Uber is reported to have used remote shutdowns of computers to thwart police raids. It is said to have ‘routinely’ used the system more than 20 times between spring 2015 until late 2016, in places as far afield as Canada, Brussels and Hong Kong …
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Uber cofounder and former CEO Travis Kalanick is looking to sell almost a third of his shares in the ride-hailing company. Such a sell would net Kalanick roughly $1.4 billion…
As part of its ongoing litigation with Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving unit, a new letter from Uber’s former manager of global intelligence makes startling accusations towards the ride-hailing company. The letter alleges that Uber engaged in a series of surveillance activities and corporate espionage…
Uber today has officially disclosed a massive data breach that affected some 57 million users. As noted in a report from Bloomberg, the breach originally occurred in October of 2016, with Uber working to conceal it for a year…
If you’ve ever experienced problems meeting up with your Uber driver, the company has today announced a couple of initiatives designed to make it easier …
Uber is rolling out an update to its iOS and Android apps that allows you to specify multiple destinations. The existing bill-splitting feature also integrates with it when you’re using the facility to drop multiple people home at the end of a night out …
Uber, as it continues to refocus and regain customer trust amid a string of public mishaps, today announced that it is teaming up with British bank Barclays on a branded credit card. The card, which consumers will be able to apply for beginning next month, offers rewards for purchases at restaurants, hotels, and Uber rides, as well as a few other perks…
Uber’s head of security communications has today announced that the company is removing access from its iOS app that may have allowed the company to record a user’s display unknowingly. Security researchers had noticed that Uber was given access to these private APIs by Apple, an unprecedented move from the security focused company.
Update: Make that four approaches … CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has also written a letter of apology to Londoners for the company’s failings.
We will appeal this decision on behalf of millions of Londoners, but we do so with the knowledge that we must also change […] We won’t be perfect, but we will listen to you; we will look to be long-term partners with the cities we serve; and we will run our business with humility, integrity and passion”.
Uber is trying three separate approaches to overturn a decision not to renew its operating license in London when it expires on Saturday …
Uber has been told by London’s taxi regulatory authority that it will not be renewing the company’s license to operate when it expires in just over a week’s time.
Transport for London (TfL) says it concluded that the company was ‘not fit and proper to hold a private hire operator licence,’ citing four reasons …
Uber attracted a great deal of criticism last year when it started tracking the location of customers even after their rides had ended. While the tracking was said to last for only five minutes, some riders reported that it appeared to be tracking them for days or even weeks after their rides.
The company offered an explanation for this the following day, but many were still unhappy that they were forced to choose between never allowing the app to track their location (which would make it next to impossible to use) or allowing it at all times. Uber says that it is now fixing the problem …
Uber is rolling out an app update that introduces a new chat feature, allowing riders and drivers to send messages to each other from within the app. Previously, communicating with the driver required a phone call or text message …
Uber has been in the news for numerous reasons over recent weeks, most of which are certainly not positive and center on multiple controversies related to sexual harassment. Today, however, the company is rolling out a new feature that it hopes will help it expand its ride-hailing reach to those without a smartphone…
Uber founder Travis Kalanick resigned from his role as CEO overnight, The New York Times reports, following shareholder pressure and months of controversies. Despite Kalanick giving up his role as CEO, the Uber founder will remain on the company’s board of directors.
Uber has today announced the addition of tipping along with 7 more updates to how it handles earnings for its drivers. This announcement is the first of many changes the company is looking to implement as Uber shared its “180 Days of Change” campaign in an email to drivers as well as a press release.
[UPDATE: Uber has confirmed the news…]
It was reported Friday night that Apple Music exec Bozoma Saint John was planning to leave the company one year after her widely praised on stage debut at WWDC 2016. Saint John drove Apple Music’s marketing effort after joining the company through Apple’s Beats acquisition. Now TechCrunch reports that Bozoma Saint John’s next role will be at Uber…
With Britain going to the polls in a national election on Thursday, Uber is playing its part in trying to ensure everyone is able to vote. The company is offering free rides to polling stations to wheelchair users in three UK cities.
Rolling out today, Uber is making it easier for you to remember destinations other than your home and work addresses with Saved Places. Whether you visit a particular friend or relative’s house, restaurant, or even a park fairly often, it can get annoying trying to remember the exact address when hailing an Uber. Now, these saved locations can be saved as a shortcut…
Uber has announced that an update to the app rolling out over the next few weeks will make it easier for customers to delete their accounts. Previously, deleting the app did not remove your account from Uber servers, leaving your data in place …
You’ve always been able to rate your driver in Uber and see their star average before using the ride-sharing service, but Uber hasn’t easily exposed your star average intentionally before. Now Uber says it is rolling out an update to make your passenger rating visible in its app to encourage better rider behavior.
We learned yesterday that Tim Cook almost pulled Uber from the App Store over the way it was tracking iPhones and tricking Apple engineers. Uber had seemingly found a way to ‘fingerprint’ individual iPhones even after the app was removed, and had taken steps to try to hide this behavior from Apple – one of many questionable business practices the ride hailing firm has made in recent years.
Mr. Kalanick told his engineers to “geofence” Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., a way to digitally identify people reviewing Uber’s software in a specific location. Uber would then obfuscate its code from people within that geofenced area.
The original NYT piece suggested that Uber was somehow able to track iPhones even after they had been erased, but well-connected John Gruber has come up with what seems like a more probable description of what the company was and wasn’t doing …
Uber has long been the suspect of user tracking allegations on iOS, with the company itself addressing the problem as recently as last year. A new wide-ranging profile from The New York Times, however, offers more detail on Uber’s location tracking habits, and how they almost got the app banned from the App Store…
Uber is today announcing a new feature with the ability for riders to edit their pickup address after requesting a ride.
The feature has been a top request following recent redesigns of the Uber app that implemented automatic positioning using GPS opposed to making users enter their locations manually. If the GPS got your address slightly wrong, however, you’d previously have to contact the driver to varying degrees of success. Today’s update will make it so you can easily adjust your address after requesting the ride without having to contact the driver directly.
Ordering a Lyft ride just got easier – in theory, at least – as it can now pull destinations from your calendar. Provided you give the app permission to access your iPhone calendar, you can select the ‘Add from calendar’ option under Destinations, and then tap on the event. This follows Uber introducing the same functionality earlier this month.
There is, though, a catch which is likely to limit the functionality for most people …
