As he lived in a tent and battled to provide for his family, Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters journalist killed by Israeli fire on Monday while running a live video feed at Gaza's Nasser Hospital, covered the suffering of civilians during the conflict. According to journalist colleagues, Masri, 49, was a seasoned cameraman who was well-liked by Gaza's close-knit community of reporters because of his upbeat demeanor in the most perilous circumstances. In the months before his death, he would say, "Tomorrow will be better," despite the fact that the Palestinian enclave was becoming increasingly desolate and hungry. That was the conclusion of his final discussion with Mohamed Salem, a senior Reuters visuals journalist who had collaborated with Masri in Rafah, in southern Gaza, last year and had known him since 2003. Salem, who left Gaza later in 2024 but stayed in daily contact with Masri until Monday morning, said he was a pleasure to work with because of his smiles and o...
Under their rob taxi agreement, Uber will invest $300 million into electric-car manufacturer Lucid, with plans to launch rob taxi services late next year in at least one big US city.
The new partnership was just announced on Thursday.
From 2026 and for over six years, Uber will buy and deploy a fleet of more than 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs fitted with AV technology from startup Nuro, according to a statement from the three companies.
This renewed agreement puts the revival of plans and fundraising for driverless cabs into perspective. The first wave of autonomous driving investment ultimately yielded only a handful of vehicles, whereas Tesla has launched its rob taxi pilot in Austin, and Waymo, the driverless taxi arm of Alphabet, is now expanding its operations.
Under the announced deal, Uber will invest hundreds of millions of dollars into Lucid and Nuro, which provide self-driving technology to car manufacturers, the joint statement said. Of that sum, $300 million will go to Lucid, according to a separate filing by Lucid to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.
Lucid’s shares surged some 39 percent at 11:15 am in New York (15:15 GMT). The shares had been down by some 24 percent this year.
This most recent move of Uber highlights its renewed interest in the rob taxi space after it exited in 2020. Since then, Uber has partnered with certain tech developers, such as Waymo and Aurora.
The Lucid deal follows another one in April with Volkswagen for rob taxi, where it will use ID. Buzz vans for commercial service, targeted at Los Angeles, for next year.
Commercializing AV tech, however, has proved much harder than expected. Costly, stringent regulations and Federal Investigations have shut down several walkaways, including now General Motors with Cruise.
What remains in the race includes Zoox by Amazon.com, which is testing a rob taxi with no human controls and intends to start commercial service in Las Vegas later this year.
After years of missed deadlines and unmet promises, Tesla commenced a somewhat restricted trial last month with nearly a dozen of its Model Y SUVs in Austin, Texas. Elon Musk has said it will rapidly expand the service into other cities across the US this year.
Waymo has been cautiously expanding for years with operations in several cities across the United States, with almost 1,500 vehicles. It has recently completed 100 million miles of autonomous driving.
Lucid and Nuro shared that their prototype rob taxi has begun its autonomous operation on a closed circuit inside the testing facility in Las Vegas.
"We are finally moving beyond our traditional EV technology leadership into partnerships and areas that we have not worked in all that much," Lucid's interim CEO Marc Winter Hoff told the Reuters news agency.
Founded and led by ex-Waymo engineers, Nuro has expanded to provide its self-driving technology for commercial and passenger vehicles from its former last-mile delivery robot building.
Dave Ferguson, Nuro's cofounder and president, said, "We have other very active conversations going on the personal vehicle side ... where we would integrate Nuro driver into vehicles that will get sold to end consumers."
He said that Nuro would still need to apply for state-level operating licenses, although it does hold a few licenses from its previous delivery operations.
The company had also said earlier that it was considering a reverse stock split of one-for-10 of its class A common stock.
Lucid stock surged nearly 40 percent, Uber stock was down a bit, 0.1 percent at the time of market opening.
SOURCE : NEWS AGENCIES