Cabulous

Hail a Cab on Facebook with Cabulous!

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:55:22 +0000

Now you can hail a cab right from Facebook with the new Cabulous Facebook app:

http://apps.facebook.com/cabulous

Cabulous on Facebook - Hail a Taxi Cab in San Francisco

Cabulous reunites Girl and her Gift

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:11:32 +0000

As many Cabulous drivers and passengers know, we keep phone numbers private and mask them, so drivers and passengers can call each other without worrying about giving out personal information. But tonight, an honest driver for San Francisco’s Metro Cab rang us to report that a Cabulous user had left a gift bag that looked expensive. He could no longer call her, because the private session between them had ended.

We contacted the passenger for the driver, and after getting permission from the driver, passed on contact information so she could arrange to get her belongings back.

And yeah, turned out to be an expensive gift.

Cabulous to the rescue!

Invisible Cabs!

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:18:29 +0000

We debated long and hard about whether to show occupied taxis in the Cabulous Map. It would sure fill the map with cars, and that would make us happy on days (and nights) when most of the cabs are filled up with passengers, but what would it accomplish for the passenger? It would add inevitable confusion, that’s certain. ”Why is that cab red? Why can’t I select it?” All things we could answer with a more complicated user interface, but that would go against what we are all about – keeping things simple…just cabs on a map. Or rather, just cabs that you can actually hail on a map.

Tonight I thought I’d show you what we see behind the scenes. Here are two pictures, separated in time by just a minute or two. The one on the left shows you the cabs one of our dispatch centers can see – just their cars, but all of them (whether they are available or not). The available cars are in green, the occupied ones in red. Note that there are far more occupied cars than available ones.

And on the right…what you see on the iPhone or web map at cabulous.com. Just the ones you can hail. It doesn’t look like a lot, but wait for it….by the time I finished writing this post a few minutes after taking the first shots:

Cabulous wins! First iPad app to show you where the taxis really are.

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:42:59 +0000

We honestly figured someone else might get there before we did, but no – the fabulous Cabulous team got a full iPad/iPhone iOS4 app up first.
Now Cabulous runs in the background, letting drivers stay on the map even when they are on the phone or checking email. Yay!! Hurray!

And Wow! Cabulous looks GORGEOUS on the iPad. Check it out. Click here to download for iPhone or iPad.

Cabulous on iPad

Cabulous Monday 8am

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:16:30 +0000

A Cabulous Monday

The addition of free Cabulous dispatch tools, the new Nokia 5230 offer for taxi drivers, and the new iPhone update enabling Cabulous to run in the background all contributed to this picture.

Cabulous gives you Cabs on a Map

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:58:50 +0000

Touch any Cab to Hail

Go to http://cabulous.com/embed to put the Cabulous map into your own web page.

Announcing Cabulous for the Web!

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:53:05 +0000

New Web Service Transforms the Way San Francisco Hails a Cab

Cabulous.com allows consumers to see, hail, and track nearby taxis on the web for free

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – April 12th, 2010 — UpStart Mobile, makers of the popular Cabulous iPhone app, today announced the launch of Cabulous.com, a free service that helps consumers instantly hail and track cabs from the web.

With over 300 licensed taxi drivers across more than 25 cab companies participating mainly in San Francisco, passengers have already begun to take advantage of the service to painlessly hail taxis from their homes, offices, and on the go.

“It is so much fun being able to watch all the cabs driving around on the map, then just clicking on one and seeing him come to you,” says John Wolpert, CEO of UpStart Mobile. “It’s like having a fleet of personal drivers.”

Cabulous, which has been available as a free iPhone app since December 2009, is the first GPS-based service that allows consumers to see available cabs nearby on a map and hail the driver of their choice with just a touch. Once the driver confirms that s/he is on the way, the passenger can track their cab’s progress on the map.

The hailed drivers, in turn, can use their own smartphone’s Cabulous application to see the passenger’s location on a map. To prevent no-shows and increase efficiency, passengers and drivers can call each other directly through Cabulous when they are having difficulty finding one another.

In one popular feature currently available only on the iPhone app, passengers bookmark cabbies they like as “Favorite Drivers” in order to easily spot them the next time they need a cab – a plus for drivers who want to build customer loyalty and get more regulars.

Cabulous drivers are mostly local to San Francisco at this time, but any driver in the world can sign up and tell passengers to hail him or her through Cabulous.com or the iPhone app. Participating drivers can already be found in Austin, Miami, Chicago, San Jose, Zurich, Sydney and Barcelona.

About UpStart Mobile, Inc.

UpStart Mobile develops location-based mobile solutions. Cabulous, UpStart’s flagship product, was conceived and developed in a Best Buy incubator program in 2008 and spun out in 2009 to be incorporated under UpStart Mobile. The company’s leadership team has direct experience in the commercial transportation industry, a history of working with governments in the US, Asia and Europe, and 20 years experience leading startups and creative development teams.

For further information, please visit http://www.cabulous.com

Women 2.0

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:10:23 +0000

Here is a video with UpStart Mobile Team Member, Tal Flanchraych, talking about the future of the Taxi industry.

Taxi Drivers Have Bigger Brains – Literally!

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:46:30 +0000

A study of London cab drivers has found that the hippocampus – the part of the brain associated with navigation – is larger in people who have memorized detailed mental maps of a city. And the more years of experience a cab driver has, the more growth in grey matter his brain experiences.

This is an important breakthrough not just for cab drivers, but for the rest of us; our brains are not just end products of our genetics and our childhood experiences, but an aspect of us we can develop and improve – with lasting effects – even in adulthood. There are a quite a few activities that have also shown to lead to brain growth, including playing music, face to face interactions, and even juggling!

These studies also have big implications for people with brain damage or diseases such as Parkinson’s, who would greatly benefit from rehabilitating brain exercises that increase grey matter in damaged areas.

Read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/677048.stm.

30 Unusual Taxis from Around the World

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:22:48 +0000

Check it out here. I’d give a kidney to drive people around in a Lamborghini taxi all day – anyone hiring?