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Uber is facing another ban in Europe: This time it’s Berlin

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 11:58 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web

Barcelona Cabs Strike Against Uber Taxi App

Uber has come upon a stumbling block in Germany, after the Berlin government issued a prohibition order that seeks to ban both its premium UberBLACK service and ridesharing UberPOP offering in the city. Berlin authorities say that Uber’s services pose a threat to passenger safety with the use of “non-approved drivers in unlicensed vehicles,” and that it is also seeking to protect the taxi trade. Uber faces a €25,000 ($33,400) penalty for each violation of the ban, while drivers are looking at a €20,000 fine. According to the Financial Times, the order hasn’t kicked in yet, and Uber said that “if” the prohibition order…

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Grooveshark brings its music streaming service to the Google Chromecast

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 11:00 am
Posted In: Around the Web, chromecast, Google, grooveshark

shark

Google’s Chromecast has become an important stop for companies in the content streaming space. Music service Grooveshark is the latest to announce support for the USB dongle, which enables its paying users to stream content to a TV from desktop or mobile devices. On the one-year anniversary of its launch, Google revealed that Chromecast users had “hit the cast button more than 400 million times” — that’s the kind of engagement that Grooveshark says prompted this move. Grooveshark says its users spend on average 90 minutes with its service per session, with multiple visits per month. That’s a new metric we’ve…

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Folia: A super-charged Google Docs rival with the ability to contextually link documents

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 10:36 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider, Product Launches

Typewriter-laptop

Re-inventing the word processor might not sound like the most exciting thing in tech right now – and indeed, it might not be – but with our workday increasingly peppered by distractions and ‘Columbo tasks’ (“Just one more thing”), saving time and improving the way in which we work is a worthwhile endeavour. To that end, Branchfire, the startup behind mobile document editor iAnnotate, has been quietly working away to build a platform called Folia that brings a seamless workflow to collaborative word processing and document markup. Drawing on the company’s experience in handling more than a million consumer users and more than 100,000 large firms and…

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Sony hopes its ‘Album of the Day’ app for iOS will make you buy digital records again

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 10:28 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Product Launches

JAPAN-EARNINGS-COMPANY-SONY

Digital music sales are beginning to slow, but Sony is hoping to reverse that trend with its new ‘Album of the Day‘ app for the iPhone and iPod touch. As the name implies, Sony will promote and discount one album from its music roster every 24 hours. The price-cut can be anywhere up to 70 percent and there’s a shortcut to purchase the tracks on iTunes. For now, it should be noted, that’s the only place which you can buy Sony’s cut-price records. On screen, a timer shows when the current deal will close, and there are options to read more…

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Spotify integration returns to Shazam’s mobile apps in the UK, Germany and Mexico

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 9:37 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web

iPods Linked To Hearing Problems

Strange. Very strange. A few months ago, Shazam removed a feature that allowed mobile users to open tagged tracks in Spotify. The service was swapped out for Deezer in Germany, Mexico, Brazil and the UK – but today, Spotify has returned to most of these markets. A spokesperson for Shazam confirmed that “Spotify is back” for the Android and iOS apps, and in my (UK) tests that certainly holds true. The two featured buttons on each track page now rotate between Deezer, Rdio and Spotify, but you can access all of them by tapping the play dropdown button. What’s more, Shazam…

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