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Technology
For driverless cars, a moral dilemma: Who lives or dies?
Tribune news services
Imagine you're behind the wheel when your brakes fail. As you speed toward a crowded crosswalk, you're confronted with an impossible choice: veer right and mow down a large group of elderly people or veer left into a woman pushing a stroller. Now imagine you're riding in the back of a self-driving...
TECHNOLOGY
Is Mark Zuckerberg running for president?
Uber is paying $20 million to settle a government lawsuit over driver pay
Samsung said to blame Note 7 fiasco on irregularly sized battery
Artificial intelligence is growing so fast, even Google's co-founder is surprised
Blue Sky Originals
Tech is changing manufacturing. These classes could help people and businesses adapt.
Experts agree that automation is coming to American manufacturing, but many employers and workers still have to learn how to adapt. An upcoming online course on digital manufacturing and design aims to address questions about the future of manufacturing, and will be the first massive online open...
Blue Sky office tours
Drivin shifts into gear with bright new office
Drivin, the Chicago-based startup that helps used-car dealers sell, source, acquire and deliver inventory, moved into a slick new office last year. The space has room for growth and plenty of places for employees to work, meet and socialize. The company’s senior marketing manager, Kyle Hocking,...
Blue Sky Originals
Pandas, food and an Olympic gymnast: This Chicago company is betting on celebrity emojis
Blue Sky Originals
Refillable deodorant? Dwyane Wade's cousin is crowdfunding a product with less waste
Blue Sky Originals
This Gmail phishing attack is tricking experts. Here’s how to avoid it.
Blue Sky Originals
Can Chicago's tech climate support the growth of blockbuster redwoods?
Blue Sky Innovation
Feb. 9 | Blue Sky Social at Level Office
Innovation Hub
Why your boss is still a white guy
Blue Sky Originals
Exclusive interviews, news and more
Anita Borg Institute wants to do more to boost Chicago's women in tech
Cheryl V. Jackson
La'Shon Anthony is on a mission, traversing the Chicago area to get in front of tech-focused groups of women at universities, as well as companies that want to help boost the numbers of women in the field. Anthony is building out the Chicago chapter of the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology,...
Chicagoans can now take Uber carpools with pre-tax commuter benefits
Meg Graham
Some Uber riders can now use pre-tax dollars to pay for carpool rides in Chicago. The ride-hailing company said Wednesday it has expanded a program that allows riders to use commuter benefits debit cards for UberPool rides, which arranges rides with other passengers going in the same direction...
Bow Truss closures leave some employees ready to move on
Meg Graham
Employees of Bow Truss coffee shops say many still haven’t been paid since Chicago locations were closed last week — and some are now looking to “move on.” Holly Kent-Payne, a former barista at Bow Truss’ Logan Square location, said many employees have been sharing job leads and updates via a Facebook...
Innovation Hub
Inspiring content from around the Web
7 things to know about selling your business
Blue Sky Views
One of the most exciting parts of entrepreneurship is having an opportunity to sell your company. Many business owners dream of getting a huge offer, signing contracts and sailing off into the sunset. Is it that easy? As someone who has sold two companies to two different multi-billion dollar corporations,...
In election's wake, a VC reflects: Time to heal, learn and unify
Blue Sky Views
Like many of you, I was surprised by the presidential election results. As we each individually decide what is next, what we do next, we need to see this in the context of 250 years of peaceful transitions across all imperfect leaders. We are so fortunate to be upset or ecstatic at the functioning...
8 game-changing strategies to become more influential at work
Ellevate
Whether you are at the top of the corporate ladder or just want to be heard in a meeting, influencing skills are vital for anyone to be successful. Moreover, those skills are vital for a leader, whose job it is to move people forward. What is influence? At work, it is the capacity or power someone...
15 years of Chicago Innovation: Where the city stands today
Tom Kuczmarski
One of the handiest words in the world of business is “innovation.” It is right up there with “new and improved” as a shorthand way of describing just about anything. What a disservice to a word that has formed the underpinning of a massive shift in the entire business landscape. And no place is...
Blue Sky Live Events
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Most read stories this hour
Blue Sky Originals
This Gmail phishing attack is tricking experts. Here’s how to avoid it.
A tricky-to-spot phishing scheme targeting Gmail users is fooling even seasoned security experts. The scam has drawn international discussion in past week and was described in detail in a post by Mark Maunder, the CEO of Wordfence, a security plugin for WordPress — which said experienced technical...
Technology
Artificial intelligence is growing so fast, even Google's co-founder is surprised
Alphabet Inc. has been one of the world's biggest spenders on artificial intelligence. The advancements have even surprised company co-founder Sergey Brin. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Brin said that when he was in charge of Alphabet's research group he didn't pay much attention...
Blue Sky Originals
Tech is changing manufacturing. These classes could help people and businesses adapt.
Experts agree that automation is coming to American manufacturing, but many employers and workers still have to learn how to adapt. An upcoming online course on digital manufacturing and design aims to address questions about the future of manufacturing, and will be the first massive online open...
News
Thousands march through Loop as part of Women's March after rally draws 250,000
Organizers officially canceled the march portion of the Women's March on Chicago after the number of participants swelled to an estimated 250,000, but that didn't stop thousands from taking to the streets — peacefully — of the Loop on Saturday afternoon. Some said they hadn't realized the march...
John Kass
President Trump and the forgotten man
President Donald J. Trump's astonishing inaugural address was a short one, only 16 minutes or so in the rain. It wasn't a symphony. He used the pronoun "I" only three times. And there were no baroque flourishes to send tingles up the legs. This wasn't a smooth-talking politician inviting us to...
National politics
Interior Department banned from Twitter after retweet of Trump inauguration crowd
The Interior Department was ordered Friday to shut down its official Twitter accounts -- indefinitely -- after a National Park Service employee shared two tweets that noted President Donald Trump's relatively small inaugural crowds compared to the numbers former president Barack Obama drew in 2009....
Nation & World
Interior Department tweeting again after suspension following inauguration retweet
The Interior Department began tweeting again Saturday, a day after an employee shared tweets that appeared unsympathetic to President Donald Trump and prompted a temporary, department-wide freeze on tweeting from its official accounts. The Twitter prohibition came Friday after the official account...
Nation & World
Trump signals changing priorities, revises White House website to remove climate change
Just moments after President Donald Trump took the oath of office Friday, the official White House website was transformed into a set of policy pledges - and absence of them - that offered the broad contours of the Trump administration's top priorities, including fierce support for law enforcement...
Photography
Women's March on Chicago
An estimated 250,000 people gathered to rally in downtown Chicago as a sister event to the National Women's March taking place in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2017.
National politics
White House website promotes Melania Trump's modeling and jewelry line
Visitors to the newly revamped White House website get more than a simple rundown of first lady Melania Trump's charitable works and interests - they also get a list of her magazine cover appearances and details on her jewelry line at QVC. Trump's biography starts with traditional details such...
News
Woman shot by officers during standoff thanks them for 'saving my life'
Tamekka Broyles received a five-year sentence in Cook County court recently stemming from a confrontation in which she was shot by an officer at her Schaumburg home in what authorities said was an attempted "suicide by cop." But as the former high school basketball standout received her sentence...
News Columnists
Plan calls for replacing Thompson Center with new tower that would be tallest in Chicago
Is a major change in store for Chicago's skyline, one that for the first time would bring a super-tall skyscraper to the heart of the Loop? The city's four architectural giants — the Willis and Trump towers, and the Aon and John Hancock centers — have risen outside the Loop on roomy sites where...
Nation & World
Some women stay away from Women's March over abortion issue
Melissa Linebaugh was looking forward to taking part in the Women’s March on Washington with her mother and her 9-year-old daughter. A self-described Christian liberal from Dover, Pa., she was horrified by President Trump’s rhetoric toward women and minorities during the campaign. This was their...
Nation & World
Trump signs executive order that could gut Affordable Care Act's individual mandate
President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Friday giving federal agencies broad powers to unwind regulations created under the Affordable Care Act, which might include enforcement of the penalty for people who fail to carry the health insurance that the law requires of most Americans....
News
Obama's post-presidential life beginning to take shape
Outgoing President Barack Obama has lined up a new office and is starting to build a staff as he gets ready to join an exclusive club as the fifth living former president. For months, Obama has made small talk about his future plans, typically describing a trip to the beach and a drink served in...
National politics
I reported on Obama longer than anyone else. Here's what I learned.
This new guy named Barack Obama was speaking forcefully, delivering one of his first speeches as an Illinois lawmaker with such eloquence that I turned up the volume on the squawk box that carried his voice from the Senate floor to my press room office one floor below. “Who’s that?” I asked the...
Naperville Crime
3 arrested when Naperville cops break up Bar Louie crowd
Three people were arrested and an officer injured early Saturday morning when police broke up a crowd of more than 100 gathered at Bar Louie in downtown Naperville, Deputy Chief Jason Arres said. Naperville police were called to the 22 E. Chicago Ave. business at about 1 a.m. to help disperse the...
National politics
More than 200 D.C. protesters arrested in day of clashes with cops at Trump inauguration
Protesters made themselves heard in the nation's capital Friday, leaving a trail of damage along some city blocks, disrupting security checkpoints at President Donald Trump's inauguration, and clashing with police as Trump supporters tried to celebrate. As people poured into the city to watch Trump...
Nation & World
'America First,' a phrase with a loaded anti-Semitic and isolationist history
At the center of his foreign policy vision, Donald Trump has put “America First,” a phrase with an anti-Semitic and isolationist history going back to the years before the U.S. entry into World War II. Trump started using the slogan in the later months of his campaign, and despite requests from the...
Nation & World
In D.C. and around the world, women (and men) push back against new president
Wearing pink, pointy-eared "pussyhats" to mock the new president, hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets in the nation's capital and cities around the world Saturday to send Donald Trump an emphatic message that they won't let his agenda go unchallenged over the next four years. "We...
Nation & World
4 dead after tornado rips through south Mississippi
Four people were killed, roofs were ripped from homes and churches, and trees were torn from the earth early Saturday when a tornado hitting in the dark of night ripped through a region in southern Mississippi, officials said. Four people died after the twister blew through the city and surrounding...
Breaking News
At anti-Trump protests in Chicago, a 'wall of human resistance'
Two organized demonstrations in Chicago on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration merged into a single if splintered downtown protest with crowds chanting in opposition to the new president as they marched through the streets. After speeches at Daley Plaza, protesters took to the streets and a...
Midwest
Wisconsin Supreme Court orders John Doe documents in Gov. Walker case released
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday ordered the release of documents from John Doe investigations of Gov. Scott Walker and his associates relating to Walker's time as Milwaukee county executive and then governor. The court ordered that several dozen documents be made available to the public....
Commentary
Donald Trump still can't escape Hillary Clinton
As Donald Trump took the oath of office Friday, a shadow loomed over his inauguration. Was it his multitudinous conflicts of interest and almost certain violation of the Emoluments Clause? Well, yes, but there's another shadow: Hillary Clinton. Clinton may not have been the right person to beat...
National politics
Storms delay start of Obama's post-presidential vacation
After eight years, Barack Obama had to wait a little bit longer to start his post-presidential relaxation. The plane taking the Obama family from Washington to the California desert Friday was delayed then diverted because of bad weather. Officials say the Obamas hovered for about 40 minutes over...