Lyft says its future lies in a hybrid network of autonomous and driver rides

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.

Nothing will reveal its first phone on July 12th

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.

HoloLens chief Alex Kipman is leaving Microsoft following allegations of misconduct

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 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.”