NYC taxis to compete with Uber

New York City taxis are fighting Uber with a taste of their own medicine. I'm Jeff Bakalar filling in for Bridget Carey this week, this is your CNet update. [MUSIC] So it's no secret that the relationship between Uber and New York City taxis is toxic to say the least, Uber has decimated the taxi industry in New York poaching drivers and sending the cost of a medallion down hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sure Uber offers a better product and nicer cars to ride in. Not to mention the taxi industry has not been able to match ease of use that Uber provides. That might change with a new taxi hailing app. It's called Arro and it works a lot like Uber's app, but just for NYC taxis. The service promises overall cheaper fares and no surge pricing, which is a total Uber disaster here in New York. Right now the service is in beta with around 7,000 cabs, but it'll eventually be compatible with all 20,000 yellow and green taxis in New York. Users can store credit card information in the app and pay just like they would with Uber Now if Arrow does work and starts to catch on, the yellow taxi cab legacy here in New York might just find a way to live on. So guess what? A billion people used Facebook on Monday. That's right. For the first time in the company's history. Think about that just for a second, okay. One out of every seven people on the planet logged into the social network in a 24-hour period. Is it sad? Is it telling of the world we live in? I don't know, but that's a lot of freaking people. Google has set a deadline of September 1st for when Chrome will start to block all Flash content that isn't, quote, central to the web page. This means auto playing video ads, those animated sidebars, you know all the junk that lives on the gutters of the internet, all that won't work anymore. But don't think for a second that ads are going away any time soon. The move away from flash is actually to drive html five development, which can do everything flash can Just better. Rest in peace, Flash. I sure as hell won't miss updating you every four days. And finally the consumer launch of HTC's VR headset, Vive, has been delayed to of Q1 of 2016. HTC will only have a limited quantity of Vive headsets this year. The HTC and Vive collaboration is likely Oculus Rift's closest competition. So now the two are much more likely to release around the same time. That will do it for this episode of Update. For the very latest, head over to cnet.com. From our studios here in New York, I'm Jeff Bakalar. [SOUND]