You trust an entity you can't interact with over a human being?
After a total of 41 Waymo rides so far: Yes, absolutely.
Readit Newsgst commented on California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf] cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cpuc-... · Posted by u/ra7
gst commented on Apple's iMessage avoids EU's Digital Markets Act regulation macrumors.com/2024/02/13/... · Posted by u/danaris
Because you don’t get free SMS for other countries, do you have free SMS with Canada in the US?
Yes. Most of the plans of the provider that I use in the US (T-Mobile) include free SMS and MMS to any country (also free data roaming in almost any country). I think it's similar for other providers (Verizon and AT&T), but I'm not sure as I'm not familiar with their plans.
gst commented on AT&T applies to end obligation to service landlines in California cbsnews.com/sacramento/ne... · Posted by u/kungfudoi
The best thing to do is for the city to own both fiber and electricity, and let providers compete for both. With Virtual Power Plants, the grid can be reimagined and it will happen faster if competing ideas/companies battle it out in the marketplace for consumers.
Second best is for electric utility to offer fiber, like EPB of Chattanooga, TN.
> The best thing to do is for the city to own both fiber and electricity, and let providers compete for both.
Something similar is the case in the European Union, as the electricity network is usually a different company than the electricity providers. The network is often owned by some municipal company and charges customers only for the transport of energy over the network. For the energy itself customers can choose from dozens of different providers, some of them generate their own electricity, others just buy and resell electricity on the market.
I've never used Google Voice, but I do use Google Fi, and they offer unlimited calls and sms in what looks like every country on the planet. What's the advantage of Voice for the traveling caller?
With Google Voice I have a phone number not tied to a particular SIM card or to a particular phone. When I travel internationally I can use a cheap local SIM and I'm still reachable on my US number for calls and texts.
With Fi you run into issues if you use it for too long outside the US. And also I read that people had troubles re-activating a Fi eSIM from outside the US in cases where they (for example) lost their phone.
I’m in the same situation. Calling and receiving calls worked for a year or so via the app, but at some point this year, it asked me to verify that my (former) US number was still valid (which I obviously couldn’t do). Probably what OP is referring to.
Guessing I’ll have to find another alternative soon.
Did you have the number configured as forwarding number? At some point I got asked to verify an old forwarding number, but I just deleted it and Google Voice continued to work fine (I mostly use it in VoIP mode instead of forwarding calls).
I used to use Skype for this when I was traveling outside the US. I also imagine you can set up something simple with Twilio as well, IIRC they have a no-code configuration tool for this kind of thing (simple forwarding, text to email, etc.)
Main downside of Skype is that you afaik can't port a number into it. Otherwise it would be a great alternative to Google Voice.
gst commented on In 2023 Organic Maps got its first million users organicmaps.app/news/2023... · Posted by u/RicoElectrico
For day to day use I use Apple Maps, but when hiking Organic Maps is my absolute favorite. A lot more useful than Apple Maps or Google Maps (as it includes routes that are missing in the other two) and it allows to add custom tracks which is super useful for navigation.
gst commented on Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working hackaday.com/2023/11/27/v... · Posted by u/bookstore-romeo
Installing a version of Android without Google Play Services running constantly in the background effectively doubles handset battery life in my experience. Disabling radios can do that again if the device is rarely used.
Slightly offtopic but related: One of my mobile providers supports configuring public (non firewalled) IP addresses for mobile devices and when choosing that option my phone battery drains very significantly faster than otherwise. I suspect it's because all the random packets that arrive every second or so on the public interface (when NAT and firewall are disabled) either cause the radio to use a lot more battery or prevent the CPU from going into sleep mode (or both of that).
gst commented on Voice-over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working hackaday.com/2023/11/27/v... · Posted by u/bookstore-romeo
One often unexpected consequence for tourists visiting a country that has executed a complete 2G and 3G shutdown is that they won't be able to make voice calls, even if their phone and plan supports IMS (i.e. VoLTE) when at home.
For some reason lots of Android phones (even the Pixel models from Google) seem to use a whitelist approach that is quite restrictive regarding where VoLTE is supported. For example at least up until recently (and probably still the case?) Pixel phones only supported VoLTE in countries that were in the list of countries in which the Google store official sold Pixel phones.
Meanwhile newer iOS versions seem to nowadays have generic VoLTE (and even VoWiFi) support that even works for smaller MVNOs without an iPhone carrier profile (as long as their VoLTE implementation somewhat conforms to standards).
Not sure if was legal or not for the Waymo to stop there, but given that Waymo stops take quite a bit longer than stops with Uber/Lyft (as it takes a while for the car to continue driving) this was one of the worst places possible to stop. Especially as there would have been space available right after the crossing next to Walgreens.