Horror is having a moment. In 2026, the genre is especially well-represented: new blood is dominating the box office through films like Backrooms and Obsession, established names like Sam Raimi and Damian McCarthy are at the top of their game, and long-running franchises like 28 Years Later and Resident Evil continue to stay relevant. But the most impressive piece of horror this year might just be found in the world of TV comedy: Widow’s Bay, a series that manages the delicate balance of mixing scares with laughs, while also doubling as a loving tribute to the genre. It’s the kind of combination that often doesn’t work, which is part of what makes the show so remarkable.
Technology
Humanless big rig completes first US freight run
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A big rig left Houston, Texas, in the middle of the night with nobody inside. By morning, it had completed a 230-mile delivery near Dallas right on schedule. There was no driver, no backup operator and no one stepping in remotely.
According to Bot Auto, this marks the first fully humanless, over-the-road commercial truckload in the U.S.
More importantly, the run followed a real customer timeline and moved through the same freight network that companies rely on every day, rather than a controlled test or staged demonstration.
Here’s a breakdown of exactly what happened and why it matters.
BIG RIGS DELIVER CARGO WITH NO HUMANS AT THE WHEEL
A Bot Auto autonomous big rig completed a 230-mile commercial freight run from Houston to near Dallas with no driver, observer or remote operator. (Bot Auto)
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How the Houston-to-Dallas autonomous big rig run happened
CEO and founder of Bot Auto, Xiaodi Hou, explained exactly how it played out. “Our autonomous truck departed Riggy’s Truck Parking in northeast Houston, headed to Hutchins, Texas, just south of Dallas. Departure was late at night as the shipper requested overnight service for this route. The truck ran 230 miles northbound on I-45,one of the busiest freight corridors in the country, navigated stop lights, side streets and frontage roads. There was no safety driver or observer, nor a remote operator. It was booked through our customer Ryan Transportation, true to our operating model, which is compatible with how freight actually moves in America today.”
That’s the part that stands out. This ran like a normal overnight load, just without a driver.
The load moved through Ryan Transportation, not a special test system. Hou makes that very clear, “Real freight, real customer, real timeline, delivered safe and on time. We are not disclosing the shipper or commodity, but this was not a load we manufactured to check a box. It moved through Ryan Transportation, a top-20 freight brokerage. Booked, priced, and executed the same way as any truckload moves in America. We made money on it. This is a commercial business, not a research project.” In other words, nothing about this run was staged behind the scenes.
What ‘fully humanless’ means in autonomous trucking
Many companies still rely on hidden human support. Bot Auto takes a different approach.
“The industry often blurs the line between driverless and human-supervised,” Hou explained. “For Bot Auto, fully humanless means no safety driver, no back-seat monitor, and no low-latency remote human fallback. More specifically, our safety design does not require any human to notice, decide, or react within one minute to keep the truck safe. We may have operational visibility, just like an airport tower can monitor the plane, but it does not fly the plane. That is our standard: humans can support the mission, but the truck must own the driving safety case.”
That’s a big difference from systems that still lean on human backup.
What happens if the truck encounters a problem
One of the biggest concerns, and understandably so, is how the autonomous driving system reacts under pressure. Hou said the truck is designed to handle that on its own.
“The truck would not wait for a human to save it,” he said. “If it reached a condition outside its approved operating boundary, it would enter a mitigated risk condition: slow down, create space, and bring itself to a controlled safe state. The principle is simple: when the truck encounters extreme or unexpected situations, it does not gamble. It acts conservatively. Sometimes that means stopping; sometimes it means continuing briefly to reach a safer place to stop. Human support can help after the vehicle is already safe, but the vehicle has to own the first minute.”
So the system is designed to play it safe first, then deal with the situation after it is under control.
The safety testing behind removing the driver
Bot Auto says removing the driver came after extensive validation and careful testing.
“We operated on our own internal validation framework, rigorous and data-driven,” the company said. “Millions of miles of simulation, extensive real-world testing with safety drivers, scenario-specific disengagement analysis, and a documented operational design domain defining precisely the conditions under which the system is authorized to run. We did not remove the driver until the system demonstrated, across a comprehensive set of tests, that it performs at or above the level of a professional human driver on this route. Safety isn’t one number; it is a system-level property.”
That is the level of testing the company says it absolutely needed before taking the driver out completely.
THIS EV HAS A FACE, AND IT TALKS BACK WITH AI
Bot Auto says the truck is designed to slow down, create space and reach a safe state if it encounters a problem on the road. (Bot Auto)
Why the cost per mile could change the trucking industry
Technology alone does not transform an industry. Economics do. Hou says the numbers already work.
“With that complete accounting, the economics still work decisively in our favor,” he said. “This run came in below $2 per mile.”
That puts the cost of this trip below what a human-driven truck would typically run.
Hou also pushed back on simplified comparisons. “I want to be precise here, because the industry has a habit of cherry-picking the easy savings and hiding the real costs… autonomous trucking’s cost impact isn’t a simple trade-off between driver wages and vehicle cost, it runs deep into operations.” The point here is that the savings go beyond just removing the driver.
And those economics could improve as the network grows. “It improves at scale. The fixed costs of building and validating the system are largely sunk. As we add trucks and lanes, the per-mile cost of the technology keeps declining.” That means the more trucks and routes they add, the lower the cost per mile can go.
What regulations allowed this run in Texas
Texas has been one of the most active states in enabling autonomous vehicle deployment.
“Texas passed Senate Bill 2807 in 2025, creating a formal authorization program for commercial autonomous vehicle operations, administered by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles,” Hou said. “Bot Auto applied and was approved under that program… We met every requirement.”
That includes safety compliance, system reliability and the ability to safely stop if something fails.
Is this a one-time milestone or something repeatable
The bigger question now is whether this type of run can happen consistently across real freight lanes.
“The Houston-to-Dallas lane is repeatable now, and it isn’t a one-time event,” the company said. “We selected it deliberately: high freight volume, strong hub infrastructure at both ends, a supportive regulatory environment. Expansion is already underway.”
The company is focusing first on high-volume freight lanes in the Texas triangle, which includes Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.
What skeptics are saying and how Bot Auto responds
Skepticism has followed autonomous trucking for years. Hou addressed that directly, “A truck left Houston with no one in it, ran 230 miles on public roads, and delivered freight to a customer on time. That happened. The skeptics had a reasonable argument for a decade because this industry has been long on promises and short on execution. I understand and respect that. The question is no longer whether it can be done. It is who can do it at scale, safely, and economically. That is the competition we intend to win.”
WAABI + VOLVO UNVEIL NEXT-GEN SELF-DRIVING TRUCK
Bot Auto says its driverless truck navigated I-45, side streets, frontage roads and stoplights during the Houston-to-Dallas run. (Bot Auto)
What this means to you
This shift could change more than the trucking industry. If autonomous freight scales, deliveries could become more predictable. Overnight shipping windows may tighten. Costs could come down over time.
There are also workforce implications. Long-haul trucking is a major employer, and any transition will raise real concerns about jobs. However, supporters point to reduced fatigue and fewer human errors.
Critics want to see long-term real-world data before drawing conclusions. For consumers, the biggest impact may be subtle at first. Some analysts point out that it could even reduce inflationary pressures, since rising transportation costs are often directly passed on to consumers.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
This Texas run does not mean highways will suddenly fill with empty big rigs. It does show that autonomous freight has moved beyond the prototype stage. Now the focus turns to what happens next. Can companies repeat this across more routes, in different conditions, over time and still keep things safe? The empty cab is what grabs your attention. The bigger question is whether this holds up across everyday freight operations.
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As humanless semi trucks become common on our major highways, are you comfortable sharing the road with them? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.
Cook doesn’t say when Apple plans on raising prices or which products will be affected. The company has already stopped selling the Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM in March and later raised the starting price of the Mac Mini to $799 after dropping the cheaper $599 option from its lineup. Analyst Tim Culpan also suggested that Apple could discontinue the base configuration of the MacBook Neo, while keeping the $699 model with 512GB of storage.
As AI companies continue to demand more memory in their sprawling data centers, suppliers are struggling to keep up. The shortage has led to surging RAM and storage costs, as well as price increases across game consoles, laptops, and other devices.
“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” Cook tells the WSJ. “We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products.”
Apple is getting ready to take the wraps off its latest lineup of iPhones later this year, though it’s unclear how big an impact the memory shortage will have on pricing. The WSJ estimates that the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro could cost $1,299, a jump from the $1,099 iPhone 17 Pro.
Empty Waymo vehicles swarm Atlanta neighborhood
Atlanta residents captured alarming video of dozens of Waymo driverless cars continually circling their quiet neighborhood for hours. Tech expert Kurt Knutsson warns this ‘AI takeover’ raises significant safety concerns, especially for children, highlighting a critical lack of human intervention and company accountability from Waymo regarding these autonomous vehicles and potential glitches.
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A getaway car with no driver? That is a new one. Police say that is what happened outside Hot 8 Yoga in San Francisco’s Marina district. Police records reportedly show that a burglar slipped inside the studio, grabbed activewear and got out in under three minutes. Waiting outside was a Waymo robotaxi.
The suspect allegedly loaded the stolen clothing into the trunk, climbed in and rode away as if the whole thing were a normal pickup.
That is what makes this case so wild. A basic burglary suddenly turned into a bigger question about self-driving cars, privacy and police evidence. What happens when a robotaxi becomes part of a crime scene?
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UBER UNVEILS A NEW ROBOTAXI WITH NO DRIVER BEHIND THE WHEEL
Police say a San Francisco burglary suspect used a Waymo robotaxi as a getaway car after stealing activewear from a yoga studio. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
How a Waymo robotaxi became the getaway car
The suspect allegedly used the autonomous vehicle the same way someone might use a regular ride-hail car. The Waymo vehicle dropped him off near the yoga studio, waited while the burglary happened and then drove him away. That is the part that makes you stop and say, wait, what?
There was no driver to look back and wonder why someone was loading stolen activewear into the trunk. No one behind the wheel to say, “Something feels off here.” The car simply followed the ride request.
In a statement to CyberGuy, San Francisco Police Department confirmed officers responded on Jan. 9, 2026, to a business on the 3300 block of Fillmore Street regarding a burglary that occurred at about 4:07 a.m. Police said an employee reported that an unknown suspect burglarized the business, stole items and fled in a vehicle.
SFPD described the case as an “open and active investigation” and said, “No arrest has been made at this time.” Anyone with information can call SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD.
Police believe this may be San Francisco’s first known case of someone using a self-driving car to flee a crime scene. And yes, the stolen haul reportedly included men’s shorts. That bizarre detail gives the whole thing a strange twist. But underneath it all, there is a real question here. What happens when a robotaxi becomes part of the crime?
Why the Waymo getaway car case is hard to solve
At first, this sounds like an easy case to solve. Waymo vehicles have cameras. Riders need accounts. Payment information is usually tied to the trip. So, you might think the police would have a clear trail. That did not happen here.
Police reportedly obtained a search warrant for Waymo account information and footage from the vehicle. The detective on the case said the account information did not lead police to the suspect. He also said the company no longer had interior footage by the time the warrant was filed months later.
The outside footage had another issue. Faces were blurred for privacy. That created a strange problem. The same privacy protections that help protect innocent bystanders may also make it harder to identify someone suspected of a crime.
Waymo says it balances safety and privacy
When contacted by CyberGuy, Waymo declined to comment on this specific burglary. More broadly, Waymo says it carefully reviews each law enforcement request to make sure it satisfies applicable laws and has a valid legal basis. The company says it closely scrutinizes those requests and may narrow the scope or push back when needed.
Waymo also says it does not use facial recognition or other biometric identification technologies to identify people. That detail is important here because these cars see a lot as they move through a city. Waymo says its cameras and sensors help the vehicle understand its surroundings and drive safely in real time. The company also says that information helps improve the Waymo Driver over time. In other words, Waymo says its technology can recognize that it sees a person, but it does not match that person to an individual identity.
To me, that is where this story gets complicated. If a real crime happens, you want the police to have useful evidence. At the same time, you probably do not want every self-driving car turning into a rolling surveillance camera with no clear limits. That balance between safety, privacy and police access may become a much bigger issue as robotaxis show up in more cities.
Why robotaxis could complicate crime investigations
This case shows how quickly an old-fashioned crime can run into new technology. A burglar once needed a friend, a taxi or a stolen car. Now, someone can call a driverless ride with an app and leave the scene without ever dealing with a human driver.
That creates a problem for the police. If the ride was ordered with stolen information or a burner phone, the account may not point to the person who actually committed the crime. And even with all those cameras, the footage may not show what investigators need.
That is the part that stands out to me. We often assume more cameras mean more answers. But this case shows that assumption can fall apart fast. If key video gets deleted, faces stay blurred or the account information leads nowhere, a high-tech getaway car may still leave police with very old-fashioned detective work.
FACIAL RECOGNITION JAILS INNOCENT GRANDMOTHER, ATTORNEY SAYS
A Waymo robotaxi became part of a San Francisco burglary investigation after police say a suspect loaded stolen clothing into the trunk and rode away. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
What this Waymo case means to you
If robotaxis operate where you live or where you travel, this story should get your attention. These cars are no longer test vehicles quietly roaming around a few streets. They are picking people up, dropping them off and now, in this case, showing up in a police investigation.
That is what makes this so important. A self-driving car can become a witness, a source of evidence or even the ride someone uses to leave a crime scene.
At the same time, privacy protections can create a real tradeoff. Blurring faces may protect people walking down the street who have nothing to do with a crime. But it may also limit what police can use later.
And this case proves something else. Cameras alone do not guarantee answers. A vehicle can record plenty of data and still miss the one image, account detail or clue investigators need.
For riders, here is the part to remember. A robotaxi may feel private because no driver sits up front. But it still leaves a digital trail. Before you climb in, assume the trip, the account and some vehicle data may be recorded.
How to protect your privacy in a robotaxi
This case also gives riders something to think about. A robotaxi may feel more private because no driver sits up front. But the vehicle can still collect trip details, account information and sensor data.
Check the robotaxi privacy policy
Review the company’s privacy policy so you understand what it collects, how long it may keep certain data and when it may share information with law enforcement. You do not need to read every line like a lawyer. Look for sections about cameras, audio, trip history, account data and legal requests.
Secure your ride-hail account
Use a strong, unique password for your ride-hail account, and consider using a trusted password manager to create and store it securely. Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at Cyberguy.com. Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) when available. Also, keep your phone locked with a passcode, Face ID or fingerprint protection. If someone gets into your phone, they may also get into your ride apps.
Be careful what you say during the ride
Avoid sharing sensitive personal details during a robotaxi ride unless you really need to. That includes financial information, passwords, medical details or private family matters. Also, be careful about phone calls on speaker. Even without a human driver, you should treat the space like a connected vehicle.
Protect your payment information
Use a credit card instead of a debit card when possible. Credit cards often offer stronger fraud protections if an account gets compromised. Check your ride receipts and payment alerts. If you see a trip you did not take, report it right away.
Know what to do if something goes wrong
If you feel unsafe during a ride, use the app’s help or emergency option. Take screenshots of your trip details if you can do so safely. If you see a robotaxi near a crime or emergency, remember that useful footage may depend on timing and legal process. Police may need a warrant or another valid request before a company turns over data. That gap between what the car saw and what investigators can later use can make a big difference.
HOW SURVEILLANCE TECH LED POLICE TO ACCUSE THE WRONG PERSON
Police reportedly obtained a warrant for Waymo account information and vehicle video, but investigators said the records did not identify a suspect. (AP Photo/Terry Chea, File)
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Kurt’s key takeaways
A burglar using a Waymo as a getaway car sounds almost ridiculous, but the privacy questions are very real. These vehicles can capture a lot of what happens around them. Still, that does not mean police will always get clear evidence or a quick answer. This case also shows why timing matters. If footage is deleted, blurred or tied to a stolen account, a high-tech vehicle may not solve the crime as easily as you might expect. To me, this is where cities need to catch up. Robotaxis are already on the road. Now we need clearer rules for how long footage is kept, when police can access it and how innocent people’s privacy is protected.
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Would you feel safer knowing robotaxis keep more footage for police, or more concerned about what that could mean for your privacy? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Widow’s Bay just wrapped up its first season — a second has already been confirmed — and it tells a story that at first sounds incredibly derivative. It takes place on an isolated island in New England, which has a sordid history due to what the locals believe is a curse. In the first episode, a terrifying fog rolls into town, suggesting that a powerful evil is waking up again. Cue the Stephen King comparisons.
But it’s not long before Widow’s Bay’s distinct brand of horror / comedy makes itself clear. The show is largely centered on the island’s hapless mayor, Tom (Matthew Rhys), who has a misguided desire to turn Widow’s Bay into a tourist destination that can rival Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. This, of course, runs counter to the whole curse thing. And the incoming fog is just the first sign that things are not going to go well for him and his plan, though Tom ignores the signs at every opportunity.
Image: Apple
What makes the show work is that, at its core, it’s just a really scary and tense story. From the very first episode, when Tom is stressing out about a visiting travel writer from The New York Times, there’s a steadily rising sense of dread: a tour through the island’s history that’s full of stories of death and, uh, cannibalism; a calendar about wolves that for some reason also has car crash photos; a ferry captain who says simply “bad things happen here.” The show makes you feel as uneasy as the island’s residents.
That sensation only grows over the course of the season, as each episode explores a different horror genre while building on the cursed lore of the island. The second episode takes place in a clearly haunted hotel, complete with a killer clown; later there’s a demonic party planning book that leads to a terrifying and unsettling beach gathering. Tom’s assistant Patricia (Kate O’Flynn) gets hunted by a Jason Voorhees–style slasher villain, and there’s even a darkly inventive take on a drug trip sequence, complete with jarring time skips.
It’s because it’s such a well-crafted horror story that the comedy in Widow’s Bay hits so hard. It’s not the easiest genre mix to pull off, as creator and showrunner Katie Dippold — who knows a thing about how funny horror can be — told me ahead of the show’s premiere in April. “It can be a great combo, but it can also be a bad combo,” she explained, noting that projects that successfully blend the two genres are “few and far between.” As if to prove her point, the new Scary Movie released this month was entirely toothless.
But unlike more overt attempts at infusing horror with comedy, most of the gags in Widow’s Bay are comparatively subtle — and scary in their own way. When Tom is looking through a collection of board games at the local inn, he finds one simply called Teeth; inside, there’s nothing but a pair of pliers. When Patricia finally kills the “boogeyman” who has been stalking her, she keeps her shotgun trained on his corpse at all times — from the ambulance to cremation — just in case. Even the episode titles can be hilarious. The finale, where just about everything goes wrong, is called “We hope you enjoyed your time!”
Image: Apple
This means that the jokes not only fit into the eerie nature of the world, they actually heighten it. And that was the goal all along. “I never wanted to have a moment where something scary happens and the characters don’t react truthfully,” Dippold told me. “If you’re truthful, then eventually you’ll find the comedy. That was the very hard rule.”
This all comes to a head as the show wrapped up its first season. Leading into the finale, Tom was put in an impossible situation, forced to choose whether to kill his adorably inept secretary Ruth (K Callan) in order to end the curse for good, or doom the island by not acting. In the last episode, with the town’s residents and tourists stuck in a shelter due to a destructive storm, Tom finds himself in Ruth’s house, and it’s genuinely painful watching him try to decide the right path. But amidst all of this tension, there are still funny bits, like Ruth casually noting that an old boyfriend “got bit by an animal and became that animal,” or a cheerful instructional video on ritual sacrifice. And this being Widow’s Bay, things are a bit more complex than they appear, leaving Tom with an even more difficult task in front of him.
You don’t just have to take my word for it. Guillermo del Toro recently called the series “hands down one of the most mesmerizing acts of narrative prestidigitation in horror.” That’s some high praise. But so is the fact that Widow’s Bay has managed to claim its own distinct lane in such a crowded moment. The finale title turned out to be incredibly accurate: I did, in fact, enjoy my time.
The first season of Widow’s Bay is streaming now on Apple TV.
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