Uber reveals plans for flying taxi to bypass road traffic congestion
Uber has unveiled plans for a flying taxi at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The ride-sharing company on Tuesday showed off a full-size mock-up of the electric plane concept vehicle created with South Korean carmaker Hyundai, as it seeks to fly above traffic rather than add to it.
Uber wants to offer aerial ridesharing, allowing a pilot and three passengers to take city trips of up to 60 miles at a speed of up to 180mph. Resembling a winged helicopter and featuring four propellers, Uber and Hyundai joined forces to design a personal air vehicle, or PAV, which can take off and land vertically.
Too big to fail? Tech’s decade of scale and impunity
Towards the end of the last decade, two American social networks – Facebook and MySpace – were locked in a battle to conquer the rest of the world.
Murder of Uber drivers may be Brazil gang leader’s ‘revenge’ for cancelled ride
The grisly murder of four drivers for Uber and another ridesharing service in a Brazilian favela may have been driven by vengeance after a gang leader’s sick mother had a ride cancelled, police have said.
The four men, aged between 23 and 48, were tortured and killed after being called to the Jardim Santo Inácio favela in the north-eastern city of Salvador last week. A fifth driver made a dramatic escape and alerted police. He and two victims worked for the Brazilian transport company 99; the others for Uber.
Uber loses licence to operate in London
Uber has lost its licence to operate private hire vehicles in London, after authorities discovered that more than 14,000 trips were taken with uninsured drivers.
Transport for London announced the decision not to renew the global ride-hailing firm’s licence at the end of a two-month probationary extension granted in September.
Travis Kalanick, controversial ex-Uber CEO, cashes in $547m of shares
The Uber co-founder and former chief executive Travis Kalanick is cashing in more than half a billion dollars of his stake in the ride share app, months after the company went public.
After the end of the so-called “lockup period”, a 180-day restriction on inside and early investor sales, came to an end on Wednesday, Kalanick sold more than 20m shares, according to a financial filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
Uber chief tries to backpedal after calling Khashoggi murder ‘a mistake’
Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber, has attempted to limit the damage after calling the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi “a mistake” similar to a fatal accident that occurred during tests of his company’s self-driving car.
Khashoggi, a Saudi national resident in the US, and a severe critic of the Saudi regime who wrote for the Washington Post, was murdered in Istanbul last year after visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate there. His body was dismembered and disposed of.
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Uber reveals plans for flying taxi to bypass road traffic congestionJanuary 7, 2020- Too big to fail? Tech’s decade of scale and impunityDecember 26, 2019
