Amazon ditches 'Just Walk Out,' Tesla's 'nightmare' won't end, and a rival gains: Tech news roundup
Amazon is getting rid of ‘Just Walk Out’ grocery store checkout
Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with.
A scientist who was jailed for making genetically modified babies is back at work but says he won’t do it again
A Chinese scientist once jailed for helping to create the world’s first genome-edited babies seems to have not missed a beat. In a recent interview, He Jiankui revealed that he is once again working in the field of human genetic engineering. These newest experiments are reportedly in compliance with ethical standards and He Jiankui has pledged that he will not work to produce any further modified humans.
Demand for a new Tesla rival is so high consumers have to wait months to get the car
It can be hard for any company — especially automakers — to design, build, and produce an electric car that customers are interested in. But Xiaomi is off to a promising start with its new SU7, an electric sedan primed to compete with Tesla’s Model 3 and Porsche’s electric Taycan.
Tesla is pulling out all the stops after its ‘nightmare’ start to 2024
Tesla is finally taking its driver assistance software out of its initial testing phase, just days before Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker is expected to report weak deliveries for the first quarter of 2024.
Tesla’s ‘nightmare’ year continues as a big drop in deliveries sends the stock down
Tesla on Tuesday said it delivered 386,810 electric vehicles over the first three months of 2024, falling wildly short of Wall Street’s expectations. Last week, after a first quarter that one analyst called a “nightmare,” many analysts lowered their estimates. But the sales figures Tesla reported Tuesday fell far below even the revised estimates.
Instagram and Facebook went down in a major outage
Meta platforms Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram are experiencing a global outage with thousands of reports of the app not working properly since roughly 2 p.m. ET Wednesday.WhatsApp appears to have gone down first, with Instagram and Facebook following suit about 30 minutes later.
3 takeaways from Tesla’s ‘nightmare’ first quarter
Elon Musk’s Tesla disappointed investors and Wall Street when it reported a major decrease in electric vehicle sales and a more minor dip in production.
EV startup Fisker is dying and 1 of its $69,000 cars lost 69% of its value in just 2 months
When you buy a brand-new car, you buy it knowing it’s going to depreciate. At least as long as it’s a relatively normal car and not something like a Porsche 911 R. That said, it’s not as bad as many “never buy a new car for any reason ever” financial influencers make it sound. You probably won’t get back every penny if you tried to sell a new car the next day, but you won’t actually lose 30% the moment you drive it off the lot. Unless you’re Edmunds and recently bought a Fisker Ocean for testing, that is.
Microsoft tests an animated AI chatbot for Xbox
The company is reportedly building an “embodied AI character” that can respond to queries and other support tasks
U.S. wants South Korea to stop sending AI chips to China
American officials are asking South Korea to restrict exports to China of equipment and technology used to make memory chips and advanced logic chips to China