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Several of Waymo's autonomous vehicles were seen stuck in the middle of San Francisco streets following a significant power outage that took out the city's traffic lights. Waymo responded to the power outage by suspending its ride-hailing services in the city, but images and videos on social media showed the self-driving taxis stopped at intersections with hazard lights on.
"We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage," Suzanne Philion, a spokesperson for Waymo, told Engadget in an email. "Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon."
The power outage was attributed to a fire at one of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)'s substations. The incident began sometime on Saturday morning, which PG&E said affected approximately 130,000 customers. As of Sunday morning, the Californian power company said its crews have restored power to about 110,000 of those customers, while working on the remaining 21,000 customer
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I'm a pro photographer and video creator. Here's how I use my phone to shoot memorable holiday movies.
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Google wanted to remove Assistant from most Android phones by the end of 2025 and replace it with Gemini. But now the company has announced that it needs a bit more time to make its AI assistant the new default digital helper for most of its users. Google said that it's adjusting its previously announced timeline to "make sure [it delivers] a seamless transition" and that updates to convert Assistant to Gemini on Android devices will continue into the next year. The company also said that it's sharing more details in the "coming months," so it's possible that the transition will go past early 2026.
Assistant's retirement was pretty much expected the moment Google launched Gemini and started giving it Assistant's capabilities, such as the ability to control smart devices connected to your phone. It launched the Pixel 9 Series with Gemini as the default assistant back in 2024. The company has also been putting Gemini in all of its products and previously said that it plans to upgrade all "tablets, cars and devices that connect to your phone, such as headphones and watches" with the AI-powered chatbot. Devices do have to meet a few minimum requirements to get the upgrade, however, and must be running Android 10 and come with 2GB of RAM at the very least.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a
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 The Ultrahuman Ring Air now has the capacity to track snoring and general respiratory health. This is thanks to proprietary technology called Respiratory Health PowerPlug, which is basically a suite of audio analysis tools along with some "advanced biomarker tracking" and AI tomfoolery.
All of this results in "one of the most comprehensive consumer tools ever built for understanding nighttime respiratory stability." It details snoring sessions, of course, but also delivers a holistic and "actionable sleep picture." The company says this "reveals patterns, trends and changes in respiratory health over time."
Ultrahuman
To that end, it can also detect coughing and respiratory disturbances. This data is cross-referenced with movement patterns, sleep fragmentation patterns and resting heart rate to "show exactly how breathing issues shape sleep quality." The company says this can be a good resource when experimenting with interventions, like switching to a new pillow or taping up the nose.
More health data is never a bad thing, but this information isn't free. Ultrahuman is charging $4 per month for access to the tool, though folks can pick up an annual subscription for $40.
The Ultrahuman Ring Air made our list of the best smart rings, and that was before the company introduced this new software. It tracks an impressive amount of data and integrates with third-party devices like glucose monitors.
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We are in the thick of multiple sports seasons: the NBA finals are happening, and baseball and soccer are in full swing. For devoted fans, emotions can run pretty high during a game. Cognitive anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas has long been fascinated by that intensity — and how uniform it can be across fans. So, he and fellow researchers at the University of Connecticut decided to look into what exactly makes fans so deeply connected to their team and to fellow supporters. It turns out that connection may have less to do with actual gameplay and more to do with rituals. Their research was recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Questions about sports science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
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