The ride-booking giant\u2019s road to robotaxis has been a complicated one: an early Uber self-driving test vehicle killed a pedestrian in 2018. The company sold off its autonomous driving project in 2020 and has since partnered with its would-be rival Waymo in some parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Now, Uber is getting ready to roll its own self-driving cars on to city streets once again.<\/p>\n
The ride-hailing company didn\u2019t build this thing from scratch. Autonomous driving company Nuro provided the cameras, sensors and self-driving smarts, all of which are integrated into a Gravity model three-row electric SUV from Lucid Motors.<\/p>\n
Uber invested US$300 million ($518m) in Lucid last year and fleshed out the in-car experience for riders. You\u2019ll be able to pick out playlists, adjust the cabin temperature and make other customisations that are also already offered by Alphabet\u2019s Waymo robotaxis.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Uber said that its Lucid vehicles are already being tested on public roads. It plans to make robotaxis available to Uber riders in the San Francisco Bay Area later this year.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no word yet on when these new self-driving Ubers will make it out of California, but at least it doesn\u2019t seem like you\u2019ll have to pay extra for one. When you hail a ride where these vehicles are active, the company says, you won\u2019t have the option of selecting a robotaxi until you\u2019ve already locked in a fare.<\/p>\n
A toilet that can call for help<\/p>\n
VOVO’s US$4990 Smart Toilet Neo. Photo \/ Chris Velazco, The Washington Post)<\/p>\n
Exploring a show like CES means logging lots of miles on foot, so I was maybe a little too eager to take a break on VOVO\u2019s US$4990 Smart Toilet Neo in front of a bunch of strangers.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s newest model comes with now-standard niceties like a built-in bidet and automatic flushing. And VOVO claims its built-in urine analysis sensor can provide deeper insights into a user\u2019s overall health, splashed across a screen meant to be installed nearby.<\/p>\n
Scanning one\u2019s pee is par for the course at CES though: stand-alone liquid waste sensors have been floating around the show for years. The Smart Toilet Neo\u2019s standout feature? When installed in a senior\u2019s home, it can send messages to family members if no one has used it for more than eight hours, prompting loved ones to check in and make sure everyone is okay.<\/p>\n
A TV for the \u2018size matters\u2019 crowd<\/p>\n
Samsung’s 130-inch MicroRGB TV. Photo \/ Chris Velazco, The Washington Post<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen my fair share of televisions at CES, but only one this year has made me feel like I\u2019d been hit by a shrinking ray.<\/p>\n
Samsung\u2019s 130-inch Micro RGB TV broke cover this week, and is so big that the svelte metal frame surrounding it looks barely up to the job.<\/p>\n
Long story short, Micro RGB TVs use gobs of incredibly small LEDs in red, green or blue to light up the screen. That makes them better at delivering bright, accurate colours compared to a more standard LED TV. Some home theatre buffs still \u2013 rightly, I think \u2013 claim that OLED televisions offer peak visual appeal, but CES is all about spectacle and more than a few gawkers I saw couldn\u2019t help but quietly stare for a while.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear when Samsung plans to offer this monstrosity up to consumers, but when it does be sure to steel yourself before checking out the price tag. The company began selling a similar 115-inch model last year for an eye-watering US$30,000.<\/p>\n
A retro landline phone for kids<\/p>\n
The Pinwheel Home. Photo \/ Chris Velazco, The Washington Post<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re old enough to remember the pre-cellphone days, cast your mind back to all the time you spent tying up your parents\u2019 phone line when you were young. A company called Pinwheel wants kids of the smartphone era to know what that feels like \u2013 without getting distracted by a screen.<\/p>\n
The $99 Pinwheel Home, slated for sale in the coming months, is a dead ringer for the corded phones you\u2019d find affixed to kitchen walls in the 1980s. The company says it\u2019s designed to help young ones hone their verbal and social skills by chatting with a handful of preset contacts.<\/p>\n
Calling other households with a Pinwheel Home costs parents nothing, but placing calls to regular phone numbers will set you back US$9.99 a month. To sweeten the deal and help this throwback gadget further appeal to youngsters, the device will ship with a sheet of stickers.<\/p>\n
A portable, battery-powered food allergen detector<\/p>\n
For people allergic to gluten or dairy, even a simple meal out can feel like a minefield. Allergen Alert, spun out of a family-owned French biotech firm, wanted to help \u2013 by building a US$200 portable allergen-sensing gadget they claim delivers lab-grade results.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how it works: you unpack one of the company\u2019s test pouches (available in packs of five to seven as part of a monthly subscription), and cram a bit of a suspect meal into a slender spoon. Pack all of that into the sensing device, which is about the size of a thick paperback, and you\u2019ll get a result back in a few minutes.<\/p>\n
The catch? For now, the company only offers gluten test kits. It claims that dairy-specific models will launch soon and that by 2028 the lineup will include tests for most major food allergens, including nuts and dairy.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ride-booking giant\u2019s road to robotaxis has been a complicated one: an early Uber self-driving test vehicle killed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2246,95,1975,3390,138,121213,170,638,5418,1874,3273,22220,1132,111,139,69,2682,9346,415,6115,1133,132758,544,2249,10505,6100,370,223,2846,684,1961,20249,80559,686,132757,102],"class_list":["post-220645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-2246","tag-and","tag-at","tag-best","tag-business","tag-ces","tag-development","tag-estate","tag-feet","tag-found","tag-future","tag-going","tag-million","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-others","tag-packed","tag-prime","tag-real","tag-sale","tag-sensible","tag-some","tag-soon","tag-square","tag-still","tag-tech","tag-the","tag-them","tag-there","tag-this","tag-vegas","tag-visions","tag-week","tag-weirdest","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}