Uber says it plans to focus more on its electric scooter and bike business, and less on cars, despite the fact it could hurt profits. Boss Dara Khosrowshahi said that individual modes of transport were better suited to inner city travel. He also forecast users would make more frequent shorter journeys in future. "During rush hour, it is very inefficient for a one-tonne hulk of metal to take one person 10 blocks," he told the Financial Times.

Toyota has invested $500m (£388m) in Uber and announced plans for the firms to collaborate on developing driverless cars for ride sharing. The carmaker said technology from each company will be used to produce purpose-built Toyota vehicles to be deployed on Uber’s ride sharing network. The first fleet of cars will be based on Toyota’s Sienna minivan, and a pilot scheme is set to begin on Uber’s network in 2021.

Why wait for four wheels when you can scoot around on two?

The next time you use Uber, check your bill. The trip could turn out to be very expensive, not just for the distance but for a type of fraud that is on the increase.

The next time you use Uber, check your bill. The trip could turn out to be expensive — not just for the distance but for a type of fraud that is on the rise. It’s called “vomit fraud,” a scam repeatedly denounced in social networks yet still taking place around the world. And Miami, of course, is a common spot. What is it? Passengers request Uber cars, which deliver them to their destination. So far so good.

Don't like your Uber rating? Well, in a not-so-distant future, you just might have a score for everything else in your life.

The next time you use Uber, check your bill. The trip could turn out to be expensive — not just for the distance but for a type of fraud that is on the rise.

Thousands of rideshare drivers across Australia were not picking up passengers for the transport giant Uber during the morning commute on Monday in a protest aimed at making its service fairer for drivers. Ride Share Drivers United want Uber to stop using upfront pricing and go back to paying drivers for the actual time and distance travelled, to allow for unexpected traffic, stops or road closures.

Police have charged an Uber driver after they say he sexually assaulted a passenger early Thursday morning. According to a police report, at about 12:20 a.m. the victim, a 21-year-old Brown University student, requested an Uber ride from Thayer Street to her home, and then to Medway Street. When they arrived at her home, police said the driver, 29-year-old Carlos Carrillo, asked to use her bathroom. She allowed him to use it and when they returned to the car Carrillo insisted that she sit in the front seat.

It brought us services such as UberX, UberPool and UberPet. For millions of commuters worldwide, Uber has changed the face of transport, allowing people to find rides with an ease previously unheard of. From a start-up in 2009, it has grown into one of the world’s most valuable private technology companies, valued at some US$62 billion (S$85 billion) today.

Since a self-driving Uber killed a pedestrian in March, the company’s executives have been divided over the future of its autonomous vehicle efforts.

Uber briefly charged its users in downtown Sydney a minimum $100 to escape an armed hostage crisis, a result of automatic surge pricing meant to get more drivers online. An executive in the city's Central Business District (CBD) sent Mashable screenshots of the Uber app that showed the company was charging up to four-times the normal rate because "demand is off the charts."...

Last month, as Uber weathered a fresh storm of criticism about its attitude to critics and user privacy — following revelations that a senior Uber exec had floated the idea of spending money to dig up dirt on critical journalists’ private lives — Senator Al Franken posted a public letter to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, raising concerns about the company’s apparently systematic disregard for privacy and asking that it clarify its privacy policies.

Of the many attractions offered by my hometown, a west coast peninsula famed for its deep natural harbor, perhaps the most striking is that you never have to leave the house. With nothing more technologically advanced than a phone, you can arrange to have delivered to your doorstep, often in less than an hour, takeaway food, your weekly groceries, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs (over-the-counter, prescription, proscribed), books, newspapers...

Everyone's favorite rideshare app has decided that Christmas Eve is the perfect time to slip through a small change to its Uber Taxi service. Nothing big. Just a $2 fee every single time you want to hail a cab through Uber. Motherboard has a copy of the email that Uber (very quietly) sent to UberT users, on this, a day when everyone will totally be paying attention to their emails. UberT currently works as a hailing system for yellow or boro cabs — use the app to get a ride...

Uber has called it quits in Spain, at least for now. Uber, the ride-booking company that has been plagued by vocal opposition from taxi associations and policy makers around the world, suspended its operations in Spain late Tuesday. The decision came in response to a judge’s ruling this month that the company’s low-cost service, called UberPop, did not comply with Spanish laws and potentially amounted to unfair competition for taxi drivers.

I always thought it would be fun to drive a cab. I always talk up the person driving when I take a cab or Uber. How long have they been doing it? Do they own the car or does the company? What do they think they will make tonight? About a month ago I decided I wanted to drive for Uber on New Years Eve. It seemed like an opportunity to earn a good chunk of money and experience what it was like.

I am Uber. I can see my thousands of cars. I don’t know if I am an extension of them or they are an extension of me.

Tonight we might get a glimpse of the kinder, gentler Uber, but we won’t be able to talk about it. The startup has endured months of disastrous press coverage, including Uber exec Emil Michael saying the company should smear journalists that criticize it. Now the company has emailed reporters saying “The Uber Communications Team invites you to join us for drinks” at a San Francisco bar tonight.

Ever wonder how and why Uber drivers get banned? If it’s not for criminal behavior, the waters get murky. What do Uber and Harvard have in common? Both only use the top 10 percent or so of their rating scales. For a Harvard student, the median grade is an A- and for an Uber driver, anything below a 4.7 out of 5 average rating from passengers spells trouble. Or, as one driver memorably puts it on Uber People, a popular...

Uber has been the subject of controversy all around the globe. An Indian woman who says she was raped by an Uber driver while she was traveling in his cab in December is suing the San Francisco–based online firm in a U.S. federal court in California, claiming it failed to put in place basic safety procedures while running its car service in India.

“It’s a genius way to start a business nowadays, especially because nobody’s doing it.” The man sitting beside me is sharing the most insightful business advice I’ve heard lately. His ideas are as unconventional as the location of our conversation. We’re not in a coffee shop or a corner office. We’re in an Uber and he’s my driver.

Uber waited more than five months to notify 50,000 drivers whose names and drivers-license numbers were taken in a computer-security breach last year, much longer than allowed by many state laws.

Uber's "low-cost" UberPop service has been banned in Germany after a court decided it contravened transport laws. Judges imposed fines of €250,000 (£181,000) for each violation of the order. It followed the news that the company's Paris offices were raided by police investigating the same service. And, in South Korea, nearly 30 people linked to the company, including chief executive Travis Kalanick, were charged with running an illegal taxi firm.

Uber denies that its servers were hacked after reports that thousands of usernames and passwords for the taxi-like service are available to buy for as little as $1 online. Two sellers with outlets on the AlphaBay Market dark web marketplace, hidden from the open internet within the Tor anonymity network, claim to sell stolen, working Uber credentials allowing purchasers to login and book rides. According to the market place listing, one vendor has sold over 180 Uber logins since 18 March.

An Uber driver’s secret recording of his conversation with a passenger prompted Cook County prosecutors Monday to drop rape and kidnapping charges against him, his attorney said. Maxime Fohounhedo, 30, was charged in December in the Nov. 16 sexual assault of a female passenger. Fohounhedo was expected to be released from the Cook County Jail later on Monday. He has spent the last four months behind bars.

The on-demand industry says it’s turned our concept of work upside down. But one attorney thinks we’ve been here before — again, and again, and again.

Starting in New York and Chicago, Uber says its drivers will deliver you grub wherever you are in 10 minutes or less.

Uber appears to be on the wrong side of the law — again. Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou raided the ride-sharing firm's offices on Thursday. As part of the raid, cellphones and other gear was confiscated from the offices. In a statement to The Guangzhou Daily, officials said that the company is "suspected of organizing private cars which are not qualified to provide passenger services, and of not having registered with the commercial authorities."

So Silent

Uber could be about to become one of the most valuable venture-backed startups in history after a fresh fundraising round may bump its worth up to around $50 billion.

This January, as much of the world was getting over its post-holiday hangovers, people began disappearing from Carnegie Mellon University's robotics center. At first it was only a few individuals, mostly software developers. Then it became an entire team, and eventually the group included the center's director. They weren't going far.

Uber, beware: Mexican taxi drivers will hunt you down. A leader of Mexico State's taxi drivers said as much. "We are not going to leave (Uber cars) alone. We are tracking these colleagues and hunting them down," Esteban Meza, who represents about 13,000 cabbies, told the country's top-selling newspaper, El Universal.

In cities from New York to New Delhi, the car service Uber has faced threats and bans from regulators but usually comes out on top. Has it met its match in Paris?

Uber is laying down the law in China. The ride-hailing service has ordered its drivers in China not to participate in taxi protests in the city of Hangzhou, located in Eastern China.