTok on at least government devices over concerns the Chinese government might use the app for spying and propaganda. The company has long denied these accusations, and its CEO is poised to testify before a House committee in March. If it can't persuade officials, however, any US growth strategy could quickly fall apart.

Whether or not Blue Origin puts a lander on the Moon, it might play a key role in sustaining lunar operations. Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company has revealed that it can produce solar cells and transmission wire using simulated Moon regolith. The firm's Blue Alchemist technique uses molten electrolysis to separate the lunar soil's aluminum, iron and silicon from bound oxygen to extract key materials. The process can build solar cells, cover glass and aluminum wire using only sunlight and the reactor's silicon.

This approach would not only save explorers the trouble of importing material, but would be kinder to both the Moon and Earth. There are no carbon-based emissions, no chemicals and no need for water. The resulting solar cells can operate on the Moon for over a decade despite a "harsh" environment, Blue Origin claims.

As Ars Technicaexplains, Blue Origin is pitching this as a solution for NASA's Artemis program and missions to Mars. The space agency could establish bases or other long-term installations while minimizing the environmental impact. While the concept of using regolith to build outposts isn't new, earlier efforts have largely focused on habitats rather than the power supplying those off-world facilities.

Whether or not Blue Origin's tech reaches NASA is another matter, as the company has a mixed relationship with the US administration. While NASA is backing the Orbital Reef space station and will use New Glenn to fly a science mission to Mars, it lost a key lunar lander contract to SpaceX and failed in its challenge of the $2.9 billion deal. As novel as Blue Alchemist tech may be, it's not guaranteed to win business.

You might not have to pay much to bolster your smart home's security. Amazon is selling Blink devices for up to 43 percent off, including a Video Doorbell plus Sync Module for $60 (normally $85) — that's near an all-time low, You can also get the doorbell by itself for just $40 if you already have sync hardware. Most camera kits are also on sale, starting at $70 (normally $100) for the weather-ready Blink Outdoor.

Blink is effectively the budget counterpart to Amazon's Ring brand, but that's not necessarily a bad thing — you're getting a lot of functionality at a lower price. The Video Doorbell supports both wired and wireless connections, offers two-way audio, captures infrared footage at night and gives you the choice of either storing clips locally (on a USB drive) or in the cloud with a subscription plan. It ties into Alexa devices, too, so it may be your ideal doorbell you have an Echo Show.

The Blink Indoor and Outdoor models, meanwhile, remain our top picks for wireless security cameras. You get much of the same flexibility as with the doorbell, including a peak two years of battery life. Again, you'll have to invest in the Alexa ecosystem to make the most of these products. If you can live with that, though, you might not have many complaints.

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Bigscreen is best known for its namesake virtual social platform, but it's now getting into VR headsets — and it thinks it has a way to stand out in a crowd of powerful but bulky rivals. The company has introduced the Beyond, a PC-only wearable it claims is both the "world's smallest" VR headset and extremely light at just under 6oz with a strap. For context, even a simple competitor like the HTC Vive Flow weighs 6.6oz. This isn't a stripped-down device, either, as it includes two 5K (5,120 x 2,560) 90Hz OLED displays, six-degrees-of-freedom tracking and three-element pancake optics that reportedly eliminate the screen door effect (where you can see the gaps between pixels) while reducing bulk and providing a decent 93-degree horizontal field of view.

The company isn't relying on a marvellous new technology to achieve the size reduction. Rather, it's making a number of strategic sacrifices. Instead of adjusting knobs and other controls to get an ideal fit, Bigscreen asks you to scan your face using an iPhone app (sorry, Android fans) to produce a custom-fitted Beyond design. You even need to buy custom prescription lenses if you normally wear glasses. The six-degree tracking relies on external SteamVR Base Stations rather than built-in cameras, and built-in headphones are only available with an optional "Audio Strap." You plug into a PC through a link box that supplies both video and power.

Bigscreen

The Beyond supports the SteamVR platform and will work with any compatible controllers (including the Vive and Valve's Index) and full-body trackers. You'll need that compatibility, too, as Bigscreen doesn't ship controllers in the box. You'll need a reasonable powerful computer, too, with at least a quad-core processor and GeForce RTX 2070- or Radeon RX 5700 XT-class graphics.

The Beyond is available to pre-order today for $999, and will ship to the US in the third quarter of the year (read: summer). Canada and Europe will get their units in the fourth quarter, while Australia, New Zealand and Japan will have to wait until the very end of the year. Other countries are coming in 2024, Bigscreen says. The company chalks up the lengthy rollout to the longer manufacturing times needed for customized headsets.

Whether or not the Beyond is a good value may depend on your uses and expectations. It's less expensive than clunkier, lower-resolution alternatives like the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro and $1,099 HTC Vive XR Elite, but those are also standalone headsets that include controllers and, crucially, can be shared with other users. You're also out of luck if you use games and apps that don't use SteamVR. If you meet all the criteria, though, this may be one of the few high-end headsets you can comfortably wear for extended periods.

Gamers are no strangers to delayed seasons, but The Division 2 players are in a particularly awkward situation. Ubisoft has revealed that a development "error" has broken the shared-world shooter's build generation system, and thus the studio's ability to update the game. The team not only can't introduce the new season it delayed last week, but can't extend the outgoing one until it repairs the build functionality.

Ubisoft says it has made "good progress" in fixing the issue in recent days, and there are hints a solution is in sight. The company is in the midst of a three-hour "unscheduled maintenance" session as we write this, and it's using the downtime to fix problems that include an inability to make seasonal in-game purchases. The servers should be back online around 1PM Eastern if there are no complications.

The timing is particularly bad for this issue. Ubisoft recently cancelled three games in response to sinking revenue, and workers at its Paris studio went on strike last month to protest what they say are unfair working conditions. Things aren't going smoothly at the publisher, and it may be a while before there's a degree of stability.

The original HomePod was notoriously difficult to repair, to the point where cutting tools were sometimes necessary. Apple isn't giving nearly as much grief with the second-gen model, however. iFixit has torn down the new smart speaker and discovered that it's far easier to pry open. The large amounts of glue are gone — you can get inside using little more than a screwdriver, and the internal components are similarly accessible. Combine this with the detachable power cord and it should be feasible to fix at least some parts yourself.

iFixit cautions that it hasn't tested for possible software restrictions on repairs. It's not clear that you can replace circuit boards and still expect a functioning HomePod. Even so, it's evident Apple considers repairability to be a priority this time around, much as it does with the standard iPhone 14 and other recent products.

Not that Apple has much choice but to make the HomePod more fix-friendly. Both federal and state governments are pushing for right-to-repair mandates. If Apple didn't make the speaker easier to maintain, it risked a political pushback. And while we wouldn't count on Apple adding the HomePod to its Self Service Repair program, the second-gen's design makes that prospect more realistic.

Elon Musk's SpaceX may be willing to supply Ukraine with Starlink service as it repels the Russian invasion, but it's not thrilled with every use of the satellite internet technology. Operating chief Gwynne Shotwell tells guests at a Federal Aviation Administration conference that SpaceX objects to reported uses of Starlink to control military drones. While the company doesn't mind troops using satellite broadband for communication, it doesn't mean for the platform to be used for "offensive purposes," Shotwell says.

The executive adds that SpaceX can limit Ukraine's ability to use Starlink with combat drones, and has already done so. The company hasn't explained how it curbs use in the field.

Ukraine says it's not alarmed. National security council secretary Oleksiy Danilov tells The Washington Post the country doesn't rely solely on Starlink for military operations, and may only need to "change the means of attack" in some cases. Interior ministry advisor Anton Gerahchenko, meanwhile, argues that Ukraine "liberate[s]" rather than attacking, and that Starlink has saved "hundreds of thousands of lives."

Starlink has proved important to life in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began last year. The country uses the service to connect civilians, government agencies and military units that can't rely on terrestrial internet access. For drones, this could let Ukraine coordinate reconnaissance flights, long-distance targeting and bomb attacks.

SpaceX has a contentious relationship with Ukraine. The firm was quick to provide Starlink terminals soon after the war began, albeit with US government help. Musk complained that it was becoming too expensive to fund service indefinitely, but changed his mind soon after. And while Ukraine struck a deal in December to get thousands more terminals with EU assistance, that came just weeks after a steep price hike.