Airbnb’s safety team will be the focus of a documentary series

Airbnb rentals sometimes turn sour, and media moguls are betting that this makes for quality entertainment. Deadline has learnedQueer Eye company Scout Productions is teaming with Bloomberg to produce a documentary series on Airbnb’s safety team. The show will be based on an investigative piece from Olivia Carville that outlines how an “elite” team handles horrific incidents, including hidden camera creeps, scammers and cleaning up the aftermaths of violent crimes.

The Airbnb docuseries doesn’t have a tentative release date. It’s also unclear which providers will carry the show, although it won’t be surprising if it reaches a streaming service like Amazon or Netflix.

The project is the latest in a succession of documentaries and semi-fictional adaptations covering major names in tech. Apple’s WeWork series is one of the better-known recent examples, but there have also been productions detailing TikTok, the rise and fall of Theranos and other well-known subjects. More are on the way, too, including Amazon and Netflix documentaries about Blue Origin and SpaceX flights. Hollywood is increasingly convinced you want to see tech triumphs and calamities on TV, and Airbnb apparently has plenty of them. 

Snap made a $230 selfie drone called Pixy

After years of rumors, Snap has officially revealed its first selfie drone. The pocket-sized device, which is called Pixy, doesn’t require a lengthy setup. It doesn’t even come with a controller.

Instead, you’ll be able to choose one of four preset flight paths with the touch of a button. The drone can float, orbit or follow you. Once you’re done, Pixy can land in your hand. It has a settings dial in the middle, with four rotors aligned with the body inside of protective casings.

Snaps captured by Pixy can be wirelessly transferred to Snapchat Memories after flights. You’ll be able to apply effects such as speed ramps, jump cuts and 3D bounce. You can, of course, add lenses and sounds before sharing your creations on Snapchat or elsewhere.

Snap's Pixy selfie drone
Snap

Pixy could be a useful addition to Snapchat creators’ toolkits, following in the footsteps of Snap’s Spectacles lineup. It emerged in 2017 that Snap was considering building its own drone, so Pixy has been a long time coming. In March 2021, it was reported that Snap invested in a company called Zero Zero Robotics (which it previously tried to buy) and that the two sides were collaborating on a selfie drone.

Folks in the US and France can buy Pixy now. It costs $230. Snap says the drone will be available while supplies last.

The Morning After: CNN+ is shutting down

CNN+, the streaming service launched by the Cable News Network just three weeks ago, is shutting down on April 30th. The closure comes after reports that the high-profile project had reached just 10,000 daily users. It didn’t help that WarnerMedia is merging with Discovery with the explicit aim of consolidating their streaming services into one cohesive whole.

The service, which reportedly cost around $100 million to launch, will have survived for just 32 days, stealing Quibi’s title for most notorious and swift closure. CNN said at-risk employees will receive 90 days salary and benefits and get opportunities to move elsewhere within the Warner Bros. Discovery empire.

On one hand, it always seemed like a stretch to ask people to pay Netflix-level prices for even premium cable news. With the exception of blue-chip brands like NYT and WSJ, or the mega billionaire-backed Washington Post, paid-for journalism has been totally undermined. On the other hand, it’s a shame to see something bold and potentially paradigm-shifting “do a Quibi” so quickly.

— Dan Cooper

The biggest stories you might have missed

Buy with Prime’ lets third-party retailers use Amazon’s shipping service

Amazon will share its logistics power with others, for a price.

Amazon has launched Buy with Prime, a service that enables rival online retailers to leverage Prime’s speedy shipping. It means any e-commerce platform can add a Prime button to its page and make items available for next-or two-day delivery. The program will begin with sellers that already use Amazon’s fulfillment service before rolling out to merchants who have no presence on Amazon whatsoever. This is another neat way Amazon can both fold its competitors under its own umbrella but, given the SEC is investigating how Amazon uses the data it collects about third-party sellers, one that may deserve extra scrutiny.

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Elon Musk says he has the financial backing for his proposed Twitter takeover

The Boring Company also received fresh funding.

Concept image for how Prufrock, TBC's new TBM, will operate.
The Boring Company

What’s Elon been up to over the last 24 hours, you ask?

Well, in a fresh SEC filing, the billionaire has said he’s received backing to make his hostile-ish bid for Twitter. That includes $13 billion in debt financing from lenders like Morgan Stanley and a further $12.5 billion in loans leveraged against Musk’s Tesla shareholding. It’s thought the remainder of the cash will come from Musk himself, although we wouldn’t bet that even someone who loves posting as much as ol’ Elon would spend north of $21 billion to do so.

The Boring Company, meanwhile, has raised fresh funding to the tune of $675 million, valuing the company at $5.7 billion. That cash will go toward hiring more engineers who can build more of the company’s signature taxis-in-a-tunnel Loop projects. At the same time, the company said its second-generation tunnel boring machine can carve out up to a mile of tunnel a week. It also made the unbelievable claim that its third-generation hardware will be able to crunch up to seven miles of bedrock per day.

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FAA revokes YouTuber’s pilot license, saying he deliberately crashed his plane

Was it that much of a surprise given the video was titled I Crashed My Plane.

Image taken from the video 'I Crashed My Plane.'
Trevor Jacob / YouTube

Trevor Jacob is a former Olympic snowboarder-turned-YouTuber who, in December 2021, published a well-shot video titled I Crashed My Plane. The beautifully shot clip, with multiple cameras set up on the pilot side wing and tail, sees the plane apparently stall out in mid air. Jacob then climbs out of the cabin and parachutes to the ground. Unfortunately for him, the FAA accused Jacob of intentionally crashing the plane for online clout and revoked his pilot’s license. If Jacob doesn’t hand it back to officials, he’ll be liable for a daily fine of up to $1,644.

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FAA blamed after parachute show leads to Congress evacuation

Whoops.

The FAA was also in the news yesterday for accidentally causing an emergency evacuation of Congress. FAA officials reportedly failed to notify the Capitol police and security services about a planned parachute demonstration by the US Army Golden Knights over Nationals Stadium. Nobody was hurt, and the Golden Knights followed proper procedure, avoiding restricted airspace and communicating with air traffic control at all times. But that didn’t stop House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from saying the FAA’s failure to communicate was “outrageous and inexcusable.”

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Amazon accused of using charity work scheme to conceal warehouse incident rates

Amazon is pursuing the “aggressive geographic and use case expansion” of a scheme that sends injured warehouse workers to non-profits for light duty, according to The Financial Times. Under the scheme that’s officially called Amazon Community Together, workers get their full salary instead of compensation benefits that typically only cover a portion of their usual pay. While the program sounds beneficial for both workers and local non-profits, workers’ rights advocates argue that it’s a tool Amazon uses to hide the real number of serious injuries at its warehouses. 

Participants in the Community Together program are sent to charities like Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity to do whatever work they’re capable of with their injuries. Over 10,000 workers have been placed at non-profits since it the program launched in 2016, but Amazon had to scale back its operations during the pandemic. Amazon spokesperson Lisa Campos said the program is voluntary and that the company gets “overwhelmingly positive” feedback from participants and partner non-profits. Indeed, the workers The Times talked to said they’re treated well at their placements, and partner non-profits are thankful for the “amazing amount of work” the workers do for them. 

As the publication points out, though, it also gives Amazon a way to reduce its Lost Time Incident Rate (LTIR), which is a standard OSHA metric that gives authorities concrete data on the number of severe incidents in a facility. Based on figures from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Amazon’s rate of injury is more than double that of the national warehousing industry average. And according to Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of North American labor unions, there were 34,001 serious injuries at Amazon’s US facilities last year, up 36 percent from 2020. (Company CEO Andy Jassy blamed that high injury rate to new workers in a letter to shareholders and in an interview with CNBC.)

Amazon published its own report (PDF) in January that claims a 49 percent drop in LTIR in the US and a 43 percent drop worldwide in 2020. It didn’t, however, mention the growing number of Community Together placements, which had reportedly gone up by 22 percent over the same period. Eric Frumin from SOC said the program “can create a good social environment for people,” but “it can be highly abusive because the job could be contributing to the recurrence of the injury, or preventing recovery.”

Uber Green rides now cost the same as UberX trips

Uber has announced some Earth Week initiatives and while some of the measures won’t be around for the long haul, it’s making a permanent change to Uber Green rides. Those will now cost the same as UberX rides, no matter the level of demand.

Uber Green allows users to request a more environmentally friendly car, such as a hybrid or electric vehicle. When Uber brought the feature to the US and Canada in 2020, it said those requesting an Uber Green ride would need to pay a $1 surcharge. That’s no longer the case.

Elsewhere, Uber is offering a $1-per-journey discount on Uber Green, Lime e-bike and Lime e-scooter trips booked through its app until April 30th. You’ll need to use the promo code GoGreen22. The company says it will change the Uber Green icon and add green routes to the app as well.

In addition, Uber says users in Los Angeles, Miami and Washington DC who request an Uber Green ride on Earth Day (Friday) will have the opportunity to take in an “impromptu adventure” on their journey. “The Uber Green rides will give the illusion of adventuring in some of the planet’s most precious places – from the Arctic to the Serengeti or the Great Barrier Reef,” Uber wrote in a blog post. 

It’s not entirely clear what that means. The company shared an image depicting an underwater scene on the underside of a car’s roof, so these experiences could temporarily make trips slightly more relaxing while offering a reminder of the natural world’s beauty.

Uber Green
Uber

Razer’s new soundbar makes your desk a home theater

Razer has increasingly gone from a specialized gaming accessory maker to more of a lifestyle brand. In addition to keyboards, mice, headsets and controllers, you can buy chairs, backpacks and even a wearable air purifier. But with this recent expansion…

‘World of Warcraft’ expansion Dragonflight predictably lets you ride dragons

Nearly two decades into the life of World of Warcraft, Blizzard has just announced the MMO’s ninth expansion. Dragonflight will allow players to explore the Dragon Isles, the ancestral home of Azeroth’s dragonflights. It’s been a while since WoW’s…

iRobot’s Roomba 694 is back on sale for $179

If you’re looking for a budget-friendly robot vacuum to get for yourself or for mom for Mother’s Day, iRobot’s Roomba 694 is a great option. It’s our current favorite affordable robo-vac, and now you can pick it up for even less than its normal rate of $274. Amazon has the machine for $179, which is $95 off and a return to its record-low price.

Buy Roomba 694 at Amazon – $179

Chances are you’ve heard of iRobot before even if you have never owned a robot vacuum because the brand is, arguably, the most well known in that space. With that recognition comes high price tags, but the Roomba 694 is a solid machine made better by this discount. It has a three-button design and app connectivity, giving you a few ways to control it, and it cleans both hard and carpeted surfaces well. It’ll putter around your home, sucking up dirt, debris and even pet hair as it moves from room to room, and it’ll automatically return to its charging base when it’s finished.

In addition to starting cleaning jobs from the iRobot app, you can also set cleaning schedules, which make the robot even more autonomous. The Roomba 694 is also compatible with Alexa and the Google Assistant, so you can use voice commands to control it as well.

iRobot estimates the Roomba 694 will run for about 90 minutes before it needs a recharge, but we found that it often ran for less time before returning home. That means that those with larger homes may have to wait longer for clean floors as the machine will have to charge up before it completes a job, but otherwise, there aren’t many downsides to this robo-vac. It’s an especially good pick for novices since iRobot’s mobile app is quite easy to use and the machine does the cleaning basics well.

A couple of other iRobot machines are also on sale right now, and they’re best for those that want to splurge on an advanced robot vacuum. Both the Roomba j7+ and the Roomba s9+ are $200 off right now, bringing them down to $599 and $799, respectively. The former is one of the company’s newest devices with a pet poop detection feature (yes, you read that right), while the latter is the highest-end machine you can get from iRobot. Both also come with clean bases, so the robots will empty their dustbins into the base after every cleaning job.

Buy Roomba j7+ at Amazon – $599Buy Roomba s9+ at Amazon – $799

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