Kalakshar US

Tesla will introduce a paid autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin, Elon Musk said during an earnings call discussing the automaker’s financial results for 2024. As TechCrunch reports, he said the company will use cars with no human driver behind the wheel and with the unsupervised version of its Full Self-Driving software, which Tesla has yet to release. The service will launch with the company’s internal fleet in Austin this June before expanding to other locations in the US. And then next year, Tesla owners will be able to add their cars to the fleet whenever they want, kind of like how people can list and unlist their properties on Airbnb, Musk said. He explained that the automaker wants to iron out any kinks first, such as making sure billing works well and that the robotaxis will stop at the right spot when they’re ordered.

Since the plan is to allow vehicle owners to add their Teslas to the company’s robotaxi fleet, the automaker is also planning to release its unsupervised FSD software in California and other regions in the US before the year ends. Knowing Musk’s tendency to overpromise on timelines, though we’d take that announcement with a (huge) grain of salt.

Musk has been talking about robotaxis for a while now and said back in 2019 that Tesla will “have over a million robotaxis on the road” within a year. When he launched the Cybercab in 2024, he said he envisions a future wherein people own several robotaxis that they can then earn money from through a ridesharing network. It’s worth noting that Waymo started offering fully autonomous rides to select users in Austin in late 2024 and will be launching the service fully in the city sometime this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/elon-musk-says-tesla-will-launch-a-robotaxi-service-in-austin-this-june-044745591.html?src=rss 

Meta has agreed to pay President Donald Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit stemming from the social network’s decision to suspend Trump’s Facebook account following the riots at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

According to The Wall Street Journal, there had been “little activity” surrounding the lawsuit until Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg flew to Mar-a-Lago following the election. “Toward the end of the November dinner, Trump raised the matter of the lawsuit,” The Journal reports. “The president signaled that the litigation had to be resolved before Zuckerberg could be ‘brought into the tent.’” Much of the settlement will reportedly go toward funding Trump’s presidential library.

Settling the lawsuit is the latest step Zuckerberg and Meta have taken to appease Trump, who at one point during the campaign threatened to imprison the Facebook founder for “plotting” against him. Following the election, Zuckerberg ended Meta’s longtime fact-checking program and rolled back content moderation standards that prohibited dehumanizing language and slurs targeting immigrants and LGBTQ people. He also ended corporate diversity programs and added Trump backer and UFC CEO Dana White to Meta’s board. Zuckerberg had a prominent seat at Trump’s inauguration, alongside other tech CEOs.

News of Meta’s settlement broke just as the company released its latest earnings results. During a call with analysts, Zuckerberg said that 2025 was “going to be a big year for redefining our relationship with governments.” Though he didn’t mention Trump by name, he said that “we now have a US Administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad.”

Zuckerberg, who earlier this week said the company would spend as much as $65 billion on AI investments this year, predicted that Meta AI would reach 1 billion users in 2025. He also commented on the rise of DeepSeek, an open-source AI assistant from China, saying that it’s “strengthened our conviction” about open source AI. “One of the things that we’re talking about, is there’s going to be an open source standard globally,” he said. “And I think for own national advantage, it’s important that it’s an American standard.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-pay-25-million-to-settle-a-lawsuit-with-donald-trump-over-his-2021-facebook-suspension-234046291.html?src=rss 

Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has only been in his post for a day and already making it clear that the agency will be ignoring the role vehicle pollution plays in worsening climate change. Duffy sent a memo to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calling for a review of fuel economy standards to align with President Donald Trump’s goals of promoting the use of oil, natural gas and biofuels. The memo claims that “artificially high” fuel economy standards have made new cars prohibitively expensive for US buyers and could negatively impact the US auto industry.

It’s the latest swing of the pendulum as the country’s leadership changes hands once again. Trump’s first presidency saw a rollback of fuel efficiency standards that had been enacted by Barack Obama, followed by the EPA introducing its strictest standards to date when Joe Biden assumed office. President Donald Trump’s transition team had already signaled in December that he would walk back moves by previous administration to strengthen fuel efficiency standards and promote electric vehicle adoption. Today’s development isn’t a surprise, but it’s still bad news considering multiple international reports have demonstrated that the planet’s rising temperature will cause extreme and catastrophic weather events.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/us-department-of-transportation-moves-to-cut-fuel-efficiency-standards-235205073.html?src=rss 

A day after the plight of Garmin users whose devices have been stuck in a boot error gained media attention, the company says it has found a solution. “We have resolved the underlying issue causing some devices to be stuck on the start up screen,” a Garmin spokesperson told Engadget, pointing us to a support page the company recently updated. Unfortunately, if your wearable or cycling computer is displaying a “blue triangle of death,” the potential fix may involve losing some data in the process.

Depending on the device, Garmin says a factory reset is required. In other cases, you may only need to reset the power on your wearable and sync it with either the Garmin Connect app on your phone or via Garmin Express on a PC. Garmin has provided additional troubleshooting information for those with devices that are still malfunctioning after a power reset, with the required steps varying by product line.

For instance, in the case of the company’s popular Forerunner family of running watches, you’ll need to power off your device, then press down and hold the Start/Stop and Back buttons until you hear a beep. At that point, release the Start/Stop button, but continue holding the Back button until you hear a second beep. Your watch will then display Garmin’s language selection screen. If it was previously paired with your phone, you’ll need to remove the device from your Bluetooth settings before you can continue the reset process.

If it’s been a while since you’ve synced your watch, Garmin warns a factory reset will result in the loss of some data, including information relating to Garmin Wallet, Connect IQ content such as watch faces and, most notably, Body Battery insights. However, once you sync your device with Garmin Connect, most (if not all) of that data should be restored.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/garmin-says-it-has-fixed-the-blue-triangle-boot-error-that-was-bricking-some-devices-204919328.html?src=rss 

As Los Angeles reels from the loss of lives and homes to the Easton and Palisades fires, scientists are asking why the events of this January have been so catastrophic. Climate change very likely played a part in setting the stage that caused multiple fires to sweep through the region, according to analysis from the World Weather Attribution, an international research initiative.

“Eight of the eleven models examined also show an increase in extreme January [Fire Weather Index], increasing our confidence that climate change is driving this trend,” the group said of their investigation.

Earth is currently 1.3°C hotter than it was before the industrial era began. The WWA found that extreme Fire Weather Index conditions are 35 percent more likely to occur in the LA area at this temperature. If the planet increases 2.6°C from its pre-industrial temperature, extreme conditions become another 35 percent more likely. Based on current policies, a 2.6°C higher temperature is the minimum increase the Earth is projected to reach by the year 2100.

The researchers noted, however, that the growing odds of those peak conditions is not a linear progression. Other factors also contributed to the widespread devastation across the Los Angeles area, including lack of rain; the region had not received significant rainfall since May 2024. This type of drought condition is 2.4 times more likely at the Earth’s current temperature than at its pre-industrial level. Santa Ana winds also caused the rapid spread and difficulties containing the blazes. The team said that the impact of wind is not always reflected well in climate models.

The World Weather Attribution conducts rapid studies into extreme weather events to analyze whether climate change was a factor. The international team of researchers aim to address the impact of climate in natural disasters “while the impacts of the extreme weather event are still fresh in the minds of the public and policymakers, and decisions about rebuilding are being made.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/climate-change-increased-the-odds-of-los-angeles-devastating-fires-researchers-say-211652200.html?src=rss