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Mark Zuckerberg acknowledges that there’s a darker, perhaps dangerous side to Facebook’s gargantuan influence, which has helped create a “right-wing echo chamber” and isolating “filter bubbles.” Zuckerberg has made a personal pledge to talk to people in every state of the U.S. by the end of the year; track his trek here. [Farhad Manjoo / The New York Times]
Uber is serious about flying cars: The company wants to demonstrate its network of what it calls "Vertical Take-Off and Landing Vehicles” in Dubai and Texas by 2020, and has already begun discussions with NASA and the National Air Traffic Control Association about “airspace management." [Johana Bhuiyan / Recode]
Self-driving-car startup Waymo is offering free rides in its fleet of 100 self-driving minivans to “early rider” residents of Phoenix, Ariz.; the company has ordered 500 more Chrysler Pacifica minivans for the fleet. Google has been operating self-driving cars on public roads for years; Uber started inviting riders to hail its autonomous cars in Pittsburgh last September. [Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge]
Boston Dynamics has been using a robot “dog” named Spot to deliver packages to employees’ homes in Boston. CEO Marc Raibert said his team is using 3-D printing to build lightweight robot parts, and described his latest robot — which can jump over hurdles and land on its wheeled feet — as “nightmare inducing.” [April Glaser / Recode]
Google says it will do a better job getting rid of fake news in search results. The company says 0.25 percent of queries return “offensive or clearly misleading” results. [Deepa Seetharaman / Wall Street Journal]
Marissa Mayer will make $187 million when Verizon buys Yahoo. Mayer, who will leave Yahoo when the transaction closes, made more than $200 million in other comp during her five-year tenure. [Vindu Goel/ New York Times]
Top stories from Recode
Robots are getting easier to control.
A new interface by researchers at Georgia Tech makes controlling a robot arm as easy as tapping a touchscreen.
The inventor of Siri says one day AI will be used to upload and access our memories.
Tom Gruber says AI memory enhancement is inevitable.
We’ve seen so many scary movies about robots, we can no longer be objective about them.
From “The Jetsons” cartoons to the “Terminator” movies, we all have preconceived notions about robotics.
Google is expanding its AdSense hate-speech policy.
More pages could be in hot water for disparaging content.
You’re more likely to buy from your phone when you’re commuting.
An excerpt from the new book “Tap: Unlocking the Mobile Economy.”
This is cool
With all this future talk, let’s not forget UFOs!
UFO sightings have more than tripled in the U.S. since 2001, and July is the busiest month for close encounters. You can find this data and more in the “UFO Sightings Desk Reference,” a 374-page summary of UFO-related charts and graphs. California, of course, leads the nation in UFO reports, more than Florida and Texas combined. [Ralph Blumenthal / New York Times]
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
