You may have heard that two self-driving cars had a "close call" on a California road this week. Don't be alarmed.
One of Google's self-driving Lexus RX450h's (incorrectly reported as a RX400h) cut in front of an Audi Q5 equipped with Delphi's self-driving technology on the streets of Palo Alto, California, Reuters reported. It characterized the incident as a "close call," but representatives for the companies say it was simply normal, everyday driving. Delphi's Audi was attempting a lane change at the time of the encounter.
SEE ALSO: Get out of the driver's seat, human
"Our car saw the Google car move into the same lane as our car was planning to move into, but upon detecting that the lane was no longer open it decided to terminate the move and wait until it was clear again," a Delphi representative told Mashable in an email.
"Our car did exactly what it was supposed to."
"Our car did exactly what it was supposed to."
The report came about when a Delphi executive visited a Reuters office and described the scenario to a reporter as an example of "an actual interaction that we encounter all the time in real-world driving situations," according to the company.
"The headline here is that two self-driving cars did what they were supposed to do in an ordinary everyday driving scenario — one car yielded to another," a Google spokesperson toldMashable.
In an email sent to Mashable a company spokesperson said "Reuters stands by the accuracy of its story."
The incident comes just weeks after Google launched a website with the aim of educating the public about its self-driving car research. Google is now issuing monthly reports on any accidents that have occurred involving its self-driving cars.
Since starting the program in 2009, Google's cars have been involved in 12 accidents, none of which were the fault of the autonomous cars, according to a May 2015 report conducted by Google. The report also notes that the company averages around 10,000 miles of testing per week on public roads.
6 tech companies whose gay marriage policies were way ahead of the Supreme Court
Balloons spell out the word "love" over the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday June 26, 2015, after the court declared that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the US.
Few technology companies needed to wait for the Supreme Court to approve gay marriage to put policies in place that are friendly to gay employees.
In California, one of the most progressive states, gay partnerships are so long-standing that major tech companies even created affectionate nicknames for their gay employee affinity groups, like "Squeers" at Square and "Gayglers" at Google.
For all the criticisms one might direct at Silicon Valley — startups skirting regulations, pushing the limits of user privacy and showing lackluster results on employee diversity — many of these businesses have been early and decisive in providing fair benefits to LGBT workers, setting a precedent for other corporations.
"The technology sector has always been pretty advanced, in large part because of geography," says Todd Solomon, a partner at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery, who works with public and private businesses on employee benefit programs.
These tech companies have had LGBT policies in place for a long time.
Apple began offering health insurance benefits to same sex domestic partners more than two decades ago, making it one of the earliest companies to do so at a time when the political and social climate was largely against gay rights. Microsoft, too, was one of the first companies to prohibit discrimination of workers based on sexual orientation.
Google, Twitter, Airbnb and other prominent technology businesses have follow in this tradition, by promoting the rights of LGBT Americans inside and outside their companies. Some continue to operate at the "cutting edge," according to Solomon, by introducing policies like covering the surgical costs for transgender employees to transition from male to female, or vice versa.
Here are some of the companies that didn't need federal permission to give gay employees equal rights.
IMAGE: GOOGLE
Google
Google is one of the trendsetters in LGBT-friendly policies for workers.
In 2011, Google became one of the first businesses to cover the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender employees. The Internet giant also gives employees 12 weeks of parental leave, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
"Google supports our LGBT employees in a number of ways — in taking a stand on matters of policy, putting programs in place that support Gayglers and their families, and hosting events around the world to continue the discussion on equality," a spokesperson for Google said in a statement provided to Mashable.
And yes, you read that statement right: "Gayglers" is a group for LGBT employees at Google, which participates in Pride marches, helps to brainstorm and inform workplace policies and ultimately moves Google closer toward its goal of addressing unconscious bias and building a more inclusive community.
The group's influence has won kudos from its members, including Shwetha Pai, who told a magazine, "Before all this, I could never have imagined speaking to senior management about LGBT issues or how important it is for managers to be sensitive and inclusive. I’ve also been able to come out beyond the office. I write a weekly column and my colleagues and I have begun to speak to the media about some of the challenges we face as LGBT individuals."
The Gaygler logo
Twitter
Like Google, Twitter covers the cost of gender reassignment surgery for employees. The social networking company also provides equivalent medical benefits for same and different sex partners of employees.
Back in 2006, the year Twitter launched, it created a group for LGBT employees called Twitter Open. The group, which has a bustling, activist Twitter feed, became an official employee resource group within Twitter earlier this year. It promotes LGBT issues, screens important films, and supports events like an AIDS walk.
Square
The payment startup provides domestic partners with the same benefits — health insurance, vision and dental coverage — as married full-time employees. All employees are eligible for as much as four months of paid parental leave, regardless of whether it's their biological child or an adopted or foster child.
Square employees have also organized a monthly meetup group called Squeers — not to be confused with Gayglers.
Apple
Apple has long offered equal benefits to same sex partners of employees, including perks like six weeks of parental leave after the delivery of a new child.
"This is a momentous step forward for equality and fundamental human rights in the United States," a spokesperson for Apple said in a statement about Friday's Supreme Court decision "We could not be happier for our employees, customers and people all over America who now have the right to marry the one they love.”
Airbnb
Airbnb, the travel giant reportedly close to receiving a $24 billion valuation, has offered full healthcare coverage to same sex partners since its founding in 2008. The startup also provides 10 weeks paid parent leave to all parents and, like Google and Twitter, covers the cost of transition surgery for transgender employees.
Netflix
Netflix has provided same sex employees full access to employee benefits for more than a decade, according to a rep.
There are many more tech companies all over Silicon Valley and all over the United States who have similarly forward-looking policies. At these companies, they're just glad the Supreme Court finally caught up.
The Cannes Lion festival, a gathering of the global advertising industry, took a tragic turn this week.
A Google executive died in an accident during the ongoing weeklong event, according to the company. Google has declined to release the executive's name or details of the incident out of respect for the family, which is traveling to France.
“We lost a loved and respected member of our team,” a spokesperson for Google said in a statement provided to Mashable. “We are deeply saddened and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Business Insider reports the executive was a man who worked on Google's marketing team. He is believed to have been hit by a car.
This marks the second unexpected death of a Google executive in as many months. Dan Fredinburg, an adventurous spirit and head of privacy for Google X, died after an avalanche on Mount Everest caused by a devastating earthquake in Nepal in late April.
The Internet works best for most people when it's frictionless: skipping from site to site like a stone flipping easily on water, with no pop-ups, no ads, no videos that play automatically. Aaaah, pure, easy scrolling and clicking.
Here's some bad news: that's not the Internet we'll ever have.
The Internet has to be paid for — with subscriptions, paywalls and many, many different types of advertising.
That, in turn, means pop-ups, pre-roll video ads on YouTube, and videos that automatically start blaring music as you're checking your Facebook status updates.
Here's where it gets interesting: Apple, the biggest company in America, is taking sides against the companies that want you to click on their ads, watch their videos and subscribe to their newsletters. The push-and-pull is coming to a head now that the biggest company in America is picking sides.
Apple revealed next version of the company's mobile Safari browser will support third-party adblocking extensions and grant them a "fast and efficient way to block cookies, images, resources, pop-ups, and other content," according to an excerpt from its developer guide, unearthed by Nieman Lab.
SEE ALSO: We've hit the peak of 'free' on the Internet. It's time to pay up.
For those who make their livelihood turning clicks into cash, the news was unsettling.
Advertising dollars are the lifeblood of the free Internet — they are the primary sustenance for every site from social media titans to scrappy blogs.
And as web users increasingly favor smartphones and tablets over desktops, the prospect of an off-switch just a finger tap away is worrisome especially for news organizations, which are staying alive by selling space on their websites to big companies.
The infinite ease of blocking ads
Once the province of a small, dedicated core of code-savvy web surfers, ad-blocking software has gained more mainstream traction in the past couple years, egged on by more widespread availability and unease over the ever-growing array of trackers and cookies that follow users from site to site.
Most major media websites have dozens of built-in trackers.
IMAGE: SCREENSHOT
A 2014 report found people browsing the Internet used ad-blocking software 70% more often than the year before, and around 41% of the 18-to 29-year-olds surveyed had it installed.
But on your smartphone — as you've not doubt noticed — all these ads come right at you.
At least, they did before Apple got involved.
Apple changes the mobile Internet
Apple may have the power to change that: Safari still sees the lion's share of all U.S. mobile and tablet traffic, though Google Chrome is slightly gaining on it, according to Stat Counter.
Apple's role as a gatekeeper of advertising could be problematic.
It's not impossible to envision a scenario where Apple positions its muscle to serve as a floodgate for which content reaches the masses, by whitelisting certain ads. It could also force news organizations onto Apple-owned or Apple-approved apps, says Scott Cunningham, general manager of the Internet Advertising Bureau's tech lab.
To be clear, most users won't likely be bothered enough to take the time to add a blocker, experts say — even if the fix is as quick as a simple app download. People just sigh and click out.
"Many consumers cite concerns about privacy, ad annoyance and the like but don't proactively take-steps to safegaurd themselves until there has been a 'breach,'" Jennifer Wise, a digital marketing analyst at Forrester Research, said in an email.
That said, ads that bog down site loading speeds or clutter a page can easily push users over the edge.
Faced with that constant threat, advertisers would do well to stick to leaner, less intrusive ads. But the struggle is always for more and more attention.
Control of the floodgates
Facebook, Google and big social networks dominate the ads and commercials you see on your smartphone. Everyone else is struggling for small pieces of the business.
"Right now, there are very few media companies that have had any success selling mobile advertising," says Mediaradar CEO Todd Krizelman. "It's not that Apple is going to somehow chokehold advertisers on mobile — there's not enough of it to choke."
At the The New York Times, for example, mobile drives about half its traffic but only about 10% of its digital ads revenue, according to Nieman Lab.
And that's where Apple could pounce.
Apple has a business called iAds. A series of recent business plays suggest Apple is set on breathing new life into its mobile ad platform and gunning for Google.
It's an uphill battle. While rival Google's mammoth advertising business accounts for around 90% of its revenue, iAd profits are barely a footnote on Apple's balance sheet, the overwhelming majority of which is focused on hardware sales.
By eMarketer's estimate, iAds command only about 2.6% of U.S. mobile ad revenues — a far cry from the 50% market share that Steve Jobs ambitiously boasted it would secure when the division launched five years ago.
Here's where Apple's iAds get interesting: the ads, which run only within its approved iOS apps, are shielded from any blockers.
Apple power
Apple's power comes not just from the millions of people who use its devices, but also the information it could collect on them. That kind of information is powerful to advertisers, who are always looking for ways to target their products as specifically as possible.
Apple is making that easier by taking iAd more specific with personal information, including amassive expansion that brought the platform to more than 75 new countries. Through iAd, marketers will soon be able to send messages to customers in Apple Wallet, target by user tastes in the News app and break up songs with commercials in Apple's subscription music streaming service.
On Thursday, Apple secured a patent for a viral advertising platform that can track content across email, texts and social networks and store users' phone numbers, email addresses and other personal data.
The move jibes with a report from The Information earlier this year that Apple plans to open up user personal data to third-party advertisers for audience targeting.
If true, the plan seems to stand in stark contrast to the high-minded privacy standards that CEO Tim Cook preaches in public.
"Some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information," Cook said in a recent Washington D.C. speech.
"They're gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that's wrong."
"They're gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that's wrong."
Apple will have to confront those principles as it moves into a bigger place in the advertising business, and it will have to answer user questions about how their information is being distributed. Some may think that's too high a price to pay to block a few ads.
Uh oh. Looks like Google's newest program found Uncle Jerry's stash of LSD and Grateful Dead tapes.
Well, not quite: Google programmed one of its artificial neural networks, usually used for image recognition for its Reverse Image Search, to create these trippy images.
SEE ALSO: Newt Gingrich reviews the Apple Watch
As detailed in a post on Google's Research Blog, the neural networks are programed to recognize certain features in images, which is what makes reverse image searching possible.
The software can then be programmed to highlight what it interprets to be the main feature of an image and "amplify" it.
The software can then be programmed to highlight what it interprets to be the main feature of an image and "amplify" it.
Doing this makes a feedback loop where the network recognizes, to use Google's example, a bird in a picture of clouds, making the clouds more and more like a bird with each successive pass.
IMAGE: GOOGLE
Google also gave the networks abstract "noise" images which the networks turned into wild imagery the company is calling "dreams." Yes, apparently now computers can dream.
Some interesting patterns emerged as Google played with this more and more. For example, the network would routinely turn plants into birds and insects and trees into buildings and horizons into towers and pagodas. It would also generate images of dumbbells with arms attached, because apparently most pictures of dumbbells feature an arm lifting them.
IMAGE: GOOGLE
Essentially, Google made a software that does the exact same thing you do when you're staring at clouds
Essentially, Google made a software that does the exact same thing you do when you're staring at clouds or at pictures, except it turns those daydreams into wild artwork.
Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, interpreted by Google's software
