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Uber’s robot cars drove themselves more than 20,000 miles last week, but internal company metrics show that “safety drivers” — human ones — still have to intervene more often than Uber would like.
Spotify is closing in on licensing deals with the world’s largest record labels, hoping to clear a hurdle in its path toward an IPO. Music companies have agreed to trim the royalty fees Spotify pays for their songs, while the streaming service would restrict the biggest album releases — by the likes of Taylor Swift — to its paid tier for a period of time.
[Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times]
Trump’s bloodbath budget is bad news for medical and science research. Not only does the preliminary plan slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, the president is also proposing cuts to the National Institutes of Health, one of the biggest funders of biomedical research in the world.
[Angela Chen and Alessandra Potenza / The Verge]
Why didn't Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon join the new anti-travel-ban legal brief that was signed by more than 50 tech companies? They all signed a version of the amicus document aimed at the first ban, a month ago.
Google is deploying its army of 10,000 content-monitoring contractors to flag “fake news” and content that might come across as “upsetting or offensive,” in an attempt to improve the quality of its search results.
Can technology read your mind? Yes, says entrepreneur Mary Lou Jepsen, a former executive at Google and Facebook who is now the CEO of Opnwatr. On the latest Too Embarrassed to Ask podcast, recorded in front of a live audience at South by Southwest, Jepsen talked with Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode about her career, what’s next and the privacy implications of Opnwatr’s “wearable MRI” plans.
Top stories from Recode
Canada passed new laws making it even harder to fly drones for fun
The new rules are more restrictive than in the U.S., and violating them could result in a $3,000 (Canadian) fine.
Sony’s March Madness ‘boss button’ is an online ad that works
Branded content you actually want to see.
Jessica Alba’s Honest Company is replacing its CEO after a sale to Unilever fell through
Clorox executive Nick Vlahos is the new chief executive.
YouTube’s employees are now almost a third women
The company has made gains since Susan Wojcicki joined as CEO.
Full video: Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron at Code Media
“We’re not at war with the administration, we’re at work.”
This is cool
Here’s the first trailer for the final season of dark end-of-days drama “The Leftovers,” which returns April 16 on HBO. [via Previously.TV]
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
