LYFT ACQUIRES MOTIVATE L yft has announced it will acquire Motivate, the largest bikeshare operator in North America. Motivate operates Citi Bike in New York and Capital Bikeshare in Washington DC, among other brands. The move comes as Lyft has been expanding its reach in the transportation space. It has integrated public transit in its app and introduced Lyft Line, which lets users share a ride with strangers who are going to destinations close together. “Lyft and Motivate have both been committed for years to the same goal of reducing the need for personal car ownership by providing reliable and affordable ways to move around our cities,” John Zimmer, Lyft co-founder and president, said in a statement.
This follows Lyft rival Uber acquired a bikeshare company called Jump Bikes a New York-based firm operates in 40 US cities back in April.
THE LIMITS OF YOUR UNLIMITED DATA C ommunications giants; Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint all offer “unlimited” data plans that claim that you can use as much high-speed data as you want
each month.
But is that the truth?
Well, you might have unlimited data plans however, if you use too much data in a month, even if you pay for one of these plans, your carrier might drastically slow your con- nection down. If you go over your plan’s high-speed cap, you won’t have to pay overages, but your data might be so slow that you won’t be able to do very much online other than load mobile websites and check e-mail. So, while your plan might be technically unlimited in the sense you can use as much data as you want, you’re still effectively locked into a data cap because of the slower speeds your carrie might impose after you go over.
TECH CONSUMERS SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO SACRIFICE PRIVACY FOR SECURITY T he technology industry has recently faced the “backdoor encryption” problem – a situation where law enforcement agencies want access to information on digital and mobile devices that may be instrumental in solving cases. Request by law enforcement for a “backdoor” to devices from tech companies – a way to bypass a device’s security measures and gain access to protected devices. Well these requests were answered in June when a bipartisan team of legislators put forward the ENCRYPT Act (Ensuring National Constitutional Rights for Your Private Telecommunications). The bill would restrict state and local governments from requiring backdoors to exist, and also prevent any restriction of encryption capabilities. The goal is to develop a standardized national encryption policy that protects users’ privacy rights.
This bill is an encouraging step forward and one supported by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JUNE 2018
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