Uber Slashes Fares by Up to 22 Percent in 10 Non-Metro Indian Cities

Taxi aggregator Uber has cut fares by up to 22 percent in 10 non-metro cities including Pune and Ahmedabad, a move that will intensify competition with domestic rival, Ola. While fares have been slashed by 9 percent in cities like Indore and Nagpur, the same has been cut by 22 percent in Jodhpur and Udaipur for its affordable service, UberGO, the company said in a blog post. Uber will now charge a base fare of Rs. 25 instead of Rs. 40 in Udaipur and Jodhpur. Also, the per kilometre charge…

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Facebook Messenger Gets Dropbox File Sharing, Video Chat Heads

Messenger users can now share photos, videos, and other files saved in the Dropbox without having to leave Facebook’s standalone instant messaging app. Dropbox on Tuesday announced the new feature which will be available to both Messenger for Android and iOS users. The app will also soon support Video Chat Heads, allowing users to continue video calls while messaging other users. The cloud storage company explains that Messenger for iOS or Android users on tapping the More button in the app will see Dropbox as an available source. Users will…

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Google Voice Access Beta Lets You Control Your Smartphone by Voice

Google was supposed to introduce its ‘Voice Access’ service back at last year’s Google I/O conference, but never did so. The search giant has finally launched an ‘Voice Access’ beta app using which people can control several more features of their smartphones with voice commands. Users can now give commands such as ‘Open chrome’ to open the browser or ‘go home’ to navigate back to the handset’s home screen. Unlike other voice apps, the voice access beta app gives you access to some commands which can be used from anywhere…

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Telegram Apps Get Improved Media Sharing, Revamped UI, and Bots 2.0

Folks at Telegram have been working hard behind the curtains and have introduced more updates to their app. This time the company has updated its Bots platform, calling it Bots 2.0, and has brought a new UI that lets you share and preview content easily than before. Telegram, as a part of the update (v3.8) now lets iOS users easily share photos and videos to other chat windows along with a comment or to other apps such as Firefox, YouTube, Chrome and more. iOS users can also use the ‘Tap…

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Facebook Brings ‘Chatbots’ to Messenger

Facebook on Tuesday extended its reach beyond online socializing by building artificial intelligencepowered “bots” into its Messenger application to allow businesses to have software engage in lifelike text exchanges. The move announced at the leading online social network’s annual developers conference in San Francisco came as the number of monthly users of Messenger topped 900 million and the Silicon Valley company works to stay in tune with mobile Internet lifestyles. “We think you should be able to text message a business like you would a friend, and get a quick…

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Uber Starts Motorbike Taxi Service in Indonesian Capital

Ride-hailing app Uber on Wednesday launched a motorbike taxi service in the Indonesian capital where Southeast Asian rivals Go-Jek and Grab are already battling for dominance. Jakarta is one of the world’s most congested cities and motorbike taxis ordered from a smartphone app have exploded in popularity in the past 18 months as a way to beat the traffic. Uber said that its “UberMotor” service would provide cheap and reliable transportation for hundreds of thousands of people. The company used a local social media and YouTube star Arief Muhammad to…

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