Gig economy companies, like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and Instacart, are in a major battle with California over whether their drivers should be classified as employees or independent contractors. And now that battle is heating up as the companies said Thursday that they got the signatures necessary to bring the issue to voters in November. …

Uber is aiming to make it easier for riders and drivers to communicate. In an app redesign that rolled out on Thursday, the ride-hailing company added a language translation tool that can be used via texting. This means if a passenger doesn’t speak the same language as their driver, they’ll still be able to communicate within the app. Before now, …

Google is sharing the planet with other browsers, literally. The search giant’s aerial mapping service is now available on browsers other than its own Chrome.  Google Earth is accessible via Firefox, Opera and Edge browsers, according to a blog post Thursday from the Google Earth team. This official release comes after a six-month public beta. There are plans for supporting Apple’s …

OYou’re on vacation, at a conference, being responsible after a night out or don’t have a car, and need to get a ride. If you’re like me, you have two apps on your phone for this very purpose: Uber and Lyft. But how do you choose which ride-hailing service to use at any given time, especially if they seem to …

Update, March 2: The two companies have agreed to temporarily keep Sinclair’s channels on YouTube TV while they negotiate. The original story, published Feb. 27, follows below. A broadcast dispute between YouTube TV and the Sinclair Broadcast Group could leave sports fans around the country in the dark on Saturday. In a series of tweets Thursday afternoon, YouTube TV confirmed that on …

Walmart is again putting together a paid membership program to compete with Amazon Prime. The retail giant has been working on a service called Walmart Plus for 18 months, as reported earlier Thursday by Vox. The service could be tested publicly next month, Vox said, and would be a rebranding of the big-box chain’s $98 a year Delivery Unlimited program …

Spring training is here and, in some good news for T-Mobile users who are baseball fans, right before Opening Day the wireless carrier is bringing back its free MLB.TV offer.  Responding to tweets on Tuesday as to whether the company would once again be offering a free subscription to Major League Baseball’s streaming service, a number of T-Mobile support reps …

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman reportedly has some strong opinions about popular video app TikTok. During an event Wednesday, Huffman reportedly called the app “fundamentally parasitic” and “spyware.” “I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that …

The US Federal Communications Commission is now collecting data from US carriers that are using network gear from Huawei and ZTE. This follows the FCC’s decision in November of last year to bar the use of its $8.5 billion a year Universal Service Fund for purchasing equipment and services from the Chinese companies. The Senate voted unanimously Thursday for carriers …

The questions came over Slack almost immediately. When you tell people you’re going to see a couple of hours of prerelease live gameplay from Baldur’s Gate 3, you quickly find out who the old-school fans of CRPGs (that’s computer roleplaying games for you Gen Zers) in the office are.  To answer the most burning big-picture question, based on the first …