Axios

Doubling down on its investment in self-driving cars, ride-hailing company Lyft is set to open a new office in Silicon Valley that will focus on autonomous driving tech. Named after the highest level of autonomous driving — Level 5 — the facility will house several hundred employees by the end of 2017.

In-house tech: Until now, Lyft's self-driving car efforts have been limited to working with other technology makers by providing them access to its ride-hailing network and data via its Open Platform. But now the company plans to develop its own technologies to tackle mapping, perception, localization, path planning, and motion control. Already, 10% of the company's engineers are working on autonomous driving tech, says Lyft.

Why it matters: Lyft's new move is not only a significant increase in its investment in self-driving cars, but it's also turning into a more direct competitor to its partners like Waymo and GM, which are developing their own versions of autonomous driving tech.

Researchers in the U.K. are suggesting that — like aircraft — robots be equipped with a black box that records their decisions, the rationale behind them, and their step-by-step actions, per the Guardian. The proposal is a half-way solution to a growing push in the field for "explainable artificial intelligence," or AI with which you can engage in robust discussion about its opinions.

Alan Winfield, a professor at the University of the West of England, and Marina Jirotka, a professor at Oxford University, are proposing the "ethical black box" as a step toward understanding accidents involving robots and AI-backed systems. They were to argue the case for such mandatory systems at a conference Thursday at the University of Surrey.

Why it matters: Winfield argues, "Serious accidents will need investigating, but what do you do if an accident investigator turns up and discovers there is no internal datalog, no record of what the robot was doing at the time of the accident? It'll be more or less impossible to tell what happened."

What will it look like when fully autonomous vehicles take over the roads? Forrester has some predictions in a new report:

• Platoons of autonomous trucks will replace human-driven freight, especially on long-haul routes, as soon as it is technologically and legally possible. (David wrote about the implications of this a while back.)Your insurance bill may stay high. Sure, human error will be taken out of the equation. But all those high-tech sensors and software will make it more difficult to decipher what's to blame when something goes wrong, per CNET. (We're not so sure about this: Other people think that the cost of insurance will be baked into the car price because drivers won't really be at fault).Your commute will be bombarded with ads. Advertisers and media companies will compete for a spot inside the new vehicle experience and big brands will sponsor rides.

Bottom line: As Forrester puts it, "We predict that by 2035, the global economy will be unrecognizably different

Shares of Microsoft hit record territory in after-hours trading on Thursday, topping $75 a share, after the software giant's better-than-expected financial results.

As has been the case for the last several quarters, strength in Microsoft's cloud business, including Office 365 and Windows Azure, was the key to the company's growth. Of note, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told analysts that, for the first time, Microsoft got more revenue from Office 365 subscriptions than from traditional Office software licensing.

Why it matters: Microsoft has shown an ability to grow its business even as the PC market has stalled, reflecting moves the company made in the cloud both since Satya Nadella took over as CEO as well as some that were in place before he took over the top spot.

YouTube is mounting an intervention when users search for terms linked to extremism. The company said that when those searches are performed it will "display a playlist of videos debunking violent extremist recruiting narratives."

What's next: YouTube will also show the content when non-English keywords are searched for, and it will make counter-extremist videos in collaboration with outside groups.

Why YouTube is doing this: Governments, particularly in Europe, really want YouTube and other major tech companies to do more to combat the spread of extremist messaging on their platforms.

Aiming to make its Alexa assistant smarter, Amazon quietly bought a startup called Graphiq for an estimated $50 million back in May, according to a new report from the Los Angeles Times. The 100-person, Southern-California based startup, created by the same person who founded Google's DoubleClick, provides clients with data analysis about "products, people and places" to optimize online searches. Sources told the Times that the company also had interest from Google and IBM before going with Amazon.

Why it matters: It's a significant acquisition for Amazon, who's hoping to expand the role and audience for its voice assistant and perhaps introduce advertising into Alexa's vocabulary. Reports surfaced in May that Amazon is possibly adding 15-second ads that can be inserted into user conversations.

The health care industry now has its own domain name on the internet, just like universities have .edu and not-for-profits have .org. Several companies and organizations went live Thursday with the .health extension through DotHealth, the official registry.

This could be big: Jose Ignacio Rasco, CEO of DotHealth, told Axios that a wide array of companies with trademarks registered for their own .health web addresses during the 60-day "sunrise" period before the launch. That includes large health care brands Mayo Clinic, Oscar, Pfizer and UnitedHealthcare as well as the big tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Instagram.

Rasco said he didn't know what the tech companies had planned for their .health domains, but "we know they are somehow going to use them in the future." He also said there are already two hospital system mergers in the works that will use the .health domain name as rebranding strategies.

There are reasons Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants aren't more deeply immersed in health care (and have failed in some past projects). Health care has a lot of spending concerns, regulatory hurdles and life-and-death decisions that aren't a part of running a web site or making an iPad.

But health care has a lot of appeal, both from the money to be made and the prospect of helping keep people healthier by analyzing health care data. The industry has moved a lot of its records from paper to digital form, but many people think the information could be made a whole lot more useful and shareable.

Look ahead: If a major tech conglomerate wanted to take a bigger gamble on health care, there are a lot of ways to get in the industry right now. There's already speculation among industry analysts that Apple could try to buy Athenahealth, which makes cloud-based electronic health records for physician offices and small hospitals.