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Waymo announces that its robotaxis will drive freeways for the first time

The Guardian

Alphabet's Waymo said on Wednesday that it would begin offering robotaxi rides that use freeways across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, a first for the Google subsidiary as it steps up expansion amid global and domestic competition in the self-driving industry. Freeway rides will initially be available to early-access users, Waymo said. "When a freeway route is meaningfully faster, they can be matched with a freeway trip, providing quicker, smoother, and more efficient rides," it said. The race begins to make the world's best self-driving cars Waymo, which already operates in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, is also extending operations to San Jose, including Mineta San Jose international airport, the second airport in its service area after Phoenix Sky Harbor. The move comes as Tesla expands its robotaxi service with safety monitors and drivers, and Zoox - backed by Amazon - offers free robotaxi rides on and around the Las Vegas Strip.


Hate Meta? Even Realities Is Making the Smart Glasses You Want

WIRED

The company announced the Even G2 smart glasses, sporting a bigger display in a lighter frame, alongside the R1 smart ring, which can control the display on the lenses. As Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses continue to turn your face into a computer, with a camera and speaker, Even Realities is doubling down on a design that eschews those components. Today, the company announced the Even G2 smart glasses, alongside the Even R1, its first-ever smart ring that controls the display of the G2. The Even G2 glasses don't look wholly different from the original G1 that debuted last summer, which is a good thing, because these are still among the sharpest-looking smart glasses on the market. At a closed-doors briefing a few weeks ago, Even Realities CEO Will Wang said the company didn't advertise its first product much, as it wanted to test it in the market and receive valuable feedback, while also working on expanding its retail presence.


Tesla shareholders approve 1 trillion pay package for Musk

The Japan Times

The $1 trillion pay agreement puts Elon Musk on track to become the world's first trillionaire. Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion compensation package for CEO Elon Musk, the largest payout ever awarded to a corporate leader. More than 75% of votes were cast in favor of the unprecedented pay plan, the company said Thursday at its annual meeting. The outcome caps a weekslong campaign by the electric vehicle maker's board, its CEO and prominent retail investors to build support. The pay agreement clears a path for Musk, the world's richest person, to become the first ever trillionaire and expand his stake in Tesla to 25% or more over the next decade.


The mind-boggling valuations of AI companies

The Guardian

Microsoft are building a data center in Wales. Microsoft are building a data center in Wales. Tue 4 Nov 2025 10.00 ESTLast modified on Tue 4 Nov 2025 10.01 EST If you like reading our newsletter, forward this email to five friends with a demand they sign up like itรข s a chain letter warning of bad luck for five years. In this weekรข s news, AI companies hit mind-boggling financial milestones such as a $5tn valuation, a $100bn quarter, and a string of deals worth nearly $600bn. Last week, the chipmaker Nvidia hit a valuation of $5tn.


Microsoft reports strong earnings as Azure hit by major outage

The Guardian

Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, speaks at the company's annual developer conference in Seattle, Washington. Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, speaks at the company's annual developer conference in Seattle, Washington. Tech giant reports earnings of $3.72 per share day after deal with OpenAI pushed value of company to more than $4tn Microsoft blew off concerns of overspending on AI on Wednesday, reporting elevated earnings even as it faced an outage of its cloud computing service, Azure, and its office software suite, 365. The strong earnings report comes a day after a deal with OpenAI pushed the value of the tech giant to more than $4tn. After its Xbox and investor relations pages went down, the company issued a statement that said: "We are working to address an issue affecting Azure Front Door that is impacting the availability of some services."


The Microsoft Azure Outage Shows the Harsh Reality of Cloud Failures

WIRED

The second major cloud outage in less than two weeks, Azure's downtime highlights the "brittleness" of a digital ecosystem that depends on a few companies never making mistakes. Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, its widely used 365 services, Xbox, and Minecraft started suffering outages at roughly noon Eastern time on Wednesday, the result of what Microsoft said was "an inadvertent configuration change." The incident--which marks the second major cloud provider outage in less than two weeks--highlights the instability of an internet built largely on infrastructure run by a few tech giants. Microsoft's problems specifically originated from Azure's Front Door content delivery network and emerged just hours before Microsoft's scheduled earnings announcement. The company website, including its investor relations page, was still down on Wednesday afternoon, and the Azure status page where Microsoft provides updates was having intermittent issues as well.


ChatGPT teams up with PayPal to make it easier for you to buy stuff in chat

PCWorld

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Users will soon be able to use PayPal to pay for product recommendations made by OpenAI's ChatGPT. PayPal recently signed a contract with OpenAI to integrate the digital wallet into ChatGPT, reports CNBC . This will allow users to easily pay for the products they discover via the AI tool. The agreement allows PayPal users to make payments via ChatGPT merchants to list and sell their goods in ChatGPT.


KDDI enters into 'responsible' AI agreement with Google

The Japan Times

KDDI enters into'responsible' AI agreement with Google KDDI said its AI service, which will be launched in spring 2026, will "protect the rights of content providers." Major Japanese telecommunications firm KDDI signed an agreement Tuesday with Google Cloud Japan in a bid to develop a "responsible" AI search service that only shows content that creators have given consent to. The agreement would allow KDDI to harness Google's AI assistant Gemini and AI-optimized research tool NotebookLM. "We will promote'responsible AI' that uses AI ethically, legally, and appropriately, and provide an environment where content providers and customers can use AI safely and securely," the company said in a statement. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.


Nvidia will build AI supercomputers for US Department of Energy

Al Jazeera

Nvidia, the artificial intelligence (AI) chip leader, will build seven new supercomputers for the United States Department of Energy (DOE), CEO Jensen Huang has said. The company has $500bn in bookings for its AI chips, Huang said on Tuesday in a keynote address at the company's GTC event in Washington, DC, the US capital. It is striking deals around the world while also navigating a US-China trade war that could determine which country's technology is most used across the globe. Investors are looking for clarity on what chips the tech company will be able to sell to the vast Chinese market, but Huang in his keynote speech praised policies by US President Donald Trump while announcing new products and deals. These included network technology that will let Nvidia AI chips work with quantum computers.


OpenAI Completes Major Reorganization With 135 Billion Microsoft Stake

TIME - Tech

An illustration photo shows the OpenAI logo displayed on a smartphone with the Microsoft logo in the background in Chongqing, China on Aug. 27, 2025. An illustration photo shows the OpenAI logo displayed on a smartphone with the Microsoft logo in the background in Chongqing, China on Aug. 27, 2025. OpenAI has completed a restructuring, dividing itself into a nonprofit and for-profit entity, the company announced on Tuesday. The nonprofit arm, now called the OpenAI Foundation, will have a $130 billion stake in the for-profit enterprise, a public benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC. "The OpenAI Foundation and OpenAI Group will work in concert to advance solutions to hard problems and opportunities posed by AI progress," the company said in its blog post announcing the restructuring. "This includes making intelligence a tool that everyone can benefit from, building safe and aligned systems, turbocharging scientific discovery, and strengthening global cooperation and resilience."