Waymo – pressnews

[ad_1] Just before Patti Smith took the stage in San Francisco this month, the emcee thanked sponsors, including robotaxi company Waymo.The audience booed, reflecting the hostility that's growing in the city for one of tech's most-watched industries. There was the recent incident when a fleet of driverless vehicles froze and blocked traffic during a Friday night concert at North Beach. Days later, an autonomous car got stuck in wet cement at a construction site, and then a robotaxi crashed into a firetruck responding to an emergency call. Weeks earlier, pet lovers were mortified when a vehicle struck and killed a small dog. The mishaps are adding to traffic and safety concerns over driverless vehicles, which zip around the city's streets surrounded by sensors and cameras, collecting dat...

[ad_1] Google parent Alphabet has already tried and failed to bring internet access to rural and remote areas by using high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere.But now, the company is delivering internet service to remote areas by using beams of light. The project known as Taara is part of Alphabet's innovation lab called X, also nicknamed the "Moonshot Factory." It was initiated in 2016 after attempts at using stratospheric balloons to deliver internet ran into problems due to high costs, company executives said. This time around, things are progressing better, said MaheshKrishnaswamy, who leads Taara.Taara executives and Bharti Airtel, one of India's largest telecommunications and internet providers, told Reuters they are now moving toward larger-scale deployment of the new laser in...

Tag: Waymo

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