Uncovering and explaining how our digital world is changing — and changing us.

The solar eclipse was bigger for Facebook than the last four Super Bowls. More than 66 million people interacted with the social network for the natural phenomenon. The eclipse was a much smaller affair on Twitter, which saw more than six million tweets in a 24-hour window that ended Monday afternoon. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

Uber drivers have earned $50 million in tips in less than two months. In June, the company started rolling out driver-friendly improvements, including in-app tipping; now drivers can also decline certain trips. Rival Lyft, which has allowed tips since it began in 2012, recently announced that its drivers cashed out $250 million in tips. [Johana Bhuiyan / Recode]

Here’s a look at Apple’s hush-hush plans for self-driving-car technology, code-named “Titan.” The interesting stuff here isn’t so much that Apple has steered away from building its own branded car, but all the cool stuff they considered — reinventing the wheel by trading steering wheels for orbs — before deciding to focus on the underlying technology. [Daisuke Wakabayashi / The New York Times]

Verizon is throttling video to a streaming speed of 720p on smartphones on all three of its unlimited data plans; the cheapest plan now limits video to 480p. Before this change, the unlimited data plan placed no limits on mobile video; Verizon was “testing” reduced Netflix streaming speeds last month. [Chris Welch / The Verge]

Cloud platform GoDaddy named current COO Scott Wagner as its new CEO; he’ll step in for Blake Irving, who will retire at the end of the year. GoDaddy made headlines recently when it decided to cancel the registration of a white supremacist website called The Daily Stormer; Google followed GoDaddy’s action. [Anita Balkrishnan / CNBC]

It has been a year since Gawker shut down, sued into oblivion by billionaire Peter Thiel. Gawker might have been foolhardy, reckless and ultimately self-destructive, but it was also courageous, and with the ascent of frequent Gawker target Donald Trump to the presidency, courage in media is needed now more than ever. [Michael J. Socolow / The Washington Post]

“Google now controls nearly 90 percent of search advertising, Facebook almost 80 percent of mobile social traffic, and Amazon about 75 percent of e-book sales ... the new monopolies are even more powerful than the old ones, which tended to be limited to a single product or service.” That’s journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert on who owns the internet — and what Big Tech’s monopoly powers mean for our culture. [The New Yorker]

Top stories from Recode

Google and Walmart are partnering on voice shopping, in a challenge to Amazon and its Echo.

Google introduced shopping via its voice-controlled Google Home speaker earlier this year, with partner retailers like Costco, Walgreens and PetSmart.

Listen to what happened when Chuck Klosterman appeared on Recode Media with Peter Kafka.

And read along if you want to! They discussed trends in journalism, writing about the famous and whether football will disappear.

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Don’t panic, liberal arts majors. The tech world wants you, too.

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