The Daily Crunch 08/17/16

Is the granddaddy of car companies also going to be first to full autonomy? That and more in The Daily Crunch for August 17, 2016. And what did one Prius say to the other? Stick around 'til the end to find out.

1. Ford sharpens focus on driverless

Ford's CEO was in Palo Alto yesterday, where he told the world the company aims to field cars without steering wheels, brake or gas pedals by 2021. The driverless vehicles will operate mostly as autonomous taxis, he explained, and run alongside the sale of traditional cars for human drivers. To make it happen, Ford is partnering and acquiring at a rapid pace, with tons of investment going into LiDAR and machine smarts. Self-driving cars sure seemed like hype just a few years ago, but more and more, it looks like we'll be sharing the road with robots in five years or less.

2. Tech co's elect to encourage employees to vote

Change is something tech companies are hoping HR can help foster. A rally cry around the Twitter hashtag #TakeOffElectionDay is picking up steam, encouraging startups and established tech firms alike to give workers November 8 off so they can vote. Many of the techies involved say this is a nonpartisan effort, but the subtext is clear: Help stop a Trump presidency. The Donald is not a popular figure in SV according to recent polling, so any mass movement in tech to encourage democratic participation is almost sure to go against him.

3. Bizarro world? Intel gets into the ARM business

Intel's going to start acting as an ARM foundry, which is a little bit bananas. Intel building ARM hardware turns a former tech binary into an "AND" situation, and it also opens the door for Intel becoming a foundry partner for some very big clients, including Apple, which currently leans heavily on Samsung's foundry business to produce its A-series ARM-based SoCs for iOS devices. Dogs are lying down with cats, it's madness.

4. Gawker's winning bidder is Univision

In the ongoing Thiel/Hulk Hogan/Gawker legal drama, the latest news is that Univision has won the bankruptcy option. The Spanish language broadcaster has previously expressed interest in taking aim at a more tech savvy demographic with the launch of Fusion, a millennial-aimed web and cable network. The Gawker bid helps it continue to diversify its audience and build out more distribution scale.

5. Intel's building mixed reality, drones and computer vision maker boards

Intel's big developer conference keynote was yesterday, and the chipmaker basically threw everything at the wall. It's making drones, it's making head mounted displays, it's making mixed reality with Microsoft, and it's making maker circuit boards with built-in computer vision capabilities. But really, it's just trying everything it can to make sure it doesn't miss the boat on the next big computing revolution, like it basically did with mobile.

6. Twitch gets Curse'd

What do you do after doing a pretty good job of dominating the game streaming market? You acquire fan communities, apparently. Twitch picked up Curse, a video game-focused media company that operates a number of guides, community sites and wikis related to the top gaming properties. A natural fit for Twitch's core audience, but the integration will be the part to watch.

7. Shhh! The Priuses are talking

Vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2V) is a key part of the future of self-driving and smart cars, but in Japan, it's already in operation thanks to Toyota. The company's latest Prius, as well as the Lexus RX and Toyota Crown all sport V2V comms systems as available options, which could help with hazard avoidance and generally lessening the occurrence of multi-car pileups. Hopefully, though, the cars are also just taking some time to get to know each other.