Waymo announced it is expanding into Toronto and preparing to launch a fully autonomous ride-hailing service with the goal of carrying first riders in 2028. In the coming days Waymo vehicles will appear on Toronto streets operating manually as part of a phased, safety-first rollout that begins with high-definition mapping and on-road validation by trained autonomous specialists positioned to assess how the Waymo Driver adapts to Toronto’s weather, infrastructure and traffic patterns.
To support operations, Waymo has partnered with Element Fleet Management to provide end-to-end fleet services and will invest in local facilities and hundreds of jobs spanning fleet maintenance, validation driving, customer service and operations. The move builds on existing Canadian ties with investors and manufacturing partners such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Magna International. Waymo cites safety data from over 400 million autonomous kilometres showing 95% fewer crashes causing serious injury or worse (about 20x fewer) than human-driven vehicles in its markets, and it is engaging accessibility organizations including BALANCE for Blind Adults, CNIB and Community Living Toronto. The Waymo Driver is framed as an all-weather complement to Toronto’s transit and active-transport network; interested riders can sign up for launch updates.
Summary generated by AI from the linked article. hn.today is not affiliated with Hacker News or Y Combinator.
Open weight models now process over 71.5% of tokens and account for nearly 23% of AI Gateway spend, quadrupling their share since June. Spending on open weight models has increased more than four times in three months, reflecting rapid adoption and shifting AI usage patterns. (vercel.com)
An AI system has successfully designed 16 new viruses, including bacteriophages. This breakthrough raises concerns about potential biosecurity risks. (cnn.com)
Flux 3 Image Klein is a 5.6 billion parameter open weights model for text-to-image generation, editing, and multi-reference creation. It offers high-quality, ground-connected images with efficient performance on consumer GPUs, enabling local and on-device use. (bfl.ai)
Yum! Brands has implemented AI in its restaurants, such as automating drive-thru orders, which has improved employee retention by making jobs easier. Despite public criticism of AI, company leaders see its benefits in increasing workplace satisfaction and efficiency. (fortune.com)
Transformers function as sophisticated memory systems that recall information via self-attention, minimizing interference and boosting capacity. Different neural layers, from linear maps to self-attention, are explained as various forms of memory storage and retrieval. (alexwang.ai)
Granite Switch 4.1 integrates chat, decision-making, and speech-to-text functions into a single endpoint, enhancing efficiency and speed. It features models optimized for safety, decision tasks, and transcription, all with reduced GPU requirements. (huggingface.co)
Today's best Hacker News stories, summarized and screenshotted, one email a day.