Silvercar makes business trips easier. One of the more annoying parts of a quick business trip is the hassle of dealing with renting a car. It's expensive. There are hidden fees. It takes forever. SIlvercar, which just raised money from Michael Arrington and others, wants to make it simpler. It will rent just one kind of car, Audi A4s, and it will rent them to you through a mobile app. That's it.

Oyster is a Netflix/Spotify-for books. GigaOm reports that Peter Thiel has invested $3 million in a company called Oyster. Oyster will be a mobile app with its own library of books that consumers will pay a monthly subscription to get access to. The book industry is actually a kind of small industry with revenues in the tens of billions. Still, books have influence beyond their commercial value, so this is a pretty big deal.