Waymo secured $16 billion in funding to expand its robotaxi business both domestically and internationally, while Notepad++ revealed its servers were compromised for months, potentially by a Chinese state-sponsored group. Separately, Italy is expediting a security decree following violent clashes in Turin that injured over 100 police officers, and China is implementing new safety rules banning hidden car door handles.
Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Alphabet, announced a $16 billion investment round on Monday, February 2, 2026, according to a blog post. The funding will be used to grow its fleet of driverless taxicabs to more than a dozen new cities internationally, including London and Tokyo, TechCrunch reported. Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital led the funding round, which values Waymo at $126 billion. Parent company Alphabet maintained its position as majority investor. Waymo's co-CEOs indicated they would use some of the money to buy more vehicles to grow its fleets, The Verge noted.
Meanwhile, users of the text and code editor Notepad++ may have unknowingly downloaded a malicious update after the app's shared hosting servers were hijacked from June through December 2025, The Verge reported. Developer Don Ho posted an update on Monday, February 2, 2026, detailing the attack and suggesting the hackers were likely a Chinese state-sponsored group.
In Italy, the government is fast-tracking a security decree after violent clashes in Turin left over 100 officers injured, Euronews reported on February 2, 2026. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described an attack on a 29-year-old policeman, Alessandro Calista, with a hammer by masked protesters as "attempted murder." Calista, of the Padua Mobile Police Unit, was surrounded by masked demonstrators and struck repeatedly, according to Euronews.
In other news from China, new safety rules published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will require cars sold in the country to have mechanical releases on their door handles, TechCrunch reported. The rules, which go into effect January 1, 2027, will prohibit the hidden, electronically actuated door handles popularized by Tesla and now found on numerous other electric vehicles in China. Each door, excluding the tailgate, must be equipped with a mechanically released external door handle, and vehicles must also have a mechanical release on the interior of the vehicle. Bloomberg previously reported on the new safety policy. The new regulations follow numerous high-profile fatal incidents in which occupants have become trapped.
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