If you haven’t already, it’s worth trying out “The Uber Game” from the Financial Times, which simulates what it’s like to be an Uber driver. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure story for the “gig” economy, where you’re the Uber driver and every choice determines whether you make enough money that week to pay your mortgage.
Uber was never much for optics, but watchers were still stunned when it accepted $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in June 2016. The investment was the largest ever for PIF, the kingdom’s main investment fund, and gave managing director Yasir Al Rumayyan a seat on Uber’s board.
Amazon is making a big bet on the Echo, its smart home device that does everything from making phone calls to ordering pizza. At a surprise event last week, Amazon unveiled two new Echos plus a bunch of Echo-related gadgets, which may help it widen its lead in the market for voice-controlled speakers with a personal digital assistant (that would be Alexa).
How much cheaper will it be to hail a driverless taxi than to own a car in the future? A lot, according to the financial services firm UBS.
Shortly after Nan Doyle stepped out for brunch on Labor Day, three men with badges rang the bell to her apartment in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood.
Do-it-yourself used to be what Ikea was all about. Flat packaging and self-assembly have been built into the company’s model since the 1950s, when the Swedish home goods giant first started designing its own furniture. It wasn’t until early 2012 that Ikea seemed to realize not all consumers were naturally talented handymen, publishing a series of YouTube videos that demonstrated how to build its more complicated pieces. “We understand that not everyone is a natural DIY-er at heart,” an Ikea rep told Consumerist at the time.
Amazon is going all in on the Echo, its popular smart-home device. Today (Sept. 27) in Seattle, the company unveiled a new version of the Echo, a small mottled-gray cylinder designed to blend into its surroundings, as well as a larger, shinier Echo Plus, and plenty of other stuff.
We used to be more patient.
Uber is in hot water in London, where it will lose its license to operate at the end of the month. The local transport authority rejected Uber’s application for license renewal today (Sept. 22), citing its “approach” to reporting crimes, vetting its drivers, and explaining away its “Greyball” software designed to hide illicit Uber activity from law enforcement. Uber has until Oct. 13 to appeal.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been busy visiting the 50 US states this year, a tour designed to mitigate damage to his company’s image among typical Americans as it’s scrutinized for its alleged ties to Russian meddling in the 2016 US election. Google, under tremendous public pressure, fired James Damore, the employee who authored a viral screed against diversity. Uber has a new chief executive and is making long-requested changes to its ride-hailing platform and trying to mend its corporate culture after scandals that sparked months of bad press and three federal investigations.
Airbnb is taking another step to keep people in its app, this time with something every traveler wants—good food.
Usually when you hear about shady stuff happening in the sharing economy it comes from the “labor” platforms, i.e., companies like Uber, Handy, and Postmates, that rely on the labor of independent contractors to make their businesses work.
Uber has always touted its organic user growth but the fact of the matter is that like any other company, it also relies on ads.
Toys R Us got serious about the internet much too late. It was only in May that the company said it would revamp its website to compete with Amazon and other online retailers.
Everyone wants to figure out online grocery. There are the big guys, like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, as well as traditional grocers like Safeway, who are investing in ordering and delivery capabilities to help them compete as more customers move from in-store shopping to placing orders from their phones and computers. San Francisco-based startup Instacart has raised more than $700 million, at a valuation of $3.4 billion, to make grocery delivery mainstream. In the US alone, consumers are expected to spend more than $100 billion a year on online groceries by 2025.
There’s not a lot of overlap between the people who sign up for Amazon Prime, and the people who shop at Whole Foods.
A few days before Irma made landfall in Florida, Airbnb activated its disaster response program in the region, encouraging hosts to list their homes for free and inviting evacuees to seek shelter through its peer-to-peer platform. Uber said it would cap fares in south Florida so that no one got “an outrageous, higher-than-usual price.” Elon Musk unlocked the full battery life of Tesla’s 2016 Model X and Model S vehicles, so that drivers attempting to evacuate could get further on a single charge. GasBuddy rallied users and gas stations to upload information to its mobile app so that Floridians would know where they could still get fuel. Facebook activated Safety Check.
Remember 2015, when men fell in love with the rose gold iPhone 6s? The soft metallic pink model made up nearly 40% of preorders. Guys dubbed it “bros’ gold.” They waited in line to get one. “The second I saw the rose-gold finish I had to get it,” Jose Enrique, 26, told Bloomberg. When Apple released the iPhone 7, it came in rose gold, too.
Imagine for a moment that you were Equifax, forced to disclose to 143 million US consumers that their sensitive personal information had been compromised in a data breach that took place from mid-May to July. It is an unenviable position to be in. You would, of course, issue a public apology, as chairman and CEO Rick Smith did in an online video. You would also attempt to make some sort of amends, which Smith said Equifax was doing by taking the “unprecedented step” of offering complimentary identity theft protection and credit monitoring to every US consumer.” You might also try to make sure people don’t sue:
Amazon’s announcement that it will build a second North American headquarters has sparked a frenzy of activities among cities and states, which are vying to put forward the best bid for Amazon’s business.
Amazon is taking bids for the site of HQ2, a second, massive headquarters it is planning in North America. The company intends to invest more than $5 billion in construction and to create up to 50,000 “high-paying jobs” on the new campus, which it says will be “a full equal to our current campus in Seattle.”
Lyft is revving up its driverless car efforts.
Silicon Valley’s elite is decidedly liberal, according to a new paper out from researchers at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
Car-sharing startup Turo has raised $92 million in series D funding at an undisclosed valuation, the company said today (Sept. 6). The round was led by German auto company Daimler and South Korean conglomerate SK Holdings, and brings Turo’s total financing to $193 million. The company also announced it is acquiring Croove, a German platform for peer-to-peer car rentals, from Daimler as part of the deal.
