The road ahead for autonomous vehicles | Stratolaunch tests mammoth airplane

The road ahead for AVs: Fully autonomous cars and trucks are closer to commonplace than you might expect, as self-driving vehicles gain the ability to operate safely on our streets and highways. That’s one takeaway from Chris Urmson, a pioneer in the field. He’s the CEO of Aurora, which is developing self-driving technology for car and truck makers. On a new episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we’re featuring highlights from our conversation with Urmson (above) at the recent GeekWire Summit. Listen here and read excerpts. 

Cloud gets dragged by the economy: Companies are cutting their cloud computing spend amid uncertain macroeconomic conditions. But Amazon and Microsoft say they’re playing the long game, sacrificing short-term cloud growth in the interest of customer loyalty and value, with the hope of maximizing the growth of their revenues and profits over many years. Read more. 

Amazon cuts jobs at Amp: The tech giant launched Amp earlier this year to “reimagine radio.” Read more. 

Assessing breast cancer risk: Portland, Ore.-based startup Gabbi just raised $4.4 million to help women understand their risk of breast cancer and get an action plan for prevention and early detection.