Oct 22, 2018 2:21 AM

Monday briefing: Addison Lee plans autonomous taxis for London by 2021

Addison Lee and Oxbotica say they will have self-driving taxis in London within three years, the United States will withdraw from a key treaty against nuclear weapons development, Google's unbundled Android app fees could cost as much as $40 per phone

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London taxiImage: Bikeworldtravel / Shutterstock.com

Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, Addison Lee and Oxbotica say they will have self-driving taxis in London within three years, the United States will withdraw from a key treaty against nuclear weapons development, Google's unbundled Android app fees could cost as much as $40 per phone and more.

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1. Addison Lee to bring autonomous taxis to London by 2021

UK private hire firm Addison Lee has announced that it plans to have autonomous taxis on London streets by 2021 (TechCrunch). The taxi company is working with autonomous driving software specialist Oxbotica, a commercial firm building on research originating at Oxford University, which first tested its systems in Milton Keynes in 2016. The project will begin by creating a comprehensive 3D map of London's roads before deploying Oxbotica's self-driving software to suitably adapted vehicles in Addison Lee's taxi fleet.

2. United States withdraws from anti-nuclear arms treaty

US president Donald Trump has announced that the United States will withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) and that the country intends to begin developing new nuclear weapons (The Guardian). Engineered by notoriously hawkish US national security advisor John Bolton, the decision marks the end of a period of nuclear de-escalation that began with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev's 1987 signing of the INF treaty. Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute think tank told The Guardian: “This is the most severe crisis in nuclear arms control since the 1980s. If the INF treaty collapses, and with the New Start treaty on strategic arms due to expire in 2021, the world could be left without any limits on the nuclear arsenals of nuclear states for the first time since 1972.”

3. Google's unbundled Android app fees could cost as much at $40 per phone

Confidential documents obtained by (The Verge) reveal that Google plans to charge phone manufacturers up to $40 per device to include its unbundled apps on high-end Android smartphones sold in Europe. Following a ruling by the European Commission that banned the company from requiring original equipment manufacturers to include Chrome and Google Search as a condition of giving their users access to popular apps such as Google Maps and the Google Play store, the company has prepared a new range of licencing fees set to start on February 1, 2019. In the UK, phones with a pixel density above 500 ppi will attract a fee of $40, phones between 400 and 500 ppi will be licenced at $20 and lower-resolution phones at $10. However, sources indicate that companies willing to include Google's search and browser apps will be eligible to have those costs at least partially subsidised, reducing the prices paid by the end users of Android devices.

4. Homemade Wi-Fi routers are giving refugee camps a lifeline

Jāṅgala, which makes portable Wi-Fi systems used in refugee camps across Europe and Africa (WIRED). Jāṅgala built its first Wi-Fi connection in the Calais Jungle in December 2015. Starting with a 4G connection that later rolled into Wi-Fi, it could support 500 connections simultaneously and up to 5,000 in total a week. Early systems were held together with gaffer tape and flowerpot lids, meaning that parts broke off easily in the rough and ready camp environments. Jāṅgala is now on its third generation of the kit, with two versions of the box available depending on the amount of data required. Its Small Box (the size of a child’s lunchbox) is for smaller teams working in the field, while its Big Box (the size of a briefcase) can provide Wi-Fi for between 50 and 1,000 people.

5. Tim Cook demands retraction of dubious Bloomberg spy chip story

Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated in the strongest terms that Bloomberg claims of a compromised server at the company are false. Speaking to Buzzfeed News, Cook said of allegations that a Chinese government hardware hack affected server motherboards at companies including Apple: “There is no truth in their story about Apple. They need to do that right thing and retract it." Since the Bloomberg piece's publication, numerous companies, security researchers and intelligence organisations have criticised its claims as being both untrue and based on a dubious understanding of the technologies it describes.

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