clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Recode Daily: Let’s go shopping at Amazon’s high-tech, cashier-free convenience store

Plus, publishers are figuring out how to feel about Facebook’s new News Feed algorithm; now they’re saying that more screen time is good for kids; and the best signs from Women’s Marches around the world.

Preparing food at the first location of Amazon Go.
Amazon

Amazon is launching its high-tech version of a 7-Eleven — no checkouts, no cashiers and no waiting. Called Amazon Go, the brick-and-mortar concept allows customers to grab items and just walk out without stopping to pay. Five years in the making, the first location opens this morning on the ground floor of Amazon’s new headquarters in Seattle. Here’s a photo tour of what could be the store of the future. [Jason Del Rey / Recode]

The federal government shut down on Saturday after the Senate was unable to pass a stopgap spending bill; lawmakers will restart negotiations today. If the government stays unfunded, hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed. The shutdown occurred on the first anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration; he skipped the celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort. On the same day, hundreds of thousands of women marched in cities around the world on the first anniversary of the largely anti-Trump Women’s March. [Nicholas Fandos and Thomas Kaplan / The New York Times]

Facebook will rank news publications by trustworthiness once its users tell them how to do it. It’s the second big announcement Facebok has made about its News Feed this month, and it raised questions and plenty of tart criticsm. Meanwhile, publishers are still trying to figure out what to make of Facebook’s earlier announcement that it was moving away from news. [Peter Kafka / Recode]

Twitter COO Anthony Noto is in talks to become CEO of finance startup SoFi, following Mike Cagney’s resignation after allegations of sexual harassment. One of Twitter’s most important executives, Noto has been the architect for the company’s big strategic push into live video programming; he landed the 2016 deal with the NFL to stream “Thursday Night Football” games. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

Limiting kids’ access to smartphones, tablets and computers is so 2017. Some educators and researchers are now starting to say that children could benefit from spending more time with screens. New guidance calls for monitoring varieties of interaction, favoring “active” time and creative pursuits over “passive” experiences like watching hours of video. [Christopher Mims / The Wall Street Journal]

Here’s one internet-spawned thing that is unquestionably still bad for kids: The Tide Pods online challenge, in which teens dare each other to eat the candy-colored detergent pods and then post the gross reaction. Procter & Gamble launched a preventative safety campaign last week; here’s what happens if you eat a detergent pod. [Imami Moise and Sharon Terlep / The Wall Street Journal]

The internet is making lots of kids into instant celebrities — and they’re getting paid. Platforms like Musical.ly, Instagram, YouTube, YouNow and Periscope allow anyone with a phone and internet access to build an audience. But parents are faced with mastering new social media and video platforms, dealing with shady agents, defending the physical safety of their newly rich kids and just trying to make sense of their unprecedented fame. [Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic]

Top stories from Recode

Watch “Saturday Night Live” parody Jeff Bezos’s search for Amazon’s HQ2.

“Alexa, send in the next city.”

The New York Times’ stock jumped following Facebook’s “trustworthy” news announcement.

All the news that’s fit to post.

Mark Zuckerberg is “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” says author Andrew Keen.

On the latest Recode Decode, Keen says the Facebook CEO’s latest reforms to the News Feed are not anough, and that he should come up with “radical solutions.”

This is cool

The best signs from the 2018 Women’s Marches around the world.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for Vox Recommends

Get curated picks of the best Vox journalism to read, watch, and listen to every week, from our editors.