By Jordan Valinsky 4/12 1:50pm

Ride or Die

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Uber’s New Policy on Ridesharing: We’ll Start Doing It, as Long as Our Competitors Aren’t Caught

Today, Uber CEO bestowed unto the world a white paper on ridesharing. And in classic Uber fashion, the policy finds a workaround to traditional law-abiding. The company says it will launch the service if it sees its competitors (Lyft, Sidecar, etc.) operating for 30 days with “tacit approval” from law officials, i.e. if no one gets in trouble.

The San Francisco-based company said its decision was formed after seeing its ridesharing competitors circumvent laws by providing “non-licensed transportation for compensation.” Uber’s core business of being “everyone’s private driver” has caught flak from several cities for operating a livery company without official approval. Read More

By Jeremy Unger 3/27 3:57pm

startup rundown

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Startup News: Spotify Reminds Us That Music is Awesome and Taxi Companies Hate Losing Money/E-Hailing Apps

Spotify Finds Its Voice If you didn’t know that music is great, Spotify’s new commercial is going to make sure you know it. The online music distributor’s first foray into TV advertisements premiered Monday during NBC’s The Voice, featuring a person enjoying the best crowd surf ever accompanied by a monologue on the general awesomeness of Read More

By Jessica Roy 3/11 7:56am

Linkages

(Photo: Mike MIka)

Booting Up: All Innovation Everything

Weird guys spying on women through their webcams sounds like something your dad made up in high school to keep you from getting a MacBook. Actually, it’s very real–and very creepy. [Ars Technica]

Some awww for your Monday morning: a dad hacked Donkey Kong so that his daughter could play as Paulina and rescue Mario. Who run the world? [Reddit]

“In fact, ‘innovation’ is something of a magic word around here, shape-shifting to fit the speaker’s immediate needs.” Finally someone fucking said it. [San Francisco Chronicle]

If you can’t catch a cab at SXSW, employees of ride-sharing service Lyft will give you a piggy back ride. Gimmicky! [AllThingsD]

Hookup app Grindr is responsible for revolutionizing the way we connect with each other? Sure why not. [New York Times]