In some San Francisco neighborhoods, automobiles with no driver behind the wheel have change into a typical sight. Most of the metropolis’s ghostly driverless automobiles are business robotaxis, straight competing with taxis and ride-hailing firms.
I spent the previous 12 months masking robotaxis for the San Francisco Examiner and have taken practically a dozen rides in Cruise driverless automobiles over the previous few months. Throughout my reporting, I’ve been struck by the dearth of urgency within the public discourse about robotaxis. It’s excessive time for the general public and its elected representatives to play a extra energetic function in shaping the way forward for this new expertise. Prefer it or not, robotaxis are right here.
Now comes the tough work of deciding what to do about them. Learn the complete story.
The chip patterning machines that can form computing’s subsequent act
After we discuss computing nowadays, we have a tendency to speak about software program and the engineers who write it. However with out the {hardware} and the bodily sciences that enabled their creation—disciplines like optics, supplies science, and mechanical engineering—trendy computing would have been not possible.
Semiconductor lithography, the manufacturing course of chargeable for producing laptop chips, stands on the heart of a geopolitical competitors to manage the way forward for computing energy. And the velocity at which new lithography programs and elements are developed will form not solely the velocity of computing progress but additionally the stability of energy and income throughout the tech trade. Learn the complete story.
—Chris Miller
