Self-driving cars are hitting city streets like never before. In August the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) granted two companies, Cruise and Waymo, permits to run fleets of driverless robo taxis 24/7 in San Francisco and to charge passengers fares for those rides. This was just the latest in a series of green lights that have allowed progressively more leeway for autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the city in recent years. Almost immediately, widely publicized accounts emerged of Cruise vehicles behaving erratically. One blocked the road outside a large music festival, another got stuck in wet concrete and another even collided with a fire truck.

Driverless cars may be worse at detecting children and people with darker skin, tests on artificial intelligence systems suggest. The researchers who carried out the work say that tighter government regulation is needed and that car-makers must be transparent about the development and testing of these vehicles. Jie Zhang at King's College London and her colleagues assessed eight AI-based pedestrian detectors used in driverless car research.

Get ready, San Francisco: The state government on Thursday approved a major expansion of driverless robotaxi service throughout the city. And get ready, Los Angeles: The industry is planning to push for driverless rides here as soon as it gets permits to do so. The state's green light, on a 3-1 vote by the California Public Utilities Commission, signals a historic turning point for the robotaxi business as it evolves from fascinating experiment to commercial reality. It also marks the beginning of a grand experiment in public safety as thousands of multi-ton vehicles operated via artificial intelligence attempt to safely negotiate the hills and narrow streets of San Francisco. It highlights California's messy multiagency regulation of new automobile technology: Two agencies are in charge of the robotaxi business, the CPUC and the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

This article was co-published with Understanding AI, a newsletter that explores how A.I. works and how it's changing our world. In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen published an essay that became a kind of manifesto for Silicon Valley during the 2010s. "Software is eating the world," Andreessen declared. Computers and the internet had already revolutionized a bunch of information-oriented businesses: books, movies, music, photography, telecommunications, and so forth. Software also played a major supporting role in more tangible industries. New cars had dozens of computer chips in them, for example, and the oil and gas industry made heavy use of software to discover new drilling sites. But Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, argued that the software revolution was only getting started.

Officials in San Francisco have asked for a halt to the expansion of driverless car tests across the city after a series of incidents that have hampered the work of emergency services. San Francisco's position at the heart of Silicon Valley and its wealth of technology talent has made it a hotbed for the driverless car industry. Both Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, and Cruise, owned by General Motors, operate experimental robotic taxi services in the city. But they haven't been without problems. New Scientist has previously reported how autonomous vehicles (AV) from Cruise, for example, have randomly stopped and blocked traffic and had a run-in with police.

Audi has finally revealed the Activesphere EV concept it promised last summer. The crossover is built to go off-road, complete with a rugged underbody, a liftable suspension and easy ways to carry your sports gear. The rear can transform into a loading area with enough room for your e-bikes, for instance. It nonetheless features a sedan-like profile and the creature comforts of past concepts, including a spacious, bright interior designed for relaxing while the vehicle is in self-driving mode. The cabin reflects Audi's confidence in augmented reality.

Robots were on the main expo floor at CES this year, and these weren't just cool robots for marketing purposes. I've been tracking robots at CES for more than 10 years, watching the transition from robot toys to real robots. Increasing prominence has been given to self-driving cars, LiDARs and eVTOL drones, but, in my mind it was really the inclusion of John Deere and agricultural robots last year that confirmed that CES was incorporating more industry, more real machines, not just gadgets. In fact, according to the organizing association CTA or the Consumer Technology Association, these days CES no longer stands for the Consumer Electronics Show. CES now just stands for CES, one of the world's largest technology expos.

To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. Early on, the software had the regrettable habit of hitting police cruisers. No one knew why, though Tesla's engineers had some good guesses: Stationary objects and flashing lights seemed to trick the A.I. The car would be driving along normally, the computer well in control, and suddenly it would veer to the right or left and -- smash -- at least 10 times in just over three years. For a company that depended on an unbounded sense of optimism among investors to maintain its high stock price -- Tesla was at one point worth more than Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Ford and General Motors combined -- these crashes might seem like a problem.

Researchers also found that to keep computer-generated emissions from spiraling out of control in the coming decades, each autonomous vehicle would need to consume less than 1.2 kilowatts of energy for computing, which would require hardware to double in efficiency roughly every 1.1 years, a "significantly faster pace" than what's being done currently.

After canceling our CES plans in 2022 (and not even having the option of attending in person in 2021), the Engadget team sent a dozen staffers to CES 2023 this week, including reporters, editors and videographers. It's too soon to say how many stories and videos we've published -- in fact, we have more good stuff coming -- but suffice to say, it was a lot. Though our team swears the show still wasn't as busy as pre-pandemic years, they were kept busy enough that it felt like a true return to form, not just for us, but for the tech industry at large. One thing that never stopped was Engadget's annual Best of CES Awards program, although this year marks the first time in three years we've been able to base our judgments off of a full slate of in-person hands-on experiences. All told, we're handing out a dozen awards this year, including the most prestigious: Best of the Best.