Tag: milestone

Lyft reaches one million rides per day but is still well behind Uber

Today, Lyft announced that it’s now providing over one million rides per day. The company announced the milestone in a blog post , which highlighted some of its other achievements as well. Lyft noted that for the last four years, it has shown 100 percent year over year growth and it has launched in 160 new cities so far this year. That brings the company’s reach to 360 communities and 80 percent of the US population. While the continued growth shows Lyft is holding its own, it still has a long way to go before it catches up with Uber. Founded three years before Lyft, Uber reached the one million rides per day mark in 2014 and as of a year ago was giving an average of 5.5 million rides a day. Uber just recently surpassed its five billionth ride . But Uber has taken a hit recently. Business Insider reported last month that Uber’s market share fell from 84 percent earlier this year to 77 percent by the end of May and Lyft saw a substantial jump in activations in the week after the #DeleteUber campaign . Lyft has continued to adjust its service in order to make its ride-sharing more convenient for customers. And like its rival , Lyft is also working on self-driving cars . The company said in a post, “Since day one, we’ve worked to embed hospitality in everything we do. As more and more people choose Lyft and we continue to grow, we’ll remain focused on providing the best experience to our passengers and drivers.” Source: Lyft

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Lyft reaches one million rides per day but is still well behind Uber

YouTube now has over one billion auto-captioned videos

Over a billion videos on YouTube are accessible to viewers who are hard of hearing or completely deaf, thanks to the video platform’s automated captions . YouTube product manager Liat Kaver has announced the milestone number in a blog post, where he also talked about how hard it was growing up as a kid who’s hard of hearing and having very little access to closed captions. After his team launched automated captions in 2009, they started concentrating on making it more available and improving its accuracy. Kaver said they made automated captions more available to YouTubers by combining Google’s automatic speech recognition technology with the YouTube caption system. They then achieved a 50 percent leap in accuracy — for English captions, at least — by improving the service’s machine learning algorithms and expanding its training data. We all know how funny caption fails can be, but people who have no other way of knowing what was actually said would end up missing bits of information. In the image above, you’ll see an example comparing the service’s old (left) and current (right) models. Going forward, the company aims to improve the accuracy of the 10 other languages its caption tech supports. Kaver is encouraging YouTube creators to chip in and review the accuracy of machine-generated captions for their videos, as well. After all, the more data they have on their hands, the easier it’ll be to improve the technology. Source: YouTube

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YouTube now has over one billion auto-captioned videos

Surgeons complete first uterus transplants from live donors in US

A team of surgeons at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas have achieved something that hadn’t previously been done in the US. With the help of a Swedish surgical team, doctors performed the first uterus transplants from living donors . The experimental procedures took place between September 14th and 22nd with four total transplants. While the first three were unsuccessful, the fourth patient is showing positive results based on follow-up tests. The transplanted uteri were removed from those first three patients and they’re expected to resume normal activity soon. For the fourth patient, tests indicate good blood flow to the uterus with no signs of rejection or infection. “We are cautiously optimistic that she could ultimately become the first uterine transplant recipient in the US to make it to the milestone of uterine functionality, ” a statement from Baylor University Medical Center explained. 16 uterine transplants have been performed around the world thus far. In fact, the Swedish team that assisted doctors at Baylor are considered experts on the procedure. There have been five births following procedures they’ve completed. Following these most recent transplants, both surgical teams say they’ve gained valuable knowledge from the three unsuccessful cases that will prove beneficial to future operations. Changes will include updates to protocols and post-op management with special attention to the thickness of the uterine veins. Back in February, the Cleveland Clinic performed the first uterus transplant in the US. In that case, the 26-year-old recipient would have needed to have the organ removed after one or two pregnancies due to medications that kept her body from rejecting it. Due to compromised blood flow caused by an infection in the weeks that followed, the transplanted uterus was removed in March. Via: CNN Source: Baylor University Medical Center (1) , (2)

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Surgeons complete first uterus transplants from live donors in US

Apple has finally sold its billionth iPhone

Apple has managed to pull in some extremely impressive numbers when it comes to its flagship mobile phone. While iPhone sales overall had begun to decline over the last quarter, that didn’t stop the company from selling its one billionth iPhone last week. Apple’s CEO announced the milestone today during a special employee meeting in Cupertino this morning. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, thanked employees for “helping change the world every day, ” noting that Apple has “always set out to make the best products that make a difference.” The billionth iPhone was sold about two years after Apple sold its 500 millionth iPhone. That’s a lot of units, and with the impending launch of additional phones to its line, it’s likely to sell a whole lot more in the future. Via: TechCrunch

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Apple has finally sold its billionth iPhone