Fire erupts near Microsoft office in Israel's Beer Sheva, CNN reports
(Corrects date and day)
(Reuters) -Several fires were burning in a street in Israel's southern city of Beer Sheva, close to a tech park that houses a Microsoft office, CNN reported on Friday.
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29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Palantir Holds Anti-Fragile Edge Amid a Geopolitical Firestorm
As 2025 emerges as a year marked by heightened global conflict and uncertainty, Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR is demonstrating how its platforms are increasingly relevant in volatile environments. From the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Iran escalation to rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait, governments are rapidly investing in technologies that support secure, real-time decision-making under pressure. Palantir holds an antifragile edge because rising geopolitical instability amplifies demand for its AI-driven defense platforms, thus deepening integration and long-term relevance. As global conflicts intensify, its systems become more critical, reinforcing the company's strategic value and making it stronger in the face of adversity. Palantir's strength lies in its ability to offer mission-critical infrastructure and not just tools. Its Maven Smart Systems (MSS) platform, integrating AI with real-time intelligence, has seen a rapid increase in adoption, including NATO's recent selection of MSS as its Command and Control (C2) platform for all 32 member states. This underscores a broader institutional shift toward advanced, data-driven defense capabilities. In times of crisis, decision-makers are often inundated with fragmented data and evolving threats. Palantir's platforms, Gotham, Foundry and MetaConstellation, help unify and analyze this data securely, enabling informed and timely responses. Importantly, Palantir delivers sovereign and deployable AI systems, reinforcing the autonomy and operational integrity of its users. While no one welcomes conflict, the unfortunate reality of today's geopolitical landscape has led to renewed focus on resilient digital infrastructure. Palantir's deeply integrated solutions, particularly its Ontology framework, position it as a critical enabler of secure coordination and defense modernization. PLTR has surged a whopping 85% in 2025, with its stock reaching an all-time high near $145. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research With the stock trading above 200x forward P/E and 74x forward P/S ratio, far above industry averages, even optimistic analysts will acknowledge that such multiples are difficult to justify without efficient execution. As ceasefire negotiations and diplomatic resolutions begin, the 'war premium' currently embedded in PLTR's share price could dissipate as swiftly as it had emerged. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research PLTR stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its second-quarter 2025 earnings has been on the rise over the past 60 days. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. As PLTR moves higher, Lockheed Martin LMT and RTX Corporation RTX offer more grounded defense exposure. Lockheed Martin, with its massive defense contracts, provides steady cash flow and less volatility than PLTR. LMT continues to benefit from global rearmament while trading at modest earnings multiples. Similarly, RTX shines through missile systems. RTX's defense backlog, like LMT's, underscores its stability. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report RTX Corporation (RTX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
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Explainer-How is Tesla expected to remotely control its robotaxis, and what are its limitations?
By Chris Kirkham, Norihiko Shirouzu, Rachael Levy and Abhirup Roy (Reuters) -Tesla is expected to tiptoe into its long-awaited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, as soon as Sunday with about 10 of its Model Y SUVs that will operate within strict limits. CEO Elon Musk has said the company is being "super paranoid" about safety and that humans will remotely monitor the fleet. Remote access and control - known in the industry as "teleoperation" - is used in varying degrees by the handful of robotaxi startups operating around the globe. The technology has clear advantages and important limitations. Here are some details of how it works: WHAT IS TELEOPERATION? Teleoperation is the control of machines by humans in a different location, usually over a wireless network. It is used to train robots to operate autonomously, monitor their autonomous activity, and take over when required. HOW DO ROBOTAXI OPERATORS USE TELEOPERATION? The global robotaxi industry is still in test mode, as companies deploy the vehicles in limited geographic areas and continually adjust the artificial intelligence software that controls them. Teleoperation is often used to intervene when a vehicle is unsure of what to do. Alphabet's Waymo, for example, has a team of human "fleet response" agents who respond to questions from the Waymo Driver - its bot. "Much like phone-a-friend, when the Waymo vehicle encounters a particular situation on the road, the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet response agent for additional information," Waymo said in a blog post last year. Former Waymo CEO John Krafcik told Reuters, "the cars aren't being actively monitored," adding that the software is "the ultimate decision-maker." A Waymo video shows a car asking a remote operator whether a street with emergency response vehicles is open to traffic. When the human says yes, the vehicle proceeds. In contrast, other companies, such as Baidu's Apollo Go in China, have used fully remote backup drivers who can step in to virtually drive the vehicles. Baidu declined to comment. WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS? Driving vehicles remotely on public roads has a major potential problem: it relies on cellular data connections that can drop or operate with a lag, disconnecting the vehicle from the remote driver in dangerous situations. Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor and autonomous-vehicle safety expert, said that approach could work for a small test deployment of 10 vehicles, such as Tesla's initial effort in Austin, but he called teleoperation "inherently unreliable technology." "Eventually you will lose connection at exactly the worst time," he said. "If they've done their homework, this won't ever happen for 10 cars. With a million cars, it's going to happen every day." Former Waymo CEO Krafcik agreed, adding that the time delay in cell signal makes remote driving "very risky." On the other hand, relying on the vehicle to reach out for help and allowing the vehicle to be the decision-maker are risky as well, Koopman said, as it does not guarantee the vehicle will make the right decision. Waymo declined to comment on the limitations of its approach. Koopman also noted there are limits to how many vehicles one person can safely monitor. A group of Democratic Texas lawmakers asked Tesla on Wednesday to delay its robotaxi launch until September, when a new autonomous-driving law is scheduled to take effect. The Austin-area lawmakers said in a letter that delaying the launch "is in the best interest of both public safety and building public trust in Tesla's operations." WHAT IS TESLA'S APPROACH? Musk for years has promised, without delivering, that its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) advanced driver assistance software would graduate to completely self-driving and control robotaxis. This year, he said Tesla would roll out a paid service in Austin underpinned by an "unsupervised" version of the software. "Teslas will be in the wild, with no one in them, in June, in Austin," Musk told analysts and investors in January. In May, he told CNBC that the robotaxi would only operate in parts of Austin that are safe for it, would avoid difficult intersections, and would use humans to monitor the vehicles. What those teleoperators will do is not clear. For years inside Tesla, company executives have expected to use teleoperators who could take over in case of trouble, said one person familiar with the matter. For instance, if a robotaxi were stuck in a crowded pedestrian area and confused about what to do next, a human teleoperator could take over and guide it, the source said. Tesla advertised for teleoperation positions, saying the company needs the ability to "access and control" autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots remotely. Such employees can "remotely perform complex and intricate tasks," it said in the advertisements. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. "We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift," Musk said in a post on X last week while providing a tentative launch date of June 22.
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
SPAC Comeback Draws Renewed Interest from Wall Street
They're SPAC! Just when the market seemed dead and buried, special purpose acquisition companies have risen from the grave. The re-emergence of the once, maybe still, controversial vehicles that let companies go public outside of traditional IPOs is underscored by strong hints this week that one of yesteryear's biggest Wall Street underwriters of the blank check firms is once again ready to make deals after bowing out of the space three years ago. READ ALSO: OpenAI Careens Toward Messy Divorce From Microsoft and Drones Steal the Paris Air Show To remember SPACs is to take a time machine back to their golden age of 2021, when the song of the summer didn't matter because you were at home in pajamas during pandemic lockdowns. That's when these blank-check companies, which list on public markets in order to later merge with a target company and take it public, were all the rage. There was a time when it felt like there were as many celebrity SPACs — Martha Stewart, Jay-Z and Shaquille O'Neal each got in on the craze — as there are celebrity tequila brands. Roughly 600 SPAC deals in 2021 raised a record $163 billion. But a year later, the market froze after interest rates were hiked and the S&P 500 turned in its worst year since the late-2000s financial crisis, falling 19% in 2022. The value of many companies that went public during the SPAC craze crashed, too. They were not helped by the Securities and Exchange Commission stepping in to protect investors. The regulator introduced rules in 2022, finalized two years later, that aligned SPAC disclosure and conflict of interest requirements more closely with the rigorous standards of traditional IPOs. But this year, finally, has marked a mini-comeback of sorts, thanks to maybe the biggest celebrity SPAC figure of all: That, of course, would be President Trump, whose Truth Social went public via SPAC merger in 2022. The expectation that Trump and Paul Atkins, his pick for SEC chair, would focus more on capital formation than clampdown has sparked a return to the vehicles: According to SPACInsider data, there have been 58 SPAC offerings so far this year, one more than the total in all of 2024. In fact, the most active bank on SPAC deals this year, Cantor Fitzgerald, has deep ties to the Trump administration: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is its former CEO and upon taking his job in Trump's Cabinet, he handed control to his sons Brandon and Kyle. However, the fuss has been enough to lure back Wall Street's former titan of the SPAC space: Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Goldman Sachs is prepared to start underwriting SPAC deals again after it largely withdrew from the space in 2022. The Fine Print: Performance among private companies that went public by merging with SPACs this year has not exactly been spectacular. According to data from ListingTrack on 20 such firms, the median return has been a decline of 74%. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
