AVS

Where Does Waymo Go From Here?

After dropping our AV guide yesterday, we wanted the perspective of an organization that’s been working on autonomous vehicles for...a while. We caught up with Tekedra Mawakana, who was appointed Waymo co-CEO two weeks ago, via email. 

Expectations are high for her Alphabet business unit, which plans to commercialize its core “Waymo Driver” tech across two business lines: 

1. Waymo One. The driverless ride-hail service opened to the general public in suburban Phoenix late last year. Waymo One now gives "hundred of rides a week, 100% fully autonomously," Mawakana tells us, and "has definitely provided a positive validation" of the company’s approach.
2. Waymo Via. The local delivery/freight venture kicked off in 2017. “We saw this as a natural next deployment of the Waymo Driver,” Mawakana says.

On strategy: “Ride-hailing will still be our primary focus, but we’ll also continue to deepen our investment in goods delivery.” Simultaneously pursuing ride-hail and delivery is expensive, but Mawakana says it ultimately enhances the underlying technology.  

• In the near-term, Mawakana says Waymo is focused on integrating its new Driver system into passenger car- and Class 8 truck fleets. 

On lessons from Arizona: Residents who are “located in and around our Metro Phoenix service territory are definitely very familiar with Waymo,” she says. The company still sees some confusion among locals between AVs and driver-assist systems in personal cars. 

On that confusion: It’s a national issue as well. How can the industry help clear up confusion as it expands? 

1. “We see public education as absolutely critical to our success,” Mawakana says, and “a huge component of our consumer-facing strategy.”
2. By not saying “self-driving” anymore. Waymo’s transition to using fully autonomous terminology “wasn’t just a branding or linguistics exercise.” Aligning the AV industry and consumers on terms “will not just prevent misunderstanding and confusion among the public, but also help save lives,” she says. 

On what’s next: “At a national level, we’re seeing more interest in autonomous driving technology.” And while Waymo is “always looking” at new markets and partnerships, for now, mum’s the word. 

+ Want more? Read the full AV guide here. 

AI

In Nvidia's Good Graces

On Monday, Nvidia announced its first-ever data center CPU, which engineers spent a combined total of 10,000 years—yes, you read that right—working toward. 

The new chip is called Grace, in honor of programming pioneer Grace Hopper, who helped create the first all-electronic digital computer in the 1950s. 

Why this is big: Like its namesake, “Grace” is all about high-performance computing—built to power tasks like natural language processing, recommender systems, and AI supercomputing on an unprecedented scale. And the organizations building supercomputers are taking notice.  

Los Alamos National Laboratory is first in line to receive Grace, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre will use it to help power its new supercomputer, “Alps.” 

• Billed as 10x faster than today’s fastest supercomputer, Alps will be released in 2023 and focus on weather and climate simulation, quantum physics, and quantum chemistry. 

Zoom out: Until this week, Nvidia’s highest-performing chip worked in tandem with Intel processors. Now that the company’s traded those out for Arm-based ones, it’s taking on the current leaders in data center chipmaking—Intel and Santa Clara-based AMD—for the first time. 

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HARDWARE

Riding in Cars With Things

For those who traveled in 2020, it was a year for road trips—which meant it was also a year for reluctantly handing over the music controls to your passenger. 

Spotify wants to put that behind you. Yesterday, the company released its first-ever gadget: Car Thing. It’s a standalone screen with voice recognition and Bluetooth connectivity, designed to be mounted in your car as a “Spotify remote” of sorts. 

• Car Thing is a limited “exploration,” meaning there’s a wait list to try it and no guarantee of a large-scale rollout.

The flip side: Saying, “Hey Spotify, play Dua Lipa,” can get you right to “New Rules,” but as Gizmodo reports, asking for rock duo “Xiu Xiu” will likely confuse the algorithm. It’s a problem with many smart assistants, and it doesn’t bode well for fringe or diverse artists. 

Zoom out: This isn’t just about consumer comfort. Spotify has been looking into voice-powered ad interactions for about two years, and in January, the company was granted a patent for suggesting songs based on a user’s emotional state, gender, age, or accent. If that type of data is collected, it’ll likely be monetized, too. 

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Bitcoin and ethereum hit all-time highs in the last 24 hours—over $64,000 and nearly $2,400, respectively—as Coinbase prepares to go public. 

Quote: “I was told by friends [in British intelligence] that I was better off sticking to Gmail, rather than using the parliamentary system, because it was more secure. Frankly, that tells you the level of security and the priority we're giving to democracy in the UK.”—British politician Tom Tugendhat, speaking with the BBC.  

Read: Our new guide to autonomous vehicles, featuring everything you need to know about self-driving cars, robotaxis, and more. 

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• One of the men wrongfully arrested by Detroit Police over facial recognition is now suing the department.
• LG and Magna are closing in on the contract to build the Apple Car, The Korea Times reports. 
• Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s new boss, tells Reuters his company is talking to automakers and could potentially start developing chips for them in six to nine months. 
• Twitter is hiring product development teams in Africa, starting in Ghana. 
• Oculus is prepping some hefty software updates for the Quest headset.
• Binance launched tokenized stock trading.

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TRIVIA

How well do you know autonomous vehicles? We’ll be rolling out trivia in the coming weeks that tests your comprehension of our AV guide. 

Take the first (and easiest) quiz here. 

FROM YOU

During the pandemic, we’ve been trying out virtual experiences—from national park tours and museum walk-throughs to listening to 500-year-old music created using lidar scans. On Mother’s Day, Hayden and her mom did the same VR video tour of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. 

If you've had a memorable (or underwhelming) virtual experience during quarantine, send us a note about it.

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• New ripple effects from the global chip shortage 
• Polestar’s latest “moonshot goal” for EVs
• Alternatives to a fiercely debated AI technique