Waymo Initiates Passenger Service at San Francisco Airport, Nvidia Gains Approval to Sell AI Chips to China, and More
Waymo began offering passenger trips at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) after more than three years of negotiations, though trips will not extend to the terminals, according to The Verge. Meanwhile, Nvidia received approval from Beijing to sell hundreds of thousands of AI chips to Chinese companies, marking a significant win for the company's lobbying efforts, Wired reported.
Waymo's launch at SFO represents a breakthrough for the company, which had faced challenges in securing the necessary approvals. Andrew J. Hawkins of The Verge noted that the service area would initially be limited.
In other news, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was observed in China, coinciding with reports that Beijing had approved the sale of over 400,000 Nvidia H200 AI chips to Chinese companies like ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, Wired reported. This development followed Huang's "long-running lobbying campaign in Washington," according to Wired.
Separately, Tel Aviv-based startup Factify emerged from stealth with a $73 million seed round, VentureBeat reported. The company aims to revolutionize digital documents by moving beyond standard formats like PDFs and .docx files. Factify's Founder and CEO, Matan Gavish, stated, "The PDF was developed when I was in elementary school. The bedrock of the software ecosystem hasn't really evolved... someone has to redesign the digital document itself."
Additionally, a letter sent to the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that the Trump administration was violating a court-issued stay by making physical changes to the US Institute of Peace (USIP) building in Washington, DC, Wired reported. Representatives of the USIP's fired board and president claimed the administration was moving ahead with new agreements despite the ongoing court battle.
Finally, a new study published in Nature offered a potential explanation for the "Little Red Dots" observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, Ars Technica reported. Scientists theorized that young supermassive black holes may undergo a "cocoon phase," growing within high-density gas clouds. These gaseous cocoons are believed to be the source of the crimson stains.
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