Taxi riders, and their drivers, may soon have one fewer annoyance during their trip.

An overhaul of both the backseat monitor and the driver's dashboard screen that has been in the works for the past two years has begun its official rollout, Curb announced on Thursday.

The best news may be that the innovations include doing away with the 12-minute tape loops that the Taxi and Limousine Commission began requiring cab operators to run during the Bloomberg administration.

"The TLC was very specific about what had to be on the screen," said Jason Gross, Curb's vice president of mobile. Recent rule changes "allow us to be more flexible with the passenger experience."

Passengers will face a 10-inch tablet in which the video-player—still programmed by NBC Stations, which has renewed its partnership with the company—can be minimized to make room for a map. The screen will also show a running tally of the fare, and allow for mobile payment through the Curb app.

Eventually, Curb expects riders to be able to search for restaurants, make reservations and check news and stock prices.

"You'll have a much more controllable experience," Gross said. And with the devices running on an Android platform, "we'll be opening them up for people to build applications."

The possibilities include "making calls on the tablet or syncing your Pandora or Spotify account and listening to music," he said.

Up front, drivers are getting a new digital meter on a tablet that also provides GPS navigation, traffic information and an emergency panic button. Heat maps will direct them to neighborhoods where they're more likely to find fares.

By the end of the summer, new TLC rules will allow the Curb app to offer dynamic pricing—a flat, upfront fare to the rider's destination that will be cheaper in times of low demand. The feature could make taxis more competitive with e-hail services like Uber.

Curb, which was formerly part of Verifone, operates the technology inside half of the city's 13,587 taxis and 80% of its green cabs, for a total of about 13,000 cabs, the company said.