The Innovation Report
AV Startup Zoox Unveils Robotaxi EV
After six years in business, Zoox - Amazon's autonomous vehicle company - unveiled its first self-driving taxi. The firm on Monday took the wraps off of an electric "purpose-built robotaxi" that it developed for its future ride-hailing service. The...
Once Seen as Job Killers, Robots Protect Workers From Covid
For decades, the attitude of unions and their advocates to increased automation could be summed up in one word: no. They feared that every time a machine was slipped into the workflow, a laborer lost a job. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced a small but significant...
Climate Change Turns up the Heat on Ad Industry
Critics have long attacked the oil industry for ad campaigns that they call "greenwashing" - telling people that policies or products are more environmentally friendly than they really are. But the ad agencies behind the campaigns have largely escaped scrutiny. That's...
A First: AI Improves Decision Making During Colorectal Cancer Surgery
A clinical research study published in the British Journal of Surgery shows that fluorescence guidance (where a fluorescent chemical compound re-emits light with a long wavelength) can enable a colorectal surgeon to assess cancer tissues visually and with more...
Clemson, Army to Create Autonomous Armored Vehicles
A university in South Carolina is teaming up with the U.S. Army to create models for self-driving military vehicles. The research project at Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville will be funded by a $18 million grant from the...
Lyft to Offer Fully Autonomous Vehicles in 2023
Lyft announced on Wednesday that it will begin offering fully autonomous vehicles to its customers in 2023. In partnership with Motional, the cars will be available in a select group of U.S. cities that have yet to be announced. Motional has worked with...
GM’s Cruise Testing AVs without Human Drivers in San Francisco
Cruise, a majority-owned subsidiary of General Motors, has started testing self-driving vehicles without driver monitors in San Francisco, the company said Wednesday. The company plans to begin testing a handful of vehicles, followed by a “very methodical and...
Uber Sells AV and Flying Taxi Division
Uber has officially sold its autonomous car division to startup Aurora. Now, the private transport platform has reached an agreement for Joby Aviation to acquire Uber Elevate, its fleet of flying taxis. After years of trying to get their air taxi business off the...
North Queensland: AI Key to Better Skin Cancer Detection
The trained human eye is rather good at finding skin spots that could be cancerous, but even the best doctors can't come close to matching the skills of artificial intelligence (AI). North Queensland, which has some of the most dangerous UV ratings in the world, will...
AI Finds Surprising Patterns in Mass Extinctions
A new study led by scientists affiliated with the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology used machine learning to examine the co-occurrence of fossil species and found that radiations and extinctions are rarely connected, and thus mass...
