A Toyota Sienna rolled to a stop in the parking lot of the University of Michigan’s “Big House” after the minivan’s cameras, sensors, and lidar detected an oncoming vehicle in the other lane.

The interesting part is what happened next: The Sienna, owned by autonomous vehicle startup May Mobility, seemed to recognize that although the other vehicle had the right of way, its driver deferred to the minivan. After a moment, the May vehicle turned left in front of the stopped car.

The move was received with enthusiasm from May Mobility CEO and founder Edwin Olson, who was Tech Brew’s tour guide during a recent demo ride from May’s production facility in Ann Arbor to downtown and back.

“We were able to change what we were going to do by running the simulations and learning what the right thing to do in that situation was,” Olson said. “And we did that by running thousands of simulations right there to figure out all the permutations.”

It’s an example of May’s proprietary AV system, “Multi-Policy Decision Making,” in action.

Keep reading here.—JG

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Net neutrality is poised to make a comeback.

For anyone who’s been online over the last decade, that term probably sounds familiar, even if it might prompt you to scratch your head and say…”Huh, what does that mean again?”

Ahead of an April 25 Federal Communications Commission meeting, where the agency is expected to vote along party lines to reinstate the Obama-era web-browsing protections, Tech Brew asked a couple experts to explain the potential rule change and its impacts.

Here’s what they told us.

So…what is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is a broad term for a collection of policies that mandate internet service providers can’t meaningfully interfere with the way that web traffic is transmitted, including speeding up, slowing down, or explicitly granting paid access to websites or pieces of content.

“One of the core principles of net neutrality is really focused on treating all internet traffic equally,” Daniel Hays, a PwC partner specializing in the tech and telecom industry, said.

Keep reading here.—KG

Should you buy an EV?

The answer might come down to where you live—and two new studies shed light on where you might have the best EV experience.

First: Cox Automotive and Realtor.com teamed up to identify the best housing markets for EV owners, based on the number of home listings described as “EV friendly” and on a “congestion index, measured as the ratio of EVs and plug-in hybrids to public charging ports.”

The winner? San Jose, California. The Silicon Valley city notched the highest share of EV-friendly homes listed (4.9%) in 2023. The rest of the top 10 markets were Salt Lake City; the Bay Area; Boston; Seattle; Durham, North Carolina; Austin; Los Angeles; Washington, DC; and Denver.

“We have found a clear and positive synergy between the housing market and EV adoption,” Jonathan Smoke, Cox’s chief economist, said in a statement.

“Having access to a charger is fundamental to the ease of use for an EV, and when that charger is in a home it is both convenient and economical,” he added. “This, in turn, makes EV-friendly homes stand out in markets with more EV owners.”

Keep reading here.—JG

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Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

For the streaming Swiftie: TTPD drops today (IYKYK), and Taylor Swift has made some decidedly analog decisions in the marketing of her latest album. CNET has a nice roundup of the four “variant editions” of The Tortured Poets Department, released on CDs and/or vinyl and containing different bonus tracks that will not (at least at first) be available on streaming platforms.

(“You’re Losing Me,” for example, was initially released on a deluxe CD version of Midnights. It was unveiled on streaming platforms six months later.)

While we admire Swift’s business savvy and respect the hustle to get fans to shell out for physical copies of her albums, we cannot justify the purchase of a CD player and will hold out for the tracks to hit Spotify.