uCalifornia DMV: Self-Driving Cars Must Have A Licensed Driver Behind The Wheelr

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  While California’s highways and byways are filling up with self-driving prototypes right now, the state Department of Motor Vehicles is laying down some rules of the road that, if finalized, will mean it could take longer for the public to get their hands on driverless cars.

  California is taking a cautious approach to autonomous vehicles, reports the Los Angeles Times, with draft rules released this week that err on the safe side of things: cars must have a steering wheel and a licensed driver ready to jump in if the vehicle fails to do what it’s supposed to.

  The rules say that even if a manufacturer, say, Google, thinks its car is ready for the market, it wouldn’t be a short trip from factory to the consumer: automakers would get a permit for three years, during which time consumers could lease the cars from them, but manufacturers would have to keep an eye on the vehicles and make sure they’re driving safely, and make performance reports to California.

  Before even getting that first permit, both the manufacturer and an independent certifier would have to sign off that a car has gone through all the necessary safety hoops. Those who want to lease or use one of the cars would also have to get special training provided by the automaker and then receive a special certification on their driver’s license.

  “Given the potential risks associated with deployment of such a new technology, DMV believes that manufacturers need to obtain more experience in testing driverless vehicles on public roads prior to making this technology available to the general public,” the agency said.

  The draft rules are a guide for the industry as the technology moves from small-scale tests in the state to the future of self-driving cars for everyone and anyone. The rules may change in the next few months before they’re finalized — likely sometime next year — and already, some companies are calling the guidelines overreaching.

  Google said it was “gravely disappointed” by the DMV’s draft regulations, saying it would restrict the use of driverless cars. And with a driver required behind the wheel, it wouldn’t be the autonomous future the industry hoped for.

  “In developing vehicles that can take anyone from A to B at the push of a button, we’re hoping to transform mobility for millions of people, whether by reducing the 94% of accidents caused by human error or bringing everyday destinations within reach of those who might otherwise be excluded by their inability to drive a car,” Google spokesman Johnny Luu said in an emailed statement to USA Today.

  “Safety is our highest priority and primary motivator as we do this. We’re gravely disappointed that California is already writing a ceiling on the potential for fully self-driving cars to help all of us who live here,” he wrote.

  Self-driving cars must have driver behind the wheel, California says [Los Angeles Times]
  Google ‘disappointed’ by proposed restrictions on driverless cars [USA Today]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uAirbnb Wants To Get Into Bed With U.S. Landlordsr

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• Though there are surely tenants out there renting their apartments out on Airbnb without their landlord’s blessing, the short-term rental site wants to get on the good side of apartment owners around the country. To that end, it’s reaching out to a few large companies with a lot of properties to see if all sides can work out something beneficial to all involved.

  According to sources in the know cited by Bloomberg News, Airbnb is chatting up companies like Sam Zell’s Equity Residential, AvalonBay Communities Inc., and Camden Property Trust.

  While Airbnb is in the crosshairs of many city governments (and cranky neighbors who are ticked off that there are strangers showing up with luggage in the building every weekend you’re gone), tenants — and landlords — know there’s money to be made.

  “We know it’s taken off like crazy and we don’t want to ignore it,” Kristy Simonette, senior vice president of strategic services for Houston-based Camden Property, told Bloomberg. “We need to take a look at it and understand what all the opportunities are.”

  Airbnb’s discussions with landlords are in early stages for now, but any agreement would likely include a plan to share the profits: when tenants rent out their home to strangers, the landlords would get a cut of the profits — and get to feel like they’ve got some control over the goings-on at their properties. Again, this is what would probably happen, because nothing has happened yet.

  Any kind of partnership would also have to be worked out in cities where Airbnb’s presence isn’t hotly contested or its legality in question (ahem, New York City), which could include cities with home-sharing regulations like Philadelphia, Nashville and San Jose, CA, according to Bloomberg’s insider source.

  A spokesman for Airbnb says “nothing is decided yet and we have no news to announce.”

  “It would be news if we weren’t talking to landlords,” the spokesman said in a statement. “We are committed to working with everyone — hosts, policy makers, community groups, landlords and others — to ensure middle-class people can share their homes and contribute to their communities.”
  Airbnb Seeks Blessing of U.S. Landlords for Tenants to Profit [Bloomberg]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uSafety Regulators Re-Recall 2.2M Bean Bag Chairs Linked To Two Deaths After Low Consumer Responser

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• Following the deaths of two children, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced in August 2014 that it would recall 2.2 million Ace Bayou bean bag chairs. After nearly 17 months, just 790 customers have responded to the recall, leading the safety commission and manufacturer to re-recall the product. 

  The CPSC announced Thursday that it would re-announce the recall of 2.2 million bean bag chairs sold from 1995 to 2013 due to a low rate of consumer response.

  “CPSC is extremely concerned that these recalled bean bag chairs are continuing to be used by children,” the agency said in a statement. “The foam beads inside the chairs are serious suffocation and choking hazards for children.”

  The original bean bag recall was initiated after two children opened them, crawled inside and tragically suffocated to death.

  A 13-year-old boy from Texas and a 3-year-old girl from Kentucky died inside the Ace Bayou chairs after suffocating and inhaling the beads, CPSC reports.

  In another incident a six-year-old boy opened the bean bag and reportedly swallowed some of the foam beads and had others in his nose and mouth.

  The voluntary industry standard requires non-refillable bean bag chairs to have closed and permanently disabled zippers. However, the recalled chairs have two zippers that can be opened, providing enough space for a child to enter. The child can then become trapped and suffocate or choke on the bag’s foam beads.

  Affected chairs include both round or L-shaped, vinyl or fabric, and are filled with polystyrene foam beads. The chairs were sold in a variety of colors, including purple, violet, blue, red, pink, yellow, Kelly green, black, port, navy, lime, royal blue, turquoise, tangerine, and multi-color.

  Round bean bag chairs were sold in three sizes, 30, 32, and 40 inches in diameter, while L-shaped bean bag chairs measure 18 inches wide by 30 inches deep by 30 inches high. “ACE BAYOU CORP” is printed on a tag sewn into the bean bag chair’s cover seam.

  The chairs, which retailed for between $30 and $100, were sold at Bon-Ton, Meijer, Pamida, School Specialty, Wayfair, Walmart, and Amazon.com before July 2013.

  Owners should check the outside zipper on their bean bag chair to ensure that it has a metal staple to disable the outer zipper. If it does not have a metal staple, take the recalled bean bag chair away from children immediately and contact Ace Bayou for the free repair kit to permanently disable the zipper.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uRent The Runway Creates Own Clothing Brand, Invents Imaginary Retail Pricesr

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• You may have heard of Rent the Runway, a service that lets shoppers rent outfits (generally dresses and accessories) for special occasions. Instead of buying a $400 dress and wearing it once, you rent it for $65 and then send it back. Only they’ve made an interesting change recently, offering house brands alongside those runway designers, and assigning “retail” value to items that were never sold at retail.

  However, over at Buzzfeed, Sapna Maheshwari raises an important question: is this misleading? The company never actually spells out on the site that the dresses come from the company itself: even the brand’s page on their site bills itself as “a collection of color, confidence, and celebration.” The page doesn’t mention the year it was founded, which was around 2013, when Rent the Runway applied for a trademark for the name.

  Putting disclaimers on each Slate & Willow listing would probably make customers ignore them unless they’re significantly cheaper than dresses from designers that they’ve actually heard of. Besides, a company representative explained to Buzzfeed, those estimated “retail” prices are based on the dress’s quality.

  “Just like the items from the designer partners in our inventory — which are also not sold, just rented — we include the retail value to add context for our customers so they can make informed purchasing/renting decisions,” the spokesperson explained. That’s fair, but how much of the value of a garment is in its brand name recognition, rather than the materials and workmanship?

  There’s nothing stopping Rent the Runway from selling their Slate & Willow clothes and accessories and Ella Carter accessories instead of renting them, and perhaps someday they could. With “Rent” right in the business name, though, that seems unlikely.

  This is the same problem that outlet stores and closeout and discount fashion retailers have run into recently: customers are questioning the prices on tags that say “Compare At…” and “Suggested Retail Price,” and some have filed lawsuits. Just in the last year, we’ve reported lawsuits against Kate Spade, Kohl’s, TJ Maxx, and Michael Kors.

  The company did tell Buzzfeed that they plan to declare the brand to be “exclusive” to Rent the Runway, which is at least closer to explaining the entire truth to customers. They’ll still probably be given made-up “retail” values, though.

  Rent The Runway Quietly Puts Its In-House Labels Alongside Designer Names [Buzzfeed]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uIt’s Time To Rescue Any Information You Value From Rdior

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  As we reported about a month ago, the streaming music service Rdio has been acquired by Pandora. Rather than keeping the service alive, Pandora plans to shut it down and use its technology and some employees for their own purposes. They might make it part of their current service, or plan to add a playlist-style streaming music app. If you’ve used Rdio, it’s time to download any content that you want to keep.

  Users haven’t had to pay for their accounts since the acquisition, and should have received a recent email about the shutdown. Users can download their playlists, comments, favorites, and other personal data from the site until the final shutdown on December 22. Users can view their most-played songs over the five years and four months that the service has existed.

  Rdio will shut down for good in one week [Engadget] (via 9to5Mac)

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uWoman Sues Airbnb, Homeowners After Finding Hidden Camera In Residencer

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  When staying at a hotel you have a reasonable expectation that what you do in your room remains your private business, and that it won’t be captured by a hidden camera. The same should be true for an Airbnb rental, right? But one user of the home-sharing service claims she was secretly filmed by the homeowner.

  The woman, who stayed at an Irvine, CA, Airbnb rental in December 2013, filed a lawsuit [PDF] in San Francisco federal court this week accusing the rental company of negligence for failing to vet hosts before allowing them to post listings.

  According to the complaint, which also accuses the residents who listed the home of violating privacy laws and inflicting emotional distress, a camera found hidden in the residence captured “personal and intimate” conversations between the woman and her partner, as well as the woman in an undressed state.

  The plaintiff claims that when she agreed to be a guest at the home, which was actually rented by her partner, she was unaware that “her privacy would be violated on a daily basis,” the suit claims.

  On the third day of a proposed month-long stay in the home, the couple discovered a small camera after noticing a light coming from a living room bookshelf.

  The lawsuit describes the device as a “small, remote-controlled camera, capable of capturing the full spectrum of the living room and the area between the master bedroom and the guest bathroom within its view.”

  After finding the camera, the man realized that it was on and could not only capture video at a “significant view angle,” but could also record audio.

  The couple promptly filed a complaint with Airbnb and moved out of the property.

  According to the complaint, the violation of privacy left the woman “humiliated and angry.”

  “[W]hile staying as a guest in the property, at night [the woman] would sleep without any clothing, believing that with the front door closed and the window blinds drawn throughout the property, she was protected and free from prying eyes,” the complaint states. “This natural presumption proved to be incorrect.”

  Additionally, the guest also says that she routinely walked naked from the bedroom to the guest bathroom.

  Despite filing a complaint, the suit asserts that Airbnb continued to allow the homeowners to rent their property through the site.

  The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, claims that Airbnb should be found negligent in the incident because it failed to conduct meaningful background checks or verify the personal details of people who lease their homes on the site, and fails to put into place policies and procedures to protect the rights of short-term rents.

  An Airbnb spokesperson tells The Recorder that the company “takes privacy issues extremely seriously and all hosts must certify that they comply with all applicable laws in their locations and are of course expected to respect the privacy of their guests.”

  [via The Recorder]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uKrispy Kreme Trying Out That Whole “Barista” Thing In Effort To Boost Coffee Salesr

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  Krispy Kreme has apparently been thinking long and hard about how it can make more money from selling coffee, it seems it’s come up with an answer — call employees that serve up cups of steaming hot joe “baristas.” Heck, if it worked for Starbucks, maybe it’ll work for Krispy Kreme.

  So far Krispy Kreme is only using the phrase at one location in North Carolina, reports Bloomberg News, in an effort to push its coffee.

  In addition to changing what employees call themselves, Krispy Kreme has baristas grinding beans, using a manual espresso machine to make lattes and cappuccinos and taking customers’ names along with their orders at the location, another move made popular by the ‘Bucks.

  If the effort goes well, coffee could make up 10% of restaurant sales in the U.S. instead of the 5% it makes now, CEO Tony Thompson told Bloomberg. A strong shift in coffee would boost profits more than other products, since coffee has a higher margin than baked goods.

  “We’ve kind of lost ground on coffee over time,” Thompson said. “It’s kind of passed us up.”

  The test store is only open for two months, but customers have been noticing changes he says: there’s free WiFi, a big mural of coffee behind the register so there’s no mistaking what’s going on there, and a sign that says “Know Your Coffee.”

  “They’re coming in for doughnuts, but all of a sudden they see: Wow, they’re pretty serious about coffee,” Thompson told Bloomberg.

  Krispy Kreme Pushes Into Starbucks Turf With New Focus on Coffee [Bloomberg]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist