Uber now lets you book hotel rooms and have your driver bring you snacks


Uber wants to become your one-stop app for booking your ride, hotel, dinner, and even your morning coffee. At its annual GO-GET product event, the company unveiled a wave of new features, and hotel booking is the headline act.

How does Uber’s new hotel booking feature work?

Through a new partnership with Expedia Group, you will be able to search and book hotels directly inside the Uber app. There will be a new Hotels section on the home screen where you enter your destination and filter results across more than 700,000 properties globally.

Uber One members will get the better end of the deal, with at least 20% off a rolling list of 10,000 hotels and 10% back in Uber credits on every booking. Those credits can be spent on future Uber rides. Vrbo vacation rentals will be added to the app later this year.

From June, Uber rides will also be integrated into the Expedia app, with travelers getting push notifications before check-in to book discounted rides for their trip. Uber One benefits will also go global from June 1, meaning members can earn credits and access perks while travelling abroad.

What other new features are coming to Uber?

Uber also announced a bunch of other new features at the event. The Eats for the Way feature lets Uber Black and Uber Black SUV riders add a drink or snack to their booking, so your coffee is ready in the passenger seat when your driver pulls up. It launches first in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Diego, and San Francisco.

Shop for Me lets you request a courier to visit any store, including ones not listed on Uber Eats, pick up whatever you need, and bring it to you. You describe the item, set a budget, and pay the in-store price plus delivery.

Another feature called Travel Mode will provide curated local recommendations, restaurant suggestions, and tourist hotspots when you land somewhere new.

Voice Bookings, powered by AI, lets you book a ride hands-free just by talking to the app. And One Search consolidates rides, food, and store results into a single search bar, reducing the need to switch between Uber and Uber Eats.

Meanwhile, Uber is also putting driverless Mercedes-Benz S-Class cars on the road, partnering with Rivian to bring thousands of robotaxis to streets, and rolling out a Cart Assistant on Uber Eats to shop faster with fewer taps.



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Recent Reviews


Apple’s Hide My Email feature has always been a pretty good quality-of-life privacy tool. iCloud+ subscribers can access randomly generated email addresses that forward messages to their real inbox. This helps users avoid any apps or websites from seeing their actual address. Apple also states that it doesn’t read the forwarded messages either.

All of this makes it quite a handy tool that genuinely cuts down on spam, creating a distance between you and whatever sketchy service wants your email.

But what it apparently does not do is hide your identity from law enforcement.

What’s going on?

According to court documents seen by TechCrunch, Apple provided federal agents with the real identities of at least two customers who had used Hide My Email addresses. One case in particular had the FBI seek records in an investigation that involved an email allegedly threatening Alexis Wilkins, who has been publicly reported as the girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel.

The affidavit cited in the report states that Apple identified the anonymized address as being associated with the target Apple account. The company even provided the account holder’s full name and email address, along with records of another 134 anonymized email accounts created through this privacy feature.

TechCrunch also says it reviewed a second search warrant tied to an investigation by Homeland Security, where Apple again provided information linking Hide My Email accounts back to a user.

Why does this concern you

Before anyone starts calling out Apple for breaching privacy, they should know the distinction between companies and official warrants. Hide My Email is designed to protect users from apps, websites, and marketers, not from legal requests.

Apple still stores customer data like names, addresses, billing details, and other unencrypted info, which can be handed over when authorities come knocking with the right paperwork. So an email is a weak point here. Most emails are still not end-to-end encrypted, which means it is fundamentally different from services like Signal, whose popularity has grown precisely because of their robust privacy model.



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