Uber is expanding existing services and introducing new features meant to help it achieve its goal of becoming a zero-emission platform by 2040. To start with, the company is bringing UberX Share, its revamped carpooling service, to 18 more cities. That brings the total number of markets where it's available to 50, allowing more people to share their commute with others going the same way.

For those who'd rather drive their own vehicle, Uber is also launching Carshare, a new product that allows users to borrow cars from private owners, in more locations. It initially launched in Australia, but it will roll out in Boston and Toronto in the coming months. The company believes that turning private cars into shared vehicles could lead to more livable neighborhoods around the world. 

Uber Green is now also available in Australia, giving passengers the ability to choose hybrid or fully electric vehicles for their rides. And speaking of green options, Uber has updated its app so that its Emission Savings section in the Account page shows the emissions passengers have managed to avoid by choosing Green and Comfort Electric options. 

To encourage travelers to choose either Uber Green or Comfort Electric, which gives riders access to top-rated drivers in premium zero-emission vehicles, the company has also introduced airport-specific perks. This summer, riders who choose either option will get lower fares and exclusive access to dedicated pickup zones at airports. Meanwhile, drivers with hybrid or electric vehicles will be able to use airport fast chargers for free or at discounted rates.

Uber is integrating smart charging features into its Driver app, as well, so that it can publish real-time charging prices and locations. The updated app will also have the ability to filter trip requests based on the vehicle's battery level, so that drivers will end near a charger and don't end up taking trips much longer than what their current battery level can handle. 

The company announced way back in 2020 that it plans to be fully emission free by 2040. It's hoping that by that time, it can offer 100 percent of rides in zero-emission vehicles, on public transit or with micromobility, such as bikes. (It is, by the way, expanding bikes to Chile in partnership with bike-sharing network Tembici.) Now it's including Uber Eats in that pledge. It's aiming to eliminate all emissions associated with its food delivery service by 2040 and to end all unnecessary plastic waste from delivery ten years earlier by 2030. 

United Airlines has struck a deal with Panasonic Avionics that could make flying in economy more bearable. No, it will not magically make the seats wider or the leg room bigger, but it will distract you with a larger, sharper in-flight entertainment display and — some will perhaps find this even more exciting — Bluetooth. The airline has announced that it's installing almost 300,000 units of Panasonic Avionics' Astrova in-flight entertainment (IFE) screens on select new Boeing 787 and Airbus A321XLR aircraft. 

They're seatback displays that use 4K OLED technology, which promises sharper image quality and better contrast ratio than a lot of other IFE systems. The company says Astrova can also provide high fidelity 3D spatial audio through its latest Bluetooth technology. Yep, you won't need to use wired headphones anymore or bring one of those Bluetooth dongles just so you could use your wireless earbuds. Astrova also comes with USB-C ports capable of charging your phones and tablets with 100 watts of DC power. 

As Aviation Week notes, the Boeing 787 and Airbus A321XLR planes are part of United's international fleet, but the airline will reportedly equip its domestic planes with Astrova IFE systems, as well. The displays will be installed under the United Next program, which aims to put a seatback in-flight display at every seat. United plans to provide first class passengers access to 13-inch displays and passengers in economy with 10-inch IFE screens. 

In their announcement, the companies said their agreement will allow United to upgrade the Astrova displays over the coming years. The IFE system uses a modular architecture with a removable peripheral bar that makes it easy to add newer technologies and update its Bluetooth or charging stations. No upgrade will be happening anytime soon, though — the airline isn't scheduled to start installing the in-flight entertainment systems until 2025. 

The Federal Communications Commission has issued a cease-and-desist letter to Avid Telecom, the same company sued by nearly all Attorneys General in the US for alleged robocall activities. In the letter (PDF) addressed to Avid CEO Michael Lansky, the FCC said it has determined that the company "is apparently originating illegal robocall traffic on behalf of one or more of its clients." The commission explained that it worked with USTelecom’s Industry Traceback Group, which investigated prerecorded telemarketing calls related to health insurance that the aforementioned state attorneys general identified as robocalls made without consent.

Apparently, their investigation determined that Avid originated the calls. When notified about the calls, Avid told the traceback group that its customer obtained consent through opt-in websites, but the FCC explained in its letter that the customer "failed to make adequate disclosures to obtain consent." That is, it didn't tell people that their consent authorizes the caller "to deliver advertisements or telemarketing messages using an auto-dialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice." In some cases, the customer allegedly called people even after they revoked their consent. 

The FCC has outlined the steps Avid has to take to address the issue, starting by investigating the identified traffic. Then, it has to implement measures that can prevent new and existing customers from using its network to make illegal calls. Within 48 hours of receiving the letter, Avid is required to update the FCC with the measures it has taken to mitigate robocalls coming from its network. After that, it has to inform the commission of the safeguards it has implemented to prevent its customers from using its network to make robocalls. The FCC warned that if Avid fails to comply, downstream voice service providers might permanently block all of Avid’s traffic. 

In late May, Attorneys General from 48 states filed a lawsuit against the Arizona-based VoIP services provider, accusing it of being the origin for over 7.5 billion calls to people on the National Do Not Call Registry. According to the lawsuit, Avid spoofed phone numbers and made calls appear as if they were from government offices, law enforcement agencies and companies like Amazon. The Attorneys General are asking the court to issue an injunction on Avid for making robocalls and to make the company pay for damages and restitution to the people it called illegally.

Wordpress is getting an AI writing assistant of its own called Jetpack AI, and it's built into the content management system's editor. For Wordpress blogs hosted elsewhere, owners will still be able to access the tool through the Jetpack plugin. Like any other generative AI tool, Jetpack can spit out content based on the prompt users type in, whether it's a traditional article, a list or a table. The assistant can also switch the tone of the post, depending on what the user is going for: It could sound informative, optimistic, humorous or even sarcastic. 

If the user wants to write their own post, they could still ask Jetpack for help. They could either make the tool generate a headline based on what they'd written or use it to automatically check their grammar or correct any spelling mistakes. And if they want to include a translation of their article, they can use Jetpack AI to quickly translate it into any of its 12 available languages, including Spanish, French and Korean. According to TechCrunch, Jetpack is free to use for all WordPress.com customers for the first 20 requests as sort of a free trial period. After that, users will have to pay $10 per month to be able to access the tool. 

While Jetpack AI can be especially useful for people already using Wordpress, it's just one of the AI-powered writing tools that have recently popped up. The Microsoft 365 Copilot, for instance, can create a proposal on Word based on spreadsheet data or change a written report's tone. Google also recently imbued its Workspace apps with AI capabilities and gave Docs the power to generate text based on the topic written on the page.

Reddit is going through a restructuring, and according to an email by company chief Steve Huffman as seen by The Wall Street Journal, one of the moves it's going to make is laying off 90 employees. That's around 5 percent of the company's current workforce with 2,000 employees. 

In addition, Reddit is slowing down hiring this year and reducing the intake of new workers to 100 from the 300 personnel it had originally planned. Apparently, the social network wants to focus on achieving its biggest goals, such as breaking even next year. Huffman reportedly wrote in the email that Reddit has "had a solid first half of the year," and that this restructuring will position it "to carry that momentum into the second half and beyond."

This is but one of the moves Reddit is taking in an effort to earn money: Back in April, it also announced that it will start charging developers for access to its API. The company made the decision just as the biggest players in tech got into generative AI, which is typically trained using data from the internet accessed via API. "[A]s a platform with one of the largest corpus of human-to-human conversations online, spanning the past 18 years, we have an obligation to our communities to be stewards of this content," the company said. 

While Reddit may have been looking to earn from large companies, even independent developers are affected by its decision. Christian Selig, the sole developer of Apollo for Reddit, said it would cost him $20 million a year to keep his app running as is. Other third-party apps, such as Narwhal and Reddit is Fun, have already warned users that they can't afford paying for Reddit's API and will likely shut down. Dozens of subreddit communities across various topics are now planning to go dark starting on June 12th as an act of protest. Some of them plan to remain inactive for 48 hours, while others intend to stay dark permanently until Reddit addresses the issue. 

Samsung has historically held Unpacked in various major cities around the world, starting with Las Vegas in 2010, but the company has yet to host the event in its home country's capital city. Now, the tech giant has announced that it's holding Unpacked in Seoul for the first time. It has no specific date yet, but it will take place in late July at COEX in Samseong-dong, Gangnam. Samsung says it will unveil its next-gen foldable devices at the event, which means we'll most likely be seeing the Galaxy Flip 5 and the Galaxy Fold 5. 

"This year, Seoul was selected because of its role in influencing global trends with its dynamic culture and innovation, while it also reflects Samsung’s strong confidence in the foldable category," the company wrote in its announcement. 

The Galaxy Flip 5 might have a larger external display, based on the latest rumors, as well as a new hinge design that makes the crease on its display less noticeable. It'll also reportedly be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, just like the Galaxy S23. As for the Galaxy Fold 5, it's also rumored to have a new hinge design that gets rid of its predecessor's gap, ensures both sides lie flat on top of each other when folded and makes the display crease less visible. The device could be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, as well. 

We have less than a couple of months to find out if those rumors are true — we'll update you when Samsung announces a specific date for the event. 

The makers of an app called Sleep Reset claim it can help you get more (and better) sleep without the use of drugs — and they have the study to prove it. A group of researchers from the University of Arizona's Sleep and Health Research Program, some of whom also serve as the company's medical advisors, have just published a paper in peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Sleep. The paper details the results of a 12-week program that used Sleep Reset, which apparently increased the average participant's sleep time by 44 minutes.

Those who were getting less than six hours of sleep a night increased their sleep time by 85 minutes. Some of them likely improved their time because they were able to fall asleep much earlier: The paper says participants who typically lie awake for 30 minutes before dozing off managed to reduce that time by 53 percent. And those who usually spend an hour trying to fall asleep were able to reduce their time awake by 41 percent. Meanwhile, those'd wake up more than three times overnight found themselves experiencing two fewer nightly awakenings. The researchers also said that nearly half of the participants stopped using sleep aids after completing the program.

The study involved 564 participants (65 percent of whom were female) aged 30 to 60 years old who followed a standardized curriculum for three months. They used Sleep Reset in the way it's meant to be used in that its sleep coaches gave them personalized recommendations and feedback via text messages within the app. They also used the app's sleep diary, mindfulness exercises and trackers to monitor their progress. To use Sleep Reset, a user needs to answer a series of questions on what kind of sleep they're getting and what they're having trouble with. They're also asked to state what their goals are, such as whether they're looking to feel more well-rested or to look more youthful.

I tried the sleep assessment test and was told repeatedly throughout that Sleep Reset is effective because it "uses the same scientifically proven methods that are used by top tier Sleep Clinics like Stanford and Mayo Clinic." It also said that Sleep Reset uses "scientific strategies," such as techniques based on cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, and coaches users about behavioral scheduling, light exposure and relaxation. I only got so far as the page charging me for a seven-day trial period, which users could get for as little as $9 to as much as $29. The most expensive option, the company said, will help it support those who could only afford to pay the minimum amount.

That said, the participants' curriculum gives us a good look at how Sleep Reset can help support its users. Every week, they received different types of coaching tips. During week three, for instance, they got napping strategies and tips on caffeine intake, while they received information on how nutrition and physical movement affect sleep quality during week six. While there was a theme for each week, the participants presumably received information that's tailored for each of them. 

Dr. Michael Grandner, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and Sleep Reset's Lead Scientific advisor said: "Many popular sleep solutions like Trazadone, Benadryl and Melatonin don't even have the clinical evidence to increase total sleep time much at all. Ambien and Lunesta are known to increase sleep time by around 30 minutes, but that's much less than what we've seen from Sleep Reset. What's even better is that Sleep Reset is a non-medication intervention, thus non-habit forming and devoid of troubling side effects."

You can watch Dr. Grandner talk about their study below:

Microsoft will have to pay $20 million to settle charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that the company violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In the complaint filed by the DOJ on behalf of the FTC, the department accused the tech giant of collecting its underage Xbox users' information and retaining their data even without their parents' consent. To be able to play Xbox games and use services like Xbox Live, users have to sign up for an account and provide their personal information, including their full name, email address and place of birth.

Until 2021, users were also asked for their phone number and to agree to Microsoft's advertising policy. The FTC found that Microsoft only asked users under 13 to get their parents to complete their account creation after they had already provided their personal information. And apparently, from 2015 until 2020, Microsoft collected and retained data from underage users, even if their parents didn't complete the registration process. Under COPPA, online services and websites must obtain verifiable parental consent before using any personal information from children.

The FTC also explained that Microsoft combines a user's gamertag with a unique persistent identifier that it could share with third-party developers, even for accounts owned by underage users. In a blog post, Dave McCarthy, the CVP Xbox Player Services, said Microsoft didn't intentionally keep child accounts that weren't completed by their parents. The company found a technical glitch that caused data retention during its investigation, he said, and its engineering team deleted affected children's data after fixing the issue. "The data was never used, shared, or monetized," he added.

In addition to paying $20 million to settle the FTC's charges, Microsoft will also be required under the DOJ's proposed order to change its account creation process for underage users. The tech giant has already updated the process so that it asks somebody's date of birth first and, if needed, ask for parental consent before it requires users to key in any other identifiable information. It will also ask users under the age of 13 who created an account before May 2021 to have their parent reverify their account over the coming months. 

The FTC requires Microsoft to establish a system that would delete all the personal information it collects from kids within two weeks if their parents don't complete their account creation, as well. Plus, it wants the company to notify video game publishers if the personal information shared is from a child, so that it can protected by COPPA. While Microsoft has already implemented changes to its sign-up process, the proposed order must still be approved by a federal court before it can go into effect. 

Nintendo is launching a sequel to 1-2 Switch, its party title that features a robust collection of mini-games, on June 30th. It's called Everybody 1-2-Switch!, because you don't even need to use Joy-Cons to participate in some of its games — you can join in, as long as you're using a compatible smartphone. The original 1-2 Switch launched with 28 mini-games meant to get people playing and to liven up get-togethers. Some of them were odd, such as the game where you have to get a crying baby to sleep, but some were oddly fun. There's a mini-game where you have to pretend to be sashaying down the runway like a supermodel, and another where you have to milk a cow. 

According to a report by Fanbyte last year, Nintendo has been working on the sequel for quite some time. However, testing groups reportedly excoriated the game, and families with kids, which are Nintendo's prime reason for enabling matches with more than two participants, apparently found the mini-games boring. People were calling the sequel "Horseshit," the publication wrote, because the host is a person wearing a horse mask. Was Nintendo able to fix its issues and create mini-games entertaining enough to change the testers' minds? It's not quite clear. In fact, the official product page for Everybody 1-2-Switch! is pretty bare and mostly just mentions the game's multi-player capability. It also says that the title will "feature everything from balloons to aliens." 

The title will set you back $30 when it arrives. That's much less than its predecessor's $50 launch price, and, at this point, your guess is as good as ours on whether that's a good sign or a bad sign. 

We've known it was coming for quite some time, but now Google has a date for when it will start transitioning Fitbit users to Google logins. On June 6th, the tech giant will introduce the option for Fitbit users to log into their accounts using their Google credentials. When it announced the upcoming change following its $2.1 billion purchase of the wearable maker, the company said that it will enable the option for people to move their Fitbit device to their Google account when the log in support arrives. Users will have the opportunity to tweak their data when making the move and will have the option to manage their information either from the Fitbit app or from their Google settings page. 

While logging into Fitbit with Google is only an option for now, soon users will have no choice. The company plans to require the use of a Google login to sign up for a new Fitbit account and to activate new sports devices and smartwatches sometime this year. And then by 2025, it will end support for Fitbit accounts altogether. Those planning to stick to the Fitbit brand will simply have to be OK with linking their devices to their Google account. 

The tech giant is presenting the integration as an easy way for users to "manage all [their] connected apps and paired devices." But it knows that some people will be concerned about the privacy of their information, so it previously said that it won't be using Fitbit users' health and wellness data for Google Ads.