Tech companies have an insatiable need for content on which to train their AI models. The creators of all that content would like to be paid for the role they’re playing in developing such a valuable technology. And many resulting copyright lawsuits could threaten the data supply without an agreed-upon compensation scheme.

Enter the co-creator of the RSS feed, Eckart Walther, and Doug Leeds, former CEO of IAC Publishing and Ask.com. They’ve devised such a scheme, and it’s supposed to be Really Simple.

Really Simple Licensing aims to provide a standardized and automated way for web publishers to set licensing and compensation terms. It also spans a nonprofit collective rights organization designed to create leverage by numbers, if enough content owners join. Major websites like Reddit, Yahoo, and Medium have already signed on, as have news publishers like Ziff Davis, Adweek, and the Daily Beast.

Having built their careers around the open web, Walther and Leeds said they were spurred to action by the growing cracks they saw in online business models. Other web publishers have been panicked about them, too; Google search traffic has been crashing for months as the search engine centers AI-generated results and competing AI chatbots draw away would-be searchers.

“There was this traditional contract or ecosystem between content and aggregators. For 30 years, we’ve had the click economy, and the click economy is breaking,” Walther told Tech Brew. “There’s a whole bunch of efforts you see out there, like marketplaces and licensing, but…you can’t fix it by throwing some proprietary solution at it—you have to fix the internet.”

Keep reading here.—PK

Glazed or frosted? Chocolate or blueberry? Drive-thru or drone-delivered?

The first two choices should be familiar to anyone who’s ordered a donut. The last one might be relevant in the not-too-distant future as drone technology takes off.

That vision was on display last week at Michigan Central’s Drone Day, when hundreds of Detroit students gathered at the technology campus to see drones in action—and to learn about training and career opportunities in advanced aerial mobility.

One of the main showcases of the day was a drone delivery that sent boxes of donuts to workers at a park on the Detroit River. Piloting the flight was Davontay Delacerda, 18, of Detroit, who took advantage of training programs at Michigan Central to obtain the FAA license needed to fly drones commercially, and now works for urban drone delivery startup Aerialoop.

“It was really exciting, at such a young age, too,” Delacerda said. “I’m just 18 and I started when I was 16. So it’s a really great journey, and pretty big things to be working for.”

Keep reading here.—JG

Can’t convince a friend to pick you up from the airport?

Travelers in San Francisco and San Jose will soon have a backup option: hailing a robotaxi via Waymo.

The Alphabet-owned ride-hailing company on Tuesday announced that it’s gotten the OK to start operations at San Francisco International Airport.

Waymo already serves airport passengers in Phoenix, and announced earlier this month that it would soon start offering rides at San Jose Mineta International Airport in California. That move marks “the first step in Waymo’s planned deployment in San Jose,” according to a news release.

“It’s the perfect time for Waymo’s autonomous vehicles to begin to roll into San Jose, the Capital of Silicon Valley,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said in a statement. “With San Jose at the epicenter of the biggest sporting events of 2026, Waymo is an ideal mode of transportation that will help visitors move around the area smoothly and safely.”

Both services will initially be available only to employees before opening up to the public.

Keep reading here.—JG

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