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Google Wanted To Invest In Uber So Badly, It Gave CEO Travis Kalanick A Blank Term Sheet

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was given carte blanche by Google Ventures president Bill Maris, a Fast Company feature reveals.

In late 2010, Uber found itself at the mercy of San Francisco city officials, who claimed it was running as an unlicensed taxi company. At the time, Uber was still operating under its original name, Ubercab, which the city argued was false marketing. CEO Travis Kalanick acted fast, clarifying that it was a technology company and trimming down the name to just Uber—and from there on out, despite the continued misgivings of taxi industry types, there was no stopping him.

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Why Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Is Betting Big On Self-Driving Cars

“You can’t call yourself a technology company if you’re resisting technological progress.”

As Uber continues to expand its carpooling service and make forays abroad, CEO Travis Kalanick believes the next natural step for his company—albeit an ambitious, far-off one—is to make its cars autonomous. Fast Company‘s new cover story reports that each shared self-driving car could supplant up to 10 regular cars—and in a city with public transportation, introducing driverless cars could cut the number of vehicles on the road by 65% during peak hours.

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AdBlock Launches Ad-Free Mobile Browser For Android And iOS

Just in time for Apple’s annual event, AdBlock unveils an ad-free browser.

The mobile advertisement-blocking wars took an interesting turn today: Anti-advertising software provider AdBlock just released a browser that blocks ads for Android and iOS. This means that AdBlock, a small company best known for their AdBlock Plus product, beat Apple to producing a mobile browser with the ability to remove mobile ads from users’ experiences.

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Can Apple Breathe New Life Into The iPad?

Five years after reinventing the tablet market, the iPad has grown stale while the competition keeps innovating.

I don’t know about you, but I’m in desperate need of some new gadgets. My 2011-era MacBook Pro just doesn’t pack the same punch when I’m editing video, and the battery of my screen-shattered (and now tiny-feeling) iPhone 5s feels like it barely lasts a few hours before needing a charge. My phone contract is up and I’m ready for whatever Apple announces on Wednesday.

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How Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Is Taking On China

“That’s where the action is,” Kalanick says in an exclusive interview with Fast Company.

Earlier this year, an internal email to investors from CEO Travis Kalanick revealed that Uber intended to invest $1 billion in China. During its first nine months in the country, Uber had grown 400 times more rapidly than it had in New York within nine months of its launch there; by June, Uber was operating in China at a rate of nearly 1 million rides a day. In his note, Kalanick deemed China the “number one priority for Uber’s global team” and touted it as “one of the largest untapped opportunities for Uber, potentially larger than the U.S.”

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Amazon Is Reportedly Debuting A $50 Tablet

The e-commerce giant hopes to sell more tablets by offering a more affordable device.

You may want to bookmark this as a potential stocking stuffer: This holiday season, Amazon is supposedly releasing a $50 tablet for U.S. consumers, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new, as-of-yet untitled 6-inch device is designed to target what the WSJ calls “cost-conscious” customers, in hopes of increasing its tablet sales. Amazon’s budget tablet won’t have phone capabilities, and will be the cheapest option among several new tablets the company plans to release.

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Periscope Is Coming To Apple TV

The Twitter-owned live-streaming platform is developing an app for Apple TV.

On Wednesday, Apple will introduce its shiny new Apple TV—and Periscope is allegedly building an app specifically for the device. TechCrunch reports that Periscope has been hard at work on an app for the media player, which could make live streams easier to watch in a group setting. The functionality is unclear at the moment, but it’s a safe bet that the app will focus on Periscope’s core business: allowing users to watch streaming video in real time.

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