Tech's politics push at home and abroad We report from California's Silicon Valley, where billionaires pour money into midterms, and the AI Impact summit, where India pushes back on'AI monopoly' held by US and China This week, we're examining the tech industry's push for influence in two places separated by a time difference of 13 hours and 30 minutes. The first is where tech sees its next big market, the second its home turf. My colleague Robert Booth reports from last week's India AI Impact summit, where tech companies pledged to spend tens of billions in the coming year to build customer bases and datacenters in the subcontinent. Dara Kerr and Lauren Gambino reported from Silicon Valley, where billionaires are marshalling their wealth to influence California's politics at greater levels than they ever have before. Visitors explore the Google pavilion during the AI Impact summit at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, India, on 20 February.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. With a Super Bowl ad, California governor's race'is now kicked into gear' San José Mayor Matt Mahan, a moderate Democrat, has broken with Gov. Gavin Newsom on crime and other issues and is pitching himself as a pragmatist. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . Backers of Matt Mahan, San José's mayor, spend $1.4 million in Super Bowl ad campaign funded by Silicon Valley tech executives to boost his gubernatorial bid.

USA TODAY takes a look at three cars at this year's L.A. Auto Show that cost more than $100,000. Waymo, the newly renamed Google self-driving car company, showed off its two seat prototype and new logo in the lobby of a San Francisco building Tuesday. SAN FRANCISCO -- By renaming itself Waymo, Google's self-driving car project officially changes lanes from research project to business enterprise that, at some point soon, will have to turn a profit. "We'll continue to have access of infrastructure and resources Alphabet provides, but we also have this feeling of being a venture-backed startup," said John Krafcik, formerly CEO of Google Cars and now leader of Waymo, said at an event here Tuesday. Krafcik said "we are all in on fully driverless solutions, that's what we're all about."

When Steve Mahan was a kid in the 1960s, his mother would sometimes wake him in the early hours of the morning to watch the hours of television coverage preceding the launch of the Mercury space missions. "We would hear about all of the preparations, all of the technology, everything that led up to these moments," Mahan says. "And then we would count down'till you finally got to zero and ignition, and one of those rockets begins bellowing fire and smoke, and slowly begins to creep away from the grapples. Now 63 and having lost his sight, Mahan has become one of those capsule-bound explorers. In October 2015, he became the first member of the public to ride in Google's self-driving pod-like prototype, alone and on public roads.

A blind man has successfully traveled around Austin -- unaccompanied -- in a car without a steering wheel or floor pedals, Google announced Tuesday. After years of testing by Google engineers and employees, the company's new level of confidence in its fully autonomous technology was described as a milestone. "We've had almost driverless technology for a decade," said Google engineer Nathaniel Fairfield. "It's the hard parts of driving that really take the time and the effort to do right." Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, was the first non-Google employee to ride alone in the company's gumdrop-shaped autonomous car.