autonomous vehicles

On a recent trip to the R&D 100 Awards Gala in Arizona, I took my first Waymo. The car showed up by itself within minutes at the airport, whisked me to my hotel and played Spotify along the way. While a sign on the steering wheel had a note about how drivers must keep their…

October 8 will mark two decades since the second DARPA Grand Challenge, the competition the Pentagon launched in 2004 to fast-track unmanned ground vehicles for military use, dangling cash prizes to draw engineers and hackers. The 2005 edition culminated in a big step forward: for the first time, autonomous vehicles successfully finished the desert course,…

Google DeepMind just unveiled Genie 3, offering evidence that AI-generated “world models,” which differ from large language models in their ability to truly understand 3D environments, have graduated from proof-of-concept demos to something approaching an interactive platform. The system can spin up a playable 3D environment from nothing more than a text prompt and keep…

Tree root systems are often metaphors for strong foundations, strength, and resilience. They are also being used as prototypes for more substantial, adaptable electronics. Researchers at Xi’an Jiaotong University have unveiled a new development in conformal electronics, addressing long-standing mechanical and thermal durability challenges. Their newly developed Template-Constrained Additive (TCA) printing technology, inspired by the…

Shanghai residents can now hail a ride in a completely driverless robotaxi, part of China’s aggressive push to lead the autonomous vehicle race. The development is a milestone for China’s autonomous vehicle industry, as Shanghai joins other major cities like Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou in allowing robotaxis to operate without safety operators physically present in the…