The call to remove Messenger Kids app and Uber Bike is coming 

In this episode, the new Messenger Kids app from Facebook and why child development advocates are calling for it to be discontinued, Robots could soon be issuing speeding tickets and Uber is set to launch a new bike sharing service – the Uber Bike.  

Show Notes: 

We’ve heard about concern about AI taking over jobs in many different sectors, but one that we don’t often hear about is policing. It looks like police officers may be next in line to see certain tasks replaced by AI.  

In January, Ford filed a US patent application for self-driving police cars that could someday replace traffic officers. 

For some this may sound strange but technologies such as cameras for surveillance are already being used around the world to collect and report on certain activities.  

To take this a step further, Dubai comes to mind, they have recently unveiled their first robot police officer, and plan for these AI officers to make up a quarter of their police force by 2030. 

The reason being cited for this move of automating police tasks such as issuing tickets for speeding or failing to stop at a stop sign is that it can free up time for human police officers so that they can perform other duties. 

Uber Bike 

Uber is planning to launch a bike-sharing service soon in partnership with JUMP. JUMP is a startup that recently received the first and only permit to operate dockless bike-sharing in San Francisco.  

This new service is called Uber Bike. Uber customers will be able to book JUMP bikes within the Uber app. Just to be clear, the bikes will not be brought to people. Instead, riders are responsible for going to the location of the bike. 

Messenger Kids app 

More than a dozen organizations and about 100 health experts sent a letter to Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying the new chat app Messenger Kids will likely damage a child's healthy development. 

The letter states: "Raising children in our new digital age is difficult enough. We ask that you do not use Facebook's enormous reach and influence to make it even harder." 

The experts argue that younger children are not ready to have social media accounts. 

TechBytes: 

Facebook’s daily active user base in the U.S. and Canada fell for the first time ever in the fourth quarter, dropping to 184 million from 185 million in the previous quarter. 

Overall, Facebook’s daily active user audience was up 32 million people in Q4. But it was the smallest quarter-over-quarter increase in two years. 

It looks like Microsoft will be coming out with its Edge browser for the iPad soon. The company announced that it will be coming out with its beta form this month.  

It looks like the browser will be available for the iPad ahead of a version for Android tablets. Based on the iPhone test period, an official release can probably be expected in March. 

Apple is working on three new iPhones for this year, one will be a big-screen model that will be cheaper than the iPhone X. The tech giant is said to have plans to develop an iPhone that comes with a 6.1-inch TFT LCD display. That device will reportedly be the cheapest of the new Apple smartphones this year and will have the design of the iPhone X, featuring an edge-to-edge display and "notch" at the top of the screen.