Toyota followed in Uber’s footsteps Tuesday, pausing tests of its driverless car system “Chauffeur”.
The decision came even after authorities said Uber was “likely not at fault” for one of its autonomous vehicles striking and killing a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz., on Sunday. Still, it’s a move one advocacy group exec likely agrees with.
“Is getting them out faster the best idea, or is getting them out right the best idea?” Center for Auto Safety executive director Jason Levine told Cheddar before the Toyota news broke.
Police investigating the Uber incident claim the car, in self-driving mode with a human behind the wheel, was travelling at 38 mph and made no attempt to brake when a woman walked onto the street.
But the pedestrian “came from the shadows right into the roadway,” according to Tempe’s Police Chief, making the accident difficult to avoid in any case.
It was the first known fatality caused by a self-driving car, prompting Uber to halt its own pilot programs and raising questions about the future of the nascent technology, with many calling for a slowdown in development.
“There should be some step between the computer lab, the completely controlled test track, and releasing them into the communities,” said Levine.
The pace of development in this space is moving at a speed that makes it hard to build regulations and safety procedures, he added.
“There, right now, are no regulations before putting these things on the road...there’s no pre-investigation or examination of whether the technology meets the same standards as a non-self-driving vehicle.”
Autonomous cars have been seen as the futuristic antidote to the tens of thousands of deaths caused by traffic accident deaths every year in the U.S. So far the technology’s track record suggests the error levels are far lower than in traditional autos.
The National Transportation Safety Board is currently investigating the Uber incident.
Velo3d, a company that provides metal 3D printed parts for companies such as SpaceX, reported a boost in Q4 revenue quarter over quarter. Founder and CEO Benny Buller, joined Cheddar News to discuss the earnings and the foundation of the company's current success. "The whole space sector is about 25 percent of our business. We have a lot of business in aviation, in power generation, in energy, and in semiconductors. I would say that the big jump in our revenue is related to the release of our Sapphire XC, which is a scale-up product reducing costs by about three times compared to the first Sapphire machines," he said. "This allows customers to dramatically reduce costs as well as make much bigger parts."
Under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), corn-based ethanol has been mixed into gasoline sold at pumps in the U.S. since 2005, when a policy was enacted aimed at reducing emissions. Corn-based ethanol had been thought to be a relatively greener energy source compared to other biofuels, but now, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports it may be actually worse for the climate than straight gasoline. Tyler Lark, an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Sustainability, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell and discussed the pushback against the study. "Essentially when you need to produce more corn to meet the demand for use as ethanol as fuel, farmers respond and they switch more crops like soybeans and wheat into corn," Lark said. "They also bring more land into production, so things that used to be pasture grassland, and both those activities are associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions."
Video conferencing service Zoom rolled out a flurry of announcements that included a new Zoom Phone, Zoom Events, and Zoom Contact Center in an effort to transition the company from a pandemic darling to a post-pandemic business — while keeping the product accessible. Kelly Steckelberg, CFO of Zoom, joined Cheddar News to talk about the transition while still remaining affordable. "We currently have no plans to raise our prices," she said. "We focus on bringing as much value as possible to our customers. We often add new features and functionality without any incremental prices across the board."
Alexandre Mongeon, the CEO and co-founder of Vision Marine Technologies, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss the latest innovations in the e-boating industry, and how fully electric motors and boats will play a role in the fight against the climate crisis.
Even as pandemic restrictions slowly began winding down through 2021, cable and internet provider Comcast's 2021 Network Report showed that average internet consumption increased. Activities like content streaming and online gaming grew between 10 and 20 percent, according to the study. Elad Nafshi, chief network officer for Comcast, joined Cheddar News to share what he thinks will happen with our new online habits in a post-pandemic world. "Beyond, the traditional game downloads, streaming gaming, which falling into the purposes is just like streaming 4K video for us, is starting to pick up and, and certainly we'll watch that consumer behavior continue," he said. Nafshi also discussed the company's investments in 10G technology, its future generation of network speed.
AMC has announced that it will be accepting Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, two meme cryptocurrencies, as online payment options, The theater chain will begin taking the memecoins in "a couple of weeks."
