“Waymo is opening up its robotaxi service to anyone who wants to ride in San Francisco. Previously, customers interested in taking a ride in one of the company’s driverless cars needed to sign up for a waitlist, which could take weeks or months to open up,” reports The Verge:
Waymo began its commercial test service in the city in August 2021 with a rollout to “trusted testers” — preapproved riders, some of whom were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements. In March 2022, Waymo began offering driverless rides for its staff. Since then its been giving rides to regular people who sign up for its waitlist, which the company says approximately 300,000 people have done since it first launched.
Now, Waymo’s driverless ridehail service will be available to anyone who downloads the app and requests a ride. This is similar to how Waymo operates its robotaxi service in Phoenix, which has been open to the public without a waitlist since 2020. It also comes amid heightened scrutiny of the driverless car industry after a series of crashes…Earlier this month, Waymo issued a software and mapping recall for all its vehicles after one of its robotaxis crashed into a telephone pole….Opening up the service to more people who want to pay money to ride in its driverless vehicles is a crucial step toward the normalization of autonomous vehicles. And it’s important for Waymo — and its parent company Alphabet — to turn a historically money-losing operation into one that can break even or perhaps even be profitable.
In other robot news, German robots are hunting the sea for tens of thousands of unexploded World War II bombs found in the North Sea.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer. “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply.”
Last year, doctors used a surgical robot to carry out incredibly complicated spinal surgery. They also did the first robotic liver transplant in America.
Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Drones with artificial intelligence will make farming easier.
Robots are replacing some fast-food workers after California increased the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour, which many franchises just can’t afford. Thousands of fast-food workers lost their jobs due to the minimum wage hike.
