Technology that matters

Autonomous Vehicles

Waymo's School Bus Training Program Failed, Safety Issues Persist

What Happened Austin Independent School District entered into a partnership with Waymo to address a critical safety issue: the company’s autonomous vehicles were failing to recognize when school buses had activated their stop signs and flashing lights. The collaboration aimed to provide Waymo with real-world data on school bus operations, including lighting patterns, environmental conditions, and bus configurations. Despite this direct training approach and a December 2025 software recall affecting over 3,000 Waymo vehicles equipped with Jaguar I-Pace platforms, the safety violations have continued.

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GM Trains Self-Driving AI 50,000x Faster Than Real Time

What Happened General Motors has revealed its approach to training autonomous driving AI at unprecedented speeds, using simulation environments that operate 50,000 times faster than real-time driving conditions. The automaker is combining large-scale simulation, reinforcement learning, and foundation-model-based reasoning to develop what it calls “scalable driving AI.” The system specifically targets what engineers call the “long tail” problem in autonomous driving—the rare, ambiguous, and unexpected events that occur infrequently but pose the greatest safety challenges.

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How Spain's Forgotten Engineer Built the First Self-Driving Tech

What Happened Leonardo Torres Quevedo, born in Santa Cruz, Spain in 1852, developed the Telekino system over a decade before 1914, making it one of the earliest examples of wireless vehicle control technology. The system was patented in Spain, France, and the United States, demonstrating its international recognition as a significant innovation. The Telekino worked by transmitting wireless signals to a small receiver called a coherer, which detected electromagnetic waves and converted them into electrical current.

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