Jun 11, 2017 - Technology

Lyft's self-driving car strategy emerges

Josh Edelson / AP

Buried in last week's news that ride-hailing company Lyft will work to deploy a fleet of nuTonomy's self-driving cars in Boston was something even more significant: Lyft's self-driving car strategy — "Lyft Open Platform."

The idea: Provide a testing ground for self-driving car companies working on self-driving cars. Those companies will have access to Lyft's software tools and data, and the ability to plug into its network of drivers and passengers. This is an attractive resource for companies like Waymo and nuTonomy, which need to test their technology with real-world scenarios and log as many miles as possible to train their software models.

Why it matters:

With self-driving cars almost certain to be the future, companies like Lyft can't stay out of the race. But they also have to play to their strengths — while manufacturing cars is not Lyft's, it does have a large network of passengers and troves of trip data.

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Axios
Updated 37 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 10 p.m. ET: 32,471,119 — Total deaths: 987,593 — Total recoveries: 22,374,557 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 10 p.m. ET: 7,032,524 — Total deaths: 203,657 — Total recoveries: 2,727,335 — Total tests: 99,483,712 — Map.
  3. States: "We’re not closing anything going forward": Florida fully lifts COVID restaurant restrictions — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam tests positive for coronavirus.
  4. Health: Young people accounted for 20% of cases this summer.
  5. Business: Coronavirus has made airports happier places —The expiration of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance looms.
  6. Education: Where bringing students back to school is most risky.
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Biden pushes unity message in new TV wave

A fresh Joe Biden ad, "New Start," signals an effort by his campaign to make unity a central theme, underscoring a new passage in his stump speech that says he won't be a president just for Democrats but for all Americans.

What he's saying: The ad — which began Friday night, and is a follow-up to "Fresh Start" — draws from a Biden speech earlier in the week in Manitowoc, Wisconsin:

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Jonathan Swan, Alayna Treene, Sam Baker
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Trump prepares to announce Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court replacement

Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Photo: Matt Cashore/Notre Dame University via Reuters

President Trump is preparing to nominate federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana, a favorite of both the social conservative base and Republican elected officials, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Republican sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: Barrett would push the already conservative court further and harder to the right, for decades to come, on the most important issues in American politics — from abortion to the limits of presidential power. If confirmed, she would give conservatives a 6-3 majority on the high court.

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