Technology
The robotaxi price war has started. Here’s everything you need to know.
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Right now, in several American cities, you can open an app, and a car with no driver pulls up and takes you wherever you want to go. No small talk. No wrong turns. No tip. No perfume covering up the cigarette smells.
A driverless Waymo ride in San Francisco averages $8.17. A human Uber in the same city? $17.25. The robotaxi price war is here.
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I live in Phoenix most of the time, and I see Waymos everywhere. At the grocery store. On the freeway. Sitting at red lights with nobody behind the wheel, just vibing. I still haven’t gotten in one. But I’m giving myself two weeks.
If I survive, I’ll share the ride. Mostly kidding.
A Waymo drives across Congress Avenue on 8th Street in front of the Capitol Building as rain arrives in the Austin area on Friday, Jan. 23, 2025 ahead of anticipated drops in temperature and freezing rain over the weekend. (Sara Diggins/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Who’s on the road?
Waymo (owned by Google’s parent Alphabet) is the clear leader. It gave 15 million driverless rides in 2025, and today, it’s about 400,000 per week. Valued at $126 billion. Available in Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta and Miami. Coming in 2026: Dallas, Denver, DC, London, Tokyo and more.
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Tesla launched in Austin last June but is way behind. Roughly 31 cars. One tester took 42 trips, and every single one still had a safety monitor on board. So supervised.
Zoox (owned by Amazon) is the wild card. Their pod has no steering wheel and drives in both directions. Rides are free in Vegas and San Francisco while they wait for approval to charge.
A Cruise vehicle in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday Feb. 2, 2022. Cruise LLC, the self-driving car startup that is majority owned by General Motors Co., said its offering free rides to non-employees in San Francisco for the first time, a move that triggers another $1.35 billion from investor SoftBank Vision Fund. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
How do these things ‘see’?
Waymo uses cameras, lidar (laser radar that builds a 3D map around the car) and traditional radar. It works in total darkness and heavy rain. Tesla uses cameras only. Eight of them, no lidar. Cheaper, which is how they offer rides at $1.99 per kilometer.
Now, are they safe?
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Tesla has reported seven crash incidents to regulators since launching. Waymo says it has 80% fewer injury crashes than human drivers. But NHTSA has logged 1,429 Waymo incidents since 2021, 117 injuries, two fatalities. Three software recalls, including one last December for passing stopped school buses.
A friend of mine took a Waymo, and it dropped her off a full mile from where she was going. No way to change it. No human to flag down. Just a robot car that said, “You have arrived.”
She had not. So yeah. I’m curious. But I’m also cautious.
A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22, 2025. The launch of Tesla Inc.’s driverless taxi service Sunday is set to begin modestly, with a handful of vehicles in limited areas of the city. (Tim Goessman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Here’s where it gets spicy
When a robotaxi gets confused, a human in a remote center sees through the car’s cameras and draws a path for it. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 4, Waymo admitted some of those helpers are in the Philippines. Senators were not amused. I wasn’t either.
Your car sits parked 95% of the time. Robotaxis run 15+ hours a day. When a driverless ride costs less than gas and insurance, owning a car feels like a gym membership you never use.
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Technology
Valve’s huge SteamOS 3.8 update adds long-awaited features — and supports Steam Machine
Not only is it the first release to support the upcoming Steam Machine living room gaming PC, it comes with long-awaited features for Valve’s handhelds and more support for other companies’ handhelds than we’ve seen to date — including Microsoft and Asus’ Xbox Ally series, the Lenovo Legion Go 2, the OneXPlayer X1, and additional support for MSI, GPD, Anbernic, OrangePi, and Zotac.
The one that excites me most: Valve is adding genuine hibernation and “memory power down” modes to the Steam Deck — though just the LCD model to start — which should help extend battery life when you hit the power button or leave them idle. Some Windows machines currently last longer than the Steam Deck when asleep, because they self-hibernate to save power, while the Steam Deck has an instant-on sleep mode.
Plus, Valve has finally added a setting in its gaming mode to let you use your Bluetooth headset microphones — something I’ve been asking for since the beginning. (Valve did add it to the Linux desktop mode last year.) And the Steam Deck LCD is finally getting Bluetooth Wake re-enabled, so you can turn on your TV-connected Deck with a wireless controller from your couch.
The update comes with all sorts of improvements for the Linux desktop modes that sound like they’ll come in handy on a Steam Machine plugged into a TV or monitor, too, including desktop HDR, VRR display support, per-display scaling, “improved windowing behavior for games running in Proton,” and an upgrade to KDE Plasma 6.4.3 among other things.
And for a Steam Machine or Steam handheld plugged into a home entertainment system, they can now detect how many audio channels you have over HDMI to enable surround sound. (I believe surround sound was already a thing, so perhaps this is just a different and better automatic implementation.)
There’s also a new Arch system base and an updated graphics driver.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the “Non-Deck” section of the changelog is huge. Valve says long-pressing your power button should work “across a wide variety of devices” to power off, restart, or switch to the desktop mode. You should be able to change your processor’s power modes on the Xbox Ally now, and night mode and screen color settings should work on AMD Z2 Extreme handhelds in general.
There’s also “Greatly improved video memory management with discrete GPU platforms,” you can limit how far the battery charges in any of the Lenovo Legion Go handhelds (in desktop mode), and it should fix “washed out colors for Zotac and OneXPlayer handhelds with OLED.”
There’s a lot in this update, and it’s possible I missed a feature you care about, so check out the whole changelog here and below.
Technology
Fox News AI Newsletter: Wall-climbing robots swarm US Navy warships
Under the five-year contract, Gecko will begin work on 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, with the initial award valued at up to $54 million. The contract vehicle is structured to allow other military services to access the technology as well. (Gecko Robotics )
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Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.
IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:
– WATCH: Wall-climbing robot swarms crawl US Navy warships as China’s fleet surges
– OPINION: AI comes with a hefty charge, and you are the one who gets stuck with the bill
– Dell workforce shrinks 10% for third consecutive year
Swarms of wall-climbing robots will soon be crawling across U.S. Navy warships in a $71 million effort to slash repair delays and boost fleet readiness as China continues expanding its naval power. (Gecko Robotics )
TECH AT SEA: WATCH: wall-climbing robot swarms crawl US Navy warships as China’s fleet surges – Fox News Digital reports on a new development in naval technology, featuring wall-climbing robot swarms that are crawling on U.S. Navy warships. This advancement comes at a critical time in defense politics as China’s naval fleet continues to surge in size and capability.
WALLET SHOCK: OPINION: AI comes with a hefty charge, and you are the one who gets stuck with the bill – In this opinion piece, the author discusses the economic implications of the growing artificial intelligence industry. The article argues that the hefty costs associated with AI development and its massive energy infrastructure will ultimately be passed down, leaving everyday consumers to foot the bill.
Dell Technologies headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, US, on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2023. (Sergio Flores/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
COST CRUNCH: Dell workforce shrinks 10% for third consecutive year – Fox Business reports that Dell’s workforce has shrunk by ten percent. This marks the third consecutive year of workforce reductions for the major technology company amid shifting economic conditions and corporate restructuring.
AIMING HIGH: FULL AUTONOMY: AI pilot technology advances towards military capability – Merlin CEO Matt George details how the company is using artificial intelligence to enable military and commercial aircraft to operate fully autonomously on Fox Business’ ‘The Claman Countdown.’
Single family homes in a residential neighborhood in San Marcos, Texas, US, on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
SHOULD I BUY?: Homebuyers, sellers turning to AI chatbots for advice – Prairie Operating Co.’s Lou Basenese and real estate broker Kirsten Jordan discuss how artificial intelligence is impacting homebuyers and sellers on ‘Fox Business In Depth.’
DISRUPTION IS HERE: Charles Payne: AI disruption is here – Fox Business host Charles Payne discusses the economic impact of the rise in artificial intelligence on ‘Making Money.’
BUILDING HER BUSINESS: How Angie Hicks turned Angi into a home services giant and AI player – Angi co-founder Angie Hicks discusses entrepreneurship, company growth and how she built out her business on ‘Mornings with Maria.’
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Technology
A rogue AI led to a serious security incident at Meta
For almost two hours last week, Meta employees had unauthorized access to company and user data thanks to an AI agent that gave an employee inaccurate technical advice, as previously reported by The Information. Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in a statement to The Verge that “no user data was mishandled” during the incident.
A Meta engineer was using an internal AI agent, which Clayton described as “similar in nature to OpenClaw within a secure development environment,” to analyze a technical question another employee posted on an internal company forum. But the agent also independently publicly replied to the question after analyzing it, without getting approval first. The reply was only meant to be shown to the employee who requested it, not posted publicly.
An employee then acted on the AI’s advice, which “provided inaccurate information” that led to a “SEV1” level security incident, the second-highest severity rating Meta uses. The incident temporarily allowed employees to access sensitive data they were not authorized to view, but the issue has since been resolved.
According to Clayton, the AI agent involved didn’t take any technical action itself, beyond posting inaccurate technical advice, something a human could have also done. A human, however, might have done further testing and made a more complete judgment call before sharing the information — and it’s not clear whether the employee who originally prompted the answer planned to post it publicly.
“The employee interacting with the system was fully aware that they were communicating with an automated bot. This was indicated by a disclaimer noted in the footer and by the employee’s own reply on that thread,” Clayton commented to The Verge. “The agent took no action aside from providing a response to a question. Had the engineer that acted on that known better, or did other checks, this would have been avoided.”
Last month, an AI agent from open source platform OpenClaw went more directly rogue at Meta when an employee asked it to sort through emails in her inbox, deleting emails without permission. The whole idea behind agents like OpenClaw is that they can take action on their own, but like any other AI model, they don’t always interpret prompts and instructions correctly or give accurate responses, a fact Meta employees have now discovered twice.
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