WEBVTT - TechStuff Gets Scooting 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.720 staff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.760 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:18.799 I Heart Radio and how Stuff Works, and I love 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.160 all things tech. And once upon a time, not that 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.960 long ago, the only dangers I had to worry about 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:33.760 on my walks to and from work were bicyclists, slow walkers, joggers, 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.839 the occasional dude on one of those unicycle scooters, and 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.280 of course zombies because I'm in Atlanta. But over the 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.600 last several months, a new mode of transportation has become 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.760 increasingly popular along my walk. It's one that's popping up 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.600 in lots of cities across the world. I'm talking about 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:58.320 the GPS enabled rental scooters known as dockless scooters, belonging 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.480 to companies like Lime or Bird or one of a 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.520 half dozen others. So what's the story behind those scooters? 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.199 Where did this idea come from? How did it become 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.960 so popular? Well, the logic behind the companies that are 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.720 offering this service is actually pretty solid. Right, people need 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.160 to get around and getting stuck in traffic is a drag. 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:22.680 If you live in a city where there's a lot 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:28.600 of car traffic, you don't necessarily really enjoy getting into 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.200 your car at any given to point, and especially if 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.199 you have to go just a short distance. Meanwhile, many 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.119 cities in America are not terribly convenient if you happen 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.520 to be a pedestrian. Atlanta is one of those cities. 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.640 If you don't have a car in Atlanta, it's challenging 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.960 to get around. Now, my city is slowly getting better 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.280 in this regard, at least in some neighborhoods, but not 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.480 all of them. And bicycles can really help cut down 0:01:55.560 --> 0:02:00.560 on car traffic plus pollution. It promotes exercise. There's been 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:05.360 several attempts at making bike sharing or renting infrastructure available 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.680 in various urban environments, and there are quite a few 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.240 bicycle rental companies and programs out there, apart from the 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.720 ones that you're gonna encounter in traditional spots like vacation 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:17.880 destinations where you rent a bike for a day and 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.640 you go along various bike trails. There's been a few 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:24.639 companies and organizations that have set up businesses and services 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.240 in various cities. A few cities, and some companies and 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.760 some colleges have experimented with providing free bicycles to a population. 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.280 They distribute bicycles across the city and people can just 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:38.800 grab one whenever they need it and ride for as 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.720 long as they want to. Google does this on their campus. 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.239 If you work at Google's campus and you need to 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.440 get across the area for a meeting, it's a pretty 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.560 big campus, so if you're in a one building and 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.919 you have to go meet in another one, that can 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.040 be a bit of a hike. So you can hop 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.920 on one of these bikes that are typically parked right 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.600 outside of the various buildings and you can ride it 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.839 over to your destination. Those bikes have no locking mechanisms 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.280 for the most part. A lot of these free bike 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.400 programs don't include any locking mechanisms or other preventive measures 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.880 in place because it's a little antithetical to the philosophy 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.680 behind the program. But that also means that those bikes 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.840 aren't protected against theft, and so you can end up 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.760 with some pretty tough distribution problems as well. Maybe people 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.720 have taken them and not return them, or maybe you 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.920 find out that all the bikes tend to end up 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.320 at the bottom of hills because no one ever wants 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.400 to ride the bikes back up a hill, so they 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.360 just leave them at the bottom of the hill, and 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:41.200 that's where they all accumulate. And so the bikes tend 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.440 to end up being away from the places where people 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.120 need them, and they collect in places where people don't 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.240 want them. That's a problem. Then there are coin operated 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:57.080 and automated docking station style services out there. Typically companies 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.600 that use these follow the same general plan. You as 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.880 a customer would need to go to a specific location, 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.600 such as a kiosk or a docking station, where there 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.360 would be bikes parked and locked in that station, and 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.960 there's the point where you would rent the bike and 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.080 it would release the bike, you could go ride it, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.320 and when you were done, you are meant to return 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.039 the bike at a similar location. It might be a 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.560 similar kiosk or dock that's across town, but it belongs 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:28.560 to the same company and you have to take it 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.960 to that specific spot. You can't just leave the bike anywhere, 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.479 so you might pay for this rental with a smart 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.040 card or a phone map, so it makes it a 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.920 little more high tech. But this model has some fairly 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.560 big drawbacks as well, and the biggest is that the 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.440 renter has to find a spot to drop off the 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.200 bike when they're done with it. Now they can't just 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.279 ride it too, say their workplace and leave it outside 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.440 if their workplace doesn't have a docking station or kiosk. 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.720 But then over in China, some entrepreneurs came up with 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.480 a different approach. They went with a dockless bike model, 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.200 and that model allows riders to grab any available bike 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.560 that belongs to the company that happens to be in 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.120 the area, and then you unlock the bike with a 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.359 companion app in order to rent it, and then you 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.720 can ride that bicycle around and when you're done, you 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.520 would end the trip. You would pull open your app 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.479 and say all right, I'm done, and the bike would 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:31.919 have an electronic lock that would engage and prevent the 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.440 wheel or both wheels from turning, and then you would 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.200 just leave the bike wherever it happens to be, preferably 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:40.800 parked out of the way so it's not in the 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.479 line of traffic, but you can just leave it there. 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.320 And at the end of the day you might have 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.479 crews to go out and retrieve bicycles and then redistribute them, 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.360 or if they happen to be electronic bicycles like the 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.040 electric scooters are that you've been seeing popping up everywhere. 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.680 Maybe first they take them back to reach charge at 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.760 a central facility and then redistribute them later on early 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:09.000 the next morning. So your basic components of these bikes, 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.880 in addition to your typical bicycle parts that is, would 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.840 include a GPS receiver that is able to identify where 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.120 the bike is UH. Then there's some sort of transmitter 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.039 that sends this information, this location information back out to 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.800 the general system that the company uses to keep track 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.720 of all the different bikes UH. And then you would 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.000 have some sort of unique code on the bike itself. 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.440 There might be a string of characters, or it might 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:39.560 be a QR code, and this would be what the 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.320 user would input in their app to let the system 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.120 know this is the specific bicycle I want to use. 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:48.560 This is also a good way for the company to 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.680 make sure that if someone has rented a bike and 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:56.680 they're there just temporarily leaving it outside, they can keep 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:01.479 that bicycle locked until the UH the initial writer has 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.600 completely released it is that way you don't have to 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.560 worry about riding a bicycle to say a local store, 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.200 leaving it outside and then coming out and finding out 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.840 that the bike that you had rented is now gone 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.440 because someone else has rented it after you went inside 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.320 the store. Anyway, there's also the electric lock. Obviously, that's 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.360 the really important part. It can disengage or engage after 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:27.480 receiving the appropriate signal as relayed by the company's service. 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.440 So let's do a quick rundown of the major component 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:37.040 here of GPS, because I think it's fascinating how GPS works, 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.600 and it's been a long time since I've actually talked 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.480 about the process, and it really lets you appreciate the 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:49.160 ingenuity that went into designing the GPS navigation system. So 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.240 GPS stands for Global Positioning System, and so way above 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.800 our heads, way on space, there are a collection of 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.240 GPS satellites just whizzing around of there, and there about 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.960 thirty of them out in space. They were originally intended 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.720 to provide navigational data to the US military, but in 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:12.720 the ninety nineties, the US President Bill Clinton did away 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:17.920 with a policy that was called selective availability. Selective availability 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:23.760 would purposefully introduce errors into the positioning data. So if 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.080 you had a receiver and you didn't have the right 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:31.120 code to tune into the GPS network, you would get 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:36.840 location information that was wrong on purpose, not completely wrong, 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.199 but it wouldn't be accurate to within a few hundred feet. 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:45.200 So it wasn't really useful for anything because you wouldn't 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.440 you know it would It would be too imprecise. If 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.080 you were using it to get from point A to 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.880 point B. As a navigation system, it wouldn't recognize that 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.000 the turn you needed to take was a mile behind you. Well, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:03.199 maybe a miles being pretty I'm exaggerating there, but you 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.440 might pass a turn and it might be several seconds 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.440 after you've passed it before your navigation system says, hey, 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.160 turn right at that place that was behind you. That 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.480 would be a problem. So Clinton did away with that 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:21.760 in the nineties, and at that point anyone could access 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.040 the accurate information. Before then, it was just the military 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:30.040 that could, and it was part of a strategy to 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:35.840 keep things safe by keeping that a military operation that 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.240 kind of expired in the nineties. Now anyone can use 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.120 GPS data and have it be pretty precise to within 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.560 just a few feet, So that's much more useful if 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.000 you want to do like point to point navigation systems. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.560 So how does it work well. Each of those satellites 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.520 in that group overhead are sending out pulses of information, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.640 and those pulses include a time stamp, which is incredibly important. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.200 The time stamp indicates when the pulse is leaving the 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:08.280 satellite and also information about the satellites position above the Earth. 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.200 So no matter where you are on Earth, there are 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.080 at least four GPS satellites within line of sight of you. 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.560 That is, you are visible to at least four satellites. 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.960 A GPS receiver picks up on those signals that are 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.360 being sent out by the satellites, so it's essentially a 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:32.000 very high tech electronic ear And because the signals include 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.079 the satellites positional information and a time stamp, the receiver 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.720 can use that information to calculate how far away it 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.559 is from that respective satellite. The signals travel at the 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.160 speed of light, so you start with the time it 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.240 took from the point that the data was time stamped 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.200 to when it was received by the receiver, and then 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.199 work backward to figure out how far away the receiver 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.920 is from that satellite. So you know, if I were 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.600 to say, it takes the sound I make travels and 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.000 I'm just making this number of Let's say the sound 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.920 I make travels one feet every second, and it took 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:12.880 five seconds from the time I made a sound. Too. 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.079 When you heard it, you do some math, you say, oh, 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.120 that means I'm five feet away from Jonathan. Again, that 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:23.600 was just me using a very basic, completely not realistic example. 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:29.280 So the problem here is that this does not actually 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.400 tell you what your position is from one satellite. It's 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.200 one satellite alone, just tells you how far away you 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.200 are from that satellite. Doesn't tell you anything about your position, 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.640 just that you could be, in theory at any point 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:48.360 that is that distance away from the respective satellite. So 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.800 if you were to render this in a three D application, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.080 You've got a satellite that's an orbit around Earth, and 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.640 you say, like, well, according to the this time stamp, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:04.160 I must be I don't know, let's say five kilometers 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.600 from this satellite. Well, you could identify the satellite up 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.000 in the sky and you could draw a transparent sphere 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.359 that's five kilometers out from every direction from that satellite. 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:20.040 It would be like this globe surrounding the satellite. Some 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.120 of that sphere would intersect with the surface of Earth, 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.000 but that would mean that you had a whole bunch 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:30.360 of potential points where you could be based upon your 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.560 distance from that one satellite. So that's not enough to 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.400 let you know where you are, right, that's not enough information. 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.600 You could potentially be anywhere along those points of contact. 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:46.280 So you then have to look at more than one satellite. 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.040 If you can pick up signals from multiple satellites, you 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.760 can determine where you are. So you know you are 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.439 X distance from satellite A, your y distance from satellite B, 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.000 and your Z distance from satellite see. So you draw 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.559 your spheres around these three different satellites. They're all going 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.800 to intersect at a point on the face of Earth, 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.000 and that would be your location. That's the one point 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.480 that is the distance from all three of those satellites, 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.720 the respective distance from each of those satellites, so it 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.800 tells you where you would be. This approach, by the 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:25.480 way of determining your location is called trilateration. This is 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:31.560 different from triangulation because, as that name implies, triangulation is 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.840 all about using angles to determine your position. Trilateration is 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:40.040 about using distances from different known points. Also a word 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.480 about that time feature. This is also I think really interesting. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.760 It's absolutely necessary for the satellites to send the time 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.800 data or else there's no way to calculate the distance 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.880 between the satellites and the receiver. But keeping accurate time 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:59.880 isn't an incredible challenge because you could easily have clocks 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.120 run out of uh, they could get desynchronized, right, This 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.480 just can happen. So GPS satellites do this. They keep 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.400 accurate synchronized time by using atomic clocks. Atomic clocks use 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.240 the resonance frequencies of atoms as the resonator. The resonator 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.079 is the part of the clock that keeps time. It's 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.520 kind of I come grandfather's clock clocks pendulum. Usually it 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.600 swings back once every second. That's a very slow resonator. 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:31.040 Atoms resonate much much much more more quickly, and more importantly, 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.280 if you have the atoms of specific stuff, they're always 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.480 going to resonate at the same frequency. They're very consistent. 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.400 I've got a little bit more to say about keeping 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.840 time with the satellites and the GPS network, as well 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.480 as getting back into the electric scooter land. But before 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.400 I get into any of that, let's take a quick 0:14:49.400 --> 0:15:00.280 break to thank our sponsor. In addition to keeping accurate time. 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.800 The GPS network has to account for general and special relativity. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.160 Yeah we're talking super important science here. So, according to 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:13.640 general relativity, the clocks on the satellites would run faster 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:18.880 than clocks on Earth because time runs slower if it's 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.240 in an environment that has a stronger gravitational pull. And 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.720 a clock on Earth would have a stronger gravitational pull 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.520 on it than a clock on a satellite, so the 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.400 clocks on Earth would run a little more slowly than 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:34.600 a clock in space. However, then you have special relativity. 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.360 Special relativity says that the relative speed of a given 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.760 object also determines how time will pass for that object. 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.960 The faster the object is going relative to another object, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.720 the slower time will appear to pass for that uh 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.840 fast moving object. So, since satellites are moving very quickly 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:00.000 relative to a clock on Earth, the clocks on satellite 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.240 will appear to run more slowly than o'clock on Earth. 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.560 So they appear to run more quickly due to general relativity, 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.200 but more slowly due to special relativity. Special in general 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.920 relativity don't quite cancel each other out, so the GPS 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.240 network actually has to take into account both special and 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.800 general relativity when trying to make sure all these clocks 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.360 are synchronized properly, and it shows that Einstein was really 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:26.840 onto something and who would have thought that I could 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.800 fit in this quick discussion about relativity in an episode 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.280 that's all about electric scooters. So connected to this GPS 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.600 receiver on these dockless bikes and scooters as a processor 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.760 and a wireless communications device. It might be the equivalent 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.240 of like a cell phone. There's some that use three 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:49.600 gene networks to send information back to the general system, 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.640 but different ones may use different proprietary approaches. The nature 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.040 of the communications device depends upon the company, but essentially 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.800 it just comes out to being a type of wireless 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.920 ray deo that sends out information about the bike or 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:08.239 scooters location. The respective company or organization or whatever is 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.640 handling this receives that signal and then registers the vehicle's 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:17.399 location and frequently will incorporate the information into the app 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.600 that customers use. So if you're a customer, you can 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.159 follow up an app and you can look at a 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.639 map of your area and it should highlight the location 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:32.040 of available vehicles because they are constantly paying the system 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.840 with their location. This is also how the service is 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.399 able to locate these individual vehicles at the end of 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.080 the day so that they can redistribute them in the 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.800 appropriate places and also recharge any that run on electricity. 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.879 The electronic lock prevents people from just grabbing a scooter 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:50.840 or bike and taking it for a joy ride or 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.080 stealing it for themselves, and the lock prevents one or 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.120 both wheels from turning, So not much more to say 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.439 about that. It's pretty basic piece of technology. The unique 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.480 identify or for the bike, like I said, could be 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.640 a QR code, it could be a string of characters, 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.320 but it's unique to the bike or scooter so that 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:08.320 the network can send a signal for the lock to 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.400 disengage and begin the rental period for that user. Also 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.280 to alert users to the location of specific bikes, and 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.800 to keep the location of bikes that are still being 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.679 rented off of the map. Obviously, you wouldn't want to 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.320 show the location of every single vehicle that was belonging 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:28.199 to that system, because some of them might be in 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:32.120 use and they would not be available to someone else 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.320 who wants to just grab one right then and there. 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.040 So you have to have a way of identifying each 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.640 of these and saying all right, well, this one over 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:43.360 here is not in use, therefore I'm going to show 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:45.439 it on the map, whereas this one over here is 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.359 being used right now by somebody, so I'm not going 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.879 to have that pop up on the map. Okay. Now, 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.440 I mentioned earlier that these companies got started in China, 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.639 or that this kind of service got started in China. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.280 The two largest companies in China that do this kind 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.960 of thing, especially with bicycles, are called o fo Ofo 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.639 That one has more than two million bikes in forty 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.240 three cities in China, and another one called Mobike, which 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.800 has more than one million bikes of its own. Now, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:17.080 inspired by the success of those businesses in China, several 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.040 people in America decided to give this same concept to 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:23.680 go and early companies to get into dockleas bike sharing 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:28.040 in the US where Zagster Blue Go Go, which was 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.920 a Chinese company, subsequently it went bankrupt. There was a 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:37.560 spin which was recently acquired by Ford that Social Bicycles 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.320 also known as Jump Bikes, which is now owned by 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.960 Uber Motivated Company which is now owned by Lift and 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.280 Lime or as it was originally known, Lime Bike. Many 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.040 of those companies would pop up around the same time 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.679 around two thousand seventeen early two thousand eighteen, but in 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:59.520 different cities, and would rapidly expand out to other locations 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.679 as soon as the company's had secured enough funding to 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:07.199 do that, and funding came along pretty darn quickly. There 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:08.960 are a lot of different examples, but I'm gonna look 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.480 at two specifically. I'm gonna start with a line Bike 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.879 as an example. It's admittedly a pretty dramatic example, but 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:16.960 I think this is an interesting topic, not just from 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.639 the text side, but also from the business side. So 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:27.560 line Bike started as a startup in early and it 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.200 was not the first dockless bike startup in the United States, 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.240 but it did help define the model for success. You 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.520 had co founders Brad Boo and Toby's son. They started 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.040 the company in San Mateo, California, and they had the 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.399 goal of creating a dockless bike rental company akin to 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.639 what was going on in China. The actual rollout of 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:52.920 bikes would happen in April. Like many other bike sharing 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.800 and renting companies, Linebike opted to use special tires for 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.080 their bikes. They didn't use the inflated tires that you 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.680 would typically find on a bicycle. Instead, they are foam 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.720 core tires. This helps cut down on maintenance and repair costs, 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.280 as those tires aren't in as much danger of ripping 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.720 apart or deflating, you know, getting a puncture. Other companies 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.680 have used similar tires, some of them are even solid 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.560 rubber tires. I imagine that these probably are a bit 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:24.919 more stiff in the ride than your typical inflated tire bikes, 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:27.080 but I've never actually been on once, I don't know. 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.240 The pricing model for a line Bike originally was a 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.399 dollar every half hour, and investors obviously thought that this 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.960 was a promising idea, so at launch, firms like Andrea 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.359 sen Horowitz and I d G Ventures poured twelve million 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.360 dollars into the company, and that was just the first 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:49.720 round of funding, which happened in March. The following October 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:51.840 they had a second round of funding where they raised 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:56.920 fifty million dollars in investment. Then in February, line Bike 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.680 got another round of funding, this time at seventy million dollars, 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.080 and in July two thousand eighteen, they got yet another 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.320 round of funding for an amazing three hundred thirty five 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.439 million dollars in investments, which meant that by July eighteen, 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:17.919 Lime had reached a valuation of one point one billion dollars, 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:20.719 and by then the company wasn't just offering up bikes 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.359 but also electric scooters. But that's not all. In October 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.800 two thousand eighteen, Bloomberg reported that Lime was looking for 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.600 even more financing, and this time at evaluation of more 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.879 than three billion dollars. Rumor has it that the company 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.760 has also been in talks with Uber about a possible acquisition. 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.840 And Lime story is incredible, but it's not unique. There's 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:46.920 another electric scooter duckless rental company called Bird that has 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:51.080 also experienced a meteoric rise. Bird was founded by a 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.680 man named Travis vander Zanden. It was launched in two 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.919 thousand seventeen in Santa Monica, California, and vanders Enden had 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.240 previously worked as an executive at both Lift and Uber, 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.679 so he had experience in this world, just in the 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:10.439 car world. Uh leading into this, he secured fifteen million 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:13.880 dollars in funding in February two thousand eighteen. Just one 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.200 month later, a second round of funding raised one hundred 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:22.520 million dollars on in May, the company saw another one 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:26.560 hundred fifty million dollars in investment, which catapulted Bird into 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.920 the billion dollar valuation, making Bird the startup to reach 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:35.280 the fabled unicorn status the fastest and start up speak, 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.600 a unicorn is a company that reaches a billion dollars 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:43.040 in valuation, and you hear a lot about unicorns in 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:46.920 tech business speak. But of course the story doesn't stop there. 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.320 In June two thousand eighteen, Bird got another three hundred 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.399 million dollars in financing that boosted the valuation up to 0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:57.840 two billion, and Bird, like Lime, is seeking additional financing 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:01.440 and apparently is doing so at evaluation even more than 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:08.080 lines three point three billion dollars. Incredible. The electric scooter 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:12.399 trend started up around the end of and it really 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:17.199 began to get momentum, so to speak. In generally, the 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:21.840 companies behind these business models followed a pretty brazen philosophy. 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:25.040