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Uber and Spotify partnership turns passengers into backseat DJs
No more are the days of long taxi journeys being silent, awkward or filled with annoying music you wish would shut up en route to your next meeting. We officially entered the age-of-Uber earlier this year when the Taxi ridesharing service became available in 45 countries and more than 200 cities worldwide. Similarly, Spotify have gone from strength to strength in recent times (as long as you don’t consider Taylor Swift’s music a strength of course), announcing in 2014 that they now stream to 40 million active users and 10 million subscribers in over 56 countries. Personally, I don’t think any car journey should be completed without music, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek agree, as they formally confirmed the companies’ partnership. The partnership will allow Uber passengers to activate and listen to their Spotify music whilst traveling to their destinations, essentially making them ‘Backseat DJ’s’ in their own truly mobile disco – if you’re into that sort of thing.
Snapchat launches Snapcash, lets you send money to friends via Square
The ‘snap-share-delete’ app (mostly popular among generation Z and millennials) has introduced a new feature – Snapcash. Given the name, it’s not hard to understand the functionality of this feature. By typing dollar amounts into new 'Snapcash' messages, friends are able to send money to each other. The feature has been set up in the US in collaboration with mobile payments company Square. An initial flaw is that, quite rightly so, all money-movers need to be over 18 years of age, and considering half of all Snapchat users are 17 or younger… the feature may become mostly redundant. Also, in light of the recent hacking of snapchat photos, entitled by the media as ‘The Snappening’, will people really feel safe putting their money in the hands of Snapchat? Time will tell, but if not then at least the oddly comical promotional video was worth watching.
Facebook to rival Linkedin
Facebook are reportedly working on a secret project, namely ‘Facebook at Work’ enabling users to, yep you guessed it, use Facebook at work (officially). If you imagine Facebook and Linkedin having a baby, the result may look something like ‘Facebook at Work’… well in my head it does anyway. The development from Mark Zuckerberg could possibly be aiming to capture the interest of millennials who have recently been logging off the social network in favor of other networks. With many employers currently banning the use of Facebook within office hours, I think ‘Facebook at Work’ will have to differ from the existing platform substantially in order for it to be accepted.
A wearable women will actually want to wear?
There’s no denying that recent wearable tech hasn’t been as visually appealing as I’d have hoped. Not considering the fashion factor can be a big no-no, especially when it comes to the high earning female fashion-conscious market, with clearly big enough disposable incomes to be perfect to market these products to. Intel’s ‘Smart Bracelet’ aims to overcome this barrier with the product being as high fashion as it is high tech. One of the bracelet's features is a sapphire-glass screen displaying Gmail, Google Calendar and Facebook notifications. The bracelet cuff can also use your location to alert you when it’s time to leave for your next meeting. I don’t think that the right balance between technology, fashion and luxury has been achieved yet, so if successful the Intel ‘Smart Bracelet’ could be first to finally make wearables ‘wantable’ by the female market.
Royal Caribbean's futuristic ship 'Quantum' even has robot bartenders
The newest cruise liner from Royal Caribbean is reported to ‘change everything’. As well as on-board sky diving, bumper cars and NFC-enabled door key wristbands, it has its own Bionic Bar with two robot bartenders at your service. Pouring perfectly measured drinks into plastic cups, it’s the first of its kind to take place on a cruise ship. It’s been reported that the robarmaids move in very fluid full human-like gestures, and from the video, they do look very impressive. At one point they even stop serving drinks from the 127 bottles above their heads to have a dance – as you do! The Bionic Bar also includes a statistics board showing the most popular drink orders throughout the day, perfect for indecisive customers. They will no doubt be a main attraction on this futuristic cruise ship.