DoorDash and Uber face full-time gigs

New York and London have given definitions of the concert economy a different twist today.

The DoorDash delivery app has broken its own model of a gig worker to hire couriers as employees for the first time, as part of a move to enter the overcrowded race for deliveries under $ 15. minutes in the Big Apple. In London, Uber lost a High Court case which means all drivers can claim workers’ rights protection, unions say.

Sixty couriers will now work full-time for DoorDash’s pilot launch in New York, with a fixed salary and benefits. Dave Lee explains that DoorDash is opening hyperlocal “dark” stores to match the speed of vertically integrated convenience deliveries offered by Gopuff and others. The flexible gig worker model used for restaurant deliveries seems to have reached its limits with the ‘instant needs’ industry, as delivery drivers must be available at the warehouse before an order is placed in order to win. crucial minutes.

In London, the High Court ruled that it was illegal for a private rental vehicle operator (PHV) to act as an “agent” between a driver and a passenger. This means that Uber and other rideshare companies, not individual drivers, will contract with passengers directly and be held accountable for anything that goes wrong with the service.

The ruling means that the drivers are actually working for the operator. “This paves the way for all drivers in the industry to demand the protection of workers’ rights,” said James Farrar, general secretary of the Drivers and Couriers Union App.

The problem for Uber is that the move could also mean that it is liable for 20% value added tax (VAT) on gross bookings or its service charges, a bill that could amount to more than one. billion pounds sterling.

The Internet of (five) things

1. Facebook and academia, Trump and Truth Social
A growing number of researchers seeking to understand the potentially harmful social effects of Facebook say their work is being hushed up, The Big Read reports. Meanwhile, Trump Media and Technology Group said it raised $ 1 billion for its social media business, but did not name any investors. In October, the former US president announced the launch of Truth Social and said it would be listed through a Spac merger in New York.

2. Head of ESA: Musk “makes the rules” in space
Josef Aschbacher, the new director general of the European Space Agency, said that Europe’s willingness to contribute to the rapid expansion of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service risked preventing the region’s own businesses to realize the potential of the commercial space.

3. Big Tech dominates the advertising market
Google, Facebook and Amazon have doubled their share of ad revenue over the past five years to more than half of the global ad market outside of China, according to estimates by media buyers GroupM. Overall, digital has defied the contraction of other advertising channels in 2020 and is expected to grow 30.5% globally this year to $ 491 billion, eclipsing other categories.

4. SoftBank sinks into a poor performing portfolio
SoftBank’s shares fell 8% on Monday, their seventh consecutive day of losses, as growing problems at its holding companies Didi Chuxing and Arm rekindled concerns about the Japanese tech conglomerate’s business model. Alibaba is another sliding investment from SoftBank and longtime CFO Maggie Wu steps down as Chinese e-commerce giant shakes her organization to reverse slowing growth and halt its stock price from falling to its fullest. low level in five years.

5. SenseTime set for the Hong Kong IPO
SenseTime, the Chinese artificial intelligence company specializing in facial recognition software, is looking to value up to $ 17 billion in an initial public offering, which would be Hong Kong’s highest listing in months.

Technical tools – Eight Sleep Pod Pro bag

Temperature can be very important in solving sleep issues, and one option, other than installing air conditioning in the bedroom, is a mattress or blanket that cools down under you. Jonathan Margolis tested the Chilisleep Ooler mattress topper this summer and I tried another American solution, now available in Europe this fall: the Eight Sleep Pod Pro cover.

Eight Sleep also offers a fully refreshing mattress, but this option allows you to fit an existing one. It took over two hours to unpack the three boxes of the kit and install it. You first put a layer of casing on your existing mattress, then close the Active Grid cover which contains the piping for the cooling water. Then attach it to a hub, which looks like a PC tower but remains elegantly inconspicuous, and prime the entire system by adding distilled water and a splash of hydrogen peroxide.

If it’s a bit of a palaver, there’s not much you can do once everything is in place, other than fill up with water when the accompanying app prompts you and add it periodically. hydrogen peroxide. I was impressed with the high quality of materials and clear instructions, the hub’s quiet operation, while the app adds another level of sophistication.

You can monitor the temperature during the night for different sides of the bed, set timers, allow the blanket to wake you up, and collect a wealth of data on your sleep stages, quality, and overall well-being. These include heart rate variability, which can indicate your overall heart health; sleep heart rate and respiratory rate. There are other sleep tools in the app, which help you meditate, breathe, listen to soothing natural sounds, or receive instructions from sleep trainers.

The Pod Pro blanket costs between $ 1,600 and $ 1,900, depending on the size of the bed, but some might consider that a small price to pay for a better night’s sleep. My wife, who suffers from insomnia, felt that the blanket helped create the optimal cool conditions for her sleep (she will also warm the bed if desired), but it was by no means a panacea. The Eight Sleep website has plenty of testimonials from pro athletes and other users that their sleep has been improved by technology.