MEXICO CITY -- Ride-hailing service Uber praised Mexico City for becoming the first city in Latin America, and the largest in the world so far, to issue official regulations for such smartphone-based services.
Uber's director of communications for Mexico and Central America, Luis De Uriarte, said the company doesn't mind paying 1.5 percent of the proceeds from each ride into a transport-improvement fund.
"This is great news for Uber and, we believe, for Mexico City," De Uriarte said. "This is an innovative regulation that embraces technology for the benefit of the public."
The city's medallion taxis complained that they hadn't been advised before the rules were issued July 15. But paradoxically, official cabs may be the biggest beneficiaries.
Under the rules, 1.5 percent of each fare will go to a "Taxi, Mobility and Pedestrian Fund."
Uber's De Uriarte said he hoped pedestrian improvements would be a significant part of the fund. But Rufino Leon, who until recently headed the city transportation department, told local media the money would go "preferentially" to improving existing cab service. Within a decade, he said, app-based services "will wind up paying more than the city taxis" now pay for cab licenses and permits.
Reddit CEO bans illegal, harmful content
Reddit Chief Executive Officer Steve Huffman, who took the reins of the online forum recently, said the site will ban comments including those that incite violence or harm and any containing private information.
Also outlawed are posts with illegal content; messages that bully, harass or abuse an individual or group; sexually suggestive content featuring minors; and spam, Huffman said in a statement published Thursday on Reddit.
Huffman largely reiterated policies put in place by his predecessor, Ellen Pao, who resigned earlier this month under pressure from the company's board. Pao faced a backlash from Reddit users after she banned some message groups and after the firing of a popular executive.
"We believe there is value in letting all views exist, even if we find some of them abhorrent, as long as they don't pollute people's enjoyment of the site," Huffman said. Some content that "violates a common sense of decency," while not banned, will be harder to find on Reddit, he said.
-- Bloomberg News
N.C. wind farm to power Amazon unit
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A division of Amazon is buying the renewable energy generated by the South's first big wind-power project.
Seattle-based Amazon Web Services said earlier this month that it has agreed to buy the electricity generated by the 200-megawatt operation to be built near Elizabeth City in rural eastern North Carolina.
The completed wind farm is expected to produce enough power for more than 60,000 homes by the end of 2016.
Amazon Web Services operates a series of electricity-hungry Internet servers that are used to offer cloud computing services that can be accessed from any machine with an Internet connection. The fast-growing division of Amazon announced revenues of more than $1.5 billion in the most recent quarter.
Match catches PlentyOfFish for $575M
TORONTO -- The Match Group, the New York-based company that owns dating websites Match.com, OkCupid and Tinder, says it has purchased Vancouver-based dating website PlentyOfFish for $575 million.
Match Group CEO Sam Yagan said recently it was attracted to PlentyOfFish's consistent growth, and it plans to integrate the Canadian company's mobile app into its existing family of digital and online dating services.
PlentyOfFish surpassed 100 million users in March.
CEO and founder Markus Frind started the company from his apartment in 2003.
The Match Group says the deal is subject to approval from Canada's federal industry minister and is expected to close early in the fourth quarter.
U.S. scans foreigners' prints at airport
ATLANTA -- Federal authorities are testing a mobile device to scan fingerprints from a sample of foreign air travelers as they depart from the United States through Atlanta's airport.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers began using the devices recently to scan some foreign passengers on selected flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, agency spokesman Jennifer Evanitsky said last week. The test will be expanded in the fall to airports in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York, San Francisco and Washington.
The agency, which is under a congressional mandate to record the biometrics of departing foreign visitors, plans to test the devices through next June. Then it will decide whether it's feasible to further expand their use without disrupting travel too much, Evanitsky said.
Border officers currently collect digital fingerprints and photos from arriving foreign travelers to ensure they are who they say they are, the agency said in a news release. The new scanners have the potential to enhance existing tools and to confirm the departure of a foreign traveler using biometric verification, the release said.
Officers will stand at the passenger loading bridge of selected flights leaving the U.S. and will use the new hand-held devices, which are a bit bigger than a smartphone, to scan the fingerprints and passports of selected foreigner travelers.
The agency said it will match that data to the data collected when the person entered the country and then it will be stored in systems managed by the Department of Homeland Security. The agency said it "remains committed to protecting the privacy of all travelers."
Apple touts boost in workforce diversity
Apple Inc. will report a 1 percentage point increase in its proportion of black employees, according to Denise Young Smith, the company's head of human resources.
"We were pleasantly surprised to realize that we did have some movement," Smith said last week at Fortune magazine's Brainstorm Conference in Aspen, Colo.
Apple reported last year that 7 percent black of its workforce was black; 55 percent was white; 15 percent Asian and 11 percent Hispanic. About 13 percent of the U.S. population is black and 2.4 percent is two or more races, according to the Census Bureau. Apple's workforce is 70 percent male.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has said the company needs to increase its diversity. Advocacy groups and others have criticized Silicon Valley for having a disproportionately white, male workforce.
Smith, who has worked at Apple for 18 years, said diversity in hiring is integral to the Cupertino, Calif., company's talent strategy. Its next report on the topic will be released this summer and show increases for women and racial minorities, she said. The announcement also will be more transparent, she said, without elaborating.
"The potential for bias exists all the time," she said. "We're working really hard to start to bring more of that thinking and more of those conversations into Apple."
-- Bloomberg News
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