A woman rushes to catch her cab in New York City. David Thompson / Flickr

New York City’s much-anticipated e-hail app program was cut short by a temporary restraining order (TRO) just days after launch, but that hasn’t halted the operations of the two startups that were already approved for participation.

Hailo and Uber‘s cab drivers continue to pick up passengers via the companies’ mobile e-hail apps every day.

Why do they continue to operate even after the pilot program was so clearly blocked?

That’s an answer that no one seems able to agree on, or in some cases, even answer.

New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission is tight-lipped as it works out what will happen next. Uber is similarly quiet, while Hailo is taking another approach that includes court sessions and courting Prince Harry.

Uber and Hailo in NYC

Even though Hailo and Uber are similar in allowing customers to use their respective apps to hail yellow cabs in New York City, the startups have reacted very differently to the TRO.

Uber spokesperson Matt Mittenthal declined to comment to Skift’s inquiry, but he did note that its competitor, Hailo, “is also operating at the moment under the same conditions.”

Hailo continues to aggressively pursue its entrance into the New York City market. The startup sent out an email on May 10 asking early Hailo Beta testers to “Tweet a pic of your first ride and tag it with #SaveOurSoles to score five Beta invites to share with your friends.”

It announced its open Beta via email on May 14 and tweeted a picture of Prince Harry receiving a brief tutorial of the app from co-founder Russell Hall the next day.

Hailo co-founder Russ showed Prince Harry how to use Hailo to get home after a big night at the @uktiusa Tech event: hailo.to/l4naQ

— HailoNYC (@HailoNYC) May 15, 2013

Hailo heads to court

Hailo CEO and co-founder Jay Bregman went to court on May 6 to argue that the startup doesn’t need a pilot program to run in New York.

Bregman’s affidavit (embedded below) estimates that Hailo is losing some $18,000 every day that the Pilot Program remains ordained. He also said that several of Hailo’s key employees have deferred payment, and six city launches have been delayed as a result of the changing situation in New York.

Bregman tells Skift, “The TRO enjoins the Pilot Program, not Hailo. In fact, we specifically went to court to clarify that point and the judge said unequivocally we were not affected by her ruling. The City has consistently maintained that absent the Pilot program e-hailing is legal – that there are no rules or laws preventing it.”

Stance of the Taxi & Limousine Commission

As Bregman points out in the affidavit, the Taxi & Limousine Commission‘s approval of the Pilot Program is key to eliciting cab drivers’ participation.

“It is apparent that many taxi drivers are wary of using e-hail applications without the express endorsement of the TLC, which is now tied to the fate of the Pilot Program,” Bregman writes in the affidavit.

TLC Commissioner David Yassky was bullish on the eventual success for the pilot program even after the pilot program was cut short.

Yassky is quoted as saying “The Supreme Court was absolutely right that taxi-hailing apps are not only good for the riding public, but perfectly legal as well.  It is appalling that narrow commercial interests continue to try to block passengers from using the latest technology….We’re confident this program will move forward.”

The Taxi & Limousine Commission; however, has been less forthcoming about its current position since the pilot program block.

The TLC was scheduled to meet on May 16, and although the meeting was ultimately cancelled, the e-hail app program was not on the agenda.

“I don’t expect it to be relevant to this meeting, other than a mention of the TRO during the chair’s report at the start of the meeting,” TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg responded in an inquiry from Skift.

New York City’s statement

The quotes captured from what appears to be New York City’s main spokesperson on the topic over the last three weeks make it difficult to deem the city’s official stance on the issue.

On May 1, the TLC cites Michelle Goldberg-Cahn, Senior Counsel of the NYC Law Department as saying, ”It’s unfortunate that taxi riders will not be able to continue to test this innovative tool for hailing taxis.”

One week later, Goldberg-Cahn confirmed in a statement to the New York Daily News, “There are no regulations that prevent e-hailing per se.”

When Skift asked TLC spokesman Fromberg on May 14 if Uber or Hailo were allowed to operate outside of the pilot program, he could only reply:

From City attorney (Senior Counsel) Michelle Goldberg-Cahn: “The City is fully complying with the TRO.”

The fate of New York City’s e-hail apps is still pending, but we could have an answer by Monday evening.

A final decision on whether the restraining order will stand or be appealed will be issued on May 20 when a full panel of Appellate Division judges decides on the petitioners’ motion for an injunction.

Below is the affidavit of Jay Bregman, CEO and co-founder of Hailo, which outlines the impact of the pilot program’s delay on the plausibility of an eventual launch.

Download (PDF, 1.89MB)

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Larry Page, Google's co-founder and chief executive, seemed an exception to the rule when he went Google Glass-less during the keynote presentation at Google I/O 2013 in San Francisco, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. Jeff Chiu

The future came crashing down on me this week at the Google I/O developer conference while I stood at a bathroom urinal.

I had just wrapped up a conversation with a man who owned a pair of Google’s Internet-connected glasses, Google Glass. He had explained that one of the gadget’s greatest features is the ability to snap a photo with a wink. “It’s amazing, you just look at something, wink your eye and it just takes a picture,” he said enthusiastically.

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But what about the submarines and the tricycles and the backpacks? At Google I/O this week, the company showed off the collection of off-road gear it uses to map the places the cars can’t go.

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Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions calls its small shops the "original boutiques" in its new ad. Screenshot / YouTube

Trave ads seek to inspire and excite viewers into booking a trip. The methods used to elicit such sentiments include fast-paced music, flashy images, and emotional voiceovers; and ultimately they aim to convince viewers that a better time is just a plane ride away.

This week Holland defends its traditional way of life as the ‘original cool,’ while Thomson revamps its brand with a free running routine. Portland takes its time to convince viewers that it never settles for boring and an Italian tour company pushes food and wine instead of its services.

FOR ALL OF OUR SKIFTADS OF THE WEEK COLLECTION, CHECK OUT OUR ARCHIVES HERE.

Holland appeals to Americans’ inner hipster with a new multi-year campaign. The ad scoffs at Brooklyn, stating that it doesn’t consider its meals as artisanal or its small shops as boutiques because that’s the way they’ve always been in Amsterdam.  The ad quickly became one of the most watched videos on YouTube this week and one of the top videos on Reddit video after its debut on Tuesday.

Holland, The Original Cool was created by New York-based Mustache with sponsorship from the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions, Amsterdam Schipol Airport, KLM, and Amsterdam Marketing.

Thomson Holidays uses the freerunning trend to take viewers through one of its cruise ships at high speed. Freerunning team 3RUN stars in the campaign that’s meant to rebrand Thomson Cruises with a more contemporary, youthful image. The ship shown is the Thomson Dream, which just went underwent a multi-million pound makeover.

Travel Portland‘s new tourism campaign is too heavy on the text and too light on images that show what truly makes Portland unique. Images of Portland’s serene shoreline, biggest brands including Colombia and Nike, and famous Voodoo Doughnut shop are mixed in with generic shots of wine glasses and restaurants. At two minutes long, the video could afford to cut some length for a more direct and powerful campaign.

This new ad for Roman tour company Carrani does as much to draw tourists to Italy as it does to convince them to choose the established brand’s services. The video seamlessly connects the brand with the city’s finest food, people, and architecture. Italian videographer Gabriele Rivoli created the video.

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A poster in Penn Station from when Amtrak first rolled out Wi-Fi and started advertising to business travelers. David Goehring / Flickr

Coming soon on Amtrak: fewer excuses to not work while commuting.

The national railroad, which operates 21,000 route miles, is upgrading its Wi-Fi service to 4G on many routes across the country. Amtrak says the aim is to offer increased wireless speeds and greater reliability.

Hopefully, this will enable a wider set of online features for train travelers. According to Amtrak’s site, its current Wi-Fi service does not allow for “high-bandwidth actions such as streaming music, streaming video or downloading large files.”

Implementation of the upgrades has begun on the Acela Express line that goes from Boston to Washington D.C., and will eventually be installed on other routes, Amtrak says.

Currently, the service is free for passengers. No word on whether that will change.

Amtrak also announced it lost less money in 2012. Chief Executive Joe Boardman said Thursday the system’s cash operating loss for the year was $361 million, a drop of 19% from the previous year and the smallest loss for the system since 1975.

(c)2013 the Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services.

Download (PDF, 69KB)

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Flyers are belted in and ready for takeoff on Ryanair. Nicola Albertini / Flickr

Ryanair is weighing options for on-board passenger wi-fi, with firms including US-based LiveTV having pitched solutions to the carrier, the IrishIndependent has learned.

The airline has been reluctant so far to roll out an in-flight wi-fi system because it would need to justify the installation cost with the return it might generate.

The airline could eventually plump for a solution that would offer full internet access, or a ‘closed circuit’ style offering that would allow passengers to use their own smartphones, laptops or computer tablets to pay for access to a large library of content such as movies or TV shows.

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Controllers and pilots aren’t using their cellphones to text, even though many passengers now do using apps and in-flight Wi-Fi. Instead, planes with modern cockpit systems can log on to new systems at air-traffic control centers and link digitally. Rather than sometimes difficult radio calls, pilots and controllers simply send each other text messages to change altitudes, routes and hand off from one controller to the next.

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TripIt Pro's new Seat Tracker feature sends notifications when an airline seat becomes available that matches your preferences. / TripIt

TripIt made good on its pledge and released a Seat Tracker feature in its premium TripIt Pro product.

Subscribers to the $49 per year TripIt Pro service can share their itineraries, identify their seat preferences (window or aisle, front or back of cabin, exit row or bulkhead), and then Seat Tracker alerts travelers when a seat more aligned with their preferences becomes available.

The feature also enables travelers to opt for economy, premium economy, business or first class, and they choose groups of seats, as many as four together.

Seat Tracker will be available through TripIt’s mobile offerings “in the coming weeks,” the company says, and is accessible via the desktop already.

TripIt, a unit of Concur, has been trying to make TripIt Pro more attractive in light of the fact that Delta, United, and American no longer — and in the case of Southwest, never — allow access to frequent flyer mileage-tracking apps such as TripIt Pro.

However, TripIt Pro organizes itineraries (as does the free version of TripIt), provides automated point-tracking of other airlines, and offers fare-tracking, gate-change notifications, and alerts about delays and cancellations.

TripIt says Seat Tracker edges users closer to “the perfect trip” because passengers can secure preferred seats “before anyone else on your flight.”

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A man shows off one of the original versions of Google Maps at a dinner in Hong Kong. Lai Ryanne / Flickr

At its annual developer conference yesterday, Google announced a complete overhaul of its maps. Among other things, changes include a cleaner interface, integrated Google Earth, and maps that learn as you use them. If you search for a curry, it will suggest other South Asian restaurants. If you’re friends with lots of people who visit libraries, it may direct you to book stores. With all the data Google collects across its various services, it has a pretty good idea of who you are. Now it will use that information in its maps.

That probably sounds pretty creepy in a “Google’s using my data and telling me what it thinks I want again” sort of way. But it is the opposite of insidious. It is honest. And it fixes the one thing that has always been wrong with maps.

Maps are generally seen as neutral objects, like chemistry formulae or mathematical equations. But they are about as impartial as journalism. It is the illusion of neutrality that gives a map its power. Every aspect of a map, from its scale and the area covered (which are related) to the features it leaves out is a deliberate choice on the part of the agency making it. The most obvious example is deciding where to put a border. But even maps that present physical features, shipping routes or climatic conditions involve decisions on the part of the cartographer. Maps present a point of view.

Digital cartography solved some of the problems imposed by practical limitations. A zoomable map on a screen need not present a choice between scale and size. The same screen can accommodate a single street and an entire country.

But other problems remained. Is the hot dog vendor who stands on a street corner as worthy of inclusion as the bank on the same corner? That decision still lay with mapmakers—in this case a giant internet company. Google’s solution to the problem was to remove itself from the equation. Its map maker tool, much lauded for its use in creating usable maps of North Korea and now slowly being rolled out in other countries, allows users to mark locations in a Wikipedia-like fashion.

The new product goes further. It says on the tin that this is map is made for you: “a billion maps, one for each user,” as Google’s lead map designer, Jonah Jones, told TechCruch. What about advertising? Of course Google will use your information to serve you ads. That is what it does. And as on other Google products, ads will be clearly marked.

The idea of “mental maps,” or how individuals see the world, is an old one, used by artists and ethnographers and New Yorker cover designers. What Google has done is to bring the mental map to a service used by several million people. With one for every user, maps can never again lay claim to—or even give the illusion of—neutrality. Despite its restrictive nature, such a map frees us to see the world anew.

This story originally appeared on Quartz, a Skift content partner.

Additional links from Quartz:

• Budget carrier AirAsia X plans a $300 million IPO as Asia Pacific emerges as the world’s biggest air travel market
• Macau’s casinos get family friendly as ‘tough cop’ arrives from Beijing
• Pretty soon all airlines in Europe will look the same

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Choice Hotels‘ tech team has identified three tech trends it hopes to capitalize on in the next few years: cloud-based technology, mobile and big data.

• Having Choice’s property management system housed in the cloud–which [it] says is the first of its kind–means owners and managers can access a property’s performance data from anywhere at any time.
• Choice…was the first hotel brand to roll out a smartphone app…Mobile booking business was up 200% in 2012 and now represents 13% of Choice’s total online revenue.
• Big data is about finding new insights about the guest, drawing conclusions instantly and then creating action items based on those findings.

Related: Choice Hotels forms division to sell its technology to rivals

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