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.
Nouveau Monde Graphite says it wants to power the sustainable energy revolution. The Canadian company is developing carbon-neutral battery materials to serve the growing EV and cleantech markets and is doing so via a mining and manufacturing operation in Quebec. Eric Desaulniers, founder, president & CEO of Nouveau Monde Graphite, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The U.S. is bracing for a potential cyberattack as both the FBI and President Biden warn that Russia is 'exploring' a hack. This comes amid a recent rise in hacks on U.S. companies including Microsoft, Okta, and Nestle. Chris Pierson, founder & CEO, BlackCloak joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
Catching you up on what you need to know Mar 24, 2022, with NATO meeting updates, Ukraine retaking suburbs around Kyiv, the spread of omicron subvariant BA.2 in China, Google Pay launching a third-party billing option, and a 16-year-old is suspected of being the Lapsus$ mastermind behind hacks of Microsoft and others.
Uber has reached a deal to include New York City taxi cabs on its app, a move that will help to boost driver availability for passengers and open up a new set of customers for cab drivers.
Computer-sharing network Salad is announcing a $17 million Series A round. Salad offers an open-source desktop application that invites gamers to share storage, bandwidth, and other resources from their idle PCs in exchange for rewards. Salad says users have earned what is equivalent to more than $5 million in rewards, and that its platform has quickly become the world's most distributed super-computer. Bob Miles, founder and CEO of Salad, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Cannabis producer Cresco Labs is acquiring rival Columbia Care in a $2 billion all-stock deal, creating the largest U.S. cannabis company by sales. The deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022, is one of the biggest in the industry's history and would make Cresco the dominant player in a market projected to reach $46 billion in revenue by 2026. Charlie Bachtell, CEO of Cresco Labs, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Sports betting has boomed over the past year; but at the same time, sports betting stocks have not been so hot. Now, some sports betting brands are starting to rethink how to spend their money, especially when it comes to ads. It will come after online sports betting brands spent more than $320 million on advertising in 2021, up 38% from 2020, per MediaRadar. Brendan Coffey, sports finance reporter for Sportico, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
