This App Lets You Schedule Your Uber Rides In Advance!

Why didn't the ride-sharing company think of this?

If you use Uber, you would know that the app is sorely missing out one crucial feature - the ability to book and request a ride in advance



There are plenty of times when you know you’re going to need a lift well in advance, but you can't.

A new app called TaxiLater aims to provide that missing feature. Using this third party app, you can select the kind of Uber you want, the location of the pickup, and the requested time of the pickup.


The app was created by Joshua Meier, a student at Harvard. Meier has been in contact with Uber over the course of building the app.


“I’m not trying to build a company or monetize here. I’m just a student who loves coding, saw a problem/opportunity, and thought I could build something that would help people," said Meier.

• Here's how TaxiLater works:

• First, log into the app with your Uber account

• 

If you don't have an Uber account, you could sign up through the app too.

Much like Uber, you'll be greeted with a map of your current location. Next, select your drop off and pick up location.



Then select the time you want your Uber ride to arrive


According to Meier, the algorithms of the app continually adjust the optimal time for requesting the ride.

Finally, select your preferred type of Uber ride and you're done!




You'll be able to keep track your requests and update them should you wish to change the time and date.

The app is certainly very useful but it has one major drawback - it doesn't gurantee a driver will accept your request when it’s made


However, I personally tried out the app at 11.40am this morning to schedule a ride at 12.05pm. The Uber driver called me up at 11.55pm to confirm the pickup location.

TaxiLater is currently only available for download on  iTunes.  An Android version of the app is scheduled to be released soon.

• Try out the app and let us know if you have any luck scheduling your Uber ride!

Virtual Reality Camera And 6 Things You Should Know From This Year's Facebook Conference

The future is bright for the social media giant

On 12 and 13 April, Facebook held its annual Developers Conference. This is the time where the social media giant unveiled some of its new features and services that all of its users are going to see in the coming months.

Facebook's annual global developer conference was held at Fort Mason in San Francisco on 12 and 13 April.

If you missed out on the event, no worries! Check out some of the highlights below:

1. Mark Zuckerberg attacks Donald Trump in his opening speech

Mark Zuckerberg gave an impassioned opening speech at Facebook's F8 developer conference keynote today, lambasting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his supporters for fostering a culture of fear in the US.

He said, "As I look around and I travel around the world, I'm starting to see people and nations turning inward, against this idea of a connected world and a global community. I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as others. For blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, reducing trade, and in some cases around the world even cutting access to the Internet."

2. Chat-bots wants to talk to you when you're lonely

Facebook is building artificial intelligence-powered "chat-bots" into its Messenger application to allow businesses to have software that can engage in lifelike text exchanges with users. These bots are software infused with the ability to "learn" from conversations, and could get better at figuring out what people are telling them and how best to respond.

3. The Messenger app was the fastest growing platform in 2015

Between Messenger and WhatsApp, people are sending 60 billion messages a day, Zuckerberg said. 900 million people use Facebook Messenger, but that's not enough. The company wants that number to be higher, and it hopes instant connection with services can be the way to do it.

4. VR (Virtual Reality) is going to be the next big thing

The Facebook Surround360 camera.

The lone hardware announcement was showing off a new Facebook Surround360 camera, a VR camera for creating 3D digital content. However, Facebook made clear that they’re not going into the camera business, so instead this hardware will all be open source. The camera will geared up with fish eye lenses and wide-angled lenses.

5. video profile pictures will be introduced to more apps like Instagram and Vine

Apps like Vine, Instagram's Boomerang, and Facebook's MSQRD will soon have buttons that let them send videos you capture directly over to Facebook, where they'll be put in place as your new profile image. Other apps will be able to support this too.

6. Any device is able to stream Facebook Live, including a drone

The company announced plans to increase its Live Video efforts even more. It's opening up a Live API so that anyone can build in the ability to stream live from any device. At the conference, Mark Zuckerberg showed that the ability to stream live video to Facebook has been built into a drone.

7. You can now share quotes directly to Facebook

Instead of copying and pasting a block of text, you’ll soon be able to highlight some text, then click a “Share Quote” button to send the highlighted text alongside a link to the article on your Facebook page. Right now, the Amazon Kindle is the only launch partner, but quote sharing will likely roll out to other sites in the future.

What was your biggest takeaway from this year's Developers Conference? Let me know in the comments below!

Apple Just Gave This Man USD1 Billion Dollars

Here's everything you need to know about him. For starters, he is only 33.


This is Cheng Wei, a 33-year-old who, through his focused determination and quick growth, made Apple take note of his e-hailing firm Didi Chuxing, which happens to be one of the most watched online taxi booking companies in the world

He started his ride-hailing company, which was named Didi Dache (later merged with Kuaidi Dache to form Didi Kuaidi which then became Didi Chuxing) back in June 2012 at the mere age of 29

Prior to that, he was with Alibaba.

But because he would often miss his flights as he couldn't get a cab during his frequent business trips between Beijing and Alibaba's Hangzhou HQ, he left Alibaba and entered China's chaotic ride-hailing app market.

From 2012 to today, Cheng Wei's company has come a long way

So much so that, today Didi Chuxing (backed by Tencent and Alibaba), is valued at USD20 billion, more than double its closest ride-hailing app rival in mainland China, Uber China, which is valued at USD8 billion.

Cheng Wei's company now operates in 400 cities compared to Uber in only 45 cities.

In fact, just to give you an idea of how huge this man's company in China is, it took Uber 5 years since its launch in 2009 to complete a billion rides worldwide early this year in January. In comparison, Cheng Wei's company had 1.43 billion rides in 2015 alone in China.

Which effectively makes it "the world's number one in rideshare market," despite the fact that the only country it was and is operating out of is China.




And here's something interesting, which may sound unbelievable, but despite the fact that his company today enables over one billion car rides each year, Cheng Wei still hasn't learned how to drive

But it only proves that you don’t have to be a master at your field to start.

You only need to solve an issue big enough that people would pay money for. Which he effectively did by staying focused — only operating in China, and being mission focused — to help China be more mobile.

And that's precisely what has attracted Apple to invest USD1 billion on Cheng Wei.

"With an unprecedented USD1 billion investment in Didi Chuxing, Apple didn't just buy a piece of China's biggest ride-hailing service. It also became a stakeholder in China's growing tech sector at a time when the Cupertino, Calif., company needs goodwill from Beijing more than ever," .

Cheng Wei's 4-year, USD20-billion, turbo-charged story, as Bali-based entrepreneur Roger James Hamilton wrote in his Facebook post about the investment, has one underlying message:

• "Whether you are just getting started, in the early days of your business, or facing both external and internal growing pains, stay in the right gear at the right speed at the right time, and you can always accelerate out of trouble."