Category: Technology

Last year, I asked if we’d ever see an e-cargo bike “for the people,” with powerful electric assist, generous cargo capacity and an affordable price. Soon after, Mycle got in touch to say its own offering, the Mycle Cargo, was exactly the bike I was looking for. It added that the struggles I’d had with heavy loads and steep hills wouldn’t be a problem for its affordable cargo longtail. After spending the better part of three months riding this thing around, I can heartily agree that it ticks many of the boxes I was hoping for. I may not have fallen head-over-heels in love with it in the way I had hoped, or expected to, but I’m sure it could find a place in the homes of many cyclists.

Mycle is a British-built e-bike which fits into the same category as Tern’s GSD, with a step through frame and beefy longtail. Support struts and plastic panels enclose the thick rear wheel, which houses the surprisingly-powerful 250W hub motor. Now, I won’t bang this drum too much, but this thing is less than half the price of some of its competitors in the cargo longtail space. Here in the UK, a Tern GSD or Yuba’s Spicy Curry will set you back around £5,000 before you start picking optional extras. By comparison, the Cargo’s retail price is £1,999, which will get you the standard setup, including integrated front and rear lights.

The model I tested, meanwhile, had a few luxuries added on, including an LCD display which adds £150 to the price. My model also had a front basket (£89) and a caboose to enclose the rear deck to help keep my kids safe (£129). The only other mainstream e-cargo bike in this price bracket is Rad Power’sRadWagon 4, which I’m looking to test in the future to offer a good head-to-head comparison. On paper, the RadWagon has a far lower center of gravity and a bigger payload weight, but a far shorter promised range.

Every issue I could raise about the Mycle Cargo, and I have a few, can likely be answered by its price. These bikes need to be affordable to win over would-be buyers who can quite reasonably say that five grand would get you a decent second-hand car and cover a year’s running costs. And while two thousand pounds is no small investment for a lot of people right now, it may wind up saving them cash if it helps them get around without a car. You can certainly carry at least two kids on the rear deck, and can probably mount a third seat up front should you need.

Mycle Cargo measures in at 187cm (73.6in) long and 73cm (28.7in) wide, with a quoted kerb weight of around 80 pounds. Even in my fairly spacious house, it took up a lot of room, and it requires a decent amount of effort to get it up my front steps. Which is a euphemistic way of saying that if you’re in a small space, or don’t have great upper body strength, you might need to look for an alternative. I found that, the longer I rode it, the easier it became to handle, so I think my time with the bike has contributed to some minor enswolening of my arms.

The bike arrives half-assembled, and you’ll need to get a hex key to screw in the footplates, caboose, front basket and fit the handlebars. This requires a decent amount of patience, since there’s so much engineering going on that your fingers won’t have much room to maneuver. If you can, get a bike store to do the finishing off for you, especially if you’ve got chunky hands and a tendency to swear in frustration after the screw falls out three times in a row.

The bike is fitted with a wonderfully comfortable seat, and is equipped with a modest, but solid, set of components. There’s Tektro mechanical disc brakes and a 7-speed Shimano Altus set, which might provoke a sniff or two from higher-minded cycling types. Both are what I’d call modestly priced, and aside from the odd stiff gear change, neither felt out of place, with good braking even on steep hills. It’s also clear that cost savings in this area help get the overall price down without causing too much pain for the rider on a daily basis. One nitpick I do have is that the built-in double-sided kickstand is sturdy, it still feels a little weak and I wish it was a bit thicker.

Now, from here on out, we’ll be talking about my experience of riding Mycle Cargo, and I’d say that I’m a general-purpose cyclist at best. Certainly, I’m open about my deficiencies, and hope that I can offer a better perspective for would-be riders than a road-hardened professional. If you’re a novice rider looking for a cargo bike, then these are the issues you’ll probably want to be mindful of, whereas more experienced riders can probably just look at the price, what you get for that chunk of cash, and head to the Mycle website to pre-order one.

The issue with weight, for instance, is going to be harder for novices to deal with compared to people who already own more than one pair of waterproof trousers. Mycle Cargo is heavy and, in my early rides, proved to be more than I could handle in terms of its balance issues. Even with fat tyres, which are designed to improve balance, I found it very easy to lose control of this thing at lower speeds. I tried to take the kids to school in rush-hour traffic, and pushed off in a quiet moment, only to find the bike started to wobble. I tried to correct it, but in doing so nearly pitched sideways into a van coming the other way.

Fortunately, this problem did eventually go away, but it took me a lot of (solo) trial-and-error and some counterintuitive tyre-deflating before I put the kids back on it again. Once I’d got the Mycle set up the way I did, riding became a lot easier and I had some fairly glorious runs around the local area. But don’t expect to climb on this in the first hour or two and expect to be zooming around your town without a care in the world. The learning curve is there, and it is steep, and I found the damped steering – designed to prevent you making risky, aggressive turns – was a bit of a pain in my early trips.

Once you get past the slow-speed wobbles, however, do you find Mycle Cargo’s comfort zone, which is unleashing its vast reserves of power. Accelerate a bit, and you’ll find riding the bike is easy and comfortable, but if you only run it on flat ground, you’ll miss out on its party piece. My kids’ school is at the top of a hill that measures around 11 degrees (or more) at its gentlest point. And I’ve ridden a few 250W hub motor bikes up there with varying levels of comfort, and even a light single-seater can sometimes struggle.

This thing? With all the added weight in its frame and two kids in the back? I have never seen a bike move this fast. It shot up the hill faster than the car I was passing, and I very quickly had to dial down the assistance level to stop feeling uncomfortable. When that pedal assist kicks in after a second or so’s delay, you feel as if you’re being towed by a car. It ships with a throttle but I don’t think I was ever compelled to use it outside of trying to intentionally test it, because one full turn of the pedal and this thing moves like a rocket.

I cannot overstate how much power Mycle has managed to wring out of this motor, to the point where I’d almost want to joke that it’s really a 500W motor with the wrong label. I cannot imagine anyone riding this thing and thinking that it’ll do anything but conquer any terrain you put in front of it. If I had infinite time and money, I’d take this to France and irritate everyone doing a mountain cycle climb as I lap them while lazily pedaling my way to lunch. The downside is the lack of refinement; dial down the electric assist and you’ll very quickly feel a lurch as the motor steps down a notch.

That’s really where your money isn’t going with a bike like this – into the refinements that would see it go from a two grand bike to a five grand one. I can think of plenty of tweaks I’d like to see, including a lighter weight, lower center of gravity and better handling. But if the choice is this bike or one that’ll cost more than twice the price, I’d rather keep my cash in the bank.

You can pre-order the Mycle Cargo now, with deliveries slated for some point in August. That will come with a few tweaks, including upgraded brakes – hydraulic, rather than mechanical – and fittings for a new rear-caboose. The new model will also be able to use a new clubhouse-style weather tent to keep your kids dry on windier days, but there’s no word on how much that’ll cost you at present.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mycle-cargo-is-almost-the-longtail-of-the-people-ive-been-waiting-for-130046591.html?src=rss 

GoodRx, best known for its prescription drug price comparison tool, has launched a new free offering called “Medicine Cabinet.” The tool will allow GoodRx app users to manage their prescription medications on a single platform. This comes on the heels of the news that the company is working with CVS Health to develop the Caremark Cost Saver, which could lower pharmacy out-of-pocket drug costs for shoppers.

Medicine Cabinet will automatically integrate within the GoodRx app and will feature tools like a “prescriptions dashboard” where a consumer can set up refill reminders and find the best pharmacies to pick up their medications at the lowest price. At the heart of the app are daily pill reminders that are customizable to any treatment plan that is uploaded into the app. GoodRx Chief Product Officer Mark Hull said the reminders feature is huge because 50 percent of the time, Americans are struggling to take their medications as prescribed for reasons as simple as forgetfulness or cost.

The Medicine Cabinet also includes a dashboard for GoodRx’s rewards program which offers users monetary perks like e-gift cards for staying on top of medication refills. “Nobody’s integrating or rewarding people for having those healthy habits,” Hull said.

“What we’ve found is that the winning model for us is to marry the discounts, the value and the rewards, with the basic healthy habits and reminder stuff,” he added. GoodRx claims it can save consumers up to 80 percent off the price of prescription drugs by partnering with pharmacy benefits managers to negotiate deals on drugs. Normally, the average consumer wouldn’t otherwise have access to these discounts without middlemen like GoodRx.

The Medicine Cabinet tool has only been in development for roughly six months and will be available on iOS, but not on Android just yet.

“GoodRx was able to develop Medicine Cabinet so quickly in part due to the data it has already amassed from users and providers over the last decade.” “If a startup were doing this, it would take a long time, they don’t have the data, they don’t have the relationships with retailers, they don’t already have the customer base,” Hull said. “We already have a half a billion prescriptions in federal records from the millions of people who have been using us for the last 12 plus years.”

Hull said he actually wishes Medicine Cabinet could have come sooner. He recalls when his stepfather had a heart attack a couple of years ago. “When he came home from the hospital, he had like a dozen medications he had to manage,” Hull said, remembering it as a nerve wracking time for his family and specifically his mother. “For the average person who’s managing a condition with multiple medications, it’s a lot of work and so we’re really trying to make it simple, clear and obvious what you need to do at any given point to help manage your condition.”

Down the line, Hull hopes Medicine Cabinet will be easier for older people to use, with the inclusion of features that will let a user take a photo of a medication instead of having to look it up in the database.

Still, GoodRx’s history of being caught up in legal trouble related to data privacy issues is worth noting. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission fined the company for the unauthorized disclosure of customers’ identifiable health information with third parties, such as Facebook and Google. “Our privacy policy applies to Medicine Cabinet, which sits within the GoodRx app. We are very transparent about what information we collect and how we use it to personalize and customize our products for consumers. Additionally, the feature is only available for users who have registered for a GoodRx account,” a representative said. The company’s recent focus on transparency and adherence to privacy policies suggest it’s taking the issue seriously, though as with any telehealth company, data privacy will always be a front and center concern.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/goodrx-now-offers-an-ios-medicine-cabinet-for-managing-prescription-meds-130002408.html?src=rss 

The following contains spoilers for “Under the Cloak of War.”

“Some things break in a way that can never be repaired, only managed.” It’s the final line in a powerhouse episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. “Under the Cloak of War” lays out a host of questions about memory, grief and redemption – reiterating the key obsessions of this season – none of which it could possibly answer. For some shows, this would be a bad thing, but Strange New Worlds is becoming increasingly comfortable living with ambiguity. Much as I may be flush with recency bias, I already feel it may be the standout of the season.

The Enterprise has been asked to carry Dak’Rah (An unrecognizable Robert Wisdom), a successful, but deeply controversial, Federation ambassador to the Prospero system. Controversial because he’s a Klingon who defected during the recent war, who is also known as the “Butcher of J’Gal.” Not just because of the orders he gave, including massacring his own civilians, but because he killed all of his generals just before he defected. Dak’Rah is embraced by Pike, Una and Uhura as a beacon of hope for a more peaceful future. But Ortegas, who fought in the war, and M’Benga and Chapel, who actually served in a field hospital on J’Gal, can’t get over the past, or their own pain. 

We flash back to Chapel’s arrival on J’Gal, where she’s greeted by Trek good luck charm Clint Howard’s commanding officer. Her orientation lasts for all of a minute before she’s picking up casualties from the transporter pad and trying to save them without key medical tech. One soldier gets loaded into the pattern buffer to keep him alive until rescue arrives, while others get operated on the old-fashioned way. M’Benga and Chapel quickly bond over their rough time in the medical trenches, and develop a shorthand to help each other along.

In the present, Pike asks all three to quell their objections and come to dinner with Dak’Rah, who is trying to hold court over the captain’s table. None of them are able to make nice for too long, and Ortegas quickly leaves, with Chapel following behind. Pike notices that while M’Benga remains, he’s gripping the arms of his seat so tightly that he’s about to rip them off, and asks him to go look after the absent pair. But not before Ra, knowing that M’Benga loves martial arts, asks to set up a session between the two with an arm grip that’s a little too aggressive.

Back on J’Gal, M’Benga treats a wounded soldier who wonders what the point of this battle really is. The doctor gives a rousing speech, bringing to mind the “you want me on that wall” speech from Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men. He says the risk of Klingon expansionism is too great, and that Starfleet fights so that others can live their lives in peace. But while the speech is effective, it’s delivered a little too convincingly, especially given we soon learn that M’Benga used to be the guy wielding the knife rather than the scalpel.

Soon after, a special forces commander asks M’Benga for some Protocol 12, the green steroids M’Benga and Chapel used in “The Broken Circle.” As annoyed as I was that M’Benga himself created it – I’m never a fan of secret origin stories where the same five characters are at the center of literally everything in the universe – I was pleased we didn’t get an over-explanation of its genesis. The doctor refuses, so the commander asks if M’Benga himself, under his old guise of “The Ghost” will join the team on its daring mission given how effective his murder skills are, or were.

The military is planning to send a small unit to try and wipe out J’Gal’s leaders once and for all, while committing the bulk of its forces to a grand frontal assault as a distraction. The soldier M’Benga previously patched up is going back out there to get chopped up, everyone knowing ahead of time they’re being sent to the meat grinder. But the Klingons are ready for them, disabling the field hospital’s power generators, preventing them from saving the casualties as they pile up. Chapel gets a transporter online, but can’t activate it without wiping the soldier who was kept in the pattern buffer earlier, something M’Benga does with little hesitation.

Back on the ship, M’Benga and Dak’Rah start their sparring session, with Dak’Rah doing his best to try and make nice with the doctor. He talks about how good the symbolism of two former enemies, quite literally on the opposite sides of the same battle, standing side-by-side would be. But M’Benga can’t bring himself to be friends, just allies, and soon starts to ask Dak’Rah which of his generals fought the hardest during his final day on J’Gal. Dak’Rah can’t answer, because it wasn’t Dak’Rah that killed them, but M’Benga, hopped up on his own fury steroids and looking for revenge.

The Enterprise takes a shortcut to get their unwanted Klingon off the ship before someone gets hurt, but not before Dak’Rah once again goes to M’Benga. The Doctor is looking at his little personal effects case, which includes a D’k tahg he kept as a reminder from J’Gal. They discuss the fallout from their prior discussion, with M’Benga angry that Dak’Rah has used the deaths M’Benga caused to launder his own reputation. We cut, then, to the other side of the doctor’s office, through partially-opaque glass, as the pair scuffle, before cutting back to Dak’Rahdead on the floor with a dagger in his chest.

Chapel provides cover for M’Benga, saying Dak’Rah caused the fight, which M’Benga agrees to, despite Pike pressing him for an off-the-record admission of guilt. He tells his captain he’s not responsible, but he’s glad his old enemy is he kept as a reminder from J’Gal. They discuss the fallout from their prior discussion, with M’Benga angry that Dak’Rah has used the deaths M’Benga caused to launder his own reputation. We cut, then, to the other side of the doctor’s office, through partially-opaque glass, as the pair scuffle, before cutting back to Dak’Rah dead on the floor with a dagger in his chest.

If there’s one thing that Star Trek (both back in the day and now) can sometimes forget, it’s that history doesn’t just happen to other people. As much as it focuses on the great people of history making soliloquies on the bridge of their starships, that’s the start of things, not the end. Despite its apparent progressivism, it rarely engages with the material concerns of the ordinary people living and serving in Starfleet on that sort of level. That’s why the fact we got to see the Klingon war from something approaching the ground is a refreshing change.

And at the start of the season, I talked about how confident Strange New Worlds’ storytelling had become. Bursting out of the gate, even its weaker episodes were elevated by a production team pulling their hardest in the same direction. With a strong script, credited to writer/producer Davy Perez and directed by Jeff W. Boyd, there’s not much that can go wrong. It helps, too, that Strange New Worlds this year has restrained its urge to explain, and over-explain, every facet of what’s going on. But what really makes this episode is the towering, blockbuster performance by Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga who, once again, demonstrates he’s this series secret weapon.

It’s Olusanmokun who holds the broad tangle of ideas in this script together, including the key issues around memory, grief and forgiveness. There’s a clear dichotomy between those in the crew who are motivated for revenge and those who are looking toward a better future. I’m sure that particular conflict can be mapped over several real-world fault lines, for better or worse. The episode, wisely, doesn’t necessarily take one side over the other, although the fact M’Benga and Chapel are our POV characters this week means we’re already on side.

It’s a shame that there’s less emphasis on making Dak’Rah as fully rounded-out a character as he could, or should be. He’s not given space to justify Pike’s faith in him, and it’s clear pretty much as soon as he arrives that he’s ever so slightly phony. Much of this can be attributed to our old enemy running time, and the fact that Strange New Worlds’ storytelling is that much more ambitious this time out. But I’m never going to criticize a series for having too many ideas and not enough time to explore all of them in enough detail.

Oh, and I wanted to draw attention to Strange New Worlds’ excellent use of virtual stages both here and for much of the season. The world of J’Gal feels pretty believable, rendered as a living backdrop behind the field hospital in the flashback sequences. Given the cost and logistical demands of trying to set up a series of night shoots on rough terrain, I can understand why the team opted to shoot the scene in the studio. But while keen-eyed fans will be looking for the edges of the stage, the atmosphere feels a lot more real than if they were acting in front of a green screen.

It’s clear now that each season of Strange New Worlds conforms to a similar shape across its run. After a mission-setting premiere, you get three episodes exploring standard Trek tropes, with a focus on Una and La’an. Episode five is a Spock-heavy romantic comedy romp, followed by a heavy episode that emphasizes the season’s overall theme. Seven is a lighter episode, while eight is primarily focused on Dr. M’Benga, while nine is one of two big showcase episodes to cap the season. And I’m hoping I get some credit for clocking – last year – that we were going to see a musical episode, which is what we’re getting next week.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-probes-the-limits-of-redemption-130025700.html?src=rss