Technology

A judge today denied Lime request for a temporary restraining order that would block Skip and Scoot from deploying their electric scooters in San Francisco on Monday. This means San Franciscans will be able to use electric scooter services again first thing next week.

Following the SFMTAdecision to grant Skip and Scoot electric scooter permits,Lime sent an appeal requestingthe agency reevaluate its application. At the time, the SFMTA said it was &confident& it picked the right companies. Just yesterday, Lime said it believed &that it has no choice but to seek emergency relief in the court& and take legal action.

&We&re pleased the court denied Limerequest for a temporary restraining order,& John Cote, communications director for City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement to TechCrunch. &The bottom line is the judge said he would not stop the permits from being issued on Monday. The SFMTApermit program has been both fair and transparent. Lime just didn&t like the outcome. The reality is that Limeapplication fell notably short of its competitors. Thatwhy it didn&t get a permit. San Franciscans deserve scooter services that are safe, equitable and accountable, which is exactly what this pilot program was designed to do.&

While Lime didn&t quite get what it wanted, Lime says it still sees this as a victory. In a statement to TechCrunch, Lime Head of Communications Jack S. Song said:

The Honorable Harold E. Kahn voiced serious concerns about the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency(SFMTA) permit process and ordered expedited discovery into the SFMTAselection process. In a rare move, the Judge ordered five key SFMTA officials and staff — including Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin himself — to testify next week. There will be another public hearing on this issue before Judge Kahn in mid-November, where the SFMTA will be required to answer to the people of San Francisco, and explain exactly what happened in the SFMTAbiased selection process.

We look forward to having our preliminary injunction request heard in the coming days — to ensure that the people of San Francisco receive a transparent, fair and equitable process that best serves the entire City and County.

Our decision to file this lawsuit was not about preventing other operators from going forward; it was about exposing the biased and flawed process of the SFMTA, standing up for the rule of law, and serving Limehometown.

If you&re a frequent Venmo user, you might want to double-check your settings because the company just changed up their fee structure for instant transfers and it may result in more of your balance slipping away.

The fee for instant transfers where a user would move their Venmo balance to their bank account via debit card used to be just $0.25, but the company shared in an email to users late Friday that the fee is increasing to 1 percent of the transferred amount with the company taking at least a $0.25 fee.

So, basically, if you&re transferring any more than $25 in the future via this method, you&re going to end up paying Venmo more thanks to this new fee structure.

A PayPal spokesperson tells TechCrunch, in part, that &The change reflects the value that Venmoservices offer & providing speed and convenience for customers that want to transfer their funds to their bank accounts in 30 minutes or less.&

For people using Venmo as a way to process big payments quickly or get some much needed cash into their account, this is a bummer that can result in more getting scraped away by fees. Additionally, if you were trying to avoid connecting your bank account details specifically, you now have another reason pushing you to do so.

Instant transfers works for users trying to quickly move their balance to their bank account in less than a half hour via a debit card. Importantly, if you&re just using the standard bank transfer there still aren&t any fees you have to worry about, itstill free… for now.

The end of the 2018 Super League is here with just one final showdown needed to determine this season's champions. Yes, it's time for the Super League Grand Final between Wigan Warriors and Warrington Wolves and you can watch all the action live, even if the match isn't been shown where you are.