For being known as fighting to keep their projects secretive, Apple doesn't seem to mind that it's not so secret car project is known everywhere. Now, there's been a slight change in focus from being an automaker to developing its own self-driving technology. The iPhone-maker's automotive project, long an open secret in Silicon Valley, is shifting to focus on creating the technology for an autonomous vehicle that doesn't require a human driver. The new direction apparently doesn't foreclose the possibility that Apple might someday build its own car, but it opens the door to partnering with other car companies. The new emphasis was confirmed Friday by a person with knowledge of the project after the New York Times reported that Apple is "rethinking" its automotive strategy. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the project.

Ford Motor Co. F -2.75 % unveiled on Friday the latest part of its vision for future: bicycles and buses. The 113-year-old auto maker, whose Model T spawned a billion-plus horseless carriages, is racing other auto makers and upstarts such as Apple, Google and Uber toward a world transformed by innovations such as self-driving cars. Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields on Wednesday announced the auto maker had agreed to acquire Chariot, a private shuttle service popular in the Bay Area, and that it would sponsor the city's version of New York's Citi Bike. Blue Ford GoBike bicycles will become ubiquitous starting next year as the San Francisco program run by Motivate ramps up to 7,000 bikes in 2018 from 700 today. The moves illustrate Ford's effort to provide solutions for big-city congestion, Mr. Fields told the crowd.

This fall, customers cruising the aisles of Lowe's home improvement stores in the San Francisco Bay Area may see a new type of employee taking inventory and assisting shoppers. You won't find a nametag on this worker, but you won't confuse it with other employees, either. The new kid in town is the LoweBot, an autonomous retail service robot that scans and audits store inventory on the floor. It uses voice recognition to identify products for customers and lead them to the right shelf -- in multiple languages. The retailer is deploying LoweBots at 11 of its Bay Area stores over a seven-month period using NAVii robots made by Fellow Robots, following a successful two-year pilot program of a first-generation robot called OSHbot that was tested at one of Lowe's Orchard Supply Hardware stores.

VIENTIANE – U.S. President Barack Obama and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte shook hands and had a brief chat on Wednesday, officials said, easing a standoff after Duterte called Obama a "son of a bitch" ahead of a summit of Asian leaders in Laos. The presidents of the two longtime allies were due to hold talks on Tuesday but the White House canceled the meeting after Duterte's insult. "I'm very happy that it happened," Philippines' foreign minister, Perfecto Yasay, said of their short meeting. "It all springs from the fact that the relationship between the Philippines and the United States is firm, very strong." Duterte had his outburst on Monday when he was defending his war on drugs that has killed at least 2,400 Filipinos.

Two self-sailing ships have been travelling across the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska. The boats are operated by Saildrone, a company that is creating robotic sailboats that can travel without sailors for up to eight months. These autonomous vessels can collect details on water temperature, salinity and ecosystem information that would be difficult and expensive to collect by person. Saildrone is a company creating robotic self-driving sailboats that can travel without sailors for up to eight months. The Saildrone boats have been used by scientists and engineers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to collect valuable information about the Alaskan coast.

NAIROBI – Japanese and African leaders on Sunday pledged to fight terrorism and emphasized the importance of rules-based maritime order as they wrapped up a Japan-led international conference on the continent's development. In the Nairobi Declaration adopted at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), the leaders also agreed to promote investment in infrastructure that leads to job creation in the fast-growing region. "Japan's public and private sectors will offer cooperation for the development that is led by Africa itself," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a news conference after wrap-up of the sixth TICAD, convened in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told the same news conference that Japan does not press its own views on the continent and continues to be a force for African development. The triennial conference was held outside Japan for the first time, as Tokyo seeks to strengthen its economic and political presence in the continent amid China's increasing influence.

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