The “global leader” in cybersecurity—Avast—announced today it would be shutting down its analytics arm Jumpshot that was recently found harvesting the data of the hundreds of millions installing Avast’s free browser extension. Apparently, the optics of a company that prides itself on privacy-forward approaches and honoring user’s personal security exploiting users’ data for profit was just a bridge too far.

“Protecting people is Avast’s top priority and must be embedded in everything we do in our business and in our products. Anything to the contrary is unacceptable,” wrote Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek in a statement released yesterday.

“For these reasons, I—together with our board of directors—have decided to terminate the Jumpshot data collection and wind down Jumpshot’s operations, with immediate effect.”

Like many popular adtech companies, Jumpshot relied on user data gleaned through some sort of third-party—Avast in this case—to do the heavy lifting. While users had the Avast extension installed, the company could package all of the clicks and on-screen browsing behavior of a given user, bundle it up, and share it with a given brand—say, Nike—that might want to know the types of people clicking on its site, and when.

And while this particular data might not be “personally identifiable,” per the CEO, we’ve already explained again and again why that’s a bullshit excuse—perhaps, even more so when your entire browsing history is on the line.

The closure is a move that craters the jobs of the “hundreds” of Jumpshot employees that’ll be forced to pack up, but it’s ultimately the right one. While the company prided itself on “always acting within legal bounds” and making privacy settings freely available to anyone using the extension, the truth is—as anyone in the data game will tell you—that doesn’t mean jack shit when those privacy settings are, by and large, unreadable. Besides, this is a statement that puts all of the onus on users that are, ostensibly, downloading a security app to feel more secure. Why would they think about looking under the hood?

In a letter to investors about the “press speculation” regarding Jumpshot, the Avast secretary Alan Rassaby noted that this arm alone was expected to rake in $36 million from the major brands—which, per the initial report, included Pepsi, Home Depot, and more—that were plugged into the partner. According to a follow-up note, this was a mere 7% cut of the more than $400 million Avast earned in all of 2019.

DETROIT – General Motors is resurrecting the Hummer, best known as a gas-guzzling, military-style SUV, as an all-electric “super truck” with massive horsepower, acceleration and torque.

The Detroit automaker confirmed the plans Thursday and released three online teaser videos for the “GMC Hummer EV” pickup ahead of a 30-second Super Bowl ad for the vehicle featuring NBA star LeBron James. The spot is scheduled to air during the second quarter of Sunday’s game.

The Hummer EV pickup, according to GM, will feature 1,000 horsepower; 0 to 60 mph acceleration of three seconds; and 11,500 pound feet of torque. It didn’t announce a price.

“It’s a combination of an incredibly capable truck and a supercar. Those sorts of times are in that ballpark,” Phil Brook, GMC vice president of marketing, told CNBC. It’s an “all-electric super truck.”

The Hummer EV pickup is expected to go into production in the fall of 2021 at a plant in Detroit, followed by sales starting toward the end of the year.

The teaser videos detail the specifications and preview the front of the pickup, which features a new iteration of Hummer’s well-known slotted grille with “HUMMER” backlit across the front of the truck.

“It is very different from anything we’ve ever done before,” Brook said. “This is the start of big things in the electric space. … This is GMC and how we’re moving into that space in a big way.”

GM is branding the Hummer EV as a “quiet revolution.” It’s a play on the quietness of all-electric vehicles and the performance of the Hummer EV. It’s also the title of the Super Bowl ad.

Brook declined to discuss additional information, including plans to potentially produce an all-electric GMC Hummer SUV, ahead of the pickup’s global debut on May 20.

GM’s previous Hummer brand included an SUV and a short-lived pickup variant. The design was based on the military vehicle known as the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or “Humvee.” During the early 2000s, the Hummer was a popular vehicle but also a source of criticism because of its size and poor gas mileage at around 15 mpg.

The Hummer brand was discontinued as part of GM’s 2009 bankruptcy amid stalling sales, high gas prices and a sour reputation for polluting the planet. The automaker stopped production of the vehicles in 2010.

GM has no plans to build a gas-powered Hummer with an internal combustion engine, according to Brook.

The plan to sell Hummer under the GMC brand is expected to save the automaker substantial capital compared with launching it again as a stand-alone brand. It also will provide GMC with its first all-electric vehicle as part of GM’s pivot to all-electric vehicles, including releasing at least 20 new vehicles globally by 2023.

The GMC truck and SUV has become a profitable workhorse for the Detroit automaker with an affluent and educated customer base. Adding the Hummer EV, which is expected to command high transaction prices as a lifestyle pickup, will likely add to the brand’s profits and customer base.

“I think there’s an opportunity for us not just to extend where GMC is today from a customer base but also bring new customers in who hadn’t considered us before as well,” Brook said.

The GMC Hummer EV is expected to be part of a new lineup of all-electric pickups and SUVs for GM that will extend across brands and price ranges. GM President Mark Reuss on Monday broadly detailed those plans when he announced plans to invest $3 billion for the production of such vehicles.

“Our offering won’t just be one pickup,” Reuss said at the Detroit plant that will build the vehicles. “This is architected to be scalable and used for multiple brands with multiple variants with multiple customers.”

The Hummer EV is expected to be part of a surge of new all-electric pickups to enter the U.S. market in the coming years. Ford Motor, Tesla and Amazon-backed EV start-up Rivian are expected to release pickups through next year.

The next time you’re thinking about whether to cook dinner or order a pizza for delivery, think of this: Plants have been doing pretty much the same thing for eons.

Researchers in Rice University’s Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology program detailed how plants have evolved to call for nutrients, using convenient bacteria as a delivery service.

Their open-access report in Science Advances looks at how plants read the local environment and, when necessary, make and release molecules called flavonoids. These molecules attract microbes that infect the plants and form nitrogen nodules—where food is generated—at their roots.

When nitrogen is present and available, plants don’t need to order in. Their ability to sense the presence of a nearby slow-release nitrogen source, organic carbon, is the key.

“It’s a gorgeous example of evolution: Plants change a couple of (oxygen/hydrogen) groups here and there in the flavonoid, and this allows them to use soil conditions to control which microbes they talk to,” said Rice biogeochemist Caroline Masiello, a co-author of the study.

The Rice team, in collaboration with researchers at Cornell University, specifically analyzed how flavonoids mediate interactions between plants and microbes depending on the presence of abiotic (nonliving) carbon. Their experiments revealed, to their surprise, that an excess of dissolved—rather than solid—carbon in soil effectively quenches flavonoid signals.

Understanding how carbon in soil affects these signals may provide a way to engineer beneficial interactions between plants and microbes and to design effective soil amendments (additives that balance deficiencies in soil), according to the researchers. Plants use flavonoids as a defense mechanism against root pathogens and could manipulate the organic carbon they produce to interfere with signaling between microbes and other plants that compete for the same nutrients.

Overall, they showed that higher organic carbon levels in soil repressed flavonoid signals by up to 98%. In one set of experiments, interrupting the signals between legume plants and microbes sharply cut the formation of nitrogen nodules.

Rice graduate student Ilenne Del Valle began the study when she became interested in the subtle differences between the thousands of flavonoids and how they influence connections between plants and microbes in soil.

“We had studied how different soil amendments change how microbes communicate with one another,” said Del Valle, co-lead author of the paper with former Cornell postdoctoral associate Tara Webster. “The next question was whether this was happening when the microbes communicate with plants.

“We knew that plants modulate symbiosis with microbes through flavonoid molecules,” she said. “So we wanted to learn how flavonoids interact with soil amendments used for different purposes in agriculture.”

Because she counts two Rice professors—Masiello and synthetic biologist Joff Silberg—as her advisers, she had access to tools from both disciplines to discover the mechanisms behind those subtleties.

“We came into this thinking there was going to be a big effect from biochar,” Silberg said. “Biochar is charcoal made for agricultural amendment, and it is well-known to affect microbe-microbe signals. It has a lot of surface area, and flavonoids look sticky, too. People thought they would stick to the biochar.

“They didn’t. Instead, we found that dissolved carbon moving through water in the soil was affecting signals,” he said. “It was very different from all of our expectations.”

The Rice and Cornell team set up experiments with soils from meadows, farms and forests and then mixed in three slightly different flavonoids: naringenin, quercetin and luteolin.

They found the most dramatic effects when dissolved carbons derived from plant matter or compost were present. Plants employ naringenin, a variant of the flavonoid that gives grapefruit its bitter taste, and luteolin, expressed by leaves and many vegetables, to call for microbial nitrogen fixation. These were most curtailed in their ability to find microbes. Quercetin, also found in foods like kale and red onions and used for defense against pests, did not suffer the same fate.

Masiello noted there’s a cost for plants to connect with microbes in the soil.

“These relationships with symbionts are metabolically costly,” she said. “Plants have to pay the microbes in photosynthesized sugar, and in exchange the microbes mine the soil for nutrients. Microbial symbionts can be really expensive subcontractors, sometimes taking a significant fraction of a plant’s photosynthate.

“What Ilenne and Tara have shown is one mechanism through which plants can control whether they invest in expensive symbionts,” she said. “Among a wide class of signaling compounds used by plants for many purposes, one specific signal related to nutrients is shut off by high soil organic matter, which is a slow-release source of nutrients. The plant signal that says ‘come live with us’ doesn’t get through.

“This is good for plants because it means they don’t waste photosynthate supporting microbial help they don’t need. Ilenne and Tara have also shown that signals used for other purposes are slightly chemically modified so their transmission is not affected at the same rate.”

The researchers checked flavonoid concentrations in soil with standard chromatography as well as unique fluorescent and gas biosensors, genetically modified microbes introduced in 2016 with the support of a Keck Foundation grant, which also backed the current project. The microbes release a gas when they sense a particular microbial interaction in opaque materials like soil.

“The gas sensor ended up being very useful in experiments that looked like tea, where we couldn’t image fluorescent signals,” Silberg said.

After waiting more than a week for good weather, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday from Cape Canaveral with 60 more satellites for the company’s Starlink Internet network, continuing to build out a fleet of fleet of orbiting broadband relay stations that could eventually number in the thousands.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket fired up at 9:06:49 a.m. EST (1406:49 GMT) Wednesday and climbed away from from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. An incandescent flame from the rocket’s nine Merlin 1D main engines — collectively generating 1.7 million pounds of thrust — trailed more than 20 stories behind the launcher.

A roar from the Falcon 9’s engines reached spectators a few seconds later as the rocket arced toward the northeast into clear skies over Florida’s Space Coast.

The liftoff Wednesday came after a series of weather delays since last week. After performing a standard pre-launch test-firing of the rocket, SpaceX pushed back the launch from Jan. 21 to Jan. 24, then to Monday, Jan. 27, to wait for improved weather conditions in the Atlantic Ocean, where SpaceX stationed ships to retrieve the first stage and payload fairing from the Falcon 9 rocket.

SpaceX scrubbed a launch attempt Monday due to strong upper level winds, then bypassed a launch opportunity Tuesday, again wait for better weather in the downrange recovery area.

Weather conditions at Cape Canaveral appeared ideal for a launch Wednesday, and SpaceX’s 80th Falcon 9 flight put on a spectacular show.

Two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage shut down its engines and dropped away from the Falcon 9’s second stage. Seconds later, the upper stage’s single Merlin engine — modified with an enlarged nozzle for better performance in space — ignited to accelerate the 60 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The Falcon 9 jettisoned its clamshell-like payload fairing nearly three-and-a-half minutes into the mission.

Flying tail first, the rocket’s first stage booster reignited three of its nine engines to guide it toward SpaceX’s drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” positioned around 400 miles (630 kilometers) northeast of Cape Canaveral. A final landing burn using the center engine slowed the booster for a controlled vertical touchdown on the football field-sized barge, marking the 49th time SpaceX has recovered one of its rockets intact.

The booster flown Wednesday was making its third trip to space, following successful launches and landings in March 2019 and June 2019 on flights carrying SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Canada’s Radarsat Constellation Mission. With Wednesday’s mission, the booster has launched from all three of SpaceX’s active launch pads in Florida and California.

The two halves of the Falcon 9’s payload shroud used cold gas thrusters to maneuver into the proper orientation for descent, then unfurled parafoils for a gentle fall toward the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX’s two fast-moving fairing recovery boats — named “Ms. Tree and “Ms. Chief” — tried to catch both halves of the Falcon 9’s aerodynamic fairing.

SpaceX confirmed Ms. Tree caught one side of the shroud in a giant net. Ms. Chief, equipped with a similar net, failed to snag the other half of the fairing before it fell into the sea, but teams were expected to pull the hardware from the ocean for inspections and refurbishment.

While SpaceX’s teams in the Atlantic were busy recovering pieces of the Falcon 9 rocket for reuse, the launcher’s upper stage — which is not reusable — fired its engine two times to place the 60 Starlink satellites into a targeted 180-mile-high (290-kilometer) orbit inclined 53 degrees to the equator.

SpaceX said the rocket did its job placing the satellites into the proper orbit, and live video from the Falcon 9’s second stage showed the 60 flat-panel satellites separating from the launch vehicle as it flew south of Australia about one hour after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

The spacecraft were expected to extend their power-generating solar panels, and krypton ion thrusters on each satellite will begin raising their orbits to an altitude of around 341 miles (550 kilometers), where SpaceX intends to operate its first 1,584 Starlink platforms to provide worldwide Internet service.

The Starlink satellites, built at a SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, filled the volume of the Falcon 9’s payload fairing. Each satellite weighs around 573 pounds, or 260 kilograms, and the Starlink craft stacked together form the heaviest payload SpaceX has ever launched.

With Wednesday’s launch, SpaceX has deployed 240 Starlink satellites on four dedicated missions since last May. That makes SpaceX the owner of the world’s largest fleet of commercial satellites.

SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to eventually field a fleet of up to 12,000 small Starlink broadband stations. But SpaceX has said the size of the Starlink fleet will grow with demand after the company launches its initial block of 1,584 satellites.

SpaceX says 24 launches are needed to provide global broadband service through the Starlink service. But the company could provide an interim level of service over parts of the Earth later this year, once SpaceX has launched around 720 satellites on 12 Falcon 9 flights.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, told reporters in December that the Redmond factory was producing as many as seven satellites per day.

“Because Starlink satellites fly in a global constellation, we can bring high-speed Internet to places that previously had terrible service or no service at all,” said Lauren Lyons, a SpaceX engineer who provided commentary on SpaceX’s webcast of Wednesday’s mission. “Some of the most exciting opportunities for Starlink are rural or remote locations where traditional fiber or cable just isn’t practical.”

Cruise ships, airplanes and the U.S. military are also likely customers of Starlink services.

SpaceX has not announced a price for the Starlink service, or downlink and uplink speeds customers can expect through the network.

“Building a constellation that can provide this level of service is incredibly challenging, but we are making steady progress toward that goal with every Starlink launch,” Lyons said.

Scientists have raised concerns that thousands of Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit could interfere with astronomical observations. The Starlink spacecraft launched last year were more visible from the ground than predicted, prompting criticism from some scientists and amateur astronomers.

The satellites are especially bright soon after launch, when they are bunched together and flying at lower altitudes.

SpaceX debuted an experimental darkening treatment on one of the Starlink satellites launched Jan. 6, but none of the 60 satellites delivered to orbit Wednesday have the darker coating, which is aimed at minimizing reflectivity of sunlight down to the ground.

“It takes a few weeks for those satellites to reach their final orbit destination, so we don’t have the results of that DarkSat experiment just yet, but we’ll be sure to share what we’ve learned as the data becomes available,” Lyons said.

With Wednesday’s launch, SpaceX has sent 120 Starlink satellites into orbit on two Falcon 9 missions just this month. At least one Starlink launch with approximately 60 additional satellites is scheduled in February on another Falcon 9 rocket.

More than half of SpaceX’s 35 to 38  launches scheduled in 2020 will carry Starlink satellites, Shotwell said last month.

NASA has selected Axiom Space, a Houston-based startup partnering with Boeing and other aerospace contractors, to attach a commercial habitat to the International Space Station and begin constructing an orbiting complex that the company says could ultimately replace the international research outpost.

Axiom won a NASA competition to connect a commercial module to the forward port on space station’s Harmony module, or Node 2, officials announced Monday. NASA made available the port in a commercial solicitation last June, asking companies for proposals to join a public-private partnership with the space agency to develop and demonstrate technologies for a future commercial space station.

“Axiom’s work to develop a commercial destination in space is a critical step for NASA to meet its long-term needs for astronaut training, scientific research, and technology demonstrations in low Earth orbit,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a statement. “We are transforming the way NASA works with industry to benefit the global economy and advance space exploration. It is a similar partnership that this year will return the capability of American astronauts to launch to the space station on American rockets from American soil.”

NASA said it will begin negotiations with Axiom on a firm-fixed-price contract to build and deliver the module to the space station, with a five-year base performance period and a two-year option. NASA selected Axiom through a solicitation known as Appendix I in the space agency’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships 2, or NextSTEP 2, program designed to foster public-private partnerships in spaceflight.

Axiom was founded in 2016 by Kam Ghaffarian, an aerospace industry entrepreneur, and Mike Suffredini, who was NASA’s program manager for the International Space Station from 2005 until 2015.

“We appreciate the bold decision on the part of NASA to open up a commercial future in low Earth orbit,” Suffredini said in a statement. “This selection is a recognition of the uniquely qualified nature of the Axiom team and our commercial plan to create and support a thriving, sustainable, and American-led LEO ecosystem.”

NASA says it selected Axiom to provide at least one commercial module for attachment to the space station. But Axiom has more ambitious objectives.

Axiom says it plans to build and launch several modules to form the “Axiom Segment” of the International Space Station. The company said it targets launch of the first module in the latter half of 2024.

The elements planned by Axiom include a node module, an orbital research and manufacturing facility, a crew habitat, and a “large-windowed Earth observatory” that is similar in appearance to the International Space Station’s cupola module. Axiom said the new commercial segment will add more research and habitation facilities to the ISS, and provide “novel avenues of research in areas such as isolation studies and Earth observation.”

Research currently conducted on the ISS could be transferred to the new commercial facility gradually to prevent interruptions with the ISS is retired, Axiom said in a statement.

While its partnership with NASA is focused on connecting a module to the International Space Station, Axiom plans to detach its commercial modules when the ISS reaches its retirement date, forming a standalone, free-flying commercial orbital station. Before the International Space Station is decommissioned and the Axiom Segment is detached, Axiom aims to launch a solar power platform to provide the commercial modules the electricity and cooling previously provided by the ISS.

Axiom also plans to launch crewed flights to the ISS and the ISS/Axiom complex at a rate of about two to three missions per year, the company said in a statement.

The industry team assembled by Axiom includes Boeing and Thales Alenia Space of Italy. Boeing and Thales built most of the pressurized modules on the U.S. segment the International Space Station, and Boeing’s Starliner commercial crew capsule could fly private astronauts to and from the ISS and the Axiom station.

Other partners identified by Axiom include Intuitive Machines and Maxar Technologies. Intuitive Machines was also co-founded in Houston by Ghaffarian, and Maxar is a leading manufacturer of large commercial satellites, including the Power and Propulsion Element for NASA’s planned Gateway mini-space station to orbit the moon.

“Axiom exists to provide the infrastructure in space for a variety of users to conduct research, discover new technologies, test systems for exploration of the moon and Mars, manufacture superior products for use in orbit and on the ground, and ultimately improve life back on Earth,” Suffredini said in a statement. “As we build on the legacy and foundation established by the ISS program, we look forward to working with NASA and the ecosystem of current and future international partners on this seminal effort.”

The U.S. government is in the process of approving an extension to NASA’s support for the International Space Station to 2028 or 2030. By that time, NASA managers hope commercial operators like Axiom could take over management of a replacement space station in low Earth orbit.

“We know the space station can’t last forever, and we need to move as quickly as we can to make sure we don’t have a gap in low Earth orbit,” Bridenstine said.

Turning over operations in low Earth orbit to the private sector would allow NASA to focus government spending on deep space exploration, such as human missions to the moon and Mars.

“The goal is we need to make sure we don’t have a gap in low Earth orbit, so we need to accelerate as fast as possible commercial capabilities,” Bridenstine told Spaceflight Now last month. “That means we’ve got to have commercial resupply, commercial crew … and, of course, we need to have a day where we have commercial space stations.

“In order to have commercial space stations, we need demand for activities in low Earth orbit, commercial demand,” Bridenstine said. “So things like we’re working on on the International Space Station, things like industrialized biomedicine and advanced materials, those are two areas where I think there’s a lot of promise for a demand for human habitation in low Earth orbit.”

NASA released studies performed by 12 companies last May assessing potential growth of a commercial market for a crewed research facility in low Earth orbit. The studies submitted to NASA came from Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Boeing, Deloitte Consulting, KBRWyle, Lockheed Martin, McKinsey & Company, NanoRacks, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Nevada Corp., Space Adventures and Maxar.

Weeks after the studies were released, NASA announced it was opening up a port on the space station for a commercial company to connect its own module to the ISS. Axiom won the competition, and a NASA spokesperson said Monday that Axiom is the only company the agency will select for the Harmony port.

NASA also announced a pricing structure for private astronauts who launch on Boeing or SpaceX commercial crew spacecraft to live and work aboard the International Space Station.

There is already one experimental commercial module attached to the space station. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, was built by Bigelow Aerospace and launched to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo mission in 2016.

BEAM was built to test the viability of an expandable, or inflatable, soft-sided module to provide habitation for space crews, and NASA has been satisfied with the module’s performance. After analyzing technical results from the module’s first few years in orbit, NASA determined BEAM can safely remain at the ISS until at least 2028 to provide extra stowage volume.

In an interview last month with Spaceflight Now, Bridenstine said developing a commercial market and commercial technology for space habitation has been a “stumbling block” for NASA.

The space agency’s earlier emphasis in commercialization focused on launch and transportation for cargo and crews. Now it’s time to take the next step and commercialize human operations in low Earth orbit, Bridenstine said.

“It is a stumbling block, and yes we need to solve it,” he said. “There are two elements to it. One is the demand for habitation, and one is the supply. NASA has made huge investments in the supply of launch for both cargo and crew. We need to probably make some bigger investments into habitation in low Earth orbit.

“So there is no doubt a need there where NASA needs to lead, and we’re going to have to step up to the plate and do that,” Bridenstine said.

“NASA intends to have a presence in low Earth orbit forever,” Bridenstine said. “We don’t ever want to leave low Earth orbit, but in order to do that, we’re going to have to be the customer. And probably at the beginning, we’re going to have to be the biggest customer. We’re going to probably have to be the tenant customer. But the goal is that over time, there will be enough demand to where there will be more habitation than just what NASA is needing.”

Other companies with concepts for a commercial space station in low Earth orbit, like Bigelow and NanoRacks, can propose their plans to NASA in a separate competition to develop a free-flying, independent commercial space station. NASA has not yet released the solicitation NextSTEP 2 solicitation for an orbital free-flyer.

“I would say there are commercial partners out there that don’t necessarily need the port (on ISS),” Bridenstine said.

Uber is testing a new feature in California that allows some drivers to set their own rates.

The move comes in response to a new state law that requires more companies to convert their contract workers to employees, which means offering them benefits and added protections. Companies including Uber, Lyft and delivery app Postmates argue that doing so would upend their business model and eliminate the flexibility inherent to the gig economy.

Uber is currently testing a feature at airports in Sacramento, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara that allows drivers to increase fares in 10% increments, up to five times the base rate. Riders are then matched with the lowest fare.

In the coming days, Uber says it will also allow drivers to decrease their prices below the base rate and opt out of surge pricing. It’s part of an effort to give drivers more control — and bolster the argument that they’re truly contractors rather than employees.

The company acknowledges the experiment could have unexpected consequences.

“It could create more volatility for riders who expect a level of consistency in prices that could change as a result of this,” said Daniel Danker, head of driver product at Uber. “And this does add some meaningful complexity to the driver’s experience that gives them even more control on how their earnings work.”

Driver and rider confusion

Nar Bustamante, a traveler at Sacramento International Airport returning from Las Vegas, said he read about the new pricing experiment before landing.

“I think it opens up the road to many misinterpretations between rider and driver,” he said. “I don’t really know what the normal rate is. It didn’t say: ‘Here’s what the normal rate would be.’ So, I’m curious to see where this particular ride ends up.”

Drivers in Sacramento appear to be split on the new feature.

Adnan Badaoui, who has been driving for Uber for four years, began using it last week. He says even a small rate increase can add up for drivers.

“It’s not that much difference my friend, but it makes a difference to us, as a driver,” he said.

But driver Kim Beaver hasn’t had much luck. When the feature launched, she set her fare 50% higher than the base rate and waited for an hour without any activity.

“It’s just going to be chaos and frustrating for people,” Beaver said. “You’ll be waiting an hour to two hours to God knows how long.”

Gig companies continue to negotiate with state officials, seeking relief from the new labor law that requires companies to convert many contract workers to employees.

But Francis J. Mootz III, professor of law at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, says efforts like Uber’s new pricing feature may not be enough to convince lawmakers.

“Two or three years ago, if Uber and Lyft and other ride-share companies had really tried to restructure in a way to give workers true independence, true entrepreneurial opportunities, it might’ve been different,” Mootz said.