autonomous systems

Quadric.io raises $15M to build a plug-and-play supercomputer for autonomous systems

Quadric.io, a startup founded by some of the folks behind the once-secretive bitcoin mining operation “21E6,” has raised $15 million in a Series A round that will fund the development of a su

Microsoft launches a new platform for building autonomous robots

One major — and somewhat unexpected — theme at Microsoft’s Build developer conference this week is autonomous robots. After acquiring AI startup Bonsai, which specialized in reinforc

Apple cuts 200 staff from its Project Titan autonomous car division

Apple’s secretive efforts to develop a self-driving car — its so-called “Project Titan” — have taken a hard turn in 2019 after it emerged that the iPhone-maker has reassi

Watch every panel from TC Sessions: Robotics

Last week at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, TechCrunch held its second TC Sessions: Robotics event. It was a full day of panels and demos, featuring the top minds in robotics, artificial intelli

Embark CEO says autonomous driving is the only way we’ll get to zero fatalities

Autonomous systems are coming. In fact, they’re already here, thanks to Alphabet’s Waymo, Uber and smaller startups like Aurora, Embark Trucks and Voyage. Although there have a been a coup

Duplex shows Google failing at ethical and creative AI design

Google CEO Sundar Pichai milked the woos from a clappy, home-turf developer crowd at its I/O conference in Mountain View this week with a demo of an in-the-works voice assistant feature that will enab

Uber said to be negotiating sale of self-driving tech to Toyota

Uber might begin selling its autonomous driving systems to outside companies, including major automakers, according to a new report from Japan’s Nikkei. The report claims that Uber has had talks

Elon Musk is the ultimate doomsday prepper

As our fractured planet stumbles toward the end of the second decade of its new millennium it’s become de rigueur among a certain class of the super rich to create contingency plans for possible

IEEE puts out a first draft guide for how tech can achieve ethical AI design

One of the barriers standing in the way of ethically designed AI systems that benefit humanity as a whole, and avoid the pitfalls of embedded algorithmic biases, is the tech industry's lack of ownersh

Prowler.io raises $2M to help AI systems make smarter choices

As we inch closer to a time when we may rely on truly autonomous devices to move us or do things on our behalf, the need for software that’s able to think on its feet (or mid-air) will be essent