Before their newly minted agreement to expand the use of robotaxis in Phoenix, the relationship between Uber and its self-driving, Google-owned partner Waymo had been contentious, expensive, and at times openly hostile.

In fact, the story makes the perfect script for an HBO drama, with enough content to fill an entire season: We’re talking secret documents, a church dedicated to AI, a Justice Department investigation, and a presidential pardon.

The storyline dates back to 2016, when Uber acquired Otto, a self-driving truck company founded by former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski, in a deal valued at $680 million. The following year, Waymo sued Uber in San Francisco federal court, alleging Levandowski had downloaded data, including 9.7 GB of Google’s “sensitive, secret, and valuable internal Waymo information.”

Keep reading here.—MA

“It’s the first Apple product you look through, and not at.”

That’s how CEO Tim Cook introduced Apple’s long-awaited headset, the Apple Vision Pro, at Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference. While Apple isn’t the first to market with this type of headset, Cook positioned its arrival as a new era in consumer technology: “In the same way that Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro will introduce us to spatial computing,” he said.

The Vision Pro will be available in the US in early 2024 at a price of $3,499. (Meta announced last week that it would charge $499 for its Quest 3 headset.)

Despite the steep price, it’s hard to overstate the significance of Apple’s entry into an industry that has faced both technical challenges and consumer resistance.

Keep reading here.—MA

At last week’s meeting of the joint US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), the docket included everything from tech imports to quantum research.

Officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and EU Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, were in Sweden for the fourth meeting of the transatlantic group, which was established in 2021 with the goal of increasing cooperation and developing international standards.

Despite the expansive tech and trade agenda, the bulk of the news out of the summit was about artificial intelligence. According to Vestager, the group is reportedly working on an AI “code of conduct,” a set of voluntary standards that would serve as a stopgap measure while both the EU and the US hammer out related legislation.

Keep reading here.—MA

Stat: 1.5%. That’s how much global smartwatch shipments in Q1 declined year over year, Counterpoint Research data found.

Quote: “In those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it, too.”—Craig Federighi, Apple’s software chief, during the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference

Read: SEC accuses Binance of mishandling funds and lying to regulators (the New York Times)

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