Technology News

Ford, Argo AI to deploy autonomous vehicles on Lyft network

DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. and a self-driving vehicle company it partly owns will join with the Lyft ride-hailing service to offer autonomous rides on the Lyft network.

The service using Ford vehicles and a driving system developed by Pittsburgh-based Argo AI will begin in Miami later this year and start in Austin, Texas, in 2022. It will start with human backup drivers and go fully autonomous at an unspecified date.

The cars will gather data to lay the groundwork to deploy 1,000 robotaxis on the Lyft network in multiple markets during the next five years, the companies said Wednesday in a statement.

Until April, Lyft was developing its own autonomous vehicle systems, but the company ended up selling its unit to Woven Planet, a Toyota Motor Corp. subsidiary, for $550 million. The sale closed on Tuesday. Under the Ford deal, Lyft will get a 2.5% equity stake in Argo AI in exchange for ridership and safety data.

Lyft CEO Logan Green said in the statement that the deal is the first time all pieces of the autonomous vehicle puzzle have come together. “Each company brings the scale, knowledge and capability in their area of expertise that is necessary to make autonomous ride-hailing a business reality,” he said.

Ford and Volkswagen are major investors in Argo, which is working on technology that will let Ford start an autonomous ride-hailing service. Pittsburgh-based Argo is testing autonomous vehicles with human backup drivers in six U.S. cities.

The deal is the latest in a string of partnerships and consolidation in the autonomous vehicle business. In December, Lyft rival Uber announced it would sell its autonomous vehicle development arm in a stock deal. The buyer is self-driving technology company Aurora. Uber was to invest $400 million in Aurora and hold a 26% stake in the San Francisco company.

In the Phoenix area, Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo is already offering a limited fully autonomous ride service. Cruise, General Motors’ majority-owned autonomous vehicle unit, also plans autonomous ride-hailing without human backups on an unspecified date.

Morocco denies using spyware to target French officials

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Morocco’s government is denying reports that the country’s security forces may have used spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group to eavesdrop on the cellphones of France’s president and other public figures.

On Wednesday, the public prosecutor’s office ordered an investigation into what it called false allegations that Moroccan security services used NSO malware to spy on activists, journalists and politicians in multiple countries.

France’s prime minister said Wednesday that multiple investigations were under way into any wrongdoing.

Morocco’s government had lashed out in a statement late Tuesday at a global media consortium investigating the suspected widespread use of NSO’s Pegasus spyware to target journalists, human rights activists and politicians in multiple countries. The government threatened unspecified legal action.

French newspaper Le Monde, a member of the consortium, reported that the cellphones of President Emmanuel Macron and 15 then-members of the French government may have been among potential targets in 2019 of surveillance by Pegasus spyware on behalf of a Moroccan security agency.

French public broadcaster Radio France reported that the phones of Moroccan King Mohammed VI and members of his entourage were also among potential targets.

“The Kingdom of Morocco strongly condemns the persistent false, massive and malicious media campaign,” the statement said. The government said it “rejects these false and unfounded allegations, and challenges their peddlers … to provide any tangible and material evidence in support of their surreal stories.”

The consortium identified the possible targets from a leaked list of more than 50,000 cellphone numbers obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International.

Consortium members said they were able to link more than 1,000 numbers on the list with individuals. Most were in Mexico and the Middle East.

While a phone number’s presence in the data does not mean an attempt was made to hack a device, the consortium said it believed the data indicated potential targets of NSO’s government clients.

Also on the list were phone numbers in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Morocco and Rwanda, as well as ones for several Arab royal family members, heads of state and prime ministers, the consortium reported.

The Paris prosecutor’s office is investigating alleged use of the spyware, and French experts have called for greater security for cell phones of prominent officials.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex said Wednesday that the president “ordered a series of investigations,” but said it was too early to comment or announce any new security measures or other action without knowing “exactly what happened.”

NSO Group denied that it ever maintained “a list of potential, past or existing targets.” It called the Forbidden Stories report “full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories.”

The source of the leak — and how it was authenticated — was not disclosed.

Biden to meet next month with private sector on cyber issues

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and members of his national security team plan to meet next month with business executives about cybersecurity, an official said Wednesday.

The Aug. 25 meeting comes as the White House is scrambling to help companies protect against ransomware attacks from Russia-based criminal syndicates and as the administration also confronts an aggressive cybersecurity threat from the Chinese government.

A National Security Council spokesperson disclosed the meeting, but did not identify the business leaders who would be participating. The meeting will focus on “how we can work together to collectively improve the nation’s cybersecurity.”

The administration has already been working with the private sector to promote better cybersecurity safeguards and resiliency. It has launched an initiative aimed at improving standards for critical sectors like electricity, and worked with Microsoft after a global hack detected earlier this year that affected tens of thousands of computer systems.

Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a call earlier this month that he must do more to crack down on ransomware attacks emanating from Russia. Criminal hackers in recent months have launched attacks against a massive fuel pipeline, resulting in a gas shortage, and the world’s largest meat-processing company.

But China’s cyber activities remain an urgent concern for the administration. On Monday, the administration blamed Chinese hackers for the breach of Microsoft Exchange email server software and accused Beijing of using criminal contract hackers who have carried out operations for their own financial benefit.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

Stellantis CEO expects chip shortage to drag into next year

DETROIT (AP) — The leader of the world’s fourth-largest automaker expects a global computer chip shortage that has cut vehicle production to last into next year.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares says the shortage will easily drag into 2022. He doesn’t see enough signs that chip makers in Asia are increasing semiconductor production that will come to the west.

The shortage has forced most automakers to halt production at times, creating shortages and driving up demand and prices.

The average cost of a new vehicle in the U.S. hit a record of over $42,000 in June, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Tavares told the Automotive Press Association of Detroit on Wednesday that the shortage will force his company to make key parts on its own rather than rely on suppliers. He says Stellantis is in the process of signing a deal to obtain its own supply of lithium to make electric vehicle batteries.

He says Stellantis, formed by a merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Peugeot of France, is working to get chips from several suppliers and is even redesigning vehicles to use chips that are more widely available.

Most automakers, including Stellantis, have diverted chips to high-margin and high-demand models such as pickup trucks and large SUVs.

Agency eyes ‘right-to-repair’ rules to aid consumers, shops

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans would be freer to repair their broken cellphones, computers, videogame consoles and even tractors themselves or to use independent repair shops under changes being eyed by federal regulators that target manufacturer restrictions.

Responding to a new competition directive from the Biden White House, the Federal Trade Commission is moving toward writing new rules aimed at helping small repair businesses and saving consumers money on repair costs. The five FTC commissioners took up the so-called “right to repair” issue Wednesday.

Unavailable parts, instruction manuals and diagnostic software and tools, product design restrictions and locks on software embedded in devices have made many consumer products harder to fix and maintain, regulators and industry critics say. Do-it-yourself repairs often require specialized tools, hard-to-obtain parts and access to diagnostic software that’s guarded by manufacturers.

The restrictions have steered consumers into manufacturers’ and sellers’ repair networks or led them to replace products before the end of their useful lives, the regulators maintain. As the FTC and the Biden administration see it, that raises issues of anti-competitive conduct.

The repair restrictions often fall most heavily on minority and low-income consumers, the regulators say. An FTC report to Congress in May noted that many Black-owned small businesses make equipment repairs, and repair shops often are owned by entrepreneurs from poor communities.

For minority and low-income consumers, the repair restrictions are especially acute for cellphones, the report says. Those consumers often have cellphones but no broadband access for computers at home, increasing their dependence on the phones.

Industry critics say the coronavirus pandemic worsened the effects of repair restrictions for all consumers as computers became essential for working remotely, schooling children at home and visiting relatives on screens — while many large chain stores stopped offering on-site repairs.

Allowing consumers to make their own repairs “saves money, and it keeps electronics in use and off the scrap heap,” says Nathan Proctor, a director of U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s right-to-repair campaign. “It helps farmers keep equipment in the field and out of the dealership,” Proctor said in a recent statement. “More repair choices will protect the environment by cutting down on the amount of new electronics we make and old stuff we toss.”

Manufacturers, on the other hand, maintain that repair restrictions are needed to safeguard intellectual property, protect consumers from injuries that could result from fixing a product or using one that was improperly repaired, and guard against cybersecurity risks. Manufacturers say they could face liability or harm to their reputation if independent repair shops make faulty equipment repairs.

New right-to-repair laws and regulations “would create innumerable harms and unintended consequences for consumers and manufacturers alike, including by limiting consumer choice, impeding innovation, threatening consumers’ safety and wellbeing, (and) opening the door to counterfeits,” the National Association of Manufacturers said in a prepared statement.

Legislation to ease repair restrictions is active in about 25 states, and the European Community also is considering new right-to-repair regulations.

The repair directive was included in President Joe Biden’s sweeping executive order issued earlier this month targeting what he labeled anti-competitive practices in tech, healthcare, banking and other key parts of the economy. The order has 72 actions and recommendations that Biden said would lower prices for families, increase wages for workers and promote innovation and faster economic growth. New regulations that agencies may write to translate his policy into rules could trigger epic legal battles, however.

“Let me be clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation,” Biden said at a White House signing ceremony.

The order includes calls for banning or limiting so-called noncompete agreements to help boost wages, allowing rule changes to pave the way for hearing aids to be sold over the counter at drugstores, and banning excessive early-termination fees by internet companies. It calls on the Transportation Department to consider requiring airlines to refund fees when baggage is delayed or in-flight services aren’t provided as advertised.

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Follow Marcy Gordon at https://twitter.com/mgordonap

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