Anorte Linsmayer | The Verge

Lime, Jump, Bird, Spin pledge to remove their Florida scooters and bikes to avoid flying menaces

2019-08-30T16:34:52-04:00

Hurricane Dorian’s expected landfall on Florida has Miami, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa scrambling to remove bikes and scooters from their streets. If the devices aren’t removed from the streets, they could potentially be picked up by hurricane winds — transforming into threats to people and property.

Miami has demanded that all of these mobility companies remove their products from the streets by noon on Friday, Bloomberg reported, and both Fort Lauderdale and Orlando tell The Verge they’re already removing scooters and/or bikes from their streets. Fort Lauderdale says it expects to be done by Friday at midnight. Tampa has not yet issued a request for removal, but if (or when) it does, the companies will have 12 hours to comply with it. “All of our vendors appear prepared for that requirement, and are staying tuned to the weather notices,” says a spokesperson for the city of Tampa.

If the devices aren’t removed from the streets, they could potentially be picked up by hurricane winds

In total, Lime has about 1500 e-scooters in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, as well as about 500 bikes in Orlando. A ground team is collecting the scooters and bikes to store them in a warehouse while the storm passes, a spokesperson said. Lime will meet Miami’s noon deadline, and plans to have its bikes removed from Orlando by mid-day Saturday. Orlando plans to have all bikes removed by Sunday, a spokesperson tells The Verge.

Lime, Uber’s scooter company Jump, Bird and Spin all say they are prepared to batten down the hatches in all the cities in which they operate.

This isn’t Lime’s first hurricane; in August 2017, Lime pulled their bike fleet for Hurricane Irma. Hurricanes aren’t exactly surprising in Florida, the spokesperson noted, so the company has plans for when they occur.

By contrast, this is Jump’s first rodeo. The company, which was acquired by Uber in 2018, operates 250 scooters in Miami and 300 in Tampa. Jump says it will meet Miami’s deadline, and may remove the Tampa scooters as well, depending on the storm’s expected path.

For Spin, which has operated in Florida for less than a year, it’s the first time they’ll have to remove scooters due to weather hazards too. “The team is always monitoring weather to ensure conditions are safe, and if they are not, we adjust our fleet accordingly,” a spokesperson at Spin says. The company says it will retrieve all scooters before the storm is expected to arrive.

Bird said only they are monitoring the conditions across Florida. Their response to the hurricane might include “pausing our service when weather does not permit safe riding, and can sometimes lead to removing Birds from the road during periods of inclement weather such as hurricanes,” a Bird spokesperson said.

Lyft and Bolt — two other scooter companies that operate in Miami — didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Update, August 30th at 4:34PM ET: Added more information from the cities of Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, as well as Spin.

The voice-controlled standing desk will soon be a thing you can buy

2019-08-26T23:55:48-04:00

Standing desks were a popular idea, motors made them more convenient, and programmable presets to raise and lower them to your preferred height — with a button — are the most convenient yet. The $552-and-up VertDesk V3 with Voice Control is taking what must feel like the next logical step: it’s a voice-activated standing desk that allows iPhone users to move their desk up and down using only their voice, starting this September.

“Hey Siri, stand up!”

I don’t really need that level of comfort personally. I mean, if I have to stand up anyhow, why not push a button at the same time? But it sounds like I wouldn’t have to sacrifice anything for voice, either: I could customize two presets for sitting and standing, and leave two more presets for a colleague. And the VertDesk still has a physical button I could press if I don’t feel like saying “Hey Siri, stand up!” or “Hey Siri, sit down.”

One thing does seem really helpful: an activity assistant that reminds me to stand. Because let’s be honest: if you do have a standing desk, how often do you actually stand? Kind of like an Apple Watch, the VertDesk can send notifications to my iPhone to remind me to stand for a little while.

The VertDesk V3 claims to be the first voice-activated standing desk that customers can order online, and as far as I can tell, that’s true. (There have been promises before.) But voice control function isn’t actually built into the desk; the company offers a Bluetooth control box as add-on which is only compatible with the VertDesk V3 and RightAngle’s NewHeights Series 4 desks, according to VertDesk maker BTOD.com. If you’ve seen another manufacturer — say RightAngle Products — advertise a similar feature, BTOD says it’s because both companies have been developing it together. BTOD is planning on integrating this function in all new VertDesk V3’s by the end of the year, with an app for Android users coming in a month or so.

If you’d rather add voice control to another company’s desk, you may have to do it yourself — and some users have done exactly that. Here’s one example that uses Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, and here’s another with the Google Assistant.

Google starts selling its Titan security key in Canada, Japan, the UK, and France

2019-08-02T18:26:16-04:00

A year after arriving solely in the US, Google’s Titan two-factor authorization security key has now landed in Google’s online stores in Canada, Japan, the UK, and France. If you are working with sensitive data in one of those countries, it might be worth considering.

Google’s Titan security key is a physical security solution that (similar to competition from Yubico and Feitian) enables hardware-based two-factor authentication for the FIDO standard, letting you log into a number of apps and browsers using the key to verify that it’s actually you, instead of relying on a comparatively weak password. The key can connect to the device that requires authentication in three ways — via USB, NFC, or Bluetooth.

It’s taken a while to expand internationally

The key was initially designed for internal Google use, and has been in active use within the company for over a year, before being made available to customers outside the company last July.

Why has Google taken this long to expand to stores worldwide? We reached out to Google to ask, and a spokesperson stated matter-of-factly that it depends on how fast the keys can be made available in more regions. And, that the company’s working on that. Google declined to say how well the Titan security key has sold in the US.

In the United States, the Titan security key sells for $50. The prices abroad are similar: In Canada it costs $65 CAD (about $49), in Japan it sells for￥6000 (about $56) and in France customers pay €55 (about $61) for the device. It’s £50 in the UK. Shipping is free.