I was wary of driverless cars and their tech overlords – but they could give me a different future

For those of us who can’t drive due to disabilities, the drawbacks of these vehicles are vastly outweighed by the possibilities they offer, says freelance writer Gabriel Stewart

The Guardian

Two men in their 80s take a trip in a self-driving car, and it’s an absolute must-watch

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/elderly-tries-self-driving-car-ex1/

Off-season, non-SXSW Austin is its own sort of weird

AUSTIN, Tex.

It feels like I barely visited my favorite part of Texas, and that’s not just because my trip here for the Connectivity Standards Alliance’s Unify conference only spanned three days. This visit has also reminded me that SXSW, my usual experience of Austin aside from one trip here in September of 2018 for the Online News Association’s conference, is not a reliable reflection of the city.

The sidewalks this week aren’t crowded with hipsters and would-be hipsters (i.e., me) wearing the same conference badge, in the process making the number of unhoused people here a little more obvious. Bars and restaurants downtown go by their normal names instead of being rebranded as “activations” for one #brand or another. And instead of delightful spring weather, it’s ghastly hot out–not Vegas-in-August scorching, but also much more humid.

Avoiding that heat by spending so much of my time in Unify’s air-conditioned confines at the Hilton Downtown made this even more of a fake visit for me. I did at least think to stop by a dive bar off Red River Street Wednesday night to get in some local color and put some money into the non-hotel economy.

One other change I noticed compared to March: Austin’s streets seem to have picked up a lot more robotic occupants. Waymos are as ubiquitous as ever, but I also spotted several of Austin-based Avride’s refitted Hyundai Ioniq 5s, at least two Zoox toasters on wheels and one of Tesla’s two-seat, gold-colored Cybercabs–plus delivery robots rolling up and down sidewalks.

(I didn’t get a good enough look at most of the non-Waymo vehicles to see if they had humans at the controls or otherwise overseeing them. Nor did I get rides on any of them, since it was such a short walk from my hotel to the conference venue.)

But one part of Austin did take me right back to my usual marketing-spring-break nonsense: being greeted outside by the airport by the squawk of grackles.

#AffordableConnectivityPlan #ATX #AUS #Austin #autonomousVehicles #ConnectivityStandardsAlliance #grackles #hipsters #robots #selfDrivingCars #sxsw #Texas #Waymo
Waymo Recalls Over 3,800 Robotaxis Over Risk of Driving Into Freeway Construction Zones

The recall follows several unnerving incidents.

Gizmodo
Waymo Recalls Robotaxis Over Risk They'll Drive at Speed Into Freeway Construction Zones

The company's latest recall of 3,871 vehicles follows incidents of its autonomous cars prioritizing other hazards or failing to recognize closed construction zones altogether.

WIRED

How Can Self Driving Cars See Better? Make Their Sensors More Human

Camden Hall/NurPhoto via Getty Images Modern autonomous vehicles are getting pretty darn good at seeing the world around them. That is, assuming that lighting conditions are ideal. Once rain, snow, or sudden bursts of bright light from first-response vehicles enter the equation, things start to get a bit dicey. A tiny new sensor component that is roughly the size of a grain of sand, could help solve that problem. Called a photomemristor, the new sensor was engineered by researchers at Penn […]

https://onlinemarketingscoops.com/2026/06/14/how-can-self-driving-cars-see-better/

How Can Self Driving Cars See Better? Make Their Sensors More Human

Camden Hall/NurPhoto via Getty Images Modern autonomous vehicles are getting pretty darn good at seeing the world around them. That is, assuming that lighting conditions are ideal. Once rain, snow,…

Online Marketing Scoops

Rivian’s CEO on Tesla’s Cybertruck, Ferrari’s Luce, and What Happens If the R2 Fails

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/interview-with-rivian-ceo-rj-scaringe/