Posted May 27, 2025 at 1:24 PM EDT
Waymo identifies three new cities for robotaxi testing.
The Alphabet-owned company is planning to set its vehicles loose in Houston, Orlando, and San Antonio as part of its 2025 'road trip.' The vehicles will be manually driven, and the testing operations are not necessarily a precursor to the launch of a commercial robotaxi service — nor is Waymo precluded from launching a service, either. The company sees it as an opportunity to see how well its self-driving system adapts to new locales with varying weather conditions and regional driving habits. Waymo previously said it was testing its vehicles in Las Vegas, Miami, and Japan.
We're officially more than halfway through our 2025 road trip! 🛣️ The Waymo Driver is learning and rolling. Where do you think we're heading next?
— Waymo (@Waymo) May 27, 2025
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Waymo is winning in San Francisco
The self-driving car service Waymo has been active in San Francisco for 20 months and has already captured 27% of the city's rideshare market, according to new research compiled by Mary Meeker's Bond venture capital firm. That rapid progress suggests the mainstreaming of self-driving car service could happen faster than once thought. Why you're catching the 'ick' so easily, according to science Waymo is winning in San Francisco Supersonic air travel gets green light in U.S. after 50-year ban lifted 'What we've done in San Francisco is prove to ourselves—and to the world—that not only does autonomy work, but it works at scale in a market and can be a viable commercial product,' Waymo Co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov told Fast Company in March. In my experience as a frequent Waymo user, the service can cost up to a third more than Uber, depending on demand. But in some ways it's worth it. While Uber was originally meant to make ridesharing a friendlier and more social experience than taxi service, being alone can have its perks, too. A Waymo One ride can be a time of quiet contemplation, or even meditation, slotted in between meetings or other tasks. With Uber or a taxi service, you also get a different experience each time. The quality, condition, and odor of the vehicle varies from ride to ride, as does the driver's level of sociability, attitude, behavior, and language. Waymo service, by contrast, is largely the same every time: same Jaguar SUV, same neutral smell, same mellow, ambient music (which you can shut off if you want to). Note that Waymo's Jaguar I-PACE SUVs, after being decked out in computers and sensors, probably cost between $130,000 and $150,000, Motor Trend estimates. So Waymo could adopt less-expensive, and less-posh, vehicles as it scales to drive down costs. Riders may feel more in control in a self-driving car (sounds counterintuitive, I know). In an Uber, 'my car, my rules' governs a number of aspects of the ride. I wouldn't ask an Uber driver to change or turn off the music in his own car, for example. In a Waymo 'you control the music and don't feel judged by being on a call or whatever you do,' Das tells Fast Company. And while Waymo rides may take a little longer than Uber rides to get to their destination, there's evidence that Waymo rides are safer than human-driven cars. Waymo researchers studied more than 56.7 million miles of driving and found that by removing the human driver Waymo achieves a 92% reduction in crashes involving injuries among pedestrians, an 82% reduction in crashes with cyclists, and an 82% reduction in crashes involving motorcyclists. Yes, Waymo might have captured a quarter of the market here because San Francisco is a tech city. 'This may be due to a combination of the region's tech-focused culture, busy workers staying heads-down on work or sensitive calls, or simply a preference for fewer social interactions,' Jeremiah Owyang of Blitzscaling Ventures tells Fast Company. 'Standardized quality in a private setting is outperforming a variable, faster human driver—a physical representation of automation.' And don't get me wrong. I've had my share of problems with Waymo. On at least two occasions, in less-traveled parts of the city, a Waymo car has dropped me off several blocks from my destination. And, at least in San Francisco, you still can't take a Waymo to the airport (the company started servicing its first airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor, in 2022). Still, the differences that matter between the self-driving and human-driven experiences are becoming clearer to more consumers. And some of the ones that really matter seem to favor Waymo. Waymo currently offers rides in the San Francisco Bay Area and down the peninsula and Silicon Valley. The state of California just gave it permission to offer rides in San Jose. The company, which spun off from parent Google 10 years ago, also operates in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. Across these markets, Waymo says its cars have covered more than 33 million miles. In Austin, Waymo operates through a partnership with Uber. Riders hail a self-driving car through the Uber app. Within its 37-square-mile service area in Austin, Waymo accounts for nearly 20% of Uber rides. Waymo was valued at $45 billion after its most recent funding round of $5.6 billion last October. The company reports its revenue under parent company Alphabet's 'Other Bets' category, which showed $450 million in revenue and an operating loss of $1.2 billion for the first quarter of 2025. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter: Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This corny ‘conservative credit card' ad signals a very scary future for AI
A fresh glimpse at our AI-filled future arrived this week, in the form of an unmemorable ad by a company most people have never heard of. The ad is kind of flat and will probably scan as goofy to everyone outside its target demo, but don't write it off just yet: It could signal the beginning of some very big (and scary) changes. Why you're catching the 'ick' so easily, according to science Waymo is winning in San Francisco Supersonic air travel gets green light in U.S. after 50-year ban lifted The upstart fintech company Coign claims to be a 'conservative credit card company,' a distinction that boils down to the founders' pledge to never donate to liberal causes and candidates. And while that self-definition raises some questions, it pales in comparison to the actual ad. The 30-second clip is a patriotic parade of red-blooded, red-voting Americans boasting about recent Coign-fueled purchases such as deer-hunting gear, a stack of cartoonish gold bars, and the 'biggest American flag' available. But here's the most striking thing about the ad: All of those situations, and all of the actors, were created by AI. There's something a little off about Coign's ad, to be clear. The pacing of the phony satisfied customers' movements feels too jittery at times, and there's an eagle at the end that is not exactly natural looking. While the ad is spiritually the same AI slop as Shrimp Jesus, it doesn't carry the same overtly synthetic visuals. In that regard, it's a lot more casually AI-generated than many of its predecessor ads. When Coca-Cola released an AI-generated holiday spot last fall, it sparked an uproar. Creatives were livid about such a monumentally successful company neglecting to splash out on an all-human production, and even casual observers noticed the glaring flaws in the video: The truck's tires glided over the ground without spinning, Santa's hand was bizarrely out of proportion with the Coke bottle it gripped, and the entire ad sat squarely in the 'uncanny valley.' The same goes for the ad Toys R Us released last year using OpenAI's text-to-video tool Sora: The kindest thing one could say is that its human characters looked marginally more lifelike than the unsettling, motion-captured Tom Hanks from The Polar Express two decades earlier. So far, AI-generated ads have been rare enough and mostly the domain of heavy-hitter companies, making them lightning rods for attention and backlash just about every time a new one is released. The simple fact that they were AI-made has been enough to generate headlines, even before factoring in the slop. But maybe not for much longer. If the Coign ad is any indication, there may be an entire class of AI ads coming that will be subject to far less attention—and far less scrutiny. We're at a precarious moment with AI, collectively feeling out its least objectionable uses through trial and error. So far, uncanny ads from massive companies have triggered backlash, but when lesser-known brands dabble—especially without obvious visual glitches—they often escape notice. Advertising legend David Droga once noted the existence of a 'mediocre middle' in marketing and entertainment, and that may be exactly where AI quietly thrives: in ads from companies too small to spark outrage. Advertising, after all, is already the most disposable and least emotionally protected form of media—expensive to make, widely avoided, and largely unloved. That makes it the perfect Trojan horse for AI—slipping past scrutiny not because it's good, but because few people care enough to notice. On a moral and economic level, the advertising industry should not be diving headlong into a technology that makes large swaths of professional workers expendable. And on an aesthetic level, just because AI technically can create an ad doesn't mean it can create a good one. Once a seemingly harmless use case eases people's minds about a given technological breakthrough, it's only a matter of time before the more flagrantly objectionable use cases take hold. The facial recognition tech that first allowed Facebook users to tag their friends in photos was eventually used to strengthen the surveillance state and threaten privacy everywhere. Today's drones that make aerial photography easier become tomorrow's drones that mistakenly blow up weddings in other countries and threaten to displace delivery workers. Obviously, AI is going to play some role in humanity's future. The size of that role, however, is not yet set in stone. As machine learning creeps into all creative fields, workers need regulations to ensure the technology doesn't spread too far too fast. The good news is that a majority of Americans seem to want AI regulation. Although the House of Representatives recently passed a major tax and spending bill with a provision forbidding state governments to regulate AI over the next 10 years, that clause is getting bipartisan blowback. According to a recent poll, 81% of voters agree that 'advances in AI are exciting but also bring risks, and in such fast-moving times, we shouldn't force states to sit on the sidelines for a full decade.' Even the CEO of generative AI company Anthropic is a full-throated advocate for stricter AI regulation. The people have spoken. Whether they are listened to is another matter altogether. A single, silly credit card ad may seem an unlikely step toward a dystopian future of unfettered AI and full unemployment, but if we laugh it off now, the bill may still come due later. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company 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
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Lululemon stock price: LULU shares crash over tariff impact fears
Popular athletic apparel brand Lululemon Athletica is seeing its share price crash today. As of this writing, the stock (Nasdaq: LULU) is down nearly 20% in early-morning trading. The company's dramatic share price fall comes a day after it announced its first-quarter results for fiscal 2025, and issued a tariff-related warning about its profit forecasts. Here's what you need to know. Why you're catching the 'ick' so easily, according to science Waymo is winning in San Francisco Supersonic air travel gets green light in U.S. after 50-year ban lifted Despite today's stock price fall, Lululemon actually reported fairly positive results for its first quarter of fiscal 2025, which ended on May 4. Announcing its results yesterday after the closing bell, Lululemon reported $2.37 billion in net revenue, an increase of 7% compared to the same quarter a year earlier. The company also announced a comparable sales increase of 1%. However, diving into that comparable sales increase of 1% reveals some potentially downbeat foreshadowing. That comparable sales increase of 1% is taking Lululemon's full global sales into account. Internationally, Lululemon's comparable sales increased 6%. But when you look at the comparable sales only in America, they actually decreased by 2%. That American slice of the comparable sales pie suggests that the company is facing greater struggles in the U.S. than the rest of the world. Lululemon also announced a gross profit for the quarter of $1.4 billion, up 8% from the same quarter a year earlier. The company's diluted earnings per share (EPS) were $2.60, versus $2.54 for the same quarter a year earlier. The good news for Lululemon is that its revenue of $2.37 billion and EPS of $2.60 beat Wall Street expectations. According to a consensus estimate cited by CNBC, analysts were expecting revenue of $2.36 billion and an EPS of $2.58. Yet despite these beats, Lululemon also reported something that sent shivers down the spines of investors: a Q2 forecast that did not meet expectations. Lululemon said it expects its current Q2 net revenue to be in the range of $2.54 billion to $2.56 billion. That forecast was below what analysts were expecting. As Yahoo Finance notes, analysts had expected a Q2 net revenue forecast of $2.57 billion. But worryingly, the company said its guidance does 'not incorporate future unknown impacts, including tariffs and macroeconomic trends.' It's that unknowable impact of tariffs on Lululemon's sales that likely worries investors the most. Its Q1 results already showed that the company's sales in America are not as strong as in other markets, which is likely driven by in part weakening consumer confidence and fears of further tariff-fueled price increases ahead. If consumer confidence weakens further, Lululemon, like other retailers, could be hit harder as Americans cut back on nondiscretionary spending to mitigate the impact on their wallets. However, Lululemon faces bigger challenges than just weakening consumer confidence in the United States. The Canadian company manufactures the majority of its goods in Asia. As Yahoo Finance notes, as of 2023, 42% of Lululemon's products were made in Vietnam, 16% in Cambodia, 11% in Sri Lanka, 10% in Indonesia, and 8% in Bangladesh. Additionally, it sourced 40% of its components for those products from Taiwan, 26% from China, and 12% from Sri Lanka. Many of those countries have had huge tariffs placed upon goods from them by President Trump. If all those tariffs go into effect, it could necessitate price hikes for many of Lululemon's products in America—something not all its U.S. customers may be willing to absorb. That could ultimately lead to a decline in sales. In fact, Lululemon has already said that it will raise prices on some of its goods. 'We are planning to take strategic price increases, looking item by item across our assortment as we typically do, and it will be price increases on a small portion of our assortment,' Lululemon CFO Meghan Frank said on the company's financial call. One positive forward-looking sign, however, was that Lululemon reiterated its previously forecasted outlook for all of 2025. The company said it still expects net revenue of between $11.15 billion and $11.30 billion. Still, Lululemon's disappointing Q2 forecast and its manufacturing vulnerability to Trump's tariffs have sent the company's shares plunging this morning. As of the time of this writing, LULU shares are down almost 20% to just above $265. Since the start of the year, Lululemon's stock price has declined 30%. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter:
