In some San Francisco neighborhoods, vehicles with no driver behind the wheel have turn into a standard sight. Lots of the metropolis’s ghostly driverless vehicles are industrial robotaxis, instantly competing with taxis and ride-hailing corporations.
I spent the previous yr overlaying robotaxis for the San Francisco Examiner and have taken almost a dozen rides in Cruise driverless vehicles 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 lively position 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 speak about computing today, 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 unattainable.
Semiconductor lithography, the manufacturing course of liable for producing laptop chips, stands on the middle of a geopolitical competitors to manage the way forward for computing energy. And the velocity at which new lithography programs and parts are developed will form not solely the velocity of computing progress but additionally the stability of energy and earnings inside the tech trade. Learn the complete story.
—Chris Miller