A report from The Information Tuesday paints a bleak picture out of Phoenix, Arizona, where Waymo is headquartered and seems to be experiencing glitches with its autonomous vehicles.
Merging into highway traffic, navigating around groups of people, turning left — these are just a few of the hurdles facing Waymo’s fleet of Chrysler Pacifica minivans that the company is hoping to turn into a fully autonomous taxi service.
The minivans often drive in the center of wide roads and stop for a full three seconds at stop signs, habits that aren’t popular among some local residents. At least a dozen people told The Information, “I hate them.”
This is in contrast with recent messaging from Waymo and other outlets: Ellice Perez, Waymo’s head of operations, posted a brief, behind-the-scenes glance of Waymo’s process on Medium showing a factory “buzzing with teams,” and Bloomberg took a ride with a teenager who commutes to school in a Waymo van.
These problems are what’s kept other startups and self-driving programs from pushing such ambitious launch dates. GM’s Cruise project is set for 2019, and Ford’s is way out in 2021.
For full autonomy, known as Level 5, researchers and experts expect that it will take tech and car firms more time to test and improve their self-driving technology. That’s why companies such as Tesla have focused on more semi-autonomous features — Level 2 self-driving skills are more attainable with an alert human ready to take over.
And within the next step of autonomy — Level 3 — there’s this murky question of whether a human driver needs to pay attention or not.
That’s why “Waymo wants to bypass Level 3,” Cody Fleming, an engineering professor at the University of Virginia, told me earlier this year. But if Waymo’s vans still can’t merge into traffic, it might be too soon to let go of its human drivers.
Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis’ campaign research made one thing clear: a Fox first campaign was superior to a Florida first effort. | Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo
In his primary campaign for Florida governor, the cable network made all the difference.
One of the key ingredients in Ron DeSantis’ victory in the Florida GOP governor’s race turned out to be makeup.
The once little-known congressman spent so much time broadcasting Fox News TV hits from Washington this year that he learned to apply his own powder so he could look as polished as he sounded.
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In his primary election campaign against Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, DeSantis’ cultivation of his Fox relationship made all the difference. It powered him to a double-digit win over a once better-known and better-funded candidate whose nomination appeared inevitable months ago. Just as important,the cable network introduced the Harvard-educated lawyer to his most useful patron — President Donald Trump, who endorsed him on Dec. 22.
Since then, DeSantis made 121 appearances on Fox and Fox Business — his campaign estimates it would have cost his campaign $9.3 million to purchase all that air time.
It’s impossible to overstate the value of a steady stream of Fox appearances among Florida Republicans: 70 percent of likely Florida GOP voters regularly watch Fox News and Fox Business channels, according to the DeSantis campaign’s polling.
Putnam sought to counter the Fox effect by repeatedly emphasizing his Florida roots — he even went so far as to underwrite a DeSantis-bashing website with the address “emptystudioron.com.”
But DeSantis’ campaign research made one thing clear: a Fox first campaign was superior to a Florida first effort. For Republicans, all politics isn’t local — it’s on Fox news.
“We are in a political environment where far more attention is being paid to what is happening in Washington than what is happening in Tallahassee. Putnam’s Florida strategy effectively took himself out of the conversation,” said Todd Harris, a lead consultant for DeSantis.
Harris said that while it’s not a mystery that Republicans watch Fox, the campaign’s polling and research providedit with a solid idea about how the primary electorate got its information and how it sees itself. One revelation from the data: 52 percent of GOP primary voters saw themselves as supporters of the president first while only 37 percent saw themselves as Republicans first.
DeSantis’ combination of Fox appearances and Trump boosterism was perfect for both Fox’s general Republican audience and its audience of one: Trump.
“Trump is going all out for DeSantis because he gets 100 percent of his news from Fox and he knows DeSantis has gone to bat for him and he knows Florida is important,” said Roger Stone, a longtime on-again and off-again Trump adviser from Florida who had supported Putnam.
Trump’s endorsement proved priceless. His approval rating among Republican primary voters is in the low 90s, according to public and private Democratic and Republican polls. In 2016, he won the state so handily in the presidential primary that his main opponent, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, carried only one county — Miami-Dade, his home base.
This year, the DeSantis campaign’s polling showed that more than half of the primary voters in the governor’s race identified themselves as Trump supporters, and slightly more than a third identified themselves as Republicans primarily. The campaign’s polling showed that 37 percent of the party’s voters watched Fox daily and of those who called themselves Trump Republicans, the daily viewership was higher still: 47 percent.
“It’s fishing where the fish are,” Harris said.
An Iraq War vet and former military prosecutor, DeSantis had already parlayed his membership on the House’s Judiciary, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees into regular appearances on Fox prior to the 2016 election. Butafter Trump was elected and faced multiple investigations, DeSantis became an early supporter of the president on everything from moving the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem to questioning the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign.
“DeSantis was already a figure on Fox and the timing of everything just worked out perfectly for him,” said fellow Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who has followed in DeSantis’ footsteps in frequently appearing on the network.
“I used to make fun of Ron for putting on makeup. And now I had to go to him for tips to put it on and hide the circles under my eyes,” Gaetz joked.
On Dec. 8, DeSantis and Gaetz flew to a Pensacola rally with Trump on Air Force One, where Putnam allies with close ties to Trump — including Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Trump lobbyist Brian Ballard — tried to keep the congressional duo away from the president in the hopes of forestalling that endorsement.
But it was too late. Trump committed anyway, swayed both by DeSantis’ unwavering loyalty on Fox and the president’s recall of comments from Putnam during the GOP convention in 2016 when Putnam unfavorably compared the president to his running mate, Mike Pence.
“If there’s one way to get under Trump’s skin, it’s to compare him to Pence like that,” said one Republican who lobbied the president unsuccessfully for Putnam.
For a time after the Air Force One trip to Pensacola, the effort to keep Trump from endorsing worked. The White House denied the president had offered to back DeSantis on the flight. But in late December as Trump flew to Palm Beach International Airport for one of his winter stays at Mar-a-Lago, the president saw a clip of DeSantis on Fox and decided to endorse him via Twitter at 1:34 p.m. when the plane landed.
“Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER!” Trump wrote.
Months later on Fox, Trump would refer to DeSantis, Gaetz and two other Republican House members, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan as “absolute warriors” — comments that echoed through the conservative media ecosystem.
On the strength of his free media campaign, DeSantis continued to rise in the polls through the winter and spring. Putnam, sitting on heaps of Tallahassee establishment money and big support from the sugar lobby, had to spent millions to stay ahead. DeSantis, however, kept moving upward without spending nearly as much, largely due to his frequent appearances on Fox.
Putnam’s campaign consistently complained to Fox for equal time, according to a top campaign ally and a DeSantis campaign liaison with the network. It relented once by giving Putnam — the Tallahassee establishment favorite, a 44-year-old who had held various elected offices without interruption for 22 years — an interview with host Shannon Bream, a Tallahassee native and daughter of a former Leon County commissioner.
Putnam didn’t play well on TV, at least in the eyes of President Trump, who told others that the red-haired Putnam either “looked like a shrimp” or “looked like shit,” according to those who recall the president sneering at Putnam.
The Fox airtime for DeSantis effectively wiped out the cash advantage held by Putnam, who had never lost an election until Tuesday.
Putnam had bragged for months about running a “Florida First” campaign. His campaign touted pastoral outdoor barbecue events. He attended the Wausau Possum Festival. At the first live debate between the at a June 28 Republican Party of Florida conference, Putnam started the evening by relishing the comparison of DeSantis’ broadcast-based strategy with countrified homespun meet-the-folks campaign.
“It’s completely different than a Washington D.C. studio. And I just want to say, ‘Welcome to Florida, congressman,’” Putnam said to applause.
The debate was broadcast on Fox. And though Putnam wanted to talk Florida-specific issues, the national broadcasting company made it more of a national debate that, in the estimation of DeSantis’ campaign, played to DeSantis’ strengths.
Five days before, President Trump re-endorsed DeSantis.
“Congressman Ron DeSantis, a top student at Yale and Harvard Law School, is running for Governor of the Great State of Florida. Ron is strong on Borders, tough on Crime & big on Cutting Taxes – Loves our Military & our Vets,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “He will be a Great Governor & has my full Endorsement!”
DeSantis made sure to name-drop Trump 21 times during the debate. Putnam mentioned the president five times.
The effect of the president’s endorsement and the Fox debate were devastating for Putnam.
“Before the June endorsement, we were up 9 in our internals. Afterward, we were down 14 points,” said a Putnam campaign hand who didn’t want to be identified. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Within two weeks of the debate, DeSantis was leading inpublic polls as well.
The DeSantis campaign then set about cutting a TV ad that would check all the boxes — appeal to Trump voters, get viral-like coverage on Fox (as well as other networks) and outrage Trump-hating liberals. In the ad, DeSantis’s wife — Jacksonville TV personality Casey DeSantis — poked fun at her husband’s Trump-based campaign.
“Everyone knows my husband Ron DeSantis is endorsed by President Trump. But he’s also an amazing dad,” she narrates direct to camera. “People say Ron’s all Trump, but he is so much more.”
The ad then cuts to different scenes of him as he tells his little kids to “build the wall” with toy blocks, reads Trump’s “Art of the Deal” book and “Make America Great Again” slogan and uses the president’s trademarked “big league” phrase as his baby son lies in his crib.
The ad more than paid for itself in free media. The following day — July 31, roughly one month before the GOP primary— Trump headed to Tampa to rally for DeSantis. The next week, DeSantis and Putnam met up for their final debate.
By that point, Putnam was no longer making fun of DeSantis for being the candidate of Fox News. Putnam was complaining about it.
“It has felt a lot like I’m running against the Seinfeld candidate,” Putnam said. “The campaign’s being run out of studio. They have a smattering of celebrity guest appearances. And at the end of the day, it’s all about nothing. But unlike Seinfeld, it’s not funny.”
On Monday, Trump took twice to Twitter again to urge Republicans to vote for DeSantis — and the tweets were promptly picked up by Fox News. But by then, the race was long over.
At Facebook, some employees have joined an online group to complain about what they say are the company’s left-leaning politics, reports the New York Times.
It’s named FB’ers for Political Diversity, and was created by Brian Amerige, a senior engineer at the social media giant.
Amerige wrote a post called “We Have a Problem With Political Diversity” on Facebook’s internal message board, which was shared with the Times.
“We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views,” reads the post. “We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.”
The Times said around 100 Facebook employees have joined the group, according to “two people who viewed the group’s page and who were not authorized to speak publicly.” The company has more than 25,000 employees.
The group says its aim is to “create a space for ideological diversity” within the company, but the post has also received criticism. One engineer told the Times that several employees have complained to their managers about the post.
Google faced a similar problem when former engineer, James Damore, sent around a memo arguing that the lack of diversity in tech was due to women being biologically inferior to men. As you might expect, it didn’t go over so well, and Damore was fired shortly after the memo was sent. He is now part of a class-action lawsuit against the company.
Despite claims from people like Donald Trump that Silicon Valley is suppressing conservative voices, right-wing viewpoints from sites like Breitbart have largely flourished on the network. According to a 2017 analysis by social media monitoring company NewsWhip, liberal publishers only see half the engagement of conservative pages.
Facebook has also been accused of letting hate speech — especially from those on the alt-right — flourish on the site, something it’s still figuring out how to deal with.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. tried to extend an olive branch to former rival Conor McGregor, but the MMA star isn’t having any of it.
McGregor attacked Mayweather in a profanity-laced tweet Tuesday (note: contains NSFW language):
Conor McGregor @TheNotoriousMMA
Fuck the Mayweathers, except Senior and Roger.
There is no peace here kid.
Step up or step down.
Mayweather invited McGregor to work out at Mayweather Boxing Club Tuesday in preparation for his upcoming fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov, per TMZ Sports.
“Conor McGregor, he’s a tough competitor,” Mayweather added. “Like I said before, Conor McGregor’s not gonna back down from anyone, he’s not scared, he’s a warrior.”
The two notably fought in a boxing bout last summer, which Mayweather won by knockout to improve to 50-0 in his career. While there was plenty of trash-talking before the match, it continued afterward as well.
The boxing star was on top of the Forbes list of the highest-paid athletes with McGregor at No. 4, and he didn’t show much respect to his opponent.
“I’m No. 1, and the guy that’s No. 4 is because of me,” Mayweather said, per TMZ Sports.
This isn’t the first time McGregor has targeted his former foe on social media, saying “F–k the Mayweathers” on his Twitter account(NSFW language) in January.
It appears his opinion hasn’t changed much, except a softened stance on some family members.
Kathryn Burcham with Boston 25 news was reporting live from the scene of a plane crash at Cranland Airport in Hanson, Massachusetts, when it appears she accidentally made a Back to the Future reference. In the clip, Burcham claims that Jacob Haselden, the 20-year-old pilot who crash-landed the plane, told her a “defective flux capacitator” was the possible cause of the crash.
As many of you know, a “flux capacitor” is a component in Doc Brown’s time machine from the Back to the Future franchise. It’s unclear if the plane was a time machine.
While it’s possible that Haselden actually blamed the crash on a fluxgate compass, a magnetic instrument used to help pilots keep their craft level with the earth, it was hard to miss the flub.
I am guessing that the pilot really said flux gate compass (HSI, directional gyro slave etc). But with my involvement with the press as a volunteer supporting Pickering airport ( see https://t.co/PMtyP60BpA ) I have been amazed by reporters ability to hear what they want to hear.
Boston 25 and Burcham did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment or correction, and there’s no mention of the fictional instrument on the story on its website.
According to 7 News Boston, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash. Haselden was piloting the plane for Go SkyDive Boston, and was the only person aboard when the incident occurred. He escaped with minor injuries.
“We flew up. I had difficulties with the engine. I managed to get everyone out and came back in for a landing, but couldn’t make it,” Haselden told 7 News. “The flipping (of the plane) was me running out of runway. I was coming in too fast due to difficulties with my engine, the flaps, and various plane issues.”
On Friday, another crash occurred at the same airport, injuring one person critically and leaving another dead.
Jaguar Land Rover wants pedestrians to feel safer about its self-driving vehicles, and it’s hoping a pair of “virtual eyes” will do the trick.
The thing is, it’s kinda creepy.
Think about it: A shuttle pulls up to a stoplight at an intersection that you’re waiting to cross and suddenly its cartoonish, drooping eyesare looking directly at you. Would you feel comforted?
The idea is that you would, and it’s the latest attempt to replicate the human interaction that can occur between a driver and a person crossing the road. Ford, for instance, is working on a self-driving “language” that uses various patterns on a windshield-mounted light bar to communicate what the car is doing. Drive.AI is developing a less subtle method with digital images and captions on the side of its shuttles that explain what the car is doing, such as, “Waiting for you to cross.”
But a staring contest with a driverless vehicle? Jaguar calls them “friendly-faced ‘eye pods’” — a generous description, to be sure — and they’re not out in the wild, yet.
The Aurrigo shuttles are currently being tested at a facility in Coventry, England, near Jaguar headquarters through a trial with the UK Autodrive project. So far, the pods have driven on a fake street scene with more than 500 test pedestrians who have bravely stared them down, according to a press release from Jaguar Land Rover UK.
The self-driving pod looks at a pedestrian.
Image: jaguar land rover
However off-putting it might be, this development in car-eyeball tech coincides with the public’s growing distrust of autonomous vehicles. A recent Cox Automotive study found that only 28 percent of American adult respondents think that fully self-driving vehicles are safe, down from nearly 50 percent two years ago. This matches with findings from the American Automobile Association that 63 percent of U.S. adults say they would feel less safe sharing the road with a self-driving vehicle while walking or on a bicycle.
The “virtual eyes” are a potential solution for this erosion of trust, and engineers on the Jaguar Land Rover future mobility team programmed the pods to seek out humans so that they can further study trust levels before and after making so-called eye contact. When the shuttle registers that you are there, it looks at you, and that’s your signal to safely cross.
At this point this is more of a psychological test, what Jaguar Land Rover calls “trust research.”
In nearby Milton Keynes, the same self-driving shuttles are on the road and out of the test facility — however, sans eyes.
There’s no word yet on if or when Jaguar Land Rover’s eyes will roll out on public streets.
The Oakland Athletics were dealt a serious blow in the middle of the postseason race and may be without starting pitcher Sean Manaea for the remainder of the 2018 season.
According to Jane Lee of MLB.com, Manaea was “shut down indefinitely” after it was discovered he has rotator cuff tendinitis. Oakland hasn’t ruled out a 2018 return, but Lee cautioned there is “a chance” he won’t pitch again for the rest of the campaign.
The southpaw has been a steady source of production in Oakland’s starting rotation this year and has a 3.59 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 108 strikeouts in 27 starts. The ERA and WHIP totals would both be career-bests, and he just allowed zero earned runs in five innings in a Friday victory over the Minnesota Twins in his most recent start.
While the Athletics still have Mike Fiers, Trevor Cahill and Edwin Jackson, this is another blow to their starting rotation.Julian McWilliamsof The Athletic reported on Tuesday Brett Anderson was placed on the 10-day disabled list with a forearm strain.
Don’t expect any moves, though, asKen Rosenthalof The Athletic reported the team is “unlikely to add a starting pitcher” even after the injuries and will instead insert Daniel Mengden and Frankie Montas into the rotation.
Oakland is 2.5 games behind the Houston Astros in the American League West but 4.5 games ahead of the Seattle Mariners in the race for the final wild-card position. It will be tasked with holding off the Mariners for the foreseeable future without one of its key pieces in Manaea.
Six months ago, Ed Sheeran threw us all for a loop when he insisted that his upcoming fourth album is “not a pop album.” And lest you think he was kidding or exaggerating, the singer-songwriter has doubled down on that claim in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, in which he describes the follow-up to 2017’s ÷ (Divide) as “completely out of [his] comfort zone.”
“I don’t think there’s an acoustic guitar on it,” Sheeran spilled. “Which, to be an acoustic singer-songwriter, it’s different. But it’s not an album or a mixtape or anything, it’s just a collection of songs that will just come out.”
Asked to elaborate further, the 27-year-old said that he wants to “clear the air” before his next big project, so he plans to unceremoniously drop new music that won’t constitute an actual album — kind of like Drake did with More Life, which bridged the time between Views and Scorpion.
“If I came out with an album next, people would compare it to ÷ and want it to be bigger and sell more,” Sheeran explained. “I kind of learned from looking at how Drake does it. Drake puts out these albums that are huge but then in between he sticks out projects and however big the project is, it doesn’t really matter because it’s not the album, if that makes sense. It just clears the air for the next album.”
Sheeran isn’t just inspired by Drake’s business strategy — he’s also hoping to work with the Toronto rapper at some point, predicting that they’d make “an interesting song” together. That potential collaboration would almost certainly birth a smash — considering they’re two of the streaming era’s most dominant artists — and Sheeran is determined to make it happen.
“I feel like at some point, me and Drake need to do something,” Sheeran told EW. “I feel like it’s inevitable… I’ve only met him a couple of times. I don’t even know if it’s in the cards. I’d like to think he has the same mindset as me.”
Mr. Bubz the dog has seemingly come out of nowhere, blessing the internet with his snarls and nervous energy.
After a 14-second video of the pup snarling while a man offered some affection was uploaded to YouTube on Monday it quickly ramped up well over 10,000 views.
And while Mr. Bubz currently only has a handful of post on his Instagram — the first of which was also posted on Monday — he already has over 10,000 followers.
Regardless of what launched Mr. Bubz into an overnight sensation, all I know is that I too love Mr. Bubz, and so should you. He’s not perfect! But who is?
There’s something indescribable about Mr. Bubz that just makes him a treat to watch. Maybe it’s his constant expression of dread and whiny snarls, or perhaps it’s his big bulging eyes and stout body.
Who can say for sure? It is a mystery. Truly.
Making things even weirder, Mr. Bubz’s Instagram posts also have some, uh, interesting captions that I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around.
“Never not dreaming of motherwife’s ripe panties,” is one of the curiouser captions.
And then there’s also this gem of a caption: “Mr. Bubz loves rubbing his dick on stuff and tending his garden.”
Yikes.
All concerning comments aside, now that Mr. Bubz has entered into my life I am hooked, and I will be sitting patiently waiting for more Mr. Bubz-related content.
We’ve reached out to Mr. Bubz’s humans for additional information and comments, and we’ll update this post if we hear back.
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By Sasha Lekach
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Daily Trends Hunter 