Waiting for rain: The National Weather Service says heavy rain may start in Sonoma County during the day Thursday, then spread across the rest of the region Friday. Rain, occasionally heavy, is expected to last most of the weekend. Until then, enjoy a dry and mostly sunny Tuesday and Wednesday. Details.
- Unveiled in Silicon Valley: Federal government's 30-year plan for America's roads (San Jose Mercury):
Riding to the Googleplex in a driverless car, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx visited Google to unveil a 30-year vision for what American transportation might look like in the coming decades. Automated cars, such as the models Google is inventing. Drone-delivered packages. A flourishing of the ride-hailing services that Uber and Lyft pioneered. And, if changes are not made soon, a dystopian headache of traffic clogging outdated roads and worsening the wealth divide. Full story
- Obama's new transportation budget: The good, the bad and the ugly (Streetsblog USA):
With federal transportation funding set to run out by May 31, Congress is gearing up again to reset national transportation policy. Or, if that doesn’t work out, to limp along indefinitely under the status quo. President Obama unveiled his opening bid in the process on Monday. The $478-billion, six-year plan includes many administration proposals unveiled last year. Congress didn’t buy those ideas then, and with Republicans now controlling both houses, chances remain slim for reforming highway-centric federal transportation policy. Full story
- Google betrays Uber, and now it's war (Valleywag):
Remember how Eric Schmidt spent years sitting on the Apple board, quietly learning everything about the iPhone — and then, presto, Google suddenly came out with Android and it looked a whole lot like the iPhone operating system and Steve Jobs went nuts on Schmidt for being such a sneaky, backstabbing son of a bitch? Well, Google just snuck up on another victim. This time it's Uber. Full story
- Uber announces deal to develop its own self-driving vehicles (TechCrunch):
Driver-on-demand service Uber is building a robotics research lab in Pittsburgh to “kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development,” sources close to the decision have confirmed to TechCrunch. They say the company has hired talent from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, including lead engineering and commercialization experts. Full story
- Artifacts show a Rosa Parks steeped in freedom struggle from childhood (Washington Post):
When Rosa Parks was a little girl in rural Alabama, she would stay up at night, keeping watch with her grandfather as he stood guard with a shotgun against marauding members of the Ku Klux Klan. ... “I wanted to see him kill a Ku-Kluxer,” the renowned civil rights leader wrote in a brief biographical sketch years later. “He declared that the first to invade our home would surely die.” Full story
- Seismic music at UC Berkeley's Campanile, performed by the Earth (KQED Arts):
When the bells of Sather Tower on the UC Berkeley campus ring out on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 3, the sound will amplify the low rumble of the earth that most of us in the Bay Area prefer to forget. In a project called “Natural Frequencies,” conceived by composer Edmund Campion, artist and roboticist Ken Goldberg and artist Greg Niemeyer—all UC Berkeley faculty—the bells are programmed to play a score composed in real time by the seismic shifts taking place along the Hayward Fault, directly below the Campanile. Accompanying the bells is a light show, also programmed to respond to the fault’s movements. Full story
- Foreign-investor visa program to pay for new West Oakland grocery (Oakland Tribune):
After years of trekking to Emeryville or Alameda for groceries, West Oakland residents soon will have the best supermarket a collection of green-card-hungry foreign investors can buy. Businessman Tom Henderson is raising eyebrows even among boosters of the hardscrabble district by announcing plans to open a full-service grocery store that he says will make "Safeway look like a 7-Eleven." Full story
- Roald Dahl's letter on the measles death of his daughter (Mic):
Dahl, the author of Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG, among many other novels, lost his eldest daughter, Olivia, to measles in 1962. In 1988, he wrote a letter to British health authorities about his loss. His message: "There is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. ... Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family, and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it." Full story
- Tech job of the week: Executive assistant and nanny for CEO's baby (Valleywag):
Skymosity, a "weather-based marketing and analytics" firm in San Rafael, is looking for someone who will be an executive assistant three days a week and on the other two days work as a nanny for the CEO's "adorable" 9-month-old kid. Full story