Maybe you chat up the driver when you get in an Uber, or perhaps you stare out the window. More likely you’re perusing through a few apps on your smartphone. Well, Uber wants to be your in-ride infotainment service, not entirely unlike what you’d find on a flight.
The ride-sharing service just launched a developer tool called Uber Trip Experiences, which lets third-party apps provide notifications, music playlists, news content, or ads to passengers during their trips. Uber says this content will be customized to the length of the ride, and will require permission from the user.
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Some examples include smart home appliance apps popping up notifications that will remind you to turn up the heat in your home before you arrive; receiving a five-minute news update for a five-minute ride; music apps providing playlists for you to listen to during the ride; and ads with points of interests and offers cropping up as you make your way to your destination. Of course, as more third-party apps choose to make use of this feature, there will be more choices and varied options of what exactly will be offered to you during your ride.
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If none of that appeals to you and you just want to drive in peace, Uber says users will be able to turn the feature off on an app-by-app basis. We’ll have to wait until developers start using this new feature to see if it will really be a welcome addition to Uber drives, or if it will be an ad-ridden nuisance.
The company says the update is its biggest since it released the Ride Request API in March of 2015, which allowed third-party apps to implement a Ride Request Button so that users could save a few clicks by not having to open the Uber app.
If you’re a developer, you can check out the Getting Started page for Uber Trip Experiences here.
Learn 14 languages: Get $449 off a lifetime subscription to Babbel
Learning a new language no longer requires you to make time for formal classes because there are now several language learning apps that you can tap. One of them is Babbel, and you can currently get a lifetime subscription to the online learning platform for only $150 from StackSocial. That's $449 off its original price of $599, but we don't know how much time is remaining before the offer expires. If you want to take advantage of the 74% discount, it's highly recommended that you complete the transaction immediately.
Why you should buy the Babbel lifetime subscription
A lifetime subscription to Babbel not only unlocks the possibility of learning one or two new languages, as the platform encompasses a total of 14 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Indonesia, Norwegian, Danish, and Russian. You'll be learning your new language of choice with lessons that only take 10 minutes to 15 minutes each to complete, so unlike classes with a rigid schedule, you can learn at your own pace and at any time you're free through Babbel. The lessons cover real-life topics, and they use speech recognition technology to help you master pronunciation. You'll then test yourself through personalized review sessions that will help make sure that you retain all the information that's being taught to you.
This one Apple Fitness feature completely changed how I exercise
I have a confession to make: I'm not good at sticking to a workout routine. I love running, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), strength training, etc. In the moment of those exercises and in the post-workout euphoria, I feel amazing. But when it comes to waking up early in the morning to do these things before work? Well, that's where I really struggle.
This has been a problem for a while now. I go to bed with the goal of waking up early and going to the gym, but as I groggily open my eyes to snooze the alarm on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, I end up falling back asleep. And I've been repeating this over and over and over again.
You can pick up the Google Pixel 7 Pro for only $500 today
If you've been holding out on buying a new phone for a while because prices are still expensive, then you may want to consider going for one of the older flagship phones. For example, while the Pixel 8 Pro is out, the Pixel 7 Pro is still a powerful and viable alternative, and even better, it has quite a few great deals on it. In fact, you can buy a brand new and sealed Pixel 7 Pro from Woot for just $500, rather than the usual $1,100, and that's for the 512GB version of the phone, so you get a lot of storage with it as well.