Uber Blog

I would love to know if http://blog.uber.com/applepay means that Uber won't be able to track who they are taking to various locations. That alone would be a big win for Apple Pay.

Uber is brilliant at this type of thing. Motorcades for Presidents day: http://blog.uber.com/2012/02/16/this-presidents-day-take-a-trip-in-the… Roses for Valentines day: http://blog.uber.com/2011/02/10/valentines-day-go-from-zero-to-hero/

Uber is not being banned just because of this rape incident. Uber did not following Indian laws & Delhi transport regulations, and operated illegally under the radar. Before this incident, Delhi Government was not aware about how Uber operated. This incident prompted Indian authorities to investigate the operations of Uber. Uber's stance is that we are not a taxi company, we are an app company; so we do not need to follow transportation laws. Uber is so secretive in India that the only way users can contact Uber is through Twitter. They don't provide any phone number, email or address. Moreover, Delhi police had to struggle to get in touch with Uber. They called an Uber cab using the App, and asked the driver to take them to Uber's office. When they reached office, it was almost empty. There was nobody who had any information about what is going on. Uber claims they have a driver screening process, but it seems they skip through the due diligence process in India to save few bucks. https://www.uber.com/safety "Uber is committed to connecting you to the safest ride on the road" Driver Screening: http://blog.uber.com/driverscreening which includes: Criteria for drivers to pass through Uber’s screening, going back seven years: - No DUI or other drug related driving violations or severe infractions* - No Hit and Runs - No fatal accidents - No history of reckless driving - No violent crimes - No sexual offenses - No gun related violations - No resisting/evading…

Uber is pretty great, and I enjoy using it, but many of these statistics are pretty weak and out of context. As others have mentioned, using "income" to describe "revenue" is inaccurate. You can't compare making $90k driving an Uber to $90k at a desk job with a completely different set of expenses. While the statistics used to determine the DUI rate in SF and Taxi crime in Chicago are beyond the levels of my knowledge and I can't verify their correctness, the calculations certainly seem a bit suspect. For example, as a pair city when doing a discontinuity test, they chose San Francisco, a city which notably, has Uber. The post doesn't mention a confidence interval or P value in a clear explicit way (outside of the table, with unexplained column headers).[1] In the infographic, they claim these statistics as facts without mention of any underlying confidence intervals. I'm pro Uber, but this post seems to contain a lot of fuzzy math. It'd be interesting if someone with a statistics background could confirm or deny these suspicions... [1] http://blog.uber.com/DUIratesdecline

This caught my eye. > Supervisor Jane Kim wrote on Facebook after the incident that Muzzafar had self-identified as an Uber driver. Uber later released a statement saying the driver had not being "doing a trip on the Uber system" at the time and Supervisor Kim later revised her statement, naming him as a "non-taxi, for-pay driver." Uber declined to clarify to SFist whether the driver may have been available for Uber rides at the time. Supervisor Kim's statement, in the link below, raised questions about the standard of driving of those working for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, etc: >In addition, the driver was a non-taxi, for-pay driver. Certainly this incident raises questions regarding the driver training and selection process for the increasing number of ride share drivers on our city streets. While emerging driver service apps fulfill an important need for flexible on-demand transportation in San Francisco, we must examine a universal baseline of scrutiny and safety oversight for these services. http://sfist.com/2014/01/01/7-year-old_girl_struck_and_killed_i.php Is it unfair? The following comment on SFAppeal lists a string of accidents involving Uber drivers in San Francisco. http://sfappeal.com/2014/01/uber-distances-itself-from-driver-arrested… Finally, here is Uber's statement, where they emphasize that the driver was not actively "doing a trip" at the…

Uber Advanced Technologies Center — Pittsburgh — Full Time We focus on vehicle autonomy, mapping and safety systems. We're hiring across a range of areas to support this work: machine learning, planning, control, mapping, perception and simulation. More info about the center here: http://blog.uber.com/carnegie-mellon We're also looking for senior mobile and backend engineers. http://www.uberatc.com/hiring/ or send me an email: [email protected]

Answer is pretty easy to find out: http://blog.uber.com/uberfamily Also: https://shuddle.us/

Yeah they did that in Houston and Sydney, Australia http://blog.uber.com/UberACCESSHou http://blog.uber.com/WATSYD

As does Uber - they'll charge $10 if you cancel after 5 minutes after the driver is assigned. http://blog.uber.com/2012/05/01/updated-cancellation-policy/

This isn't material to the actual content of the post, but: > Uber for cats Isn't Uber the Uber for cats? http://blog.uber.com/KITTENS

Not sure if UberLIONS is an April's fools joke or not, but it probably belongs here. Use promo code LIONCUBS and lion cubs (and a trainer) will come right to you ready to play. They'll also donate $1 toward the Big Cats Initiative. https://blog.uber.com/nyc-uberlions-2015

Uber could easily just cover drivers while picking up or dropping off customers. They already do that; their insurance covers the driver since he accepted the trip until its completion: http://blog.uber.com/ridesharinginsurance What they refused to pay was exactly during the "idle" phase - when the driver had the app turned on, waiting for a trip.

They have similar coverage in Canada (http://blog.uber.com/CanadaXSafety). Why can't they do the same thing in France?

I'm wondering whether the ban also applies to uber taxi, they had a big marketing campaign just last week in Berlin where you were able to take a ride for free for a couple of days [1] [1] http://blog.uber.com/freeubertaxi_berlin_en

As eddieZone mentions in a post [currently] below this [0], Uber says names and driver's license numbers, which is a good deal worse [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9122369 [1] http://blog.uber.com/2-27-15

The TechCrunch article says "license plate numbers" but the Uber post[0] says "driver’s license number". [0] http://blog.uber.com/2-27-15

Actual Uber announcement: http://blog.uber.com/carnegie-mellon I'm not sure a "partnership" qualifies as "cleaning out".

Meanwhile, Uber is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University to build self-driving cars: http://blog.uber.com/carnegie-mellon HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8987441

For those not in the SF area, this is almost certainly in response to this (unless Uber has a mole within Lyft...): http://blog.uber.com/SFpoolparty

Uber has done helicopter rides from the city to the Hamptons: http://blog.uber.com/nyc/uberchopper-hamptons-shore-2014 I didn't realize it until now, but they've done Uber Chopper in quite a few places: http://blog.uber.com/tag/uberchopper/

Uber Lux already offers that in Los Angeles, but it comes at a price. http://blog.uber.com/LuxLAInvite

Looks like Uber uberified the cargo business. http://blog.uber.com/UberCARGO

Uber has their own side of the story here: http://blog.uber.com/cheersto2015

> Uber's innovation was in removing a hails requirement for a mutual line-of-sight between the passenger and a cab. This increases the number of cabs accessible to a user. It also allows cabs to move towards users, which is analogous to providing an index to speed up a locality of reference problem in a computer [0]. That's not Uber's innovation, since livery cars are not allowed to accept hailed fares in most places anyway. The only difference is an app instead of traditional voice. I don't understand your point about gypsies; "gypsy cab" is a pretty widely understood term for an illegal, unlicensed cab. At least, Uber seems to think so: http://blog.uber.com/2013/08/18/stay-safe-avoid-gypsy-cabs/

Pay using a prepaid wallet now that Reserve Bank of India wants Uber to comply with regulations in place-- which is to essentially use 2-factory auth for every online credit/debit card transaction. Uber's Akshay wrote a very condescending blog post about it calling 2FA an "antiquated" security measure: http://blog.uber.com/2FA I don't like the tone of the blog post TBH.

If the gun manufacturer claimed that they have verified that guns don't kill. http://blog.uber.com/driverscreening

Uber actually came out with "Uber for Business" at the end of July: https://www.uber.com/business http://blog.uber.com/business (the blog post announcing it)

The most disturbing aspect of the removed article is how Uber defines "Williamsburg". edit: https://blog.uber.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/NYC-Trips.jpg

Uber just hired David Plouffe, one Obama's senior advisors and campaign strategists, as their chief lobbyist. This is serious as political clout gets. Anything is possible. https://blog.uber.com/davidplouffe

>Median uberX Small Business Income Per Year: $90,766 (NYC); $74,191 (SF) http://blog.uber.com/uberimpact Is it pretty much accepted that Uber is outright lying here? Does anyone believe there is a driver out there banking $100,000 driving a taxi? I know the company is shady but hoping they can generate enough new blood to compensate for burnout of drivers chasing the dream seems abusive.