Your Weekend Tech Digest: Self-driving car arrives in Seattle, Verizon suffers data breach

By Tian DuBelko

Photo Credit: Torc Robo (top left), Pexels (top right, bottom left), Elon Musk (bottom right).

We round up the trending stories every week so you can catch up on the top tech news. This week, the first certified self-driving car arrived in Seattle after a 2,500-mile trip, Elon Musk showed off the first official Tesla Model 3 car in a tweet, Amazon Alexa and Echo chief Mike George left after almost twenty years with the company, and a contractor working for Verizon exposed 14 million customer records after leaving the data unprotected on one of Amazon Web Services’ servers.

Get your weekly recap here, then head over to our blog for more stories.

First self-driving car arrives in Seattle

The executive order Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued to encourage self-driving technology is already paying dividends. Torc Robo, with roots in Virginia Tech, just completed a six-day, 2,500-mile cross-country trip. The autonomous vehicle arrived yesterday, the first certified autonomous vehicle driving test of its kind.

Elon Musk showed off the first official Tesla Model 3

Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off the new Model 3 in a pair of tweets recently. The billionaire had received the new Model 3 S for his 46th birthday. Currently, an estimated 400,000-plus people have put down money for the car, and Musk says that orders and production are expected to ramp up later this year.

Verizon exposed 14M customer records after breach

A Verizon contractor exposed 14 million customer records after leaving the data unprotected on one of AMaozn Web Services’ servers. The contract had left the information available to download by anyone, but thankfully nobody accessed the data. And while the data didn’t contain vital information like social security numbers or bank accounts, it’s a reminder that cloud storage still relies on human security.

Amazon Alexa and Echo chief departs after nearly 20 years with company

Mike George, the Amazon vice president who was behind the Alexa virtual assistant and Echo smart devices, some of Amazon’s most successful products, is leaving the company after almost two decades with the tech giant. Under George’s leadership, Amzon has emerged as one of the prime competitos in the voice assistant market, and it remains to be seen what direction the company will go in after George’s departure.

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