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People Are Backflipping Off of Waymo’s Robotaxis

In a bizarre (or hilarious) late-night episode that underscored public unease with autonomous vehicles, several men climbed onto stalled Waymo robotaxis in San Francisco’s Marina District and began attacking them. They then started sitting and climbing on them and, at one point, began doing backflips off the driverless cars while a crowd cheered. City police eventually cleared the scene, but the incident highlights growing tensions over deployments of robotaxis in urban areas. So what happene

Tesla Makes a Huge Move to Appease Regulators

Tesla appears to be bending to the will of regulators. In a visible sign of its shifting posture from daredevil innovation to cautious compliance, Tesla this week relocated its robotaxi safety monitors, employees who supervise the autonomous software’s performance and can take over the vehicle’s operation at any moment, from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat. Tesla’s Robotaxi service represents one of the company’s most ambitious and long-delayed projects. First teased by Chief Executiv

The first Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phones could have ridiculously big batteries

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority TL;DR A new Xiaomi 16 series leak suggests major battery upgrades across the board. This varies from 7,000mAh for the compact Xiaomi 16 all the way to 7,500mAh for the purported Xiaomi 16 Pro Max. These will be the first phones with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (or Gen 2) processors. Xiaomi will be the first Android brand to offer phones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (or Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2) processor. However, it looks like all three of these upcoming

People Are Back-Flipping Off of Waymo’s Robotaxis

In a bizarre (or hilarious) late-night episode that underscored public unease with autonomous vehicles, several men climbed onto stalled Waymo robotaxis in San Francisco’s Marina District and began attacking them. They then started sitting and climbing on them, and are one point began doing back flips off the driverless cars while a crowd cheered. City police eventually cleared the scene, but the incident highlights growing tensions over deployments of robotaxis in urban areas. So what happen

Perplexity's $200 AI browser is free for students now - with more discounts to keep using it

SOPA Images/Contributor/LightRocket via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Perplexity is offering students one free month of Perplexity Pro. The company is positioning Comet as "study buddy, and tutor." AI is rapidly becoming a fixture in the classroom. Like it or not, artificial intelligence is becoming a fixture in the classroom. This is being pushed along at a brisk pace by tech companies eager to get their products into the hands

Anyone can now download Tesla's iOS Robotaxi app, but there's still a waitlist

Tesla has made its iOS Robotaxi app available for all iPhone users to download as it expands service beyond a group of early access users for the first time. Beyond the current lack of an Android app (Tesla says one is on the way), there are a couple of things to bear in mind here. The company's proper robotaxis are currently only available in Austin, Texas. There's also a waitlist, so you won't be able to book a ride immediately. That said, it might not take folks on the waitlist too long to g

Want to Try Tesla's Robotaxis? Testing Is Now Open to All, Alongside Dedicated App

After a couple of months of testing its Robotaxi service with invited members, Tesla is beginning to open the doors to its Robotaxi program. The electric car maker's newly launched iOS app is now live, signaling the start of a wider public beta -- though it's not quite a free-for-all just yet. You'll still need to join a waitlist, but the service is now open beyond the Tesla-focused influencers who were previously invited. This move is Tesla's biggest yet in its driverless mission, and it comes

PayPal and Venmo users get free year of Perplexity Pro and Comet AI browser

Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Some PayPal and Venmo users can now access Comet for free. The offer includes a one-year subscription to Perplexity Pro. Comet is Perplexity's new AI-centric web browser. PayPal and Venmo users in the US and other global markets can now receive early access to Perplexity's highly anticipated Comet web browser, PayPal announced. The offer includes a 12-month free trial of Pe

PayPal and Venmo users get a free year of Perplexity Pro and early access to its AI browser

Perplexity, the NVIDIA- and Bezos-backed AI company, is partnering with PayPal to get its Comet browser in front of millions of the financial tech giant's users. The deal will see PayPal and Venmo customers in the US and select international markets gain access to the AI-powered browser, as well as a free 12-month subscription to Perplexity Pro, which normally costs $200. There are, of course, some conditions. The promotion is part of PayPal's new subscription hub, where users can manage all th

PayPal and Venmo users can try Perplexity's Comet AI browser free for a year now

May James/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Some PayPal and Venmo users can now access Comet for free. The offer includes a one-year subscription to Perplexity Pro. Comet is Perplexity's new AI-centric web browser. PayPal and Venmo users in the US and other global markets can now receive early access to Perplexity's highly anticipated Comet web browser, PayPal announced today. The offer includes a 12-month f

PayPal and Venmo are giving out Comet invites and free Perplexity Pro subscriptions

Invites to Perplexity’s new AI-powered web browser, Comet, are one of the web’s hottest commodities these days. The new product was made available first to the AI firm’s $200-per-month Max subscribers and a small group of invitees. But now there’s a new way to jump ahead on the waitlist. On Wednesday, PayPal announced it’s giving its customers, including PayPal and Venmo users, early access to Comet as well as a free year’s subscription to Perplexity’s premium service, Perplexity Pro, normally $

You're Not Interviewing for the Job. You're Auditioning for the Job Title

I once had a job interview for a backend position. Their stack was Node.js, MySQL, nothing exotic. The interviewer asked: "If you have an array containing a million entries, how would you sort the data by name?" My immediate thought was: If you have a JavaScript array with a million entries, you're certainly doing something wrong. The interviewer continued: "There are multiple fields that you should be able to sort by." This felt like a trick question. Surely the right answer was to explain w

What Is Complexity in Chess?

Pacto Visual May 2020 an interesting proposal was suggested. I provided some constructive criticism on research paper A Metric of Chess Complexity by FM David Peng, as well as constructive criticism on the codebase used to validate this experiment. For many months I have refrained from further comment, and although code has not progressed, two things have: 1. Public interest in "complexity" as determined by ACPL (yuck). 2. Lichess has a blogging platform where I can properly address deficien

Spacing Over Cards

This post is a rationalisation of “I don’t like cards”. I say that in most cases where cards are used, they don’t need to be used. Specifically, they take space, they let you skip gestalt principles and be lazy and undisciplined, and being so easy to implement they are often used by developers. To multiply the effect, you can put a card into a card, and it seems so hard not to do so. We recognise patterns. This is known for quite some time, specifically Wertheimer in 1923 wrote the paper that e

Why ‘The Toxic Avenger’ Is the Superhero Movie We Need Right Now

The wait is over! The Toxic Avenger arrives in theaters today, and Troma fans can finally see writer-director Macon Blair’s fresh (but still gross, gory, and proudly unrated) take on the legendary cult franchise. In a splattery movie with a lot going on—a sinister health-care megacorp that’s poisoning people and the environment; a hero with a terminal illness who transforms into a badass mutant; Elijah Wood as you’ve never seen him before; a nu-metal “monstercore” band that moonlights as assass

This 2nd-gen 4K Google TV streaming stick is now available in more regions

TL;DR The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen) is now available in the UK as a cheaper alternative to the Google TV Streamer. It supports high-end features like 4K streaming, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and Wi-Fi 6. The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen) is more portable and significantly less expensive than the Google TV Streamer, but it surprisingly still uses a micro-USB port for power. The Google TV Streamer is likely a top choice if you’re in the market for a Google TV-based streaming stick. Ho

Topics: 4k google stick tv xiaomi

We Asked Dentists: What's the Best Whitening Toothpaste of 2025?

Why we like it: Colgate Optic White Pro Series toothpaste is one whitening toothpaste that Dr. Fatima Khan, a dentist in Houston, Texas, recommends. Some of her reasons for recommending it include its trusted brand name and its 5% hydrogen peroxide whitening agent. Unlike other whitening agents that work by removing stains on the surface of the tooth, hydrogen peroxide can get inside the tooth so it whitens intrinsically as well as extrinsically. Sachar also recommends this toothpaste, saying,

Lucky 13: a look at Debian trixie

Lucky 13: a look at Debian trixie This article brought to you by LWN subscribers Subscribers to LWN.net made this article — and everything that surrounds it — possible. If you appreciate our content, please buy a subscription and make the next set of articles possible. After more than two years of development, the Debian Project has released its new stable version, Debian 13 ("trixie"). The release comes with the usual bounty of upgraded packages and more than 14,000 new packages; it also debu

The New ‘Toxic Avenger’ Is Helping Avenge Real-World Health Care Debt

The new Toxic Avenger finally hits theaters this week after a few years’ delay, and while audiences are in for a wild ride with the movie’s hilariously gross tale of mutation and redemption, the movie does also tackle more serious themes. A big moment comes early on when Peter Dinklage’s character—Winston Gooze, before he becomes Toxie—learns his expensive health insurance won’t cover his life-or-death medical treatment. Now, the film is applying some real-world activism to that unfortunately re

Video Shows Tesla Robotaxi Safety Driver Giving Up, Climbing Into Driver's Seat

Launched just two months ago in Austin, Tesla's Robotaxi service has been plagued with errors and safety issues — many of which have been caught on camera by passengers — from the very start. From freaking out at the sight of a child and getting stuck in infinite loops to reckless wheel-jerking and ominous calls advising passengers to exit the vehicle immediately, it would seem that "failure" is not a strong enough word to describe how poorly Tesla's not-so-driverless taxis are doing. Now, it'

Perplexity Will Share Revenue From AI Searches With Publishers

Artificial intelligence systems need content to produce results, and they've been criticized for not paying the people who wrote and edited that content. Now, Perplexity AI, the AI-powered search engine, is introducing Comet Plus. This new subscription tier will distribute revenue to publishing partners whenever readers use AI to glean or deliver journalistic content, the company said in a blog post on Monday. In the AI age, high-quality information is key, and Perplexity contends that publishe

Perplexity has cooked up a new way to pay publishers for their content

Perplexity is launching a new revenue-sharing plan for publishers that will pay them every time its AI assistants use an article to answer a question, The Wall Street Journal reports. Perplexity is launching the plan (and partially paying for it) with a new Comet Plus subscription that gives subscribers access "to premium content from a group of trusted publishers and journalists." Comet Plus costs $5 per month, and based on Perplexity's description, it's primarily designed to account for the a

Toxic Avenger gets grindhouse-style trailer

The Toxic Avenger, a semi-reboot of the 1984 superhero splatter-fest, made the rounds of the festival circuit back in 2023. But all the violence and gore scared off most distributors, so the film—starring Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) in the title role—has been languishing in the vault for much of the last two years. Thanks to Cineverse, The Toxic Avenger is finally coming to select theaters this weekend. And thanks to the folks at Bloody Disgusting (a Cineverse subsidiary), we've got a trai

Tech founder throws hat in California governor’s race

In Brief Tech founder Ethan Agarwal, who has raised tens of millions of dollars from VCs across two startups, is running for the 2026 California gubernatorial seat, as reported by Axios. Axios described Agarwal as a “Democrat who believes in capitalism.” He told the outlet he’s mainly concerned about the increased cost of living and doing business in the state, which has led to the departure of residents and other opportunities, such as film productions. California “could use some business an

The Final ‘Toxic Avenger’ Trailer Is a Goofy, Retro Call to Arms

After two years of uncertainty whether it’d come out, the next Toxic Avenger movie is hitting theaters this upcoming week. But in case you’re not aware, the folks at BloodyDisgusting—a subsidiary of Cineverse, the film’s distributor—commissioned a trailer that it hopes will make you, in its own words, “show the fuck up.” This new “grindhouse” trailer comes courtesy of Wilson Cleveland, a producer and actor who’s previously made fan trailers for Weapons and other films. Cleveland’s approach for

Best Heart Rate Monitors (2025), WIRED Tested and Reviewed

Compare Top 5 Heart Rate Monitors FAQS We tested and recommend all of the heart rate monitors below, which do a pretty impeccable job. But what do all these terms mean? Heart rate zones: If someone tells you they’ve been doing 80/20 training, they’ve been doing heart rate zone-based workouts. Heart rate zones are an easy way to break down your range of effort during exercise. Zones go from 1 to 5, with 5 indicating working at 90 to 100 percent of your maximum heart rate. Zone 2 represents tra

Agentic Browser Security: Indirect Prompt Injection in Perplexity Comet

This is the first post in a series about security and privacy challenges in agentic browsers. This vulnerability research was conducted by Artem Chaikin (Senior Mobile Security Engineer), and was written by Artem and Shivan Kaul Sahib (VP, Privacy and Security). The threat of instruction injection At Brave, we’re developing the ability for our in-browser AI assistant Leo to browse the Web on your behalf, acting as your agent. Instead of just asking “Summarize what this page says about London f

Perplexity's Comet AI browser could expose your data to attackers - here's how

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET ZDNET's key takeaways Perplexity's Comet browser could expose your private data. An attacker could add commands to the prompt via a malicious website. The AI should treat user data and website data separately. Get more in-depth ZDNET AI coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. Agentic AI browsers are a hot new trend in the world of AI. Instead of you having to browse the web yourself to complete specific tasks, you t

Zoox taps ex-Uber Pool exec’s startup for routing software help

When James Cox, the former leader of Uber’s ride-share product, Uber Pool, left that company in 2019, the Silicon Valley giant had abandoned its autonomous vehicle development and sold off the division entirely. While Uber Pool had struggled to take hold, Cox felt a massive opportunity had been missed: taking the core of Uber Pool’s tech and applying it to robotaxis. For the last five years, Cox has instead been running a small startup called The Routing Company, which helps transit agencies ma

Bootstrapping the Future: From Resource Estimation to Quantum Advantage

Quantum Algorithms That Work A central problem in quantum computing is the development of domain-specific algorithms that enable real scientific and economic contributions. Quantum algorithms in numerous domains such as finance, chemistry, physics, and biology are being developed with the intention of achieving quantum advantage, i.e. to derive deeper insights relative to established algorithms on classical machines. But these algorithms are typically evaluated through simulation and/or testing