Month: October 2019

Enlarge / A two-car crash may now involve as many as four drivers, not all of them human. (credit: MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images )

Tonight, drivers in the US will kill more pedestrians than any other night of the year. An increase in people walking in low-light conditions makes Halloween the most dangerous night of the year for pedestrians.

Pedestrian deaths are on the rise overall, as cars become safer for drivers but more dangerous for everyone else. Sophisticated pedestrian detection systems, which are becoming more common in cars, aren't doing particularly well. Some of them score highly on easier tests in broad daylight, but they do not fare so well in more difficult conditions like low light.

When a driver shares the blame for a pedestrian death with an automated car, how do people assign blame? A study in Nature Human Behaviour this week suggests that people may focus their ire on the human in a shared-control situation. The authors argue that this could result in an under-regulation of the safety of shared-control vehicles.

Enlarge / A woman possibly infringing two USAA patents. (credit: Hero Images / Getty)

In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that you can't get a patent for implementing an otherwise abstract idea on a computer. The decision, known as CLS Bank v. Alice, has had a big impact over the last five years, invalidating a lot of broad software patents.

But a ruling this week illustrates the limits of that landmark ruling. The confusingly named United States Automobile Association, which provides insurance and other financial products, sued Wells Fargo for infringing two patents on the concept of cashing checks with a mobile device. Wells Fargo argued that the patents were abstract—and therefore invalid—under the Alice rule.

On Tuesday, a Texas federal judge disagreed, upholding the patents and allowing the case to move forward to trial.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

On Thursday it became official: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group are merging to become the world's fourth-largest automaker. Alfa Romeo, Citroën, Chrysler, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall will all now share a single corporate parent and merge operations. In a press release, Fiat Chrysler and PSA said that the 50:50 merger should save more than $4 billion (€3.7 billion) a year from "run-rate synergies without any plant closures."

Merging with another large automaker has been FCA's plan for a while. Before his untimely death, Sergio Marchionne had conducted talks with many potential suitors, and earlier this year FCA was in active discussions with Renault. But those talks ultimately went nowhere, and now FCA will join up with France's other big automaker, PSA Group.

On the face of it, the merger makes a lot of sense. FCA has strong sales in the Americas and a decent portfolio of luxury brands and SUVs and trucks. PSA is strong in Europe, and its brands are better mainstream cars built using more modern architectures. PSA Group is also well ahead of FCA in terms of electrification.

Enlarge / An AT&T store in Washington, DC, on April 21, 2015. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

AT&T yesterday announced three new "unlimited" data plans. Keeping track of all the different limits on AT&T's unlimited mobile plans is just as difficult as ever, but there's some good news for customers who use lots of smartphone data.

Buying AT&T's cheapest unlimited plan still comes with the risk of getting your data throttled to speeds slower than those provided to other customers when the network is congested. The possible throttling can be imposed at any time, even if a customer hasn't used much data that month. But while upgrading to pricier plans currently only gives AT&T customers 22GB a month before possible throttling, the plans coming out soon have options for at least 50GB or 100GB of un-throttled use.

AT&T's current entry-level plan is called "Unlimited & More." It costs $70 per month for one line (not including taxes and fees), with the per-line prices descending with each additional line you buy. Each line costs $40 a month if you buy four lines.