GM's Cruise has started charging passengers for fully driverless rides in San Francisco. The company secured a driverless deployment permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) earlier this month, making it the first in the industry to do so. That allows Cruise to charge for rides with no safety driver behind the wheel, though its vehicles are limited to select streets in the city. In addition, the company's paid passenger service can only operate from 10PM to 6AM, and its cars can only drive at a max speed of 30 mph.

Another limitation is that its driverless vehicles aren't allowed on highways and can't operate during times of heavy fog and rain. Still, it's a major milestone, not just for Cruise, but for the nascent robotaxi industry as a whole. Cruise's permit allows it to operate a commercial driverless ride—hailing service with a fleet of up to 30 vehicles. It previously said that it will roll out fared rides gradually, and it reiterated that plan in its latest announcement, where it noted that it's "inviting more people" into its driverless vehicles every week. The goal is to eventually be able to offer fared rides all day across the entire city.

Cruise received permission to offer the public robotaxi rides last year, but it could only do so for free. The company, along with Waymo, was finally allowed to charge passengers this March, as long as they were rides with safety drivers behind the wheel. While Waymo can't charge for fully autonomous rides yet, it's still the only other company that's been granted a drivered deployment permit, based on CPUC's list.

Bobby Kotick will get to keep his seat on Activision Blizzard's board of directors despite catching flak over the alleged role he played in creating the company's toxic workplace culture. At the video game developers' annual meeting of stockholders, investors voted on several proposals, as well as who gets to be on the company's board of directors over the next year. A total of 533,703,580 shareholders have voted to keep Kotick on the board, while on 62,597,199 have voted against it. As GameInformer notes, that means he gets to keep his seat until the next meeting in 2023. 

Activision Blizzard employees walked out of their jobs last year and called for Kotick's resignation after The Wall Street Journal reported that the CEO knew about the worst instances of abuse in the company and even protected the employees accused of harassment. If you'll recall, California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued the publisher in July 2021 for allegedly fostering a "frat boy" culture. The California agency investigated the company over the course of two years and found that women working for Activision Blizzard were paid less than their male counterparts and were subjected to constant sexual harassment. 

More recently, the New York City Employees' Retirement System sued Kotick, calling him unfit to negotiate the company's pending sale to Microsoft due to his "personal responsibility and liability for Activision's broken workplace." NYC's retirement system represents the city's police, teachers and firefighters and owns Activision Blizzard stock. The company named a new chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer in April to help the company have a more inclusive workplace. In response, a group of employees aiming to protect workers from discrimination formed a committee to outline a list of demands for Kotick and the new chief diversity officer. 

While majority of the shareholders have chosen to keep Kotick on the board, they also approved a plan to release an annual public report detailing how Activision handles any sexual harassment and gender discrimination dispute. The report must also detail how the company is preventing these incidents from happening and what it's doing to reduce the length of time it takes to resolve them. 

Twitter is giving you the power to switch closed captions on or off on your mobile device. The social network has started rolling out a closed caption toggle to everyone on Android and iOS, a couple of months after it started testing the feature. So long as a video posted on the platform has available subtitles, you'll see a CC button at its top right portion — simply tap it to turn subtitles off or on. 

It's a great addition for accessibility purposes, seeing as it allows you to show captions whenever you want. In the past, you'll only see the CC button on the web and for subtitles on mobile if your sound is turned off. Further, captions automatically disappear when you expand a video, since doing so enables sound playback. A few years ago, you even had to go to accessibility settings to switch on closed captioning if you want to see subtitles for your videos at all. That said, the feature does have a limitation: The button will only show up for a video if a caption has been provided for it. 

Twitter introduced automatically generated captions for videos back in December, which is unrelated to this particular feature, according to a spokesperson who talked to The Verge. They will, however, only show up on muted videos unless you choose the option to see them at all times through the website's accessibility settings page. There's also no way to report inaccurate automated captions at the moment.

Spotify has expanded its old Concert Hub and added more features to make it easier to find information and tickets for live events in your location. The streaming service sources listings for the hub, now called Live Events Feed, from its ticketing partners that include Ticketmaster, AXS, DICE, Eventbrite and See Tickets, among other companies. During the height of COVID-19 lockdowns, the Concert Hub helped users find at-home or studio performances, podcast recordings and other online performances. Turns out Spotify was studying user behavior at the same time. 

Sam Sheridan, Product Manager for Live Events Discovery, said Spotify spent the past two years studying the music industry and its users. One of the most important behaviors the company noticed was that fans would engage with artists on the platform and then leave to search for concert listings or to follow them on social media to be able to stay on top of any upcoming tour dates. "We think the Live Events Feed is an opportunity to help close this loop," Sheridan said. 

If you don't see the Live Events Feed in your app, simply search for "live events." You'll see a listing of all the performances in your area, and clicking on any of them would lead you to an interface that includes a link where you can find and buy tickets. If the artist you're listening to has an upcoming tour date, Spotify will show you that event in-app while you're listening. Spotify has also built a new messaging tool that can notify you about upcoming concerts based on your listening habits. Don't worry — you can tweak your notification preferences so you don't have to get messages if you don't want to. 

Sheridan says Spotify will work "to even further integrate event discovery directly into the app" to make it more intertwined with the listening experience, so we'll likely see more updates to Live Events in the future. 

The Polestar 5 is making its first public appearance at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England. A prototype of the upcoming four-door electric GT sports car will drive up the Goodwood hill twice daily during the event that takes place starting today, July 23rd, until July 26th as part of the "First Glance" group of vehicles. Polestar's UK team developed a "unique bonded aluminum chassis" for the EV, which the company says is key to achieving "a driving experience that is as desirable as the design."

The sports car's new electric powertrain is still under development in Sweden, though, where Polestar's sibling company Volvo is also based. Polestar 5 will have a dual electric motor setup, with a rear electric motor that uses an 800-Volt architecture. In all, the complete dual motor powertrain is expected to deliver up to 884 horsepower (650 kW) and 663 lb-ft (900 Nm) of torque.

Jörg Brandscheid, Polestar's CTO and Head of R&D, says: 

"The new powertrain we are working on will set a new brand benchmark in our high-performing cars. Combining strong electric motor engineering ability with advances in light-weight platform technology is leading to truly stunning driver's cars."

Polestar 5 is the production version of a concept EV called Precept, which was introduced back in 2020. When the company announced that it was going to turn the concept into a real vehicle, it said it was going to manufacture the EV at a new carbon neutral facility in China. The new images of the Polestar 5 show that it still resembles the original concept, with its "shark-like" nose and geometric creasing, though the automaker could still make changes to its final version. If you want to see how Polestar created a real vehicle out of a concept, you can watch a short series about the process on YouTube. 

The company plans to launch Polestar 5 in 2024 after launching the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 electric SUVs. With all these vehicles in its lineup, including the Polestar 2, the brand is bound to become a veritable Tesla rival. Speaking of Polestar 2, the automaker is also debuting a high-performance limited edition version of the EV at Goodwood Festival, where attendees will have the opportunity to book it for a test drive.

eBay truly has fully embraced non-fungible tokens: The e-commerce company has acquired KnownOrigin, an established marketplace for digital art NFTs. As CoinDesk notes, eBay hasn't disclosed how much it paid for the marketplace, but it said in its announced that the purchase is an "important step in [its] tech-led reimagination." KnownOrigin has been around since 2018 and gives artists a platform they can use to create and sell their art as NFTs in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. Based on information from DappRadar, which tracks data on decentralized apps, KnownOrigin has facilitated $7.8 million worth of NFT transactions since its inception. 

Jamie Iannone, eBay CEO, said in a statement:

"eBay is the first stop for people across the globe who are searching for that perfect, hard-to-find, or unique addition to their collection and, with this acquisition, we will remain a leading site as our community is increasingly adding digital collectibles."

eBay made its first foray into NFTs as part of its "tech-led reimagination" last year. It allowed the sale of NFTs on its platform in May 2021 for sellers that meet the company's standards. Back then, it told Reuters that it will add more capabilities "that bring blockchain-driven collectibles" to its platform. This May, the company launched an NFT collection of its own, releasing 13 limited-edition digital collectibles that feature 3D-animated renders of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. In fact, we can expect the company to launch more NFT collections throughout the year. eBay and OneOf, its Web3 partner for the Gretzky drop, said they plan to release more NFTs in the coming months featuring other athletes and updated versions of iconic Sports Illustrated covers.

Twitter has teamed up with Shopify to give merchants in the US an easy way to use the social network to grow their business. Merchants can now add a Twitter sales channel app to their Shopify admin dashboard to access a manager where they can see the social network's shopping tools and features. That sales channel automatically and regularly syncs with Shopify merchants' catalogs, so users won't have to worry about updating product information on multiple platforms. 

That will make it easier for merchants to showcase their products through Twitter's Shop Spotlight, which is a dedicated space at the top of a profile that can display up to five items. Visitors to a merchant's account will be able to scroll through those carousel of products to purchase them without having to leave Twitter. Merchants can also choose to highlight a bigger collection of goods through Twitter's in-app shops, which can list up to 50 handpicked items. Both features used to be on beta testing, but they're now available to all merchants in the US. Those who want to see what the Shopify integration looks like on Twitter may want to check out Trixie Cosmetics, which is one of the first users to take advantage of Twitter sales channel app on Shopify. 

Amir Kabbara, Director of Product at Shopify, said:

"Reaching potential customers where they are is critical to the success of Shopify merchants. Twitter is where conversations happen, and the connection between conversations and commerce is vital. Our partnership with Twitter, and the launch of the Twitter sales channel, will let merchants seamlessly bring commerce to the conversations they’re already having on the platform.” – Amir Kabbara, Director of Product at Shopify."

In addition to its team-up with Twitter, Shopify has announced other new features and products at its first semi-annual showcase called Editions. One of its upcoming offerings is the ability to accept customer payments right from an iPhone using Shopify's Point of Sale. The company has built PoS hardware merchants can attach to their iPhone, and merchants in the US will even have access to the new Tap to Pay on iPhone feature. 

A group of companies, including some of the biggest names in tech and the internet, have banded together to develop interoperability standards needed to achieve an open metaverse. The organization is called Metaverse Standards Forum, and its founding members include Meta, Microsoft, Huawei, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, Unity and Adobe. As Reuters notes, one company that's conspicuously missing from the list is Apple. Multiple reports have come come out these past few years that Apple is releasing its own virtual or augmented reality headset, and it's expected to become a major player in the metaverse when the device becomes available.

Yet another big name that's missing from the list is Google, which is also reportedly working on an AR headset codenamed Project Iris. Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, and Roblox aren't in the list of members, as well. That said, membership is free and open to any organization, so more companies could join later on. As with any standard, one for the metaverse would only be considered a success if companies, especially the biggest players in the industry, adopt them. "Multiple industry leaders have stated that the potential of the metaverse will be best realized if it is built on a foundation of open standards," the forum wrote in its press release.

The group also said that it will focus on "pragmatic, action-based projects." Those include conducting hackathons and working on open-source tools designed to accelerate the testing and adoption of metaverse standards. And while companies can join anytime, members are expected to start forum meetings this July. 

In a post looking back over the past 10 years since it purchased robotics company Kiva, Amazon has revealed its new machines, including its first fully autonomous warehouse robot. It's called Proteus, and it was designed to be able to move around Amazon's facilities on its own while carrying carts fulls of packages. The company said the robot uses an "advanced safety, perception and navigation technology" it developed to be able to do its work without hindering human employees.

In the video Amazon posted, you can see Proteus moving under the carts and transporting them to other locations. It emits a green beam ahead of it while it moves, and it stops if a human worker steps in front of the beam. 

Amazon's aim is to automate the handling of its package carts so as to reduce the need for human workers to manually move them around its facilities. In fact, the e-commerce giant stressed that its robots were designed to create a safer workplace for people. "From the early days of the Kiva acquisition, our vision was never tied to a binary decision of people or technology. Instead, it was about people and technology working safely and harmoniously together to deliver for our customers," it wrote. 

Another new robot called Cardinal was also designed with the idea of reducing risk of employee injuries in mind. Cardinal is a robotic arm that picks up packages, reads their labels and then places them in the appropriate cart for the next stage of the shipping process. Artificial intelligence and computer vision enable it to sort packages correctly. Amazon is currently testing a prototype that's able to lift boxes up to 50 pounds and expects to deploy the robotic arm to fulfillment centers by next year.

Finally, the company has also revealed that it's working on an AI technology that can automatically scan packages. Currently, workers have to scan barcodes on packages using hand scanners — this technology will eliminate the need to do that. With this scanning capability in place, human workers don't even need to pause while sorting packages: The system can quickly recognize a package the passes its camera. Amazon explained that its camera runs at 120 frames per second and is powered by computer vision and machine learning technology.

The e-commerce giant has introduced several robots over the years, and it has always emphasized that their purpose is to improve safety at its warehouses. As The Verge notes, the company said it's not looking to replace human workers even though an internal report that recently leaked revealed that the company expects to "deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024." An Amazon robotics lead told Forbes that "replacing people with machines is just a fallacy" that could end with a company going out of business. 

NASA encountered a couple of issues while conducting the Artemis 1 "wet dress rehearsal," but it still checked off a major milestone by the time the test had ended. The agency was able to fully fuel all the Space Launch System's propellant tanks for the first time and was able to proceed to terminal launch countdown. "Wet dress rehearsals," as they're called, are tests that simulate a rocket launch without the rocket actually lifting off. The launch team had to cut short three previous attempts at fueling the SLS earlier this year due to various leaks and other issues that have already been corrected. 

This attempt wasn't flawless either: NASA had to put fueling on hold a couple of times since the rehearsal started on Saturday. Fueling was first put on hold on early Monday morning due to an issue with the rocket's backup supply of gaseous nitrogen. The team was able to repair the valve for the gaseous nitrogen line, however, and fueling recommenced a couple of hours later. As CNN notes, though, a few issues popped up just as the team was finishing up the fueling process on Monday afternoon. They discovered a hydrogen leak and had to find options to seal it after their first solution didn't work. Plus, the flare stack, which burns excess liquid hydrogen from the rocket, caused a small fire in the grassy area around the launch site. 

In the end, the launch controllers came up with a plan to mask data associated with the leak so as not trigger a hold by the launch computer. That wouldn't fly in a real launch scenario, but they wanted to get as far into the countdown as possible to gather the data they need. They were successfully able to resume the 10-minute final launch countdown after an extended hold and got to T-29 seconds before they had to end the test completely. The launch team originally planned to let the countdown get to until T-33 seconds before the launch is supposed to occur. They then intended to restart the timer and repeat the countdown until around T-9 seconds before launch. 

Regardless, they successfully performed several critical operations needed for launch during the test, including handing over control from the ground launch sequencer to the automated launch sequencer controlled by the rocket's flight software. NASA will now assess the data collected from the test to determine whether it can finally set an official launch date for Artemis 1, which will send an unmanned Orion spacecraft on a mission to fly around the Moon, with the earliest possible date being sometime in August. The agency will hold a conference about the test today, June 21st, at 11AM, and you can watch the stream live on its website.