Uber allowed to continue operating in Boston

That's pretty cool of MA. They seem to have provided pretty quick turnaround and resolution, once they became aware of the situation and its possible repercussions on innovative companies operating in MA.<p>As companies see quick response to something like this they might say, "gee, MA responded quickly and found quick resolution to an emergent issue; they are receptive to new ways of doing business, I think I'll do business in their state" as opposed to a possible recalcitrant alternative, which could have happened ---letting the process drag on...

This is an excellent advertising strategy and cities play right into their hand - go launch in a new place, knowingly bend some old taxi laws and get served, make huge deal about it stopping innovation and be featured on every local news channel and newspaper. City changes old laws, doesn't want to look bad. That creates another multimillion dollar round of free advertising so everyone in town knows about them. Bravo.

Our governor actively encourages founders and young companies to launch or relocate here, and is a very public champion of the MassChallenge accelerator. He makes a lot of appearances at local events related to innovation and entrepreneurship.<p>It doesn't hurt that his office staff use Uber, either:<p><a href="http://www.universalhub.com/2012/governor-were-going-find-way-let-uber-operate" rel="nofollow">http://www.universalhub.com/2012/governor-were-going-find-wa...</a>

Is this type of statement characteristic of Massachusetts government?<p>I really like he overall tone and stance taken in the statement and it seems uncharacteristic of government in general.

Good for MA - it's a fine thing to see some rational people in government rather than the bureaucratic drones that they are so often (and often unfairly) stereotyped as.<p>As a Cambridge resident, I use Uber often and I think it's a valuable service. It would be a loss to the Boston area to have Uber shut down.

According to the state ruling, the "device" in question is an "I phone" <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/408509-massachusetts-ruling-on-uber-metering.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/408509-massachusetts...</a><p>It uses some technology (circa 1978) called "GPS".<p>We're living in the future!

I assume that the device entering an NIST evaluation process provides some preliminary assurances of the device's accuracy that MA is willing to make do with.<p>So is the state essentially trusting Uber's word that the device is accurate, knowing that if it turns out that it isn't, Uber opens itself up to liability?