Image by Marisa04, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.
Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:
1. Car ownership is expected to plummet in the coming decades. In fact, the amount of young Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 who hold a driver's license has already dropped from 76 percent in 2000 to 71 percent in 2013. And that trend does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Assuming that this decline continues, the ride-hailing business is poised to expand past Uber and Lyft. New services headed up by companies like Bosch, Sony, and Avis are getting involved in this industry. I'm excited that more ride-hailing services seem to be on the horizon because more competition in this area could end up being better for consumers.
2. In the ever-evolving technology space, security is becoming increasingly more important. Major US cell phone carriers are hard at work on a new open mobile authentication standard. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon say that they have a solution that could roll out later this year that will replace the flawed two-factor authentication protocol that is currently in use. Currently known as multi-factor mobile authentication, this method will provide better security than the existing two-factor type. If it ends up working as well as these carriers are claiming, we will all benefit.
That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.