redletterdave writes Uber announced in a blog post on Monday it would cut the prices of its UberX service in New York City by 20% — but it’s only for a limited time. Uber says this makes it cheaper to use UberX than taking a taxi. Consumers like Uber’s aggressive pricing strategy but competitors — and some of its own drivers — are not as happy. UberX, Uber’s cheaper service usually hosted by regular people driving basic sedans rather than fancy black cars, also cut its rates by 25% last week in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. As a result of that announcement, Uber said its service was effectively “45% cheaper than a taxi.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Uber Is Now Cheaper Than a New York City Taxi
pdclarry (175918) writes “Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide reveals that the NSA intercepts shipments of networking gear destined for overseas and adds spyware. Cisco has responded by asking the President to intervene and stop this practice, as it has severely hurt their non-US business, with shipments to other countries falling from 7% for emerging countries to over 25% for Brazil and Russia.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
cold fjord writes “Bexar Country in Texas has opened a new $2.3 million library called BiblioTech. It doesn’t have physical books, only computers and e-reader tablets. It is the first bookless public library system in the U.S. The library opened in an area without nearby bookstores, and is receiving considerable attention. It has drawn visitors from around the U.S. and overseas that are studying the concept for their own use. It appears that the library will have more than 100, 000 visitors by year’s end. Going without physical books has been cost effective from an architecture standpoint, since the building doesn’t have to support the weight of books and bookshelves. A new, smaller library in a nearby town cost $1 million more than Bexar Country’s new library. So far there doesn’t appear to be a problem with returning checked out e-readers. A new state law in Texas defines the failure to return library books as theft.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Outlook.com users can now create instant disposable email address, much like Gmail , by simply adding a “+modifier” to the initial alias. For example, billgates@outlook.com could become billgates+pizzaparty@outlook.com. Read more here . Read more…