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In recent years, the popularity of electric scooters has soared, with many people choosing this eco-friendly mode of transportation for their daily commutes. However, a recent safety concern has emerged regarding the installation of windshields on these electric scooters, raising alarm among both users and authorities.As his retirement approached, tributes poured in from fans, teammates, and footballing legends, all acknowledging the impact he had on the beautiful game. Messages of gratitude, respect, and well-wishes filled social media platforms, highlighting the profound influence he had on the sport and the lives of those he touched along the way.Elon Musk, one of President-elect Donald Trump’s closest confidants , revealed Wednesday his support for weight-loss drugs like Ozempic being made cheaper for the general public — in contrast with comments Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made. “Nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors super low cost to the public,” Musk wrote on X . “Nothing else is even close.” President Biden’s HHS said in late November it would be pushing plans to have weight-loss medications covered for those on federal benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid. But given the short timespan left in Biden’s presidency, the future of the waistline-shrinking drugs will be left to the the incoming Trump administration, raising questions about who will make the final call. A vocal opponent of Ozempic, Kennedy Jr. vigorously urged the next administration to “Make America Healthy Again” before his nomination as HHS secretary. Kennedy, in an interview with Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, scoffed at the hefty price tag of making Ozempic available to everyone who is overweight, claiming it would cost “$3 trillion a year.” “If we spent one-fifth of that, giving three meals a day to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight,” the 70-year-old health guru said. GLP inhibitors are a type of drug that help people regulate their blood glucose and insulin levels for diabetes, but Americans have been using the group of drugs, including Ozempic, for weight loss. Musk admitted that his take on the drugs being cheaper could cause a stir. “A lot of people will complain about this post, but I am right,” he added on X. X personality Gail Alfar responded to Musk’s views by stating, “Elon Musk is correct, 40% of Americans suffer from obesity and 9% have a BMI over 40. This is super dangerous for our health as a nation. This needs to be fixed. GLP-1 receptor agonists are way too high priced for most of the people that need them.” “Gail is right,” the richest man in the world replied. Musk doesn’t currently have a position that would directly impact drug regulation, but his constant presence with Trump has allowed him to make policy suggestions and boost some political appointees. Kennedy’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Post.6 pst to philippine time

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — At this point the past two seasons, the San Francisco 49ers were fighting for playoff positioning rather than their playoff lives. After snapping a three-game losing streak with a lopsided win last week against Chicago, the Niners head into a Thursday night division showdown against the Los Angeles Rams hoping to play with the same kind of desperation in a game they almost certainly need to win to get to the postseason. "I think just across the board as a team, everybody had just a bit more of sense of urgency and I think we executed and played together as a team, and we didn't let off," quarterback Brock Purdy said. "Really liked that. But, that was last week so now it's on to this week and how can we do that again?" After getting outscored by 53 points in losses at Green Bay and Buffalo, the 49ers (6-7) played their most complete game of the season to keep their playoff hopes alive. People are also reading... While some credited a feeling of desperation or speeches from players such as Purdy and Deommodore Lenoir for the turnaround, linebacker Fred Warner said it was more about execution than anything else. "We didn't go out there in Green Bay, we didn't go out there in Buffalo saying, 'Let's just hope that we win.' Trust me, I felt desperate as hell going into both those games," he said. "It just didn't work out. ... It didn't happen because last week we decided we wanted to. This was weeks in the making." Whatever the reason, the results were obvious to anyone watching, including the Rams (7-6), who had their own signature performance to boost their playoff chances. Los Angeles held off Buffalo 44-42 to remain one game behind Seattle in the NFC West race and a game ahead of the 49ers and Arizona in the tightly packed division. Coach Sean McVay knows his team will need a similar performance to beat San Francisco and earn a season sweep. "I saw they certainly had a very dominant performance," he said. "If there's anything that you do know, it's a week-to-week league. Humility is only a week away. They have excellent coaches, excellent personnel and really good schemes. No matter what's really happened in terms of the trajectory of the injuries, they're going to be ready to go." Puka power Puka Nacua is in dominant form with 33 catches for 458 yards and three TDs in the Rams' past four games, highlighted by a 162-yard performance last week against Buffalo in which he also scored his first rushing TD. Nacua was injured for these clubs' first meeting this season — but last year, he broke the NFL's single-game rookie receptions record with 15 in his first game against San Francisco, and he set the NFL rookie season records for catches and yards receiving during his visit to Santa Clara last January. "He's a tough football player," 49ers defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen said. "Some guys are just competitive. He's got size, he doesn't go down easy. Some things you can't measure and he's just got it." Deebo's struggles The least productive four-game stretch of Deebo Samuel's career sent the frustrated wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers to social media. In a now-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Samuel said the reason he gained only 97 yards from scrimmage the past four games was not that he was struggling but that he wasn't getting the ball. His teammates and coaches believe he will get back to his All-Pro form soon. "I want to get Deebo the ball every play if I could," Purdy said. "I want to have him break all the records as best as possible. I want Deebo to do Deebo things." Defense declining The Rams defense got shredded twice in the past three weeks by Saquon Barkley's Eagles and Josh Allen's Bills, dropping the unit to 27th in total defense. LA's vaunted young pass rush led by rookie Jared Verse has no sacks in its past two games and just three in the past four games. Considering Purdy drove the Niners to 425 yards in the teams' first meeting this season without Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle or Samuel, the Rams' offense might need yet another prolific game to overcome its defense's weaknesses. Under pressure With Nick Bosa sidelined the past three games, the 49ers have had to generate pass rushes from different sources. They had a season-high seven sacks last week with Yetur Gross-Matos getting three and Leonard Floyd two. The 32-year-old Floyd has 5 1/2 sacks in his past four games. "Leonard's just an Energizer bunny," Shanahan said. "It's crazy with him being one of the older guys and stuff and how many different teams he's been to, but I've played against him enough and felt that." Bosa has a chance to return this week and is listed as questionable. AP Sports Writer Greg Beacham in Los Angeles contributed to this report Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!The situation in Syria is already highly complex, with multiple actors and interests vying for influence and power. The arrival of Assad in Moscow adds another layer of complexity to the conflict, raising questions about the future of Syria and the broader implications for regional stability. It remains to be seen how this latest development will impact the conflict and whether it will lead to a new phase in the Syrian crisis.ZURICH (AP) — Saudi Arabia scored a major win in its campaign to attract major sports events to the kingdom when it was formally appointed as the 2034 World Cup host on Wednesday. Still, many questions remain about the tournament as well as the 2030 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with three games in South America. Here are some of the key issues that need to be answered over the next decade: Saudi Arabia proposes 15 stadiums — eight still on paper — in five cities: Eight in the capital Riyadh, four in the Red Sea port city Jeddah, and one each in Abha, Al Khobar and Neom, the planned futuristic mega-project. Each would have at least 40,000 seats for World Cup games. The opening game and final are set for a 92,000-seat venue planned in Riyadh. Some designs are vivid . In Neom, the stadium is planned 350 meters (yards) above street level and one near Riyadh is designed to be atop a 200-meter cliff with a retractable wall of LED screens. Saudi Arabia aims to host all 104 games, though there has been speculation that some games could be played in neighboring or nearby countries. Surely not in the traditional World Cup period of June-July, when temperatures in Saudi Arabia routinely exceed 40 Celsius (104 degrees). FIFA moved the Qatar-hosted World Cup to November-December 2022, though those dates were not loved by most European clubs and leagues whose seasons were interrupted. Also, that slot is complicated in 2034 by the holy month of Ramadan through mid-December and Riyadh hosting the multi-sport Asian Games. January 2034 could be a possibility even though that would be just before the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The International Olympic Committee has signaled it won’t be opposed to back-to-back major events. In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Saudi World Cup bid official Hammad Albalawi said the precise dates of the tournament are up the world soccer body. “That’s a decision by FIFA. We stand ready to be part of this conversation. But ultimately it’s a FIFA decision together with the confederations,” Albalawi said. Giving more rights and freedoms to women in a traditionally conservative society is fundamental to Saudi messaging around the modernization program known as Vision 2030. The kingdom decided in 2017 to let women attend sports events, initially in major cities and in family zones separate from men-only sections. By 2034, at the promised pace of social reforms, female fans should not be restricted. Saudi Arabia launched a women’s professional soccer league in 2022 with players joining from clubs in Europe. They face no restrictions playing in shorts and with hair uncovered. The Saudi prohibition of alcohol is clear and understood before FIFA signs any sponsor deals for 2034. But will there be any exceptions? The alcohol issue was problematic for the World Cup in Qatar because the expectation was created that beer sales would be allowed at stadiums even before Qatar won its bid in 2010. One year later, FIFA extended a long-time deal to have Budweiser as the official World Cup beer through 2022. Qatar then backtracked on that promise three days before the first game, causing confusion and the sense of a promise broken. In Qatar, alcohol was served only at luxury suites at the stadiums. Visitors could also have a drink in some hotel bars. But Saudi Arabia has even stricter rules on alcohol — and there is no indication that will change. Albalawi noted that Saudi Arabia has successfully hosted dozens of sports events where alcohol wasn't served. “We’re creating a safe and secure family environment for fans to bring their families into our stadiums,” he said. Saudi promises to reform and enforce labor laws, and fully respect migrant workers, have been accepted by FIFA but face broad skepticism from rights groups and trade unions. A formal complaint is being investigated by the U.N.-backed International Labor Organization. Protecting the migrant workers needed to build stadiums and other tournament projects — a decade after it was a defining issue for Qatar — looms as a signature challenge for Saudi Arabia. Saudi-Israeli relations had been improving when FIFA all but gave the 2034 World Cup to the kingdom on Oct. 4 last year. Three days later Hamas attacked Israel and diplomacy got more complicated. Any soccer federation bidding to host a FIFA tournament accepts a basic principle that whichever team qualifies is welcome. That did not stop Indonesia putting up barriers last year to Israel coming for the men’s Under-20 World Cup. Indonesia does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel which had qualified through a European tournament nine months before the issue flared. FIFA moved the entire tournament to Argentina and the Israeli team reached the semifinals. Israel played at the 1970 World Cup but has never advanced through qualifying in Europe, where it has been a member of UEFA for 30 years. Europe should have 16 places in the 48-team World Cup in Saudi Arabia. Most of the attention at the FIFA Congress on Wednesday was on the Saudi decision, but the soccer body and its members also formally approved the hosts of the 2030 World Cup — the most spread out and longest ever. One game each in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, the original host in 1930, will be played from June 8-9. The tournament resumes four days later for the other 101 games shared between Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Six countries, three continents, multiple languages and currencies. Fans traveling on planes, trains, automobiles and boats across about 14 kilometers (10 miles) of water between Spain and Morocco. The final is due on July 21, 2030 and a decision on where it will be played could cause some tension between the host countries. Morocco wants it in the world’s biggest soccer venue — the planned 115,000-seat King Hassan II Stadium in Casablanca. Spain, meanwhile, has proposed to host the final in either of the remodeled home stadiums of club giants Real Madrid or Barcelona. Associated Press writer Baraa Anwer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.

In the increasingly competitive automotive market, automakers like General Motors Co. and Rivian Automotive have realized pairing up is not only beneficial but necessary for cost reduction and quicker technological advancement. GM has long understood the benefits of partnerships. The Detroit automaker, for example, has a longstanding partnership with Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. More recently, GM and South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co. said they signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate "to reduce costs and bring a wider range of vehicles and technologies to customers faster." General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra takes some questions after a fireside chat at the Garden Theater in Detroit on Dec. 11, 2024. The companies haven't provided further information on the partnership, but experts and analysts have cheered it on as a smart move. They expect more mash-ups — if not outright industry consolidation — as automakers face rising expenses, a choppy transition to electric vehicles and competition from innovative, low-cost Chinese manufacturers. "It's something that I talked about for many years about the need to partner up," said Martin French, partner and managing director at Berylls by AlixPartners, a global consulting firm. "If you look at the challenges that this industry is faced with and what are the key attributes for what will make you a winning OEM, it's going to be cost efficiency and time to market. And the most effective way of doing that is through partnerships." Last week, Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan Motor Corp. announced plans to work toward a merger that would form the world’s third-largest automaker. "This is a smart deal as the writing was on the wall for Nissan," said Dan Ives, a senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, in a note to The Detroit News. "They had to do a deal in a consolidating EV landscape." Hyundai and GM have been mum on specific details of their alignment while they work to finalize it. Still, the companies have said that they would explore the co-development of internal combustion engines and "clean-energy" vehicles and research combining sourcing for battery raw materials and steel. Barra “GM and Hyundai have complementary strengths and talented teams," GM CEO Mary Barra said at the time of the MOU announcement in September. "Our goal is to unlock the scale and creativity of both companies to deliver even more competitive vehicles to customers faster and more efficiently.” GM had been talking to Hyundai for "a while," Barra told reporters during a fireside chat with the Automotive Press Association earlier this month. "There was a period where a lot of OEMs, everyone was talking to everyone, but we continued to have conversations. "We're very aligned at the top. We have the most senior people in each company having the conversations and setting the tone for the team. We're very pleased that we signed the MOU. There's quite a bit of work going on what will become definitive agreements, but I don't want to get ahead of those announcements." Waatti The Hyundai/GM lineup "could bring outsized synergies for both companies while remaining competitors at the core level," said Paul Waatti, director of industry analysis at market research firm AutoPacific Inc. "Partnerships accelerate technological development by pooling resources to tackle the capital-intensive nature of the advanced tech R&D the industry is embracing." On GM's third-quarter earnings call in October, Barra emphasized the importance of partnerships. "One of the things people say about the auto industry is we ... all do a lot of different things and don't always leverage where we can partner with other OEMs or with other companies," she said. "And so we're really looking to leverage that, especially across the business, as we've mentioned with the MOU that we have with Hyundai, the continuing work that we do with Honda.” GM and Honda partner on the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology and collaborated on the development of Honda's Prologue and Acura ZDX electric vehicles. The companies were also planning to jointly develop a line of affordable EVs together but nixed those plans in 2023. Ford Motor Co. in 2021 also axed its plans to develop an EV with startup Rivian Automotive Inc., which makes all of its electric pickup trucks, SUVs and commercial delivery vans in Normal. Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume and Rivian CEO and founder R.J. Scaringe pose together in a photo distributed in June 2024 alongside their announcement of joint venture plans. The company last month entered a $5.8 billion joint-venture deal with Volkswagen AG. In a news release, the German automaker said the partnership would "create cutting-edge software and electronics architectures and scale the electric vehicle platforms and architectures." Said Waatti: "Partnerships must remain flexible with room for reassessment and revision. It’s often better to adjust or kill a joint venture than to continue going down the wrong road, even if the investment is already massive." A line of unsold 2024 R1S electric utility vehicles sits at a Rivian service center Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in east Denver. At GM's October Investor Day event, Barra mentioned GM was having "ongoing discussions" with "potential partners" for its Cruise LLC autonomous vehicle unit. Two months later, GM said it would stop funding Cruise's robotaxi program after $10 billion in investment since 2017. GM, the majority owner of Cruise, is planning to combine the Cruise and GM technical teams into one to continue to work on AV tech. The automaker's focus will now be on its Super Cruise advanced driver assistance system with the goal of developing fully autonomous personal vehicles. "GM pulling the plug on the Cruise partnership to stop the bleeding and realign capital is the latest example of this challenging dynamic, particularly considering the potential revenue upside — still many billions of dollars and years down the road," Waatti said. Cruise AV, General Motor's autonomous electric Bolt EV, is displayed in Detroit on Jan. 16, 2019. Cruise's restructuring followed months of efforts by GM to restart the operation after a pedestrian accident in October 2023 with a Cruise self-driving vehicle halted operations. GM had restarted testing in several cities, and in August, Cruise and Uber Technologies LLC announced a multiyear deal for customers to book autonomous Cruise robotaxis through the Uber platform starting in 2025. It's unclear where the Cruise and Uber partnership stands after GM's move to defund the robotaxi program. Uber did not respond to a request for comment and a Cruise spokesperson deferred to GM. GM spokesperson Jim Cain said: "We've proposed a restructuring, and a lot of these potential opportunities depend on how that gets resolved." The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly.In conclusion, the announcement of the sampling and testing of the LPDDR5 6400Mbps memory modules by KamoTech represents a significant achievement in the field of mobile memory technology. With the integration of SK Hynix's wafer-level packaging technology, these memory modules are poised to deliver unparalleled performance and reliability, setting a new standard for mobile memory solutions.Undefeated Oregon and No. 23 Texas A&M will collide Tuesday afternoon in Las Vegas in the second game of the new Players Era Festival. Both teams are in the "Power" group of the eight-team event. All eight teams are receiving $1 million for their name, image and likeness (NIL) collectives, but placing fourth or higher in the tourney in order will net them anywhere from $1.1 million to $1.5 million. The Aggies (4-1) opened the season with a three-point loss at UCF, but since then have won four straight, all in convincing fashion. Texas A&M upset then-No. 21 Ohio State 78-64 on Nov. 15 at home in College Station, Texas. Then the Aggies crushed Southern 71-54 last Wednesday, when Wade Taylor IV led the way with 17 points and six assists. All of Texas A&M's wins have been by double digits. The Aggies and Ducks (5-0) have split the two previous meetings against each other. Until March 2022 in an NIT second-round game, they had not met since the 1970-71 season. Texas A&M tied the overall series with a 75-60 win at home in 2022. The only player on the Ducks' current roster who played in that game was 7-foot senior Nate Bittle, who has been one of Oregon's best players so far this season. Bittle's 16.2 points and 10.2 rebounds per game lead the Ducks so far this season, and the big man also averages two blocked shots per game. Texas A&M guard Zhuric Phelps, a transfer from SMU, leads the Aggies in scoring at 16 points per game. Taylor adds 14 points per game. The Aggies could be the best defensive team the Ducks will have seen this season. A&M is allowing teams to shoot only 36.6 percent in games. Head coach Buzz Williams and his staff are hoping the team gets better at taking charges on defense, as the Aggies have just one so far this season. "I guess the thing that you work on most is verticality around the rim," Texas A&M assistant coach Steve Roccaforte told KBTX television. "‘Hey, once you get there, if you try and take a charge, it's going to be a block. Just jump as high as you can, stay vertical, try to go chest-to-chest. Make it a hard shot.'" Oregon is coming off a 78-75 win at Oregon State, the Ducks' first road game of the season. The Ducks trailed by 10 points at halftime but, as they have in several games this season, they found a rhythm on offense in the second half and came up with a comeback win. Bittle's 23 points and 14 rebounds led the way. Jackson Shelstad had 15 points and Jadrian Tracey and Keeshawn Barthelemy both added 10. "We started rebounding the ball a little better. Nate really got it going inside and our guys got him the ball," Oregon head coach Dana Altman told the school's athletics website. "He had a heck of a game." --Field Level Media

Moreover, the prohibition of sales of DJI and Da-Jiang drones could also have geopolitical implications, affecting trade relations between the United States and China. As tensions between the two countries continue to escalate, tech companies have become a focal point of contention, with accusations of espionage, unfair trade practices, and intellectual property theft clouding the relationship.In response to the "failed cooling" phenomenon, businesses and policymakers can take proactive steps to adapt and mitigate its impact. This includes investing in technologies that reduce energy consumption and emissions, promoting sustainable practices in manufacturing and supply chains, and providing consumers with information and incentives to make environmentally conscious choices.

However, tensions continued to rise as neither the man nor the woman was willing to back down. The man, now visibly frustrated, stood up and raised his phone as if to carry out his threat of smashing it on the ground. The woman, alarmed by his actions, called for help from other passengers and the subway staff to intervene and defuse the situation before it escalated further.In July, Asvatha Babu and her husband set off for Bengaluru from Chennai to attend a wedding. Instead of taking their usual hatchback, owing to the amount of luggage they were carrying, they took an SUV, with their child seated in the back. The Chennai-Bengaluru expressway is partially operational, and there was a diversion on the way. Relying on Google Maps, the couple took a detour that would briefly take them into Andhra Pradesh. This was a common enough route to take — through Ranipet and Chittoor — for journeys terminating in North Bengaluru, while routes to the heart of the city usually rely on the highway network within Tamil Nadu itself. In a few minutes though, Babu found herself on a “dirt road in the middle of nowhere with trees all around and basically no streetlights”. Two cars behind her were similarly stranded, a few kilometres from the Kunjanur Rainforest. Fortunately, there was enough daylight — and company — to backtrack and exit back north, and reach the Bengaluru-Tirupati highway, putting them back on track. But the detour had cost them precious hours, and by the time they reached the venue, the festivities had wound down. Others have not been so lucky. Over the past year, numerous incidents have come to light where drivers navigating using Google Maps have found themselves similarly stranded, at odd hours. Early in December, a couple traveling from Bihar to Goa found themselves stranded in the Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary, and had to be rescued in the dead of night by Belagavi police. In the Budaun district of Uttar Pradesh in November, three people in a car died after taking an incomplete bridge amid dense fog and plunging off its edge into a river. There too, the Google Maps navigation had led the unsuspecting driver through a route that did not exist. In August, a car in Kerala’s Wayanad overturned into a stream following a walkway — suggested by Google Maps as a road — leading to three injuries. Google Maps’s turn-by-turn navigation is massively popular around the world. In India alone, the tech giant said last December, 2.5 billion kilometres of navigation were requested by users per day. Google amasses map data from Indian cities and highways through a combination of commercial third-party sellers and user contributions. Roads, pedestrian walkways, expressways, buildings — these are all labelled by lane count, direction, permissible vehicle classes, and speed limits. Thanks to its massive user base and real-time data from these phones, Google is able to also use real-time data to provide travel duration estimates, and suggest alternate routes to avoid congestion. But the real world does not always operate or change in ways that are immediately flagged by Google’s systems. For instance, when some of the northernmost stations of the yellow line of the Delhi Metro were shut this month (December), Google briefly misinterpreted the outage to mean that the entire yellow line was not functioning and provided much longer transit directions through buses and other metro lines that extended travel time, sometimes by over an hour. For experienced commuters heading to work in the national capital, this may not have been a problem. But data lapses in remote areas and highways can have more far-reaching consequences. Traffic advocacy group SaveLIFE Foundation’s founder Piyush Tiwari placed the responsibility of traffic incidents like the one in Budaun squarely on local authorities. “The current news cycle about the involvement of GPS in the particular crash appears to be entirely based on an unscientific analysis of the crash, and hearsay, mostly in social media,” he said in an emailed statement. “Prima facie, it appears from the crash images as published in the media that the crash site was an unsafe, unguarded and untreated bridge construction zone. The liability of the fatal crash therefore falls entirely on the road-owning agency and the bridge contractor for failing to prevent the movement of vehicles on an incomplete bridge section.” The bridge was removed from Google Maps shortly after the incident. A Google spokesperson did not comment on the individual incidents but said that the company took “user safety and information quality incredibly seriously,” and that while it strove to provide users with accurate guidance, this was a challenge, as the best route between any two places can change constantly due to things such as sudden weather changes. “Now, we’re adding two new weather-related alerts in India for low visibility areas due to fog and flooded roads,” Google announced in an October blog post. The app accepts contributions in real time from users on accidents and road closures. The Google spokesperson said that these reporting mechanisms were being simplified, and that in urban areas, the company was partnering with traffic police to get “authoritative” sources of information on traffic disruptions. How does Google obtain road data in the first place, especially for unpaved ones or pedestrian walkways? Adhavan Sivaraj, a contributor to the volunteer-run OpenStreetMap (OSM) platform, pointed to the company’s use of satellite imagery, which is common across all sorts of mapping services. OSM allows contributors to mark various road attributes, like whether one is paved, number of lanes, and so on. Google Maps restricts the level to which individual users can contribute such data to the company, and their practices are not always open to scrutiny, Mr. Sivaraj says. Using satellite imagery to add unpaved roads is also not a problem that can necessarily be detected immediately, as nearby expressways are likely always suggested as the best route. When there is a route closure, users are likely to discover the issue. A Google executive speculated — asking not to be identified — that another problem that was likely making issues worse was users selecting alternate routes while using turn-by-turn navigation, instead of following the recommended route, which is more likely to be safe and accurate. “I think there is a lot of dependency on Google, on what it’s offering apparently out of its goodwill,” Mr. Sivaraj says. “There is so much dependency on something we cannot hold accountable. There is so much belief in just one map. And that is very dangerous.” There was little way for local communities to get involved in the representation of their own surroundings, he said. Published - December 28, 2024 07:57 pm IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit technology (general) / IT/computer sciences

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