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1. Uber Rewards is rolling out; here’s how the perks work
Uber Rewards calculates how much you’ve spent on Uber and Uber Eats in the last six months and awards you perks like no-fee cancellations if you rebook, guaranteed prices between your two favorite spots and free car upgrades.
Uber says Rewards will be available to the entire U.S. soon, but it’s now available in 25 cities across the country, including San Francisco.
2. Google will start retiring Hangouts for G Suite users in October
The company has clarified the timeline of the transition from classic Hangouts to Chat and Meet for its paying G Suite customers — for them, the Hangouts retirement party will start in October of this year. For consumers, the situation remains unclear.
3. Oracle allegedly withheld $400 million in wages from underrepresented employees
Oracle has allegedly withheld $400 million in wages from racially underrepresented workers (black, Latinx and Asian) as well as women, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs said in a filing.
4. Blippar finds life after death as former investor buys assets to relaunch AR startup
One of the AR startup’s main investors, Candy Ventures, has acquired the company’s assets in a patent sale and will be keeping the brand alive underneath the leadership of founder Ambarish Mitra and “many of Blippar’s original key engineers.”
5. Hulu drops the price for its streaming service to $6 per month, but raises prices for Live TV
While Netflix is raising prices, Hulu is lowering its own.
6. YouTube TV is officially becoming available nationwide
The service has been steadily expanding since its April 2017 debut, and became broadly available a little less than a year ago when it then reached the top 100 U.S. markets, or 85 percent of the country. Today, YouTube TV will begin its expansion in an additional 95 markets, covering more than 98 percent of U.S. households.
7. Connecting African software developers with top tech companies nets Andela $100 million
Since its founding in 2014, Andela has seen more than 130,000 applicants for 1,100 developer slots. After a promising developer is on-boarded and goes through a six-month training bootcamp at one of the company’s coding campuses in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda or Uganda, they’re placed with an Andela customer to work as a remote, full-time employee.