Recode Daily: The Uber in-app tipping era has arrived

Microsoft is cutting up to 3,000 jobs, most of them from its sales teams outside the U.S. The layoffs are part of a reorganization process that will see the software giant refocusing its efforts on the cloud. [Tom Warren / The Verge]

SoundCloud cut about 40 percent of its staff — 173 employees — and plans to close its offices in San Francisco and London to cut costs and stay independent. The music streaming service has struggled to compete against rivals Spotify and Apple. [Adam Satariano / Bloomberg]

Jawbone, a consumer electronics firm once valued at $3 billion, is going out of business. The San Francisco-based maker of wearable fitness trackers has begun liquidation proceedings; co-founder and CEO Hosain Rahman has founded a new company, Jawbone Health Hub, which will make health-related hardware and software services. [Lauren Goode and Chris Welch / The Verge]

Tech execs are already opening their wallets — even to the GOP — for the 2018 election. And even as they criticize President Trump’s agenda, Eric Schmidt, Elon Musk and other politically active Silicon Valley executives are backing Republican campaigns. [Tony Romm / Recode]

Uber finally made it possible for riders to tip drivers using the ride-hail service’s updated app. The changes, which rolled out to 100 U.S. and Canadian cities yesterday, also include a “pay for wait” program penalizing riders who make drivers wait more than two minutes. [Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge]

The much-anticipated new smartphone from Andy Rubin missed its self-imposed June shipping date. Rubin, known as the father of Android, unveiled the Essential phone at the Code Conference on May 30; Sprint says the device will debut “this year.” [Steve Kovach / Business Insider]

Top stories from Recode

Hulu is adding HBO just in time for “Game of Thrones.”

It’s not TV. It’s online.

How to use — and how to keep yourself hidden from — Snapchat’s new Maps feature.

Snap Maps is cool, but hard to find.

Google’s parent company is letting its geothermal energy startup, Dandelion, become an independent company.

Wait, Alphabet was working on geothermal energy?

The FAA is now refunding people who registered their drones.

The FAA may have collected over $4 million in drone registration fees.

Is there room for both Walmart and Amazon?

On the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, Kara Swisher and Jason Del Rey talk about Amazon and Walmart’s ongoing rivalry, which escalated recently with major acquisitions on both sides.

Click around the complex web of relationships as Detroit and Silicon Valley try to reinvent the car.

It’s early days, and it’s already complicated.

Get ready, the smart speaker market pioneered by Amazon’s Echo is about to get crowded.

It’s going to be fascinating to watch this market unfold, as it probably won’t follow any of the established patterns from other recent hot devices.

This is cool

You are what you post photos of

Instagram “influencers” have transformed eating from an activity into an aesthetic — and a source of revenue. [Amanda Mull / Eater]

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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