Author: admin

Nearly two years ago, Motional was at an autonomous vehicle crossroads.  The company, born from a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, had already missed a deadline to launch a driverless robotaxi service with partner Lyft. It had lost Aptiv as one of its financial backers, prompting Hyundai to step up with another $1 billion investment to keep it going. Several layoffs, including a 40% restructuring cut in May 2024, had whittled the company from its peak of about 1,400 employees to less than 600. Meanwhile, advancements in AI were changing how engineers were developing the…

Sergey Brin and Larry Page appear to be reducing their presence in the state where they co-founded Google. The New York Times reports that in December, 15 limited liability companies overseeing Brin’s investments and interests were terminated or converted into Nevada entities. Those include LLCs that manage one of his superyachts and his interest in a private terminal at the San Jose International Airport. Similarly, 45 LLCs associated with Page have recently become inactive or moved out of state, and a trust associated with Page bought a $71.9 million mansion in Miami this week, according to the NYT. Clearly, moving…

Wing, the Alphabet-owned company that delivers groceries, over-the-counter medicine, and hot lattes, is expanding its partnership with Walmart for the second time in less than a year. The two companies announced on Sunday plans to bring the on-demand drone delivery service to an additional 150 Walmart stores. The rollout, which builds off existing services at stores in Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, will occur throughout this year and into 2027, Wing’s new chief business officer Heather Rivera told TechCrunch. The expansion suggests customers are using Wing’s drone delivery service enough to warrant growth. Rivera said its top 25% customers are using…

Google’s and Walmart’s leaders are both betting the future of retail on AI and technologies like drone delivery.Google CEO Sundar Pichai and incoming Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner — who will become the company’s next CEO in February — revealed how AI is reshaping search and shopping during a Sunday keynote at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show in New York City. The annual event is one of the most important retail conferences for marketers and retailers.Google and Walmart will partner closely, the CEOs revealed. One of the biggest reveals is that shoppers will be able to purchase Walmart and…

Following an investigation by the Guardian that found Google AI Overviews offering misleading information in response to certain health-related queries, the company appears to have removed the AI Overviews for some of those queries. For example, the Guardian initially reported that when users asked “what is the normal range for liver blood tests,” they would be presented with numbers that did not account for factors such as nationality, sex, ethnicity, or age, potentially leading them to think their results were healthy when they were not. Now, the Guardian says AI Overviews have been removed from the results for “what is…

Google today announced a new open standard, called the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for AI agent-based shopping, at the National Retail Federation (NRF) conference. The standard, developed with companies like Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, lets agents work across different parts of customer buying processes, including discovery and post-purchase support. The core idea is that the standard could facilitate these various parts of the process instead of requiring connections with different agents. Google said that it also works with other agentic protocols, such as Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) — which Google announced last year — Agent2Agent (A2A), and Model…

The nuclear industry is in the mist of a renaissance. Old plants are being refurbished, and investors are showering startups with cash. In the last several weeks of 2025 alone, nuclear startups raised $1.1 billion, largely on investor optimism that smaller nuclear reactors will succeed where the broader industry has recently stumbled. Traditional nuclear reactors are massive pieces of infrastructure. The newest reactors built in the U.S. — Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia — contain tens of thousands of tons of concrete, are powered by fuel assemblies 14 feet tall, and generate over 1 gigawatt of electricity each. But…

Officials from Indonesia and Malaysia have said they are temporarily blocking access to xAI’s chatbot Grok. These are the most aggressive moves so far from government officials responding to a flood of sexualized, AI-generated imagery — often depicting real women and minors, and sometimes depicting violence — posted by Grok in response to requests from users on the social network X. (X and xAI are part of the same company.) In a statement shared Saturday with the Guardian and other publications, Indonesia’s communications and digital minister Meutya Hafid said, “The government views the practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a…

MattressMattress typeMaterialsFirmnessHeightCertificationsTrial PeriodShippingWarrantyNolah EvolutionHybridOrganic cotton or GlacioTex cover, AirFoam Luxe memory foams, gel memory foam, AirBreath border gusset, pocketed coilsPlush, luxury firm, firm15 inchesCertiPur-US, GreenGuard Gold120 nights; 30-day break in period required before initiating return ($99 shipping fee)Arrives in a box as part of standard shipping; white-glove delivery available (mattress setup and old bed removal) for $225Limited lifetimeHelix Midnight LuxeHybridTencel cover, memory foams, pocketed coilsOne option is 6.5/1013.5 inchesCertiPur-US, GreenGuard Gold120 nights; 30-day break-in period required before initiating returnFree for customers in the contiguous USLimited lifetimeBear Elite HybridHybridPhase change material (PCM) cooling cover, copper-infused memory foam, dynamic memory foam, pocketed…

The second big upgrade is in ISO. I am one of those people who will shoot up to 25,000 ISO if I need to to maintain my shutter speed and aperture where I want them. Maybe this is an old-guy film-shooter thing, but changing ISO still seems like a miracle to me, and it’s my favorite thing about digital photography—when it works. With the A7V, I was completely comfortable pushing ISO as high as 32,000. With the noise-reduction algorithms in postproduction software these days, the images still look great even at these insane ISOs. And yes, I try to keep…

Honorable MentionsPhotograph: Kat MerckSutra Heat Guard Blowout Cream for $24: I love Sutra’s IR2 hair straightener, so I had high hopes. This thick and almost fragrance-free cream is meant to protect up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and reduce drying time, but my hair felt dried out after use.Mane Temp Check for $26: “Smell cute, feel cuter” goes the slogan for this line of hair products and tools from celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin, founder of Ouai. This pink spray immediately cheers up any bathroom counter with its handwritten-style cartoon letters, happy clouds, and lychee/rose/vanilla scent. Though I loved how it worked…

If you’re looking for a top-notch Dolby Atmos soundbar, it’s hard to beat the Sonos Arc Ultra. But Sonos is still recovering from its self-imposed 2024 software fiasco, and many of its once-loyal customers have sought refuge with the company’s competitors. Chief among these is Bluesound, a wireless, multiroom audio ecosystem from the Great White North.With a collection of speakers, subwoofers, and music streamers that closely mirrors Sonos’ lineup, Bluesound is especially popular with audiophiles who value the company’s support of lossless, hi-res audio formats and have been willing to pay a premium for it (Bluesound devices typically cost 30…

Margaret Thatcher, who was known for sleeping only four hours a night, is often credited with saying “Sleep is for wimps!” But sleep is actually work. Putting down the phone, setting aside personal or political worries—these require discipline. True relaxation calls for training.Sleep coaches used to treat mainly newborns (and their exhausted parents). But recently, as anxieties about sleep have spiked, grown-ups have found they need help with their habits too. A Gallup poll from 2023 found that 57 percent of Americans think they would feel better with more sleep, up from just 43 percent in 2013. Only about a…

For Juárez, the main factor behind digital disruption is disintermediation. Basically, that each of us is now our own media outlet. “That’s what these platforms have sold us: You choose what to be informed about and you stay inside a bubble. You seek out information that confirms what you already knew or thought. If you think what happened in Venezuela was good, you will look for information that supports that, and vice versa. It creates an environment where we only hear what we want to hear.”According to the Digital News Report 2025, the migration to digital platforms—especially by younger generations—is becoming…

TikTok-famous Solawave is running a buy-one, get-one-free sale across much of its LED lineup, including the viral Solawave wand ($169). It’s a rare deal on a skin care brand we’ve tested extensively and recommended, particularly for targeted treatments and entry-level LED therapy. If you’ve been thinking about treating yourself, the free second device is great for gifting, or for keeping on hand when a loved one starts eyeing your LED mask.All of Solawave’s LED devices are FDA-cleared, and many are FSA/HSA-eligible. Below are the standouts, plus a few additional BOGO deals worth flagging.Best Red-Light Therapy Spot TreatmentSolawave4-in-1 Radiant Renewal WandThe…

While iOS users have an easy smartwatch choice in the Apple Watch, Android owners have a few more options, as well as face shapes, to choose from. The semi-squircular Samsung Galaxy Watch8 and Watch8 Classic have a unique look and set of health features, and are currently marked down to as low as $280 at Amazon for the 30-mm Bluetooth version, or as low as $433 for the Watch8 Classic.Photograph: Julian ChokkattuPhotograph: Julian ChokkattuSamsungGalaxy Watch8 and Watch8 ClassicAs the first watches to sport Google’s Wear OS 6, these made waves when they released with bigger, bolder watch faces, and an…