An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inhabitat: The cost of electricity in Germany has decreased so dramatically in the past few days that major consumers have actually been paid to use power from the grid. While "negative pricing" is not an everyday occurrence in the country, it does occur from time to time, as it did this holiday weekend. This gift to energy consumers is the result of hundreds of billions of dollars invested in renewable energy over the past two decades. This most recent period of negative pricing was a result from warm weather, strong breezes, and the low demand typical of people gathering together to celebrate. Germany's temporary energy surpluses are a result of both low demand and variably high supply. Wind power typically makes up 12 percent of Germany's power consumption on a daily basis. However, on windy days, that percentage can easily multiply several times the average. The older segment of Germany's energy portfolio, such as coal plants, are not able to lower output quickly enough. Thus, there is a glut of electricity. On Sunday, Christmas Eve, major energy consumers, such as factory owners, were being paid more than 50 euros (~$60) per megawatt-hour consumed. Further reading: The New York Times

According to The Wall Street Journal, Uber is selling its Xchange Leasing unit to the car marketplace Fair.com. "It reportedly won't be a clean break," reports Engadget. "Uber will both take a stake in Fair and point would-be drivers to the site through its app. Fair, in return, will offer jobs to roughly 150 workers affected by the switch. Other companies in the running had included Avis Budget Group (yes, the car rental agency), activist investor Carl Icahn's self-titled Icahn Enterprises, Innovate Auto Finance and two capital investment firms."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: In 2010, the Library of Congress started archiving every single public tweet that was published on Twitter. It even retroactively acquired all tweets dating back to 2006. But the Library of Congress will stop archiving every tweet on December 31, 2017. The Library of Congress issued a white paper this month saying that it was proud of its comprehensive collection of tweets from the first 12 years of Twitter, but that it's completely unnecessary for it to continue. Instead, the organization will only collect tweets that it deems historically significant. For instance, President Trump's tweets are almost certainly still going to be saved for future generations. One reason that the Library is stopping the comprehensive archive? The social media company's controversial change to allow 280 character tweets. The Library's halt on collection of all tweets puts Twitter more in line with the way that other digital collections are archived, including websites. The Library of Congress only archives websites on a selective basis, unlike the nonprofit, non-governmental organization the Internet Archive, which has a much broader goal of archiving everything online with its Wayback Machine. The Library of Congress also noted that many tweets include photos and video and that it has only been collecting text, making some of its collection worthless.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Internet users are complaining more about net neutrality-related issues since the FCC voted to repeal the existing net neutrality rules earlier this month, according to the FCC's consumer complaint data. The FCC allows consumers to submit complaints about a variety of telecom-related problems, from receiving unwanted phone calls to billing fraud. After adopting net neutrality rules in 2015, the FCC added net neutrality to the list of possible gripes, such as slowed-down internet service or content being blocked. The FCC can use those complaints to spot trends or even launch investigations. According to the data (via the FCC's Consumer Complaint Center), people appear to file more net neutrality complaints when the topic is in the news and people are paying more attention to their internet performance.

In Midtown and some other neighborhoods across New York City, cashless is fast on its way to becoming normal, The New York Times reports, sharing anecdotes where merchants have refused to accept bills from customers (the link may be paywalled). From the report: Cashless businesses were once an isolated phenomenon, but now, similarly jarring experiences can be had across the street at Sweetgreen, or two blocks up at Two Forks, or next door to Two Forks at Dos Toros, or over on 41st Street at Bluestone Lane coffee. In the future, when dollar bills are found only in museum display cases, we will look back on this moment of transition and confusion with the same head-shaking smile with which we regard customs on the Isle of Yap in Micronesia, where giant stone discs are still accepted as payment for particularly big-ticket items. Some people already live in this cashless future. They find nothing strange about paying for a pack of gum with a swipe of a card. If you are one of these people and you are still somehow reading this article, you may be thinking, "What on earth is the big deal?" At Two Forks on 40th Street, where the lunch offerings have cheery names like Squash Goals, Kristin Junco, a 34-year-old auditor for the state Education Department, said she had not used cash for about a week and much prefers a cashless establishment to its opposite. "We travel a lot for work," she said, gesturing to a colleague, "and if they don't take credit cards that makes things difficult." [...] Not surprisingly, the credit card companies, who make a commission on every credit card purchase, applaud the trend. Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward for depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice. A Visa executive described this practice to CNN as offering shoppers "freedom from carrying cash."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Many potential emergency room patients are too sick to drive themselves to a hospital. But an ambulance can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars without insurance. This where a popular ride-sharing app can step in, while also freeing up the ambulances for those who need them most. With demand for ambulances decreased by available Uber drivers, emergency personnel have been able reach critical patients faster while also applying necessary treatment on the way to the hospital, according to a new economic study from the University of Kansas: "Given that even a reduction of a few minutes can drastically improve survival rates for serious conditions, this could be associated with a substantial welfare improvement." The study investigated ambulance rates in 766 U.S. cities from 43 different states. Taking into account the timelines of when Uber entered each city, the researchers found that the app reduced per capita ambulance usage rates by around 7 percent.

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's financial hub of Shanghai will limit its population to 25 million people by 2035 as part of a quest to manage "big city disease," authorities have said. The State Council said on its website late on Monday the goal to control the size of the city was part of Shanghai's masterplan for 2017-2035, which the government body had approved. "By 2035, the resident population in Shanghai will be controlled at around 25 million and the total amount of land made available for construction will not exceed 3,200 square kilometres," it said. State media has defined "big city disease" as arising when a megacity becomes plagued with environmental pollution, traffic congestion and a shortage of public services, including education and medical care. But some experts doubt the feasibility of the plans, with one researcher at a Chinese government thinktank describing the scheme as "unpractical and against the social development trend."

Disney's acquisition of Fox's film studio will unite some of the most lucrative movie franchises, from Disney's Star Wars and Marvel series to Fox's X-Men and Avatar. With control of more blockbusters, not only does Disney gain more leverage over theater chains such as AMC and Carmike Cinemas, it also wins more films it could distribute exclusively on its upcoming online service -- cutting out cinema operators entirely. From a report: "Disney is becoming the Wal-Mart of Hollywood: huge and dominant," says Barton Crockett, a media analyst at B. Riley FBR. "That's going to have a big influence up and down the supply chain." Together, Disney and Fox accounted for 40 percent of ticket sales in 2016 in the U.S. and Canada, a level of market concentration that could draw scrutiny from Washington. If the deal goes through, theater owners could get squeezed. Usually a film's box-office revenue is split evenly between exhibitors and the studio. But Disney previously has gotten theaters to hand over a larger share -- sometimes more than 60 percent -- on its biggest, most popular films, such as the Star Wars series. Now it could try the same tactic with Fox's Avatar, which has four sequels in the works. "While the future of movie exhibition looks increasingly dim, a Disney-Fox merger will elevate its level of pain," says Rich Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG LLC. Cinema chains have already suffered this year from a string of box-office bombs, including Warner Bros' King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and online video services such as Netflix are keeping more moviegoers at home.