Connect with us

Published

on

The Bootleg Fire rages across central Oregon state, in Klamath County, Oregon, in this July 13, 2021 picture obtained from social media.
Oregon State Fire Marshal | via Reuters

Air quality in the United States and Europe improved over the last decade thanks to stricter environmental regulations, but intensifying wildfires raise new air pollution concerns.

The National Interagency Fire Center reported that, as of August 8, there were 107 large active fires that had burned more than 2.2 million acres domestically across 15 states so far this year. In Europe, wildfires in Greece and Turkey are raging amid record heat waves now as well.

As a result, more people are turning to mobile apps to understand when air quality is better or worse, wherever they may be. These apps use a mix of data from government-operated satellites, or weather, fire and ambient air quality stations, as well as sensors and systems run by private sector entities. Some are even crowdsourced from relatively affordable air quality sensors sold by companies such as PurpleAir and IQAir.

Air quality apps

According to senior mobile insights analyst Jonathan Briskman of Sensor Tower, the top-rated apps for outdoor air quality monitoring in the U.S. between January 2020 and July 2021 have been: AirCare, AirVisual, and South Coast AQMD, based on ratings from the App Store, and Google Play.

The AirCare app shows air pollution, active fires, wind conditions and pollen levels on a map.
CNBC

Here’s what those three apps do:

  • AirCare, made by developers in Northern Macedonia, is available for iOS and Android mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch and Huawei smartphones, among many others. Tiers include a free, ad-supported version, a 99 cents ad-free version, and at the premium level, a $14.99 annual subscription for a pro-version. The app includes kid-friendly air pollution information, charts and maps that show pollutant levels derived from government-run sensors and stations, alongside volunteers’ PurpleAir and other sensors throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia. In some major metro areas, the app also tracks ultra-violet and pollen levels.
  • AirVisual, made by the Swiss air quality company IQAir, tracks air pollution in more than 10,000 cities and 80 countries drawing on data from tens of thousands of sensors, some positioned at U.S. embassies overseas. The company’s free mobile apps are also ad-free and available for iOS and Android devices. Besides real-time maps that show levels of six different types of major pollutants, IQAir’s AirVisual and mobile website provide seven-day air pollution and weather forecasts, along with air pollution-related news and health information. The apps can pair with the company’s own sensors, including the portable AirVisual Pro sold for around $269.
  • South Coast AQMD, is a free and ad-free app run by the local air pollution agency in Southern California of the same name and tracks air pollution across Orange County, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino, specifically. It features real-time and forecasted air quality and weather conditions, and maps that show where drivers can charge their electric vehicles or find other non-traditional fueling stations. It also includes information about upcoming local events and political hearings related to air quality issues to encourage community participation. The app is available in both English and Spanish for Apple and Android devices.
The South Coast AQMD app shows air pollution levels in Greater Los Angeles.
CNBC

The five most popular air quality apps in the U.S., based on installs since the start of 2020, according to Sensor Tower included two of those top-rated apps, AirVisual (from IQ Air) and Air Care, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s app AirNow, an app from venture-backed startup Breezometer that shows air quality, pollen and active fire data, and an app called Oregon Air developed for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Use of these apps, and new installs are often driven by regional events. As of August 8, 2021 there were 16 large active fires searing through Oregon according to the NIFC.

How air pollution impacts health

Air quality monitoring and measurement are critical for public health, says Yanelli Nunez, a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

She notes that robust studies have shown that air pollution contributes to lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections, and even impacts mortality, pregnancy outcomes and cardiovascular disease.

Nunez works in an environmental health sciences laboratory with Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou. Their research has also found long-term exposure to air pollution can affect the nervous system and may influence functions such as memory or cognitive capabilities.

The scientists wrote in an e-mail to CNBC: “Americans living in poor air quality areas tend to be people of color or low-income communities. We are finally starting to pay more attention to these issues, which hopefully will lead to change. The air pollution composition is also changing.”

In one example, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation declined in New York City from 2014 to 2017, while commercial cooking emissions rose.

With increased wildfires, the scientists wrote, “The sources and composition of the air pollution mixture that we are experiencing could differently impact our health, so we need to better understand source-specific effects, especially for these newly prominent sources.”

Indoor air matters, too

While outdoor air quality is important, society doesn’t talk or do enough about indoor air quality, said Richard Corsi, UC Davis’ incoming dean of the college of engineering, currently a professor and dean at Portland State University.

Using pre-pandemic numbers, Corsi explained that the average American would spend almost 70 out of 79 years of their life domiciled inside of buildings. “Because we spend so much time indoors, even our exposure to pollutants of outdoor origin is dominated by what we breathe there, especially in our homes,” he said.

Pollutants of outdoor origin which come from the likes of internal combustion engine vehicles, photochemical smog, refineries and wildfires can get into homes and buildings when doors and windows are opened, when heat and air conditioning systems are used, or through other cracks in the building envelope.

Consumer apps and devices today don’t give users an absolute, precise measurement down to micrograms per cubic meter of a given pollutant, Corsi noted. But they’re very valuable for spotting trends and relative changes in air quality.

Sensors set up indoors can work well to check whether protective measures are working to improve the air inside of a house, school or other building.

Especially during wildfire season, Corsi said, some other simple actions that can protect or improve air quality indoors include: wet-mopping floors and wiping surfaces so pollutants don’t accumulate, using HEPA or high-efficiency particulate air filters, and increasing the MERV or minimum efficiency reporting value of filters in central air systems in a house.

Continue Reading

Technology

Apple has its best week since July 2020 after White House visit

Published

on

By

Apple has its best week since July 2020 after White House visit

U.S. President Donald Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook shake hands on the day they present Apple’s announcement of a $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2025.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Apple shares rose 13% this week, its largest weekly gain in more than five years, after CEO Tim Cook appeared with President Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday.

Shares of the iPhone maker rose 4% to close at $229.35 per share on Friday for the company’s largest weekly gain since July 2020. The week’s move added over $400 billion to Apple’s market cap, which now sits at $3.4 trillion.

Apple is the third-most valuable company, behind Nvidia and Microsoft and ahead of Alphabet and Amazon.

At the White House on Wednesday, Cook appeared with Trump to announce Apple’s plans to spend $100 billion on American companies and American parts over the next four years.

Apple’s plans to buy more American chips pleased Trump, who said during the public meeting that because the company was building in the U.S., it would be exempt from future tariffs that could double the price of imported chips.

Investors had worried that some of Trump’s tariffs could substantially hurt Apple’s profitability. Apple warned in July that it expected over $1 billion in tariff costs in the current quarter, assuming no changes.

“Apple and Tim Cook delivered a masterclass in managing uncertainty after months and months of overhang relative to the potential challenges the company could face from tariffs,” JP Morgan analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote on Wednesday. He has an overweight rating on Apple’s stock.

Cook’s successful White House meeting also comes two weeks after Apple reported June quarter earnings in which overall revenue jumped 10% and iPhone sales grew by 13%.

WATCH: Santoli’s Last Word: Apple helps drive S&P higher

Santoli's Last Word: Apple helps drive S&P higher

Continue Reading

Technology

Tesla Robotaxi scores permit to run ride-hailing service in Texas

Published

on

By

Tesla Robotaxi scores permit to run ride-hailing service in Texas

In an aerial view, the Tesla headquarters is seen in Austin, Texas, on July 24, 2025.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Tesla has been granted a permit to run a ride-hailing business in Texas, allowing the electric vehicle maker to compete against companies including Uber and Lyft.

Tesla Robotaxi LLC is licensed to operate a “transportation network company” until August 6, 2026, according to a listing on the website of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, or TDLR. The permit was issued this week.

Elon Musk’s EV company has been running a limited ride-hailing service for invited riders in Austin since late June. The select few passengers have mostly been social media influencers and analysts, including many who generate income by posting Tesla fan content on platforms like X and YouTube.

The Austin fleet consists of Model Y vehicles equipped with Tesla’s latest partially automated driving systems. The company has been operating the cars with a valet, or human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat tasked with intervening if there are issues with the ride. The vehicles are also remotely supervised by employees in an operations center.

Musk, who has characterized himself as “pathologically optimistic,” said on Tesla’s earnings call last month that he believes Tesla could serve half of the U.S. population by the end of 2025 with autonomous ride-hailing services.

The Texas permit is the first to enable Tesla to run a “transportation network company.” TDLR said Friday that this kind of permit lets Tesla operate a ride-hailing business anywhere in the state, including with “automated motor vehicles,” and doesn’t require Tesla to keep a human safety driver or valet on board.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

As CNBC previously reported, Tesla robotaxis were captured on camera disobeying traffic rules in and around Austin after the company started its pilot program. None of the known incidents have been reported as causing injury or serious property damage, though they have drawn federal scrutiny.

Elon Musk confirms plan for Tesla robotaxis in Austin, Texas next month

In one incident, Tesla content creator Joe Tegtmeyer reported that his robotaxi failed to stop for a train crossing signal and lowering gate-arm, requiring a Tesla employee on board to intervene. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has discussed this incident with Tesla, a spokesperson for the regulator told CNBC by email.

Texas has historically been more permissive of autonomous vehicle testing and operations on public roads than have other states.

A new law signed by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott goes into effect this year that will require AV makers to get approval from the state before starting driverless operations. The new law also gives the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles the authority to revoke permits if AV companies and their cars aren’t complying with safety standards.

Tesla’s AV efforts have faced a number of challenges across the country, including federal probes, product liability lawsuits and recalls following injurious or damaging collisions that occurred while drivers were using the company’s Autopilot and FSD (Full Self-Driving) systems.

A jury in a federal court in Miami last week determined that Tesla should hold 33% of the liability for a fatal Autopilot-involved collision.

And the California DMV has sued Tesla, accusing it of false advertising around its driver assistance systems. Tesla owners manuals say the Autopilot and FSD features in their cars are “hands on” systems that require a driver ready to steer or brake at any time. But Tesla and Musk have shared statements through the years saying that a Tesla can “drive itself.”

Since 2016, Musk has been promising that Tesla would soon be able to turn all of its existing EVs into fully autonomous vehicles with a simple, over-the-air software update. In 2019, he said the company would put 1 million robotaxis on the road by 2020, a claim that helped him raise $2 billion at the time from institutional investors.

Those promises never materialized and, in the robotaxi market, Tesla lags way behind competitors like Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China.

Tesla shares are down 18% this year, by far the worst performance among tech’s megacaps.

WATCH: What we saw at Tesla’s robotaxi launch in Texas

We went to Texas for Tesla's robotaxi launch. Here's what we saw

Continue Reading

Technology

Trade Desk tanks almost 40% on CFO departure, tariff concerns and competition from Amazon

Published

on

By

Trade Desk tanks almost 40% on CFO departure, tariff concerns and competition from Amazon

Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk.

Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Shares of The Trade Desk plummeted almost 40% on Friday and headed for their worst day on record after the ad-tech company announced the departure of its CFO and analysts expressed concerns about rising competition from Amazon.

The Trade Desk, which went public in 2016, suffered its steepest prior drop in February, when the shares fell 33% on a revenue miss. In its second-quarter earnings report late Thursday, the company beat expectations on earnings and revenue, but the results failed to impress investors.

The Trade Desk, which specializes in providing technology to companies that want to target users across the web, said finance chief Laura Schenkein is leaving the job and being replaced by Alex Kayyal, who has been working as a partner at Lightspeed Ventures.

While some analysts were uneasy about the sudden change in the top finance role, the bigger concern is Amazon’s growing role in the online ad market, as well as the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on ad spending.

Amazon has emerged as a significant player in the digital advertising market in recent years, and is now third behind Google and Meta. Last week, Amazon reported a 23% increase in ad revenue for the second quarter to $15.7 billion, which beat estimates.

Read more CNBC Amazon coverage

Amazon’s ad business has largely been tied to its own platforms, with brands paying up so they can get discovered on the sprawling marketplace. However, Amazon’s demand-side platform (DSP), which allows brands to programmatically place ads across a wider swath of internet properties, is gaining more resonance in the market.

“Amazon is now unlocking access to traditionally exclusive ‘premium’ ad inventory across the open internet, validating the strength of its DSP and suggesting The Trade Desk’s value proposition could erode over time,” Wedbush analysts wrote on Friday.

The Wedbush analysts lowered their rating on The Trade Desk to the equivalent of hold from buy, and cited Amazon’s recent ad integration with Disney as a sign of the company’s aggressiveness.

Executives at The Trade Desk were asked about Amazon on the call, and responded by suggesting that the companies don’t really compete, emphasizing that Amazon is conflicted because it will always prioritize its own properties.

Simon: The consumer's never been more in control than they are right now

“A scaled independent DSP like The Trade Desk becomes essential as we help advertisers buy across everything and that we have to do that without conflict or compromise,” CEO Jeff Green said on the call. “It is my understanding that Amazon nearly doubled the supply of Prime Video inventory in the recent months. That creates a number of conflicts.”

For the second quarter, The Trade Desk reported a 19% increase in year-over-year revenue to $694 million, topping the $685 million estimate, according to analysts polled by LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share of 41 cents beat estimates by a penny.

Looking to the third quarter, the Trump administration’s tariffs were also a theme, as the company forecast revenue of at least $717 million, representing growth of 14% at minimum.

“From a macro standpoint, some of the world’s largest brands are absolutely facing pressure and some amount of uncertainty,” Green said. “Some have to respond more than others to tariffs. Many are managing inflation worries and the related pricing that comes with that.”  

With Friday’s slump, The Trade Desk shares are now down 53% for the year, while the S&P 500 is up about 9%. The Trade Desk was added to the S&P 500 in June.

WATCH: Trade Desk shares sink

Trade Desk shares sink on tariff warning

Continue Reading

Trending