New York Mag reports that Uber might eventually be worth more than Facebook.

Amazon grew from selling books alone to carrying a wide range of products by leveraging the warehouse and shipping infrastructure it had established.

Likewise, Uber’s plan is to outgrow its car-service roots, and become, as investor Shervin Pishevar put it, “a digital mesh” capable of providing all kinds of transportation and logistical services to people in the cities it serves. Once it has you summoning cars from your phone, the logic goes, it can use that same back-end technology to hook you in for all other kinds of deliveries — food, clothes, Christmas trees. And eventually, like Amazon, it can become something akin to an all-purpose utility — it’ll just be a way you get things and go places. There’s a reason the company recently changed its tagline from “Everyone’s private driver” to the much broader “Where lifestyle meets logistics.”

• It’s one of the fastest-growing companies on Earth, having expanded into 22 countries and 60 cities, most in the last several months. (Uber launched in Guangzhou, Abu Dhabi, and New Delhi this week.)
• It’s making serious money – according to Valleywag’s leaked screenshot, its run-rate (estimated annual revenue, if you extrapolate the numbers we have out to a full year) is more than $200 million. By comparison, Twitter, a company worth$25 billion as of today, did $317 million in revenue last year. By those standards, Uber’s last valuation –$3.5 billion – seems laughably small.
• It’s hiring like crazy. Just look at its jobs list, or see that it plans to quadruple its staff from last March’s level by next March.
• It’s filled with experienced business operators and financiers, like Wall Street legend David Bonderman (the founder of TPG Capital, and a new Uber board member). In other words, it’s not one of those Silicon Valley start-ups run by cocky 22-year-olds.
• It’s now a financial services company.

There are many more cities the company can expand into. They have barely gotten started.

With Bluetooth low energy (BLE) appearing in an incresing number of devices, it’s not surprising to see devices being developed to take advantage of the technology. Similar to competitor Tile, the Elgato smart key aims to help you solve the common problem of forgotten car keys, or finding your car in a large parking lot.

Powered by a single CR2032 battery, the Elgato smart key has enough juice to last a good six months. Common and useful situations for the device include:

• Tracking when your luggage has arrived on the airport conveyor belt

• Tracking where your car is parked

• Notifying you when you’ve left your keys behind

As Apple deploying its Bluetooth iBeacons in all of its stores and apps such as Newstand, Bluetooth is going to be increasingly prominent in 2014, so pay close attention to this space.

The Elgato Smart Key taps Bluetooth LE to help find your keys and remember where your car’s parked

There are many interesting use-cases for this, beyond that of finding lost keys or remembering where you parked your car. For example, you can put it in your suitcase, so that when it arrives on the conveyor belt in the airport, your iPhone will buzz to tell you it’s within range. You can just sit back, sup a coffee and let everyone else stand staring at that same orange monstrosity that keeps doing the rounds on the baggage carousel.

Apple Insider reports that Apple has been awarded a patent for facial recognition technology that controls a device such as an iPhone, iPad or Mac.

For example, during an incoming phone call, an iPhone may be able to “sense” that someone is looking at the device’s screen. If the person is not an authorized user, the iPhone’s screen remains off and only a ringtone or vibration alert is provided. If the person is an authorized user, the usual incoming call UI is displayed.

In another example, an incoming email can be blocked from view unless the authorized user’s face is detected by the system. This implementation would be helpful for users who choose to display part of the message in the lock screen.

Is this linked to Apple’s purchase of PrimeSense?

Parks Associates announced a research showing that Apple topped the list of purchase intentions for multiple categories.

Apple was the number one brand for desktops and tablets, and its Apple TV was the top streaming media device. Apple replaces Dell as the most wanted desktop brand.

“Apple topped the list of intended brands for desktop purchases for the first time this year,” said John Barrett, director, Consumer Analytics, Parks Associates. “In 2011 and 2012, Dell was the top desktop brand, but Apple has displaced it, making Apple now the most popular brand across even more key CE categories.”

WIRED.com writes about Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint reader.

Fingerprint reading is accomplished through a complex method.

Touch ID is composed of an 8 x 8 millimeter, 170-micron-thick capacitive sensor located just beneath the home button on the 5s. This is used to capture a 500-pixel-per-inch (ppi) resolution image of your fingerprint. The sensor can read pores, ridges, and valleys. It can identify arches, loops, and whorls. It can even recognize fingerprints oriented in any direction.

When you place your finger or thumb on the sensor, it looks at the fingerprint pattern on the conductive sub-dermis layer of skin located underneath the dermis layer. It also measures the differences in conductivity between the tops of the ridges and the bottoms of the valleys in your prints in this layer. This is more accurate than looking at the dead surface of the skin alone, which is constantly changing and isn’t conductive.

Touch ID needs a good database of fingerprint records to ensure that the fingerprint is quickly recognised.

Apple partially gets around the small sensor issue using the enrollment process, which includes rolling your finger around to try to capture every microscopic nook and cranny on your finger. Then, at least, it has a large source to pull from, even if it’s only scanning a section of that each time you tap your finger.

It doesn’t stop learning.

Apple’s Touch ID algorithm is designed to learn and improve over time — with each scan, it checks if it is a better reading than what is stored, and can update the master data for your print this way. This algorithm could certainly be changed or improved through iOS updates, as well.

So what can go wrong when you use Touch ID?

There are a variety of small things that could be going on to interrupt a successful Touch ID experience. First, for it to work properly, your finger needs to make contact not just with the sapphire of the home button, but also the stainless steel ring surrounding it. Next, the sensor itself works by measuring electrical differences between the ridges and valleys of your fingerprints. If your hands are too dry, it’s going to be difficult for your print to be recognized (this could be a growing problem in the dry winter months ahead). Conversely, if your fingers are too moist or oily, recognition can also fail, as those valleys get filled. If the button gets dirty, as it likely will over time, you’ll also want to clean it to keep Touch ID working properly. Apple suggests using a clean, lint-free cloth.

I was barely a few days into using Touch ID and I found myself wondering how I ever lived without it. Unlocking my phone is now quick and intuitive. To quote Steve Jobs, “It just works.”

Patently Apple reports that Apple has been granted a patent for a wireless charging system.

Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention that relates to a system, method, and apparatus for wirelessly providing power from a wireless power supply to any of a plurality of peripheral devices.

Generally the patent relates to techniques and apparatus for providing useful amounts of power wirelessly to devices within a wireless charging environment. In one embodiment, the wireless charging environment can include various computing devices along the lines of a desktop computer, a laptop computer, net book computer, tablet computer, etc. In some cases, a wireless power supply will be able to be used to provide power wirelessly to various electronic devices such as and iPhone that includes a portable power supply for mobile operation.

This will make Apple devices so much more convenient. No more tangling with wires.