The Austin-based startup will test its high-bandwidth device to help restore speech in people with extremely limited movement. Brain implant developer Paradromics has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to test its device in an early-stage human trial, the company announced Thursday. The Austin-based company is aiming to give a digital voice to people who have lost the ability to speak due to severe motor impairment. The trial will assess the long-term safety of the Paradromics device, as well as its ability to enable synthesized speech and text communication. Paradromics is one of several companies--which include Neuralink, Synchron, Precision Neuroscience, and Cognixion --working on technology to control computers and other devices using brain waves.

The giant, remote-controlled vehicle -- somewhere between a tractor trailer, a tank and a Zamboni in appearance -- slowly rolled across the dry, brittle grass growing between the tangle of freeways making up the 101 and 23 interchange in Thousand Oaks. And as it rolled over the land, that fire incinerated any brush it encountered, leaving only a thin smoke cloud billowing from the top of the machine, some flashes of orange and red from behind its metal skirt and, in its wake, a desolate, smoldering black line. BurnBot isn't the fastest way to rid a landscape of dangerously flammable vegetation (it tops out at around 0.5 mph) but it can do something that traditional vegetation management techniques cannot: with almost surgical precision, it can kill the flammable brush sitting within feet of homes and highways on even the hottest and driest days and with virtually no safety risks or disruptions to daily life. On a recent summer afternoon, as wildland firefighters maneuvered the machine and mopped up the charred earth on a stretch of highway about 30 miles west of Los Angeles on the 101, a who's who of SoCal's wildfire leadership looked on -- from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, local fire departments, Caltrans, the U.S. forest and park services, Southern California Edison and state Legislature. The sweet smoky smell of wildland fire permeated the hot midday air.

At CES 2025, Bosch is showing off an AI-enabled bassinet with sensors that can detect just about anything an anxious parent could ever hope to monitor about their baby. It's not clear when the device, called Revol, may actually be available, but it's able to track an impressive amount of data. At first glance, the Revol looks somewhat similar to other smart bassinets like the ever-popular Snoo. It has mesh walls and can soothe a sleeping baby with automated movements. But most of the power of the crib lies in the built-in baby monitor that provides a live video feed to caregivers.

It was a week of robotaxi mayhem in San Francisco for the Cruise driverless car company -- by turns bizarre, comic and alarming. As a result, the California Department of Motor Vehicles said Friday it's investigating "recent concerning incidents" involving Cruise vehicles while tapping the brakes on the company's ambitious expansion plans. The DMV didn't say which incidents it's probing, but over a seven-day period the events included: Stuck in the wet muck, it was removed later by workers dispatched by Cruise. The truck struck the car, occupied by one passenger, who was transported to a hospital. Cruise said the passenger sustained "what we believe are non-severe injuries."

Google and Microsoft are locked in a head-to-head competition to bring as much generative AI to their productivity services as possible. Only days ahead of Microsoft's "Future of Work" event, Google today announced a sweeping update to Workspace that will bring its generative AI models to virtually every part of its productivity suite, in addition to new developer solutions that will make Google's foundation models, including its 540 billion-parameter PaLM large language model for multiturn chats, available to developers through an API and new low-code tools. The caveats worth mentioning up front: For the time being, these new features will only be available for what Google calls "Trusted Testers." It's unclear when they will roll out to a wider audience. There's also no pricing information available yet, though it sounds like at least a subset of these features will be available to consumers -- including those on Google One plans. Basically, this is akin to Google's LaMDA announcements a few weeks ago: they sound great, but it'll be a while before you can try any of this in practice.

One unresolved issue in negotiations between terminal operators and the trade unions representing longshore workers on the West Coast is which terminals will be automated, and what will happen to the truck drivers and other port workers who will lose their current jobs as a result. Similarly, labor shortages and management's response to them in America's railroad industry were at the heart of recent negotiations between unions and employers. Rail companies have proposed eliminating train conductors entirely, and fully automating their trains. History shows that, while automation typically takes over some of the tasks performed by humans, over time companies shift workers into different types of jobs, especially in tight labor markets. But, as was the case with the 19th century weavers known as Luddites, more automation can lead to smaller workforces in the short term, as well as worse conditions for workers.

Imagine you are playing a chess game online and you've just made your move. Then you are told how Magnus Carlsen would probably respond. You now have to think and make your counter move. This is what IT services and consulting company Tech Mahindra, the digital partner of the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Chennai, is working on--to create an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered "immersive" digital platform for fans, chess lovers, and aficionados. Through this, fans could feel they are part of the game played by the world's top chess players and try to match their move.

Self-driving car startup Minus Zero has raised $1.7 million in seed round led by Chiratae Ventures. The company plans to get its first vehicle on the road by late 2022 to early 2023. The Bengaluru-based startup uses a combination of camera-based vision and algorithms for its self-driving solution. Minus Zero -- India's first startup building affordable fully self-driving cars in India -- has raised $1.7 million in seed round led by Chiratae Ventures. JITO Angel Network, a few senior executives from American chipmaker NVIDIA and US-based ride hailing service Lyft that competes with Uberalso participated in the round.

The rides are free and currently only available to Waymo employees. The Alphabet Inc. unit since 2017 has been operating autonomous cars in suburban Phoenix, which is a much less challenging traffic environment. In 2020, it opened rides up to the public in Chandler, Ariz.--which has a population of less than 300,000--and took away drivers. Waymo's latest move comes nearly two months after its biggest competitor, Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors Co., started offering driverless rides to the public in San Francisco. The rides are also free and only available at night, from 10:30 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Did you miss a session at the Data Summit? During the pandemic, hiring has become increasingly remote as companies eschew job fairs and other in-person recruitment initiatives in favor of alternatives. According to a LinkedIn survey, companies plan to adopt hiring processes that combine virtual and in-person steps due to the associated cost and time savings. But priorities in HR largely haven't changed. Jobvite's 2021 poll found that improving quality-of-hire, improving time-to-hire, increasing the retention rate, and growing the talent pipeline remain recruiters' top recruiting priorities.