NerdNews

Waymo has announced its sixth-generation autonomous driving system, which will be used in its new Ojai robotaxis. The system features updated sensors, including a high-resolution 17-megapixel imager, and is designed to be more affordable and adaptable across different types of vehicles. Waymo plans to scale production at its Phoenix factory to tens of thousands of vehicles per year, with the goal of expanding its service to 20 additional cities this year.

Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, an AI personal assistant, has joined OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents. OpenClaw will become an open-source project supported by OpenAI.

Glean is shifting its strategy from building a better enterprise chatbot to becoming the connective tissue between models and enterprise systems, acting as an abstraction layer to allow enterprises to switch between or combine models as capabilities evolve.

The emergence of agentic AI, such as Claude Code, has the potential to significantly disrupt the white-collar job market. These AI systems can autonomously complete complex projects, making them potential substitutes for skilled workers. Investors are now treating agentic AI as an existential threat to many incumbent software and consulting firms, leading to a selloff in software and consulting stocks.

Anthropic has announced $30 billion in Series G funding at a $380 billion post-money valuation. The company, which has yet to turn a profit, has seen significant revenue growth driven by its Claude Code agentic coding model. Investors continue to invest heavily in AI platforms, despite concerns over profitability and code quality.

OpenAI has scaled a single primary PostgreSQL instance to handle millions of queries per second for ChatGPT, serving 800 million users. This was achieved through optimizations such as scaling up instance size, refining query patterns, and scaling out with additional read replicas. The primary instance is supported by nearly 50 geo-distributed read replicas, with reads distributed across replicas to maintain low latency.

Researchers found that GPT-5, a large language model, can make legal decisions that are more accurate than those made by human judges. In a study, GPT-5 was able to apply the law correctly in 100% of cases, while human judges were correct only 52% of the time. However, the study's authors note that this does not necessarily mean that AI is ready to replace human judges, as AI models may not be able to consider the nuances and complexities of real-world cases.

Google and OpenAI warn of competitors probing their models to steal underlying reasoning and clone capabilities, posing a significant risk to intellectual property and ecosystem security.

Gartner predicts misconfigured AI could shut down national critical infrastructure by 2028, due to rapid adoption in cyber-physical systems, causing unpredictable behavior and physical failures.

OpenAI's new Codex-Spark model can generate ~1,000 tokens per second, making it ideal for fast, lightweight tasks where staying in flow matters more than perfection. However, it lacks the reasoning capabilities of heavier models like Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.3 Codex, making it less reliable for complex tasks.

Waymo has launched its 6th-generation autonomous driving system, which features improved sensors and AI-powered technology to navigate through extreme weather conditions. The system is being used in vehicles made by Chinese automaker Zeekr, sparking controversy among US lawmakers. The new system reduces the number of cameras needed and improves low-light sensitivity, resolution, and dynamic range.

Aurora's self-driving trucks can now travel 1,000 miles nonstop, exceeding human drivers' capabilities. This breakthrough can cut transit times nearly in half, offering compelling economics to customers. Aurora plans to expand its driverless routes across the Sun Belt, with a fleet expected to grow to over 200 trucks by the end of the year.

Meta is considering adding facial recognition capabilities to its smart glasses, taking advantage of a 'dynamic political environment' to launch the feature despite potential safety and privacy risks. The company has been working on 'super sensing' capabilities for its glasses, which would allow the device's cameras and microphone to capture information constantly, feeding it to an AI assistant.

Anthropic is partnering with CodePath to integrate its AI model, Claude, into computer science courses, aiming to modernize how people learn to program and make AI-assisted coding more accessible to students, particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds.

iRobot has been acquired by China-based Picea Robotics, but will maintain a separate US-based subsidiary called iRobot Safe to handle US customer data. This move is designed to maintain a clear separation between iRobot's non-US ownership and its US consumer data.

Elon Musk unveiled a new vision for SpaceX and xAI, involving a moon base called Moonbase Alpha. The base would be used to manufacture space computers and launch them into deep space using a mass driver. Musk believes this could help achieve a new level of energy usage, as described by the Kardashev Scale, and potentially lead to the development of a solar system-scale supercomputer.

The Pitt's AI drama mirrors real-life debates in hospitals. Two-thirds of physicians use AI, but many fear its errors and risks. AI tools can improve efficiencies, but also raise concerns about de-skilling and patient safety.

1min.AI provides a central hub for popular AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini, offering unlimited prompt library, storage, and brand voice options, with a lifetime subscription available for $74.97, saving $465.03 off the regular price of $540.

Over 260,000 Google Chrome users have downloaded fake AI assistants that steal login credentials, monitor emails, and enable remote access. The malicious extensions, identified by LayerX, use techniques like 'extension spraying' and full-screen iframes to evade detection and steal data.

The Trump administration's Genesis Mission aims to accelerate scientific research using AI, with 26 objectives including nuclear fusion, advanced manufacturing, and autonomous laboratories. The Department of Energy will lead the effort, which aims to double US research productivity within a decade.