Bits: Farhad and Mike’s Week in Tech: Get Ready for Robot Cars

In Arizona, the driver may not be behind the wheel. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, November 9, 2017 [For the latest updates, go to nytimes.com/bits »]( Get Ready for Robot Cars [Waymo has started testing self-driving cars on public roads in Arizona without human drivers behind the wheel.] Waymo has started testing self-driving cars on public roads in Arizona without human drivers behind the wheel. Caitlin O’Hara for The New York Times Each Friday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review [the week’s news]( offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Want this newsletter in your inbox? [Sign up here](. Mike: Howdy, Farhad! It’s the week after Halloween, which means I’ve got Christmas music on repeat in my head, but I’m trying my hardest to tune it out by thinking of other terrible songs. I never knew I could mash up Burl Ives and Skrillex so seamlessly! Farhad: Wow, Mike, I had no idea you were so festive. I pictured you spending the holidays scowling at the tree, listening to nothing but 1990s grunge. Mike: No, that’s how I spend Easter. GET READY FOR WAYMO ROBOT CARS IN ARIZONA Mike: Anyway, let’s start with Waymo, the oddly named self-driving car offshoot that was spun out of Google, which is owned by Alphabet. (Ugh, what a mouthful.) Waymo had a milestone this week: The company has started testing self-driving cars on [public roads in Arizona without human drivers behind the wheel,]( a significant milestone in the world of autonomous vehicles. Typically, self-driving cars have an engineer or some such person sitting in the driver’s seat with hands hovering above the wheel, ready to take over at a moment’s notice in case something goes wrong. That’s how it was [when I “drove” Uber’s self-driving car]( last year, and that’s pretty much the case for all other autonomous vehicles being tested on public roads. So even though it’s only happening in Arizona, this is a big deal. Waymo is clearly leading the pack in the race to produce self-driving cars, which makes sense because of Google’s multiyear head start in the space. Would you be comfortable being carted around in a self-driving car? I was, but perhaps I’m just used to it since it’s one of the main topics I write about. Farhad: Because I live right near Waymo’s headquarters, this is all old hat for me. I see the company’s cars — including the old panda-shaped ones that lack a steering wheel — every morning during my commute. I’d have no problem riding in one, but I hope Arizonans know that it’s very annoying to share the road with these robot cars. They’re slow! They follow the speed limit, they take ages changing lanes and they have a frustrating habit of obeying every single rule of the road. Ugh, live a little, robot car — STOP is just a suggestion, not some kind of law. Mike: Yes, well, don’t throw away your driver’s license quite yet. Or maybe do. AT&T’S MEGADEAL HITS A BUMP Mike: Moving on, a bigger piece of telecom and media news. This week, our DealBook team scooped that the Department of Justice under the Trump administration is pushing Time Warner and [AT&T to sell off Turner Broadcasting Company, which owns CNN, or DirecTV]( as a condition of a negotiated merger that has long been in the works. It’s a huge ask, and hard to see how it’s not politically motivated. As we all well know, President Trump is no fan of CNN. Also, I’m curious to know what legal grounds the D.O.J. would use to block a merger of this size. Farhad: The move makes for complicated politics. On the one hand, many liberals who are growing wary of ever-larger corporations might agree with the federal government putting stringent conditions on this deal. And yet it’s hard to tell if these conditions are legitimate, or if they’re being imposed to please a president who has repeatedly vowed to go after businesses that haven’t toed his line. I wonder how this sort of thing affects liberals’ efforts to police big tech. In a speech this week, [Senator Al Franken called for greater regulations on tech giants](. Trump has suggested some affinity for that stance; during the campaign, Trump often said that The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon’s C.E.O., Jeff Bezos, was covering him critically because Amazon was worried that Trump would start antitrust proceedings against the company. Now, imagine if something like that happens — would the left cheer Trump, or would they side with Amazon? I truly wonder. Mike: Right, well, we all saw how well the [last huge Time Warner merger went]( so let’s hope this one goes better! Oh, I wanted to note a fantastic story from The New York Times Magazine this week, basically on the opacity of Facebook’s algorithms and how its [advertising can be so effective at targeting small groups of users]( that some start-ups are spending all their cash there and nowhere else. It’s like Russia and the 2016 election, but for brands! IS FACEBOOK RUINING OUR LIVES? Farhad: Speaking of Facebook, there was a startling admission this week by Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder and former Facebook executive (played by Justin Timberlake in “The Social Network”). In an interview with Axios’s Mike Allen, Parker said that he’d become a “conscientious objector” on social media, which he said had been built to addict us all. “It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways,” he said. “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.” Watch for more of this. More and more people both in and out of Silicon Valley are worried about the long-term psychological effects of our digital age. I worry about you especially, Mike. Mike: Too busy looking at Twitter. Actually, the last thing I wanted to note: Will.i.am, the hip-hop artist and self-styled tech evangelist, has raised another [$100 million in venture capital.]( He started on wearables and gadgets, and has pivoted to work on chatbots and devices like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. So what do you think? Is Will.i.am the next Steve Jobs? Does raising venture capital actually require anything more than a hodgepodge of vague ideas and a series of pivots? What even is capitalism anymore? Farhad: I really don’t get it. We live in a world where anyone who’s made it constantly gets showered with more and more money regardless of whether they’re doing anything useful. Mike, when do we get to cash in? Mike: Never. Anyway, see you next week! Farhad: Bye! Farhad Manjoo writes a weekly technology column called [State of the Art](. Mike Isaac covers Facebook, Uber and Twitter. You can follow them on Twitter here: [@fmanjoo]( and [@MikeIsaac]( ADVERTISEMENT In Case You Missed It [China’s Technology Ambitions Could Upset the Global Trade Order]( By JANE PERLEZ, PAUL MOZUR AND JONATHAN ANSFIELD China is gleaning know-how from foreign firms, willing or otherwise, to build the industries of the future, in an effort that worries companies and Washington. State of the Art [Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why.]( By FARHAD MANJOO As the world’s moneyed princes, dictators and oligarchs look for more places to park their billions, mountains of money may be coming to Silicon Valley. The Shift [YouTube’s Rapid Response Partisans Game the News of Tragedy]( By KEVIN ROOSE A community of internet talking heads gets their fact-challenged messages across by working fast after events like the church massacre in Texas. 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[Tweeting in 280 Characters? Now You Can Do It, Too]( By MIKE ISAAC The social media service is doubling its character limit for almost all users, a major change that it hopes will spur more activity across Twitter. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [bits_newsletter@nytimes.com](mailto:bits_newsletter@nytimes.com?subject=Bits%20Newsletter%20Feedback%20223). ADVERTISEMENT LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. [The All-New DealBook Newsletter]( Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them. [( FOLLOW BITS [Twitter] [@nytimesbits]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Bits newsletter. 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