Uber making pickups easier with color-coded phone screens and in-car beacons

If you’ve ever had trouble trying to identify your Uber car at a busy location at night, the company has a plan to make it easier for driver and rider to spot each other. You select a color in the Android app and hold your phone up as the vehicle approaches, looking out for the same color in the car’s windshield …

We’re excited to unveil Uber Beacon, a device that goes on a driver’s windshield and uses color-pairing technology to help drivers and riders more quickly connect at night, particularly at crowded venues. With this technology, riders can personalize their pickup by selecting from an endless number of colors for the Beacon to glow on their driver’s vehicle.

The company first trialled the idea in Seattle, and is now rolling it out to ‘select cities,’ starting with Miami, Denver, Nashville and Newcastle (UK) – with more to follow in the new year.

The latest Uber app also provides more detail to help riders in all cities spot their Uber: you can now see the color of the car, together with photos of it.

In less positive news, it was yesterday claimed that thousands of Uber employees still have access to ‘god mode,’ allowing them to stalk both celebrities and exes during and after their riders.