Urtopia, an Indiegogo darling that sells “the world’s smartest e-bikes” direct-to-consumers, spends as much time marketing its bikes as it does saddling them with superfluous tech. Now it’s pushing an Iron Man “Jarvis” feature ahead of CES complete with smart ring activation that’s so absurd I just had to share.
The electric bike company’s new leadership outlines its post-bankruptcy plan to relaunch and expand into more areas of e-mobility.
It won’t cost you a thing, but that simple phrase sends $5 to your most recent Amazon delivery person and will ultimately require the company to pay its fleet of US drivers an extra $10,000,000. The return of Amazon’s tipping program began a few days ago and will continue until it gathers two million thank yous. You can also type “thank my driver” in the search bar on amazon.com or the shopping app.
The latest Tesla Bot is a little bit lighter, walks faster, and balances better with improvements throughout, including in the function of its neck, feet, and hands. But is it the “friend” Elon Musk says will cost “much less than $20,000” and allow for “a future where there is no poverty?” Probably not.
Citing three “people familiar with the matter,” Reuters says that Apple is offering tap-to-pay concessions that could settle EU antitrust charges and avoid a fine.
Just know that this same reporter in another “exclusive” with the same number of sources whiffed on Amazon’s iRobot deal saying it would “win unconditional” approval in the EU... just days before the bloc did precisely the opposite.
8
Verge Score
Fire and ice make everything nice.
If you’re seeing less spam it might be due to Gmail’s ability to better handle “adversarial text manipulations” — techniques whereby words like “𝐂0NGRATULATIONS!” are compromised of special symbols or numbers to bypass filters while remaining legible to humans. Ars Technica has a good writeup explaining how the changes have already improved things now that Google has rolled them out for all Gmail users.
Tesla’s calling it the OMFG Decal and it can be yours for $55, plus $60,990 for a place to stick it.
The identity management company now says that a report containing every support customer’s name and email address was stolen in a hack from two months ago:
While we do not have direct knowledge or evidence that this information is being actively exploited, we have notified all our customers that this file is an increased security risk of phishing and social engineering.
Not a good look for Okta, which is entrusted with securing thousands of major companies worldwide, including T-Mobile, Sonos, and OpenAI.
