Expedia acquires Pillow and ApartmentJet to conquer the short-term rental market – TechCrunch

To keep up with the rising demand for short-term rentals in U.S. cities and compete with the home-sharing giant Airbnb, travel booking site Expedia has picked up a pair of venture-backed hospitality startups, Pillow and ApartmentJet. Employees of both companies will join Expedia . The company declined to disclose the financial terms of the deals. “Acquiring…

Waymo is testing what it should charge for its robotaxi service – TechCrunch

Self-driving startup Waymo, a Google spin -off owned by parent company Alphabet, has started to test pricing models for rides in its autonomous vehicles in Phoenix, the latest indication that the company is preparing to launch a commercial robotaxi service. Waymo has not launched a wide-scale commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix — or anywhere — just yet. But it is…