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UberX can pick you up from Los Angeles International Airport
Lyft may have beaten Uber to the punch on offering ridesharing pickups from Los Angeles International Airport, but its lead will be short lived. As of January 21st at 8AM local time, you can order an UberX car to pick you up at LAX, not just drop you off. Previously, you had to spring for a pricier Uber tier (or go to the competition) to get a ride at the end of that long business trip. Do be prepared to hoof it and possibly endure a wait, though.
Lyft beats Uber in race to offer rides from LAX
Lyft has beaten Uber in becoming the first ride-sharing company that can take passengers from Los Angeles airport. The service has agreed to pay a $4 fee for every pick-up, and will go live from 8am local time with the city's mayor, Eric Garcetti, giving his blessing. Lyft may not be as wealthy, or as powerful, as its much bigger rival, but apparently it is much more capable in the whole filling-a-form-in-directly department. An October report from the LA Times revealed that Uber dragged its feet in presenting the airport contract to the city, while Lyft had its paperwork completed by mid-September. It probably won't be too long before Uber gets approval, but Lyft can chalk this down as a win in the meantime.
What you missed at Engadget Live Los Angeles
Last Friday, we took over Exchange LA in Downtown Los Angeles for the second Engadget Live event of the year and what a night it was. Our friend Mark Setrakian (who joined us at Engadget Expand last November) came correct with his Axis Robots, that while some find creepy, we find pretty damn exciting.
Engadget Live takes over the Exchange in Los Angeles this Friday!
We're gearing up to take over Exchange LA this Friday, August 21st at 7PM for our next Engadget Live event, where we'll bring together gadget lovers and awesome tech brands. Sound good? First, grab your free tickets and then read on to find out what you can expect at our free event in downtown Los Angeles!
Engadget Live hits Los Angeles next week!
Last year, we had a lot of fun at Engadget Live Los Angeles and now we're gearing up to do it all over again. Next Friday, August 21st, we'll take over Exchange LA from 7PM to 10PM and give readers like you a chance to experience the future of technology.
Visualized: Space shuttle Endeavour goes on a crosstown journey through LA streets
The space shuttle Endeavour finally bid adieu to its fans in Southern California last weekend, not in the air, but on city streets. The L.A. Times captured this remarkable feat in a time-lapse video, and it's quite a sight to see the orbiter sailing past suburban houses and fast food drive-thrus. Along its 12-mile crosstown trip from LAX to the California Science Center in Exposition Park, the shuttle atop a special transporter had to maneuver past trees, utility poles and of course hundreds of enthralled residents. This came weeks after it made its farewell tour over the California coast perched on a Boeing 747. Take a peek at the Endeavour's final fascinating journey at the source.
BYD opens North American HQ in LA, electric bus headed for LAX
China's BYD Motors has been edging its way into the North American auto market for some time, but it's now firmly planted itself here by opening its new headquarters in Los Angeles. That bit of news also just so happens to coincide with the announcement of a new partnership with Hertz Car Rental, who will be using BYD's all-electric, long-range eBUS to shuttle passengers at Los Angeles International Airport -- BYD's cars will also eventually find their way into Hertz's LA rental fleet. The press release is after the break.
Xcom Global opens LAX service center, the jetset get data without borders
We've sung Xcom Global's praises to the heavens before, and that's because it's made our always-on internet addiction an easy fix abroad. Well, prepare to add the international wireless convenience to your list of last minute carry-ons. Announced today, the company has opened its first satellite service center at Los Angeles' LAX airport, bringing unlimited roaming data to US-based travelers starting at $12.95/day. The rental MiFi Hotspot units, available prior to boarding, come packaged with an Unlimited aXcess plan, and can feed up to five of your data-hungry devices. So, if you're headed out on that next Eurotrip, or just a terminal-bound refugee from Krakozhia, you might want to give this internet lifeline a whirl.
American Airlines getting in on that cellphone boarding pass fad
American Airlines has joined its peers at Continental in offering boarding pass barcodes that you can download to and display on your BlackBerry, iPhone, G1, or whatever have you. Presently the airline is only offering the option on domestic, non-stop flights departing from O'Hare -- LAX and Orange County will start on the 17th. Some eastern yanks might be asking, "What, no JFK or Logan? Where's the east coast love, AA?" Don't get too bent out of shape, boys and girls -- tech-savvy business travelers love their BlackBerries, so we could see this pop up just about everywhere before long.[Via Mobilitysite]
Best Buy selling iPods in a vending machine
I was in Anaheim, CA over the weekend (covering BlizzCon for our sister site WoW Insider) and while Macs were in short supply for most of the time, I did notice something Apple-related in LAX on my way out of the city yesterday. Best Buy recently started up a vending machine program which allows you to buy their electronics from staffless machines in various airports around the country, and lo and behold, right there next to the Nintendo DS games and spare USB hubs and mice, were Apple's very own iPods. Which makes sense -- Apple has long sold their stuff inside Best Buy stores, so why wouldn't Best Buy Express do the same?It was a little strange, though -- at first, I thought there was an iPhone in there, which just would have made the whole activation process even more confusing. But no, it's an iPod touch, in both memory sizes. I also wondered just what you'd do with an empty iPod on a trip, business or otherwise, but I guess people who would really buy their iPods from airports probably don't worry too much about when they'll find the time to get music on there. Not that it mattered much yesterday -- as you can see in one of the pictures, the console's IE version was bugging out, so no one was buying anything anyway (and I couldn't check prices). Still, very strange.%Gallery-34384%
Network card crash leaves 17,000 stranded at LAX
According to reports, a single computer crash on Saturday in the Customs office of LAX caused hours of delays for more than 17,000 airline passengers. US Customs officials say that a malfunctioning network card on a single desktop created a "domino" effect with its other computers, leading to a total system failure that caused massive wait times. According to a Customs spokesman, "We lost access to our national systems, as well as our local area network." He went on the claim that it took over ten hours to diagnose the problem, halting screening operations and leaving passengers stranded on planes or in the airport -- unable to enter or leave the US. From the sounds of it, Customs need to hire a handful of Engadget readers, who we're pretty sure could have located the source of the problem in considerably less time.[Thanks, Darleene]
VidaBox ships Blu-ray / HD DVD-equipped CableCARD HTPCs
Hard to believe (well, maybe not so much) that you've had to twiddle your thumbs nearly half a year to see VidaBox actually ship those well-spec'd all-in-one media centers, but thankfully for those who've waited, deployment starts now. The firm's highly customizable LUX and MAGNUM rigs sport both Blu-ray and HD DVD support (via dual drives or in a single drive like another offering), CableCARD, 7.1 Dolby Digital HD and DTS HD surround sound, up to four OTA tuners, 4GB of RAM, and up to 9TB of onboard storage on select models. Unfortunately for those already whipping out the credit cards, placing your order won't be as easy as you'd expect, as we imagine that "call for price" bit really means "too enormous to list."
MD-10 departs LAX with Northrop Grumman's Guardian anti-missile system
Considering all these homemade sentries we're teaching mischievous folks how to build, and all the zany ideas popping into folks' brains after catching the Jack Bauer power hours, it's no surprise that our Department of Homeland Security is equipping as many aircrafts as it can with anti-missile systems. While we'd heard that Boeing's laser-equipped 747-400F was ready for takeoff, and that these aircraft-mounted weapon detection systems weren't too far off, it looks like the DHS has completed the first step in rolling the technology out. An MD-10 cargo plane took to the friendly skies from LAX airport today as the "operational testing and evaluation of the laser system designed to defend against shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles" began, and while its doubtful that we'll be seeing the very pricey Guardian system on typical passengers flights anytime soon, equipping the Civil Reserve Air Fleet is potentially one of the uppermost priorities. And for those paranoid folks who can't wait to get this on their next Southwest friendly fare flight, you should probably consider how much coin you'd have to lay down to help compensate for the $1 million installation cost (per plane), not to mention the $365 airlines would be forced to cough up each flight for "operational and maintenance costs" -- yeah, we'll hold off for awhile.
Over 500,000 IBM / Lenovo laptop batteries subject to recall
Hooray, Lenovo has joined the battery recall party! For those of you keeping score at home, that brings the number of manufacturers to five, including Apple, Panasonic, Toshiba and Dell. The recall, anounced today, affects nearly 170,000 batteries in the US, and over 350,000 additionally worldwide, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The USCPSC also says that the recall was triggered by Lenovo's confirmation of the battery that exploded at LAX a few weeks ago and that this latest battery recall affects the following ThinkPad notebook computers "sold between February 2005 and September 2006: T Series (T43, T43p, T60); R Series (R51e, R52, R60, R60e); and X Series (X60, X60s)." Furthermore, Lenovo has put out a press release stating: "Additionally, since these batteries can also be used with ThinkPad T4x Series or ThinkPad R5x Series systems, customers who ordered an extra battery or received a replacement battery for any ThinkPad T4x or ThinkPad R5x Series notebook PC between February 2005 and September 2006 may also have a battery subject to recall." Now, Alan Cox's exploded ThinkPad 600 isn't part of the list, which leads us to believe that this isn't the last we've heard about Sony's exploding battery fiasco. Read - Lenovo press releaseRead - US Consumer Product Safety Commission[Thanks, JJL]
