Why the World's Biggest Automakers Are Turning to This Company for Self-Driving Technology
Some of the world's leading automakers are all turning to the same company to help bring past the self-driving finish line. Aurora CEO and Co-Founder Chris Urmson joins Cheddar at CES to discuss his firm's newly-announced partnership with Volkswagen Group. He describes his company's goal as providing the "drivers," by way of software, for autonomous vehicles.
The partnership is focused on developing "mobility as a service" initiative in major cities. Urmson describes how Aurora will help Volkswagen Group's fleet of self-driving cars, known as Sedric, connect people in urban communities. He explains how the service initiative will help people with mobility issues of their own, as well as making transportation easier for commuters.
Urmson reveals how his company spent the past year working with Volkswagen Group to integrate its system into the automaker's fleet. He breaks down Aurora's high-pedigree founding team, including himself, a veteran of Google's self-driving initiative, and Sterling Anderson, one of the minds behind the launch of Tesla's Model X.
Umbilical cord blood banking platform Anja Health raised $4.5 million dollars in a seed round led by Seven Seven Six, a venture capital firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Anja Health offers a personalized, doctor-backed cord blood bank, which lets new parents freeze stem cells from their child's umbilical cord so they can be used to treat diseases in the future. It's a process Anja has called 'Hollywood's best-kept secret,' as celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Serena Williams, and more have all banked their umbilical cord blood. Kathryn Cross, the founder of Anja Health, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Catching you up on what you missed in today's news. Elon Musk has increased his commitment to purchase Twitter to $33.5 billion, Apple is raising its hourly wages for retail stores to compete for talent, and Roblox has announced that it will be partnering with the medically prescribed video game ‘Endeavor’ to help treat patients with ADHD.
After learning that the suspect in the Uvalde school shooting posted about his intentions on Facebook, activists are urging social networks to make changes. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "The Facebook Narcissist," joined Cheddar News to discuss the role social media plays in school shootings. "They're not really invested in taking down hateful content," she said about social platforms."In regards to the shooting, it was 15 minutes before that actual threat. It would be pretty hard for a social media company to trace that threat that quickly. But what they can do better is take down threats and hateful content much faster and more than they're doing now."
Esper Bionics CEO Dima Gazda breaks down how they're creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it, and what this innovation means for the future of the prosthetics industry.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: Brightseed Co-Founder breaks down what plant bioactives are, and how they're using the latest technology to study human's biological connections with plants; Esper Bionics CEO breaks down how they re creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Capturing A Black Hole In Our Milky Way.'
