To fight possible racial bias in its booking process, short-term-rental company Airbnb will start hiding the first names of prospective guests from Oregon from their potential hosts. Would-be hosts will instead see interested renters’ first initials until a booking is confirmed. The program is scheduled to be implemented by the end of January and run for at …

Paramount Plus is adding a new (but also kind of old) way for people to watch TV and movies on the streaming service.  People will now be able to tune into live channels with all-day programming of its content centered on a theme, ViacomCBS, the service’s parent company, said on Thursday. “Even in the era of on-demand, there is clearly …

Uber on Thursday unveiled three new safety features it’s rolling out for the ride-hailing app. The company will now check in when rides take unexpected routes or have unexpected stops, remind riders to buckle up and allow drivers and riders to record the audio of their trips. Uber has allowed audio recording in 14 countries in Latin America and is piloting …

Prepaid mobile provider Boost Mobile on Thursday released the first of several new plans that will debut this holiday season under the name Carrier Crusher. The plans are aimed at people currently paying for more data than they use. Boost is offering two plans that require a yearly payment: unlimited talk and text with 1GB of data a month for …

When Twitter Blue rolled out in Australia and Canada in June, subscribers gained access to exclusive features for the equivalent of $3 a month. Now those subscribers are getting early access to experimental features from the new Twitter Labs, the company said in a Twitter thread and blog post on Wednesday. Labs currently allows users to pin conversations at the top of …