Thursday, December 25, 2025

Tesla's robotaxi service in Austin significantly trails Waymo, deploying an estimated 30 cars with safety drivers, vs. Waymo's 200 cars without human monitors (Jack Ewing/New York Times)

Jack Ewing / New York Times:
Tesla's robotaxi service in Austin significantly trails Waymo, deploying an estimated 30 cars with safety drivers, vs. Waymo's 200 cars without human monitors  —  Shares of Tesla have hit new highs on optimism about the company's self-driving taxis.  But experts say Tesla is far behind Waymo, which has a big head start.



A look at the humans employed to rescue robotaxis; Waymo uses the Honk app to pay $20 to $24 to manually close robotaxi doors and $60 to $80 to tow its cars (Lisa Bonos/Washington Post)

Lisa Bonos / Washington Post:
A look at the humans employed to rescue robotaxis; Waymo uses the Honk app to pay $20 to $24 to manually close robotaxi doors and $60 to $80 to tow its cars  —  A recent power outage in San Francisco shows how vulnerable self-driving vehicles can be when problems arise.



A look at Detroit's Apple Developer Academy, launched after the BLM protests, which spends $20K per student, nearly 2x the budget of local community colleges (Paresh Dave/Wired)

Paresh Dave / Wired:
A look at Detroit's Apple Developer Academy, launched after the BLM protests, which spends $20K per student, nearly 2x the budget of local community colleges  —  Apple, Michigan taxpayers, and one of Detroit's wealthiest families spent roughly $30 million training hundreds of people to build iPhone apps.



Sunday, December 21, 2025

Sources detail SoftBank's efforts to raise funds as it races to close its $22.5B funding commitment to OpenAI by the end of this year (Reuters)

Reuters:
Sources detail SoftBank's efforts to raise funds as it races to close its $22.5B funding commitment to OpenAI by the end of this year  —  SoftBank Group (9984.T) is racing to close a $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end through an array of cash-raising schemes …



Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks' push for an EO blocking state AI laws undercut their efforts to craft a permanent, bipartisan federal solution (Politico)

Politico:
Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks' push for an EO blocking state AI laws undercut their efforts to craft a permanent, bipartisan federal solution  —  President Donald Trump's aggressive move to block states from regulating artificial intelligence is splitting the tech lobby …



Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg)

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Q&A with Blizzard President Johanna Faries on company staff bonus transparency, working under Xbox leadership, restoring the NetEase partnership, and more  —  Johanna Faries, who took over as president of Blizzard in 2024, reveals what's coming from the storied studio  —  Hi everyone.



US CHIPS Act-funded SMART USA Institute, focused on digital twins for chipmaking, says the Department of Commerce will terminate its $285M five-year contract (Samuel K. Moore/IEEE Spectrum)

Samuel K. Moore / IEEE Spectrum:
US CHIPS Act-funded SMART USA Institute, focused on digital twins for chipmaking, says the Department of Commerce will terminate its $285M five-year contract  —  SMART USA, a $285-million center devoted to digital twins, loses funding  —  The head of a U.S. CHIPS and Science Act-funded center devoted …



Docs: Israeli AI chip startup Hailo is pursuing an urgent IPO via a SPAC merger at a valuation of less than $500M; it was last valued at $1.2B in 2024 (Meir Orbach/CTech)

Meir Orbach / CTech : Docs: Israeli AI chip startup Hailo is pursuing an urgent IPO via a SPAC merger at a valuation of less than $500M; ...