Japan has slammed the brakes on a pilot project by taxi service Uber less than a month after its launch, with a government official yesterday saying it likely violates transport laws.
The development marked another blow for the Web-based taxi app, which has incurred the hostility of traditional taxi companies in many countries.
“Last Friday, we met with Uber Japan officials and told them to stop the pilot project immediately because we suspect it breaches Japanese transport law,” a Japanese transport ministry official said on condition of anonymity. “There are two major problems with their project. First, it could be considered an unlicensed taxi business if they use regular [non-professional] drivers, and second, there are safety concerns [including a lack of insurance].”
Responding to the move, Uber said it would continue to talk with officials and said the service would be a plus for urban transport in rapidly aging Japan.
“We saw this as a unique opportunity to help find a solution and fulfill an important need in Japan’s future,” it said in a statement. “In the month since its launch, we’ve received high volumes of positive feedback from participating riders and drivers in the program... We will continue our ongoing dialogue with the relevant authorities to clearly communicate program details and address any concerns.”
Meanwhile, Singaporean police say they are investigating reports of a man who allegedly cheated and overcharged unsuspecting passengers while posing as a driver for Uber.
In accounts posted on Facebook, several people said a man in a Honda Airwave station wagon claiming to be an Uber driver picked them up on the roadside and charged two or three times the normal rate.
The company only allows its registered drivers to accept bookings made through its app, and payments are cashless.
Uber Singapore confirmed on Tuesday that the driver’s vehicle was not registered with them, and said it filed reports against him to the police.
The Singapore Land Transport Authority said in a statement it had impounded the man’s vehicle and was investigating the case.
Additional reporting by AP
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained